2024 Entry #015 01-12-24 “Star Trek: Discovery” is an American science fiction television series created by Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman for the streaming service CBS All Access (later rebranded as Paramount+). It is the seventh Star Trek series overall and the second series chronologically; it debuted in 2017. The series follows the crew of the starship Discovery beginning 101 years after “Star Trek: Enterprise” and 9 years before the introduction of Kirk in “Star Trek: The Original Series”.
For LGBTQ+ Star Trek fans who wished to see themselves presented in Star Trek, this was the first series to feature such characters prominently. Other series had flirted with the idea of LGBTQ+ representation (most notably “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”), but these storylines were mostly relegated to analogies or random episodes. DISCO was the first Trek series to truly bring LGBTQ+ equality to the franchise. The first season of the series runs 15 episodes and features familiar Trek staples like the Federation, Klingons, Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, the Mirror Universe, the Enterprise, etc. But the series is accessible to new fans.
Having just binged watched the first season again, partially in preparation for the streaming premiere of the final season in April, I reaffirmed this series as my current favorite Trek series, and I enjoy them all to some degree. There are so many elements of this series that I love that I doubt I could do them justice here, though I could ramble on about it for hours. Suffice it to say that I love it and I recommend it.
Having said that, I do feel that I need to talk about one aspect of the series, specifically for queer fans, a kind of trigger warning – and a bit of a spoiler, but this was something that the creative team were quick to reveal to the audience in real time and with good reason. So SPOILER, one member of the gay male couple featured in this season (both of whom are played by openly gay actors) dies in the course of this season in a brutal murder. However, this is NOT meant to be part of the “Bury Your Gays” TV trope, but instead is actually part of a Star Trek trope in which characters often don’t stay dead. Indeed, the couple are reunited in Season 2 and keeping other spoilers to a minimum, are alive and well through at least the start of the upcoming season. And I would also like to mention that while they’re the most prominent queer characters in season 1, others are seen in ways that were new to Trek, and this is expanded on in the following seasons with prominent lesbian, bisexual, non-binary and transgender characters all being represented.
I fucking love this show.