Season 3 Finally Lands October 15

[Kpnuts]

Honestly, I think Culber and Stamets might be the best written couple in all of Trek. Not that it’s a particularly high bar since Trek’s always struggled with romance in my opinion. I fail to see anything in their scenes that comes across as pandering or trying to “sledgehammer” some sort of agenda.

That being said, I find it troubling that anyone would have a problem with there being a wide array of sexualities on display.

The best written couple in all of Trek? Are you serious? Culber is barely a character, two seasons later the only thing we know about him is that he likes opera. That's it. His entire reason for being in the show is for the producers to shout about finally having a gay couple in Star Trek. The whole coming back to life thing was lame and spineless, but at least it gives him something to do/someone to be. Hopefully they will expand on him in season 3, finally.

I have no problem with an array of sexualities on the show, just the sledgehammer approach CBS is taking. 5 gay crew members out of a total of 12 in both shows is just silly. Same as 90% of the Enterprise bridge and almost all of the non-main-cast characters being female in Discovery. It's over-compensating so much it just comes across as pandering.

 

[Precious Tritium]

I did say it was in my opinion. There’s no need to get upset.

Why is that silly? What percentage of non-heterosexual couples would you find acceptable?

 

[SJGardner]

Are we going on about 'ideal' demographic statistics of fictional groups of people again? Good to know that the number one indicator of an objectively good cast is being a demographically representative sample of... well, the United States of America, I guess? Because if we're complaining that only every 1 in 20 people identifies as LGBT, then only in the US is it also true that every 3 in 10 people is a non-hispanic white male. The actual global population of white males is about 6%, functionally the same amount as openly LGBT people, but for some reason people never seem to complain whenever there's more than one white man in every 20 characters. Taking 20 characters as a base, where are the demographically correct 4 Chinese and 3 Indian people? Why is Owosekun the only character from Sub-Saharan Africa when there should be at least 2 more? Where are the two crew members from Latin America? 1 in 20 people should be Southeast Asian too, so they at least got it correct with Georgiou, I think.

Also, if we look at the LGBT characters in Star Trek, the orientation of every one of them is incidental to them other than Culber, who only falls in the "had to be gay" category because they wanted Stamets' partner to be a character too. No one is running around yelling "hey lookie I'm gay, I'm kissing people of my own gender and you have to deal with it" or something.

Why is it that only minority characters have to justify their existence? Why is it necessarily a political statement when a minority character considers their race, gender or orientation a perfectly normal part of their being as opposed to something they have to suppress in order to be able to "blend in" and behave like "normal people"? One is almost tempted to believe that for some people, the archetypal, "default" character is a straight, non-hispanic white male conforming to traditional gender norms and every deviation from that Platonic ideal needs an in-story justification. Almost as if LGBT characters only exist to be LGBT and nothing else.

5 gay crew members out of a total of 12 in both shows is just silly

How did you even reach that number? The main casts of Discovery and Picard have 8 and 7 characters respectively, for a total of 15, of which 3 are LGBT. If you want to include Jett Reno and Seven of Nine, then compare them to the complete recurring and guest cast if you want to make statistics.

 

[eschaton]

Are we going on about 'ideal' demographic statistics of fictional groups of people again? Good to know that the number one indicator of an objectively good cast is being a demographically representative sample of... well, the United States of America, I guess? Because if we're complaining that only every 1 in 20 people identifies as LGBT, then only in the US is it also true that every 3 in 10 people is a non-hispanic white male. The actual global population of white males is about 6%, functionally the same amount as openly LGBT people, but for some reason people never seem to complain whenever there's more than one white man in every 20 characters. Taking 20 characters as a base, where are the demographically correct 4 Chinese and 3 Indian people? Why is Owosekun the only character from Sub-Saharan Africa when there should be at least 2 more? Where are the two crew members from Latin America? 1 in 20 people should be Southeast Asian too, so they at least got it correct with Georgiou, I think.

Also, if we look at the LGBT characters in Star Trek, the orientation of every one of them is incidental to them other than Culber, who only falls in the "had to be gay" category because they wanted Stamets' partner to be a character too. No one is running around yelling "hey lookie I'm gay, I'm kissing people of my own gender and you have to deal with it" or something.

Why is it that only minority characters have to justify their existence? Why is it necessarily a political statement when a minority character considers their race, gender or orientation a perfectly normal part of their being as opposed to something they have to suppress in order to be able to "blend in" and behave like "normal people"? One is almost tempted to believe that for some people, the archetypal, "default" character is a straight, non-hispanic white male conforming to traditional gender norms and every deviation from that Platonic ideal needs an in-story justification. Almost as if LGBT characters only exist to be LGBT and nothing else.


How did you even reach that number? The main casts of Discovery and Picard have 8 and 7 characters respectively, for a total of 15, of which 3 are LGBT. If you want to include Jett Reno and Seven of Nine, then compare them to the complete recurring and guest cast if you want to make statistics.

My count:

DIscovery: 4 (Stamets/Culber, Reno, and Georgiou (canonically bi)
PIcard: 2 (Seven/Raffi are both inferred to be bi in the scene in the last episode)

That makes six.

I agree with your statement broadly though. In general, I've long felt Trek has way, way too few interracial humans. I mean, in a post-racist future where people move around a lot, many, if not most people should be mixed race. Especially in families with a long history of Starfleet service. I'd much prefer if like half the cast was ambiguously brown.

 

[Kpnuts]

Why is it that only minority characters have to justify their existence?

I never said they did. All I'm asking is for Culber to do something on this show beyond being a billboard for gay couples. Tilly does plenty. Owo went on an away mission. Stamets is front and centre. Reno's had more development than Culber and she's been in 3 or 4 episodes.

Almost as if LGBT characters only exist to be LGBT and nothing else.

That's pretty much the impression you get from Culber, which is sad.

How did you even reach that number?

Discovery main cast:
- Burnham
- Saru
- Stamets
- Culber
- Tilly
- Tyler
- Reno

(Tyler is a stretch but I'll include him, as well as Reno to balance things out)

Picard main cast:
- Picard
- Rios
- Raffi
- Jurati
- Elnor
- Seven

My apologies, 5 gay characters in 13, not 12. Of course, we have no idea the sexuality of Saru, Tilly or Elnor, so you could just as easily remove those from the equation and make it 5 in 10. And I'm not even counting Georgiou.

 

[Kpnuts]

Why is that silly? What percentage of non-heterosexual couples would you find acceptable?

I have no number in mind, just something that feels a bit more natural and less forced and "virtue signal-y".

 

[KennyB]

I just find this OTT liberal sledgehammer approach to be getting tedious. 5 gay crew members on two shows and now this. And I myself am gay so don't come at me from that angle.

Seriously? Out of maybe 30-35 characters that's 6%..........seems about right. I get it, you hate everything new. Doesn't seem OTT or sledgehammer to me and I'm a "breeder".

 

[Campe]

(Tyler is a stretch but I'll include him, as well as Reno to balance things out)

Reno is not a main character. Using her to "balance things out" is disingenuous. Tyler was a main character in seasons one and two. One could also consider Lorca and Pike main characters for their respective seasons.

 

[KennyB]

I never said they did. All I'm asking is for Culber to do something on this show beyond being a billboard for gay couples. Tilly does plenty. Owo went on an away mission. Stamets is front and centre. Reno's had more development than Culber and she's been in 3 or 4 episodes.



That's pretty much the impression you get from Culber, which is sad.



Discovery main cast:
- Burnham
- Saru
- Stamets
- Culber
- Tilly
- Tyler
- Reno

(Tyler is a stretch but I'll include him, as well as Reno to balance things out)

Picard main cast:
- Picard
- Rios
- Raffi
- Jurati
- Elnor
- Seven

My apologies, 5 gay characters in 13, not 12. Of course, we have no idea the sexuality of Saru, Tilly or Elnor, so you could just as easily remove those from the equation and make it 5 in 10. And I'm not even counting Georgiou.

Your list is missing a lot......I mean if you include Reno in your calculations you need the rest of the bridge crew, the Admirals...........and on and on.

 

[Kpnuts]

Out of maybe 30-35 characters that's 6%..........seems about right.

You know the sexualities of 30-35 characters? Impressive. I'm talking about the main crews of both shows.

I get it, you hate everything new.

Ah. You don't know what you're talking about.

 

[Kpnuts]

Your list is missing a lot......I mean if you include Reno in your calculations you need the rest of the bridge crew, the Admirals...........and on and on.

Except that we don't know the sexualities of the bridge crews and admirals.

 

[SJGardner]

All I'm asking is for Culber to do something on this show beyond being a billboard for gay couples.

For what it's worth, I agree with you on Culber being severely underdeveloped. But then again, he's only been included in the main cast since Season 2 and he's been dead for the first five episodes of it. He wasn't exactly given a head start.

However, I don't think we see eye-to-eye on what we consider main cast. Do you omit Pike and Lorca because they only appeared for one season? They were actually in the main credits, along with Narek whose status is yet unclear. Reno and Seven are members of the recurring cast and only Seven looks likely to make the main credits next season. And if you include the recurring cast, you'll have to include the canonically bisexual Georgiou as well, but also the dozens of people who aren't.

Of course, we have no idea the sexuality of Saru, Tilly or Elnor

You know the sexualities of 30-35 characters? Impressive. I'm talking about the main crews of both shows.

Except that we don't know the sexualities of the bridge crews and admirals.

That doesn't even make any sense. If we exclude all characters who never had romantic interests on screen because we can't know for sure and need more information to confirm, then by the same logic we would have to exclude every single character that hasn't definitely confirmed their sexuality on screen. After all, Pike could be bi- or even pansexual, we just haven't seen him have a male love interest yet. Did he ever declare he was straight? Did he ever reject the advances of a man on screen? I don't think so. Then why is he considered straight?

 

[Campe]

If we exclude all characters who never had romantic interests on screen because we can't know for sure and need more information to confirm, then by the same logic we would have to exclude every single character that hasn't definitely confirmed their sexuality on screen. After all, Pike could be bi- or even pansexual, we just haven't seen him have a male love interest yet. Did he ever declare he was straight? Did he ever reject the advances of a man on screen? I don't think so. Then why is he considered straight?

To be fair, we could consider that for most every character on Star Trek. Very few have suggested their sexuality explicitly. Pre-Beyond, we've only seen them in full-on relationships with members of the opposite gender. But there is nothing explicitly stating they might not have had a same-sex relationship at some point in time. Its doubtful that all characters would fall into that category but its impossible to discount the possibility unless explicitly stated.

 

[eschaton]

I never said they did. All I'm asking is for Culber to do something on this show beyond being a billboard for gay couples. Tilly does plenty. Owo went on an away mission. Stamets is front and centre. Reno's had more development than Culber and she's been in 3 or 4 episodes.

I'd actually argue that Culber got better character development and a weightier role in Season 2 than Stamets. Culber got to wrestle with his identity in a newly-reconstructed body - his trauma at essentially being resurrected.

Who is Stamets once you take out the gay relationship stuff? He's just the "Spore Guy" who spouts technobabble and is sometimes grumpy (though less so in Season 2). I guess he likes Kesselian Opera and has a brother we've never met. But that's about all we know about him. He's very two dimensional as a character, though that's mostly down to the writing not presenting him as a well-rounded individual.

 

[fireproof78]

I'd actually argue that Culber got better character development and a weightier role in Season 2 than Stamets. Culber got to wrestle with his identity in a newly-reconstructed body - his trauma at essentially being resurrected.

I'd argue that's the more interesting aspect of the character. For me him going through that experience was very engaging.

 

[Precious Tritium]

Yeah, Wilson Cruz definitely got a pretty meaty role in season 2. I liked it a lot.

Bringing back characters from the dead is always cheap, so giving actual consequences for that resurrection always takes the sting off a little bit. I’d argue he should never have been killed in the first place, but what’s done is done. I’m glad they turned a bad decision into a pretty engaging plotline.

 

[fireproof78]

Bringing back characters from the dead is always cheap,

Spock?

 

[BillJ]

I just find this OTT liberal sledgehammer approach to be getting tedious. 5 gay crew members on two shows and now this. And I myself am gay so don't come at me from that angle.

I'm a straight white male, I simply don't care if everyone is gay/bi/trans as long as the story is engaging. I'll also second the person that said Stamets/Culber is the best couple in Trek's fifty years.

 

[Precious Tritium]

Spock?

Alright, you got me there.

And I guess while we’re on the subject, I like how they brought back Tasha Yar. Sela, on the other hand, I have a lot of issues with.

 

[TPezz]

Personally, I feel that the image they are trying to portray is that sexuality is a fluid thing, and that in the future, gender, sexuality, race, whatever, doesn’t matter. You just are who you are.

As a gay man myself, I grew up watching Trek. I never came out until I was nearly 19. I lived in a small town and I never saw anyone anywhere that was like me. I felt so alone and so different. Having a gay character on Trek may have changed my life. I’m sure there are kids watching Discovery and Picard who see that they aren’t different. There are other people like them. And they are married, have real relationship issues, etc, that any other hetero couple on tv does.

I don’t want the characters to be caricatures. And I hate it when shows just have the “token gay guy/girl” or the “token black guy/girl” or the “token non binary person”. And so far, I think new Trek has gotten its casting and characters right.

But anyway, besides all that IM SO FRIGGIN EXCITED FOR S3 I was getting worried they were going to postpone it to 2021. I mean, I’m excited for Lower Decks too, but Disco is by far my favourite new Trek. It’s been a long 18 months of wondering what’s going to happen on the other side of the worm hole.