The Pegasus: The Riker RetCon

Definitely. Willow and Tara got together on BtVS in 2000. It was groundbreaking in many ways, but the WB often censored what they could and couldn't do & show. The fact that we've moved from zero to the "chicks kiss" stories of the 90s to Willow & Tara (and later Willow & Kennedy) to Paul & Hugh on Discovery in my lifetime is definitely progress.

 

You're 100% right. But, the reason why it would have been brave is that it would have been risky. Remember that we are on the far end of a three-decade campaign by the mass media and the public education system to normalize the LGBTQ community. Back in the 80's, that hadn't happened yet.

 

Yes, it would have been brave. And Star Trek, as much as it sometimes gets a bit overpraised, was once legitimately brave in those areas. The fact that 90s Trek was not remotely groundbreaking in that regard is a god damn shame. It's cowardly and dishonors the franchise.

They could have just played it safe, like most everyone was doing, and that's basically what they did. Rejoined was only very, very, slightly "brave", even by the standards of the time.

Am I judging the show by "modern" standards? No. I'm judging it by 60s standards, by the standards Star Trek itself set.

 

Kate Mulgrew agreed with you. I remember her expressing disappointment that Voyager didn't cross that particular barrier.

 

Not trying to be that guy, but you mean Constellation Class.

I'm only commenting because I've always regretted that they didn't actually use a Connie. I would have loved to see one on TNG, and honestly, I think it may have helped me connect to Picard a bit more if I had seen him in (a) classic ship in the classic uniform on the classic bridge. I still think its a missed opportunity.

 

oops yeah, misread that

 

It's OK, they can dub over it.

 

If it was just/primarily done to excite that young/adolescent male demographic, then it was not brave by any standards. Especially since, as it has already been pointed out, the show offers an alien explanation to reassure the audience that those "two hot chicks" are not homosexual at all and so they can still fantasise of scoring with them.

I bet you there's a hundred porn movies from back then that feature just that.

And that's even completely wrong; a short google search revealed that it wasn't the first same sex kiss on television either: the UK soap East Enders showed the first male-male same sex kiss on television in 1989
And the first female-female same sex kiss on television is from L.A. law in 1991.
In fact there were a lot of LGBT+ firsts before DS9 aired Jadzia's kiss:
https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/24/lgbt-representation-tv-major-moments-12894718/

And that's all after shows like Golden Girls already had gay recurring characters and discussed homosexuality in a sympathetic light.
Yes, both East Enders and LA Law were almost cancelled due to the controversy, but Star Trek always liked to pretend that they were so "brave", so they should have dared and weathered that.

As usual older Star Trek pretended to be "ground breaking" and "progressive" but really played it incredibly safe.
Plus it never returned to any LGBT+ moments or themes until the modern revival, while other shows and movies did.

 

It might concern targeted demographics. Trek was interested in young men and male adolescents, groups that typically had strong anti-gay bias. Golden Girls and LA Law were probably aimed at groups who were more tolerant.

The Trek writers might have been playing it safe, or they might have just known what side their bread was buttered on.

 

Nah. Porn was far more progressive. Two women frequently had sex because they wanted to.

 

Nope. 1974. UK television.

 

Well statistically speaking a portion of those adolescent and young males would have been gay.
And wasn't the whole fixed idea of marketing SciFi primarily at young/adolescent males a fallacy anyway, as there was a huge number of female science fiction fans (Chris Claremont justified his large number of strong, female characters during his run on the X-Men books in the 1980s that there were statistically more girls who were buying super hero comic books than boys)

And it doesn't change the fact that they played it safe while presenting themselves as boundary breaking, just like they did with TNG and even with TOS.

 

It might surprise you, but back then, male teens who suspected that they were gay were often the most savagely homophobic of all. It's not easy to discover in yourself something that your subculture has taught you to have contempt for. And, they didn't want to show a shred of sympathy, for fear that their friends would suspect the truth about them.

 

Wow, what a thread drift???

 

Agreed, and I take partial responsibility. So... thoughts about Riker?

 

Yeah let's get back to topic (though it's not like it's the first time this thread ... *hint hint*)

I guess the writers had created a problem for themselves with a character who wanted to get his own command as quick as possible (itself a relic from Phase II where Will Decker was supposed to eventually replace Kirk iirc) and had to find a way to solve it.
And I suppose having him involved in the Pegasus incident is as good a way as any to achiever that. Though personally I would still have preferred Will going on to be a Starship Captain and being replaced on the Enterprise by Thomas Riker.

 

Certainly, having him move on would make more sense. And as Picard said, the Enterprise would have gone along just fine without him.

 

...They could well have done a two-ship show, too, if they felt they were running out of creative ideas towards the sixth season. Or the third. Just stop redressing their spare bridge as other sets and make it Riker's own domain.

I still think "Icarus Factor" was the perfect retcon for the character. With the daddy issues, it's easy to psychobabble that he wanted to show what he could become - but only until he found a new daddy, and once Picard turned out to be It, Riker just plain stopped struggling. After all, what could possibly go wrong? Starfleet doesn't punish those who don't climb the rank ladder, or reward those who do. And there was always a ship waiting for him if he wanted to grow up.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I dunno, as interesting as a "two-ship show" sounds, it seems like it would eat a lot of budget due to double the amount of actors and would be difficult to balance.

I'm more seeing potential in Thomas being on the Enterprise Bridge and Captain Riker making "guest appearances" during important story arcs.

 

Why couldn't Riker retain the rank Captain ? Having the rank Captain and being Captain of a vessel are different things.

Afterall I'm fairly sure in TUC there were 3 Captains onboard, Kirk who was also Captain of the Enterprise, plus Spock and Scotty