A New Path of Discovery

It would be horrendously remiss of me to ignore that this week saw Star Trek's 54th anniversary.

As is well-documented, The Man Trap aired on September 8th 1966 and we're still talking about the show now. To celebrate the most Trek of all days, a series of panels took place on the main StarTrek.com site with the biggest reveal of the day being a new trailer for the soon-to-arrive Discovery season three.

Ok, so there might have been a mid-season teaser for Lower Decks including that shot of one omnipotent Q - but the real talked-about piece has to be the return of Burnham, Saru and the rest after their 930 year leap into the future.

Discerning the jump from the two seasons of the show set in the 23rd Century, Discovery has inherited a shiny new logo and the trailer finally gave us a few answers to what the hell has happened to leave the Federation in tatters.

The year 3188 opens with a vast array of debris spinning in space - where exactly are we? Is this New Eden? Earth? Or somewhere further afield?

Revealing that Discovery crashlands, this second flash of images only goes to reinforce that season three will be a vast change in tone from its predecessors and means that the show is no longer restricted in what it can do, marking the furthest point into the future we will have had a full series set.

New character Cleveland "Book" Booker (David Ajala) reveals to Burnham that the Federation crumbled following "The Burn" - an event which saw the galaxy take a rather abrupt left turn although what that exactly entailed is still a mystery for us to uncover in a few weeks time. 

Perhaps the key moments are seeing the rag-tag bunches of settlers living very much away from the sleek tech of the 24th Century as well as Book handling one of the new style pulse-phaser weapons spotted in the first trailer. There are shots to reassure us that the whole crew have made it into the future in tact with even Jet Reno making an appearance and Doctor Culber officially joining the main cast on the teaser poster.

The Federation's new style - reduced - flag returns as well however the big news from this trailer and from the couple of weeks before has to be around the announcement of Blu Del Barrio as Adira and Ian Alexander as Trill host Gray.

What has made their announcement significant is that Del Barrio identifies as non-binary gender as does the character they play and Alexander is the first out transgender Asian-American TV actor. Del Barrio's Adira will be on Discovery as spotted in both trailers for the season and is also included on the cast promo poster as displayed here.

Star Trek seems to be moving ahead of the curve here by casting actors with these backgrounds and I genuinely hope that this is a move that will be integrated into the show as part of its DNA rather than be a token, attention-drawing move. There appear to have been nods already that this is a big step although one-off moments from the franchise past such as The Outcast from The Next Generation which dealt with gender identification on a planet where there was no such thing seem to have been casually forgotten.

However, if we examine Star Trek's past there have been occasions where the writers have attempted to broaden the franchise's horizons and it took until season one of Discovery for there to be an openly gay main cast member with Lieutenant Stamets. Star Trek - for a series which has prided itself on being diverse even back to those early days of The Man Trap in 1966 failed to address some of the key issues in its time(s), notably even sidestepping an analogy to the AIDS epidemic in a David Gerrold script unproduced from the '80s and later resurrected by James Cawley's Phase II fan series (Blood and Fire). 

It likes to be bold, state that it's forward-thinking but has more stumbles and excuses than a lot of other less established shows. Discovery has, in many ways, had the kahunas to push the tentatively prodded  boundaries and make that difference. I want to see that these two new actors and their roles in the show are managed professionally and sensitively to display the positive merits of their identities and not be used as a marketing ploy for an audience share. Make them relevant, make the audience understand their relevance and importance to the show and we will be there.

Alexander's casting as an aspiring Trill host is an inspired move since gender for that race would seem to be fluid dependent on both host and symbiont and even their very relationship after joining. I’m hopeful that it’s played out more effectively and openly than the Dax kiss from Rejoined. Still to this day I feel that was wedged in and played out in the wrong way with Star Trek shying away from hitting the subject matter it should have been focusing on directly.

For a series and franchise that was ‘rumoured’ to be getting completely cancelled it’s still doing well whether or not you pay attention to the spinmasters or supreme doubters and season three looks to be taking Discovery to a unique level that might unlock its true potential.

Noah Hawley’s totally unique movie may also still be on with the Paramount wing of CBS now looking a little bit egg-faced following Star Trek’s success on the small screen. But don’t take it all as great and fabulous news. Those Rotten Tomatoes scores for the three seasons of live Star Trek look ok from the critical perspective but the fan scores for all leave much to be desired. Ok, this isn’t a base line for the whole of fandom but it does suggest that Discovery season two and Robo-Picard will have their work cut out in their next seasons.

That very competition could come from within its own walls since Lower Decks has kicked off strongly plus there’s the heavily fan-demanded Strange New Worlds coming which will take Star Trek back to its story-of-the-week formula that did it well in 1966 and again in 1987. 

Just four weeks until the Discovery premiere - ready to feel The Burn?

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