The first, I alluded to last night. Cadet Tilly unleashed the f-bomb. If that wasn't enough. Lt Paul Stamet did so as well.
No judgment from me. It would be disingenuous for any of us to pretend we've never said it ourselves. Hell, I am a Sailor; you've surely heard the adage "cuss like a Sailor." In the past, 'Battlestar Galactica' got around it by saying 'frak.' But let's be serious, we ALL knew what they meant.
Some Star Trek fans have expressed their displeasure about the new series (for a variety of reasons). I will be the first to admit 'Discovery' is "not your father's 'Star Trek." In my opinion, this is a good thing.
By the time that 'Star Trek - Enterprise' met its untimely and unwarranted cancellation a lot of Trekkers (or if you prefer Trekkies) seemed to have grown weary of a continued presences of TREK for 18 years non-stop. Today's TREK is a bit more brusk, a bit darker, and now, a bit more adult.
The second threshold was one that 'Star Trek' has struggled with for a least three decades. In the 1980s, Gene Roddenberry himself promised that 'Star Trek's' inclusivity meant everybody, yet for gay Trekkers that promise seemed pretty hollow.
At a 'Star Trek' convention, Roddenberry promised fans that yes, gay people are valued members of the Federation and serving in Star Fleet.
Rick Berman, producer of the series, and torchbearer after Roddenberry's death in 1992 pretty much refused to let that promise see the light of day.
In 1991, 'Star Trek - The Next Generation' aired "The Host." In it, Dr. Crusher fell in love with Odon, a Trill mediator. In this story, we are 1) introduced to the Trill race and 2) learn they are a symbiotic race where the body plays host to sentient intelligence that is transplanted from one host to the next. When Odon, the host's body is damaged, an emergency transplant is performed to save the Trill symbiot.
Riker acts as a temporary host, but when a "permanent" host is delivered, the Trill host is a female, and this is a bridge that Dr. Crusher could not cross. No judgment here. A person is who they are, something Crusher rightly points out.
In subsequent years, TREK flirted with gay themes, always as a metaphor. They almost, almost, crossed the bridge in a DS9 episode involving Lt. Cmdr Jadzia Dax. BUT we have never seen an actual gay human on Star Trek. That is, not until last night.
Berman was always quick to point out that the TNG episode "The Outcast" was really about homosexuality. Thing is, we fans did not want a metaphor. We wanted TREK to boldly go.
Even we gay fans have wondered how to broach the subject and not do it in a way that smacked of tokenism. David Gerrold, one of my favorite authors, wrote an unproduced (at least on the "official" show) script entitled "Blood and Fire" that Roddenberry promised would be filmed. When Roddenberry died, Gerrold and his script found themselves "handed a hat" and walked unceremoniously out the door, not to return to the series again.
"Blood and Fire" included a gay couple.
Last night, we saw Lt. Paul Stamets and his mate Dr. Hugh Culber in a perfectly right-at-home moment in their quarters while brushing their teeth. Their conversation made it perfectly clear to us they are a couple. Hell, who knew that Star Fleet personnel wore pajamas in their off-duty hours? It was a ...
Perfectly innocent, perfectly human moment.
It's about damned time!
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