Star Trek Discovery ***Season 3*** [** SPOILERS WITHIN **]

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Nah Garak and Zyal was an ongoing storyline in the show. I have seen stuff posted before about him and Bashir, but I think that started as Garak keeping himself amused and sharp by friendly sparring with an idealistic and naive young Starfleet officer that in the end grew into a genuine friendship.

And for all we know, he based his 'tailor' persona on the mannerisms of a real tailor he had met, and thought it would make for a dis-arming, non-threatening persona for a "not your typical Cardassian" on a Bajoran space station.

It works on many levels

It was more weird how there had never been a gay character in all the years leading up to that. Was there a cull of gay people during WW-III / Eugenics wars or something and everything in the 22nd/23rd/24th centuries was exclusively heterosexual as a result?

pixelburp wrote: »

This line confuses me. Disco never made a thing of their identity, it was completely understated (resurrection notwithstanding). No more or less than Uhura or Sulu beforehand being for the sake of it. Or Kiko and Miles more accurately, their function was to be a stable, loving couple. So yeah, "for the sake of it" on a purely technical sense, but that reads like Pure Trek and see no problem? Reads like the suggestion be that gay characters can only be present if sexuality is integral to the story; but then that's backwards thinking and runs against Fed utopianism.

If there was a point it's that gay couples could be gay without it being a Big Story Twist. Or the "flamboyant best friend" cliché still beloved of US drama. So normalisation in the tradition of TOS. Otherwise, a script in Trek where gayness was a (plot)point of conflict would have been really antithetical to Treks mission statement and then folks would REALLY be complaining about "virtue signalling".

Appreciate it's honing in on one line but feels very "damned if you do...". Promotional material might crow but the substance of the actual show never suggested preaching, quite the opposite IMO.

OK, maybe I'm just being harsh as I just hate what Kurtzman and his gang have done to Star Trek and its legacy and peeing all over canon but I do feel that the gay couple were put in just to show how modern ST has become. Like it had to be done alongside it's portrayal of women as all powerful and men being weak.

Stark wrote: »

Since when are men portrayed as weak? Speaking as a male who's watched it and never had any issue with the characterisation of the male characters.

All the bad characters in STD are straight white males.

The only exception is Pike.

I just feel the show now has a political agenda which it didn't have before.

That combined with poor writing and character development just made me dislike a lot about STD & Picard.

murpho999 wrote: »

Well by bad I would probably mean both, it's a poorly written show.
As you may have gathered I'm not a fan of the new ST or its writers.

As you said Lorca was a bad guy. White Male.

Captain Georgiou portrayed as perfect. Female.
Do you not see the trend?

Nope, but then I'm not really insecure about being male or having to have every single character be a representation of myself either. Captain Georgiou was written for one reason: to be killed off and to make Burnham look really bad for being the reason for her being killed off. Hence the lack of nuance to her character and why her character was "too perfect". She was female because that meant a more natural fit for role model/mentor to Burnham. You're cherry picking. If you look beyond your biases, you'll see that there's a spread of good and bad characters across both genders. Jason Isaacs certainly didn't get a rough deal. Lorca was one of my favourite characters from the show, he did much better out of it than Michelle Yeoh with her transition from "written to be killed off" character to cartoon villain character.

pixelburp wrote: »

But Trek's legacy is exactly that; showing modernity through inclusion - from its outset based on prevailing social winds of the time. That's literally one of its lauded thematic calling cards: TOS' casting explicitly about showing inclusivity and integration at a time when the US was anything but. That casting wasn't accident, Roddenberry pursued it "for its own sake".

As said, Homosexuals were a bridge (aha!) too far, given it was still broadly illegal at worst, and just vilified at best depending on what US state or country you were in. While even the famous First Interracial Kiss was (IIRC) somewhat lessened by being forced under hypnosis, presumably trying to reduce outrage. While Nichelle Nichols was famously on cusp of leaving 'cos her "character" was a non-existent entity: she was a token black character; she'd have bitten your arm off for Stamets' story arc.

To criticise Trek for performative inclusion, is to criticise Trek. To criticise the mere presence of gay character for the sake of their sexuality only furthers the stereotype that their presence in any Fiction can only be that of the exotic. That there are no normal gay people, only flamboyant clichés or walking Tragedy Generators. Just having two gay folk, happily existing as gay folk. Yes it's intentional - that, again, is the point of Trek. In a show of Bad Writing, normalising the gay couple was one of the few examples of Good writing, insofar as it skirted lazy gay clichés.

And beyond anything else, Stamets and Culbar's relationship felt more organic and earned than Burnham & Tyler. If they wanted to push those two as the main romantic leads then it'd be better than anything else pushed so far.



Nope, I'm in Ireland I just hadn't bothered googling when the referendum was. Felt like only a couple of years but could be mixing it up with the 8th Referendum. Whenever it was, we were the first country to legalise gay marriage by democratic vote so we have that going for ourselves.

I have zero issue with any characters of any description being in the show.
That is correct and progressive.

The thing about Star Trek originally was that it was the first show to feature a major black character, first inter-racial kiss etc. I think she was more than what you said but of course they are reflective of society at the time.
But did Gene Roddenberry announce before the season there'd be a black female officer on the bridge? I doubt it. They were also groundbreaking at the time for having Chekov and Sulu as well.

Things just happened on the show and viewers had to deal with it.

But now STD to me has a political and social justice agenda. It's no co-incidence that the main character is female and black who is portrayed in S2 as a flawless problem solver who will rescue any situation.
To me they've included a gay couple just to show how progressive and modern they are, whereas in previous shows couples relationships was not really a thing. Keiko and O'Brien were the only ones I can think of but Keiko was not in a lot of episodes.
Now they are pre announcing a binary character. Why?

Why make an issue of it? Why not introduce the character like any other and then develop their story and let the viewer learn about them?

No , instead they're including non-binary and transgender characters and making a big fuss about it before they're introduced.

Have they done that with other characters?

Also, they're not really groundbreaking are they? ST TNG and DS9 had similar characters (albeit guests) in the 90s and there was no fuss about it.

The point is that Gene Roddenberry's shows may have had a political agenda, as many accused him of being communist, but it was more subtle in it's delivery and was also ahead of it's time in many things in as far as it was allowed to be.

STD is not ahead of it's time, it's just trying to show how socially aware they are and that's not what ST should be about.

Goodshape wrote: »

Would it be better if the goodies were male and the baddies were female?

Or is it just too many females in general?


And that's leaving aside that a) an example of 2 is not a trend, and b) there's Pike, Spock, Saru, Mirror Georgiou and the alluring possibility of Prime Lorca to counter your example of 2.

It's not about too many males or females but how they're portrayed. It's also about their colour.

Even Mirror Georguou is being shown with redeeming qualities.

Pike & Spock can't be messed with due to canon and Saru is non human looking.

Also, I don't know if Prime Lorca will be a thing as I thought it was all going to be set in the future from now on?

AMKC wrote: »

Lol never thought I would see a Star Trek thread where someone thinks there maybe was to many Females lol. Surely most men would be happy having more females to look at and ogle even dream about.

I never said there were too many females, I said about how they're being portrayed.

They should all be in the 60's miniskirt and boots uniforms for ogling purposes anyway.:p

pixelburp wrote: »

But TOS had an agenda, I really don't understand how you don't see that. Why does it matter whether Roddenberry did or didn't publicly talk about the casting? Maybe he did, hard to know without deepdiving into 60 year old press releases lol. The inclusivity was still 100% intentional from the outset, the inclusivity the way it was by design. An agenda, clear as day. It wasn't a happy accident, and no less planned than anything you're complaining about how with Discovery.

More so really, as Roddenberry arguably started with the desire for a multi-racial cast and worked backwards. Chekov only becoming Russian after the studio wanted a young bridge member for that audience demographic.

TBH your beef comes across like you wanna be shooting the messenger, not the content if you think about it for a minute. The difference here is you don't like them announcing before the show airs. Ok, so they wanna puff their chests for hiring a non-binary actor. Makes no odds to me.

Fine. But given you don't know Roddenberry's publicity schedule from the 1960s then the logic demands: in 5 years time who'll know or care what was said or not said during the build-up to Season 3? It'll be judged on its own merits, not press releases as to its inclusive intentions.




Respectfully I can't keep up with your wheeling logic here; you're bouncing between Stamets / Culber and some casting announcements. And I think I've already explained the rationale of Stamets & Culber and how they perfectly fit into prior themes of Trek.

Let me reframe my point to a question back to you: what, to your mind, would be the approach to having a gay character in Trek that WASN'T making " an issue of it".

Leave aside casting announcements, all that jazz. Just the content of the script and story. You seem convinced Stamets & Culbar were somehow lionised. How would you do it? Cos as it stands Stamets / Culbar were a normal, well adjusted couple and unsure how or where you think this could have been made subtler.

Ok maybe I'm not putting my points across well and I hope I'm not coming across in anyway homophobic as I'm not at all.

I have zero issue with gay characters being included in the show but I just feel that they've included a gay couple and we get to see them brush their teeth together in cute matching PJs and then see (after the ridiculous resurrection arc) how they have relationship problems and now they appear to be back together. As I've said ST was never about couples and their relationships.

So why have they included a gay couple? At a time when gay marriage is correctly now a real thing in many societies?

As you said ST TOS did have a political agenda but I think what they did and what they commented on were ground breaking and first seens and also commenting on real issues in the society of the day and that was racism (which despite BLM issues now was worse then than now), sexism, war etc.

STD is not doing anything like that They're not the first show to have a gay couple. Nor will they be the first with a transgender character. They're not making people think or question their morales or beliefs which I would argue that the original Star Trek did.

They're just trying to appear modern and inclusive and politically correct. I hope you understand the difference that I'm trying to make here.

Also I think in 5 years time the big issue will be how bad the shows are in terms of being Star Trek and how it compares to The Orville.

Let me reframe my point to a question back to you: what, to your mind, would be the approach to having a gay character in Trek that WASN'T making " an issue of it".

Leave aside casting announcements, all that jazz. Just the content of the script and story. You seem convinced Stamets & Culbar were somehow lionised. How would you do it? Cos as it stands Stamets / Culbar were a normal, well adjusted couple and unsure how or where you think this could have been made subtler.

You're making a bigger issue of the gay couple than I am. They were fine but I just wondered why they were there.

My main issue is how they're making a big deal of introducing a transgender character.

If it was up to me I'd have them in the show, no problem but no fuss about it and not have their character's development defined by their sexuality just make it known what they are but then have as little attention drawn to it as possible so they're simply seen as a normal part of the crew and society.

pixelburp wrote:

Hence the similarities with TOS. Uhuru was there to be black, Stamets is there to be gay - at least the latter has a character and arc to call his own

I came to TOS late in life and was actually quite shocked at how small a role Uhuru played. You hear a lot about how much of a big deal it was to have her there, how much she did for representation etc. When you actually watch it, she's just there. Doesn't say much, doesn't do much.

Goodshape wrote: »

That's fair enough. I was being deliberately silly.

But I think you're being unintentionally silly and have put yourself in a no-win situation, despite shifting the goal posts when it suits. There are straight male characters in Discovery. They might not be the ones you want or in the positions you want, but so what.

It's not the reason or an excuse for the bad writing.

Well I'm glad we agree on the bad writing.:pac:

pixelburp wrote: »

O(wasn't George Takei
[*] a keen fencer and the only reason Sulu then appeared buckling his swash?).

No, they originally had him using a katana but he lied and said he was a fencer because he thought was too stereotypical. Then he had to go out and learn some basic fencing.

pixelburp wrote: »

Oh I don't think there's anyone common to this forum who believes the new Trek series are flawless; the arguments have come down to degrees of forgiveness for those flaws. Ironically its in the inclusivity that I think the writing has been Good, insofar as it has been the most normal, least melodramatic aspect of the ensemble.

Well, before the death and resurrection of Culber but I loop back to my point about Season 1 being a horror show of shifting goalposts. Season 2 realising they should never have bumped him off & crudely retconned the murder.

I would go further than saying it's not flawless.

I don't think Picard or STD are worthy of having Star Trek in their name. They're just following the way of other TV shows with long and dark story arcs but without the vital part of good writing charm and good characters.

Justin Credible Darts wrote: »

the only straight white male characters were lorca....not main cast and gone
Pike...the star of the show, and now gone.

In fact with poke gone, their best character, and hiring trans and non binary to tick boxesyou can bet the show will be even worse.

I will bet the first white straight male to be introduced will be cast in a "baddie" role.

Evade wrote: »

I also have a radical thought, maybe read the last two pages of the thread before you put too much straw in that man.

You are right. (That came across as smartarse but I actually genuinely mean you are correct). How can I say without having seen/read the thread first.

However I stand by my points.

i can only speak for myself. Everyone can only speak for themselves. But I enjoy Discovery. I will watch the next season with an open mind rather than pre-judging it based on assumptions made as the result of personal bias

I mean, in the post above: I agree that there is too much emphasis on Burnham. To the detriment of the show. She is actually one of the least interesting characters in the show and this would be my biggest criticism. And I have mentioned so in other posts.

But I NEVER thought they played the gay card/angle with Stamets. In what way? Because of the story-arc with his husband? Had it been a hetero couple would that have being playing the hetero card/agenda or would that have simply been a story arc along with everything else.

I will watch the new characters as they appear. I may like them, I may not. I thought the new engineer (Tig something) was hilarious and I hope they use her more in future (But not over-use).

I do not agree with forced diversity or forced proportional representation. I believe in the best person for the job. Sure, the cast is more diverse than other shows but I don't see a character there that would be better suited to a person of another race and/or gender. I mean I don't believe that their race/gender is actually detrimental to the portrayal of the character.

Do people have the same problem with Game of Thrones? most of the strongest characters are women with all the male parts "subservient"to various degrees. Especially as the series went on.

So I do hope they dial Burnham back a smidge (But I don't think they will) but I am still looking forward to season 3. I enjoy it. IN MY OPINION (Not fact) I think it's a very enjoyable slice of science fiction. I am just as much of a Trek fan as others and think it's just as Trek as all the others.

If people don't like it then that's fine. that is THEIR OPINION (Not fact). Simply don't watch it. This may very well be the last season which will please many. And displease many others. Going forward we will also have the Pike series. I'm sure there will be plenty to complain about that too (OMG, the Enterprise didn't look like that. Where are the skirts? Look at the technology! Timelines!!! Sux, already cancelled. etc. )

Imagine if they had a black man as a Captain on a Trek show!!!!

So, tldr: As a Star Trek fan, I have enjoyed Discovery and am looking forward to the next season. I will base my opinion on the episodes based on what I have seen and not pre-judge based on personal bias. I may like it, I may not but I will give every episode a chance.