In the scene in the episode where Sisko and Dax are on the Enterprise and are spying on Kirk and Spock in the corridor, Sisko at first seems hardly fazed by the notion that Dax finds Kirk attractive, but when she tells him she's actually ogling Spock, he gets a little weird and quickly steers her away. Why?
I think the show was just playing on the joke that women usually fall for kirk and that's why he was surprised.
I assumed it had to do with the fact that Nimoy's popularity was much higher right after the series than was Shatner's.
Nah, he was just very competitive against one Vulcan, a long time rival, who also was very competitive against him.
if you watch carefully, when the shot changes back to Kirk, you can see Sisko practically pulling Dax away. She was obviously getting too caught up in nostalgia and was posing a danger in talking to Spock and perhaps altering time.
I love that Jadzia preferred Spock to Kirk, and that a past Dax had a fling with McCoy that Jadzia still remembered fondly. Great fun episode.
It is totally hilarious how Dax gets all pouty and sulky when Sisko won't let them go over to K-7 to help Odo and Worf.
"Out of universe", I've always assumed the scene was a comment on how many of the fangirls back in the 60s gravitated towards Spock with their attractions rather than Kirk. I remember reading an essay (was it by Asimov?) commenting on the phenomenon, and Dax's line is virtually word-perfect to the hypothosis that it was Spock's cool-exterior-hiding-a-conflicted-emotional-interior that was attractive to women at the time. I've never seen it stated that this was the intention of Dax's behaviour in the scene, but it makes sense to me.
But he pulled her away without cleaning up the drool, think of the poor redshirt who'd slip and fall into an open circuitry panel
Oh, why did I have to see that redshirt video using ELO's "I'm Alive"? @Lance: I read it. Smart, as Asimov realized, is definitely sexy.
Agree. I loved DS9 "Trials & Tribble-ations" episode and consider it a must watch with the companion TOS "Trouble With Tribbles".
As others have said, I think it was a bit of a metafictional/fourth wall joke. Whilst onscreen Kirk is the one who always gets the girl, Spock is very popular in fandom with many men and women finding him far sexier and intriguing than Kirk. His emotional distance and cool logic is almost Byronic.
Well "Trials & Tribble-ations" is an example of how to do a love letter to the fans. It's just a shame they had forgotten how to one a decade later.