To Boldly Go

When nostalgia blinds us.

Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash

Sometimes, as I scroll through one social media platform or another, I come upon a post (or video), read (or watch it), and then scroll past it without much thought in the moment, only to find myself thinking about that same post hours or even days later. Like one of RFK Jr.’s brainworms, it buries itself in my subconscious, only to be revealed long after the possibility of finding that post, once again, has been lost. I’ve been trying to get better at bookmarking potential brainworm posts, but, thus far, I have had limited success.

A while back, I came across one such post, comparing the current run of Star Trek shows to the older ones (think Voyager and earlier). Unfortunately, when I went looking for this post again, I was unsuccessful. Essentially, though, it talked about how Star Trek: Discovery (the first series in the current run of Star Trek shows) is full of DEI nonsense and blatant, in-your-face political and social agendas.

The author of this post was not wrong on this point: Discovery is Woke. However, in the conversation that this post sparked, both he and those replying to him claimed that previous iterations of Star Trek were not only not Woke, but that they didn’t even push social and political agendas. Or, ok, well yes, they did, but not that often, and when they did do so, it was more subtle. To which I found myself thinking, “huh?”

Ever since its inception, Star Trek has had political and social agendas embedded not just into episodic storylines and even its casting, but into its very fabric.

I have been a Star Trek fan for most of my life. As a child, I remember feeling like Voyager was the first non-kids’ show that was mine; the first show that I watched because it was what I wanted to watch rather than just because it was what my mom happened to be watching and allowed me to watch with her. Of course, in reality, I did watch it because it was what my mom was watching, but in my pre-teen mind, it was my show. My Star Trek even. My mom watched Deep Space Nine; I watched Voyager (even though, of course, she watched both).

Voyager may have been my introduction to Star Trek, but over the years, via TV reruns and streaming services, I went back and watched the entirety of Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation (and a few of its movies), as well as bits of The Original Series (though certainly not enough to be considered a true Trekkie). I even watched Enterprise. You know, that installment that many fans seem to either forget exists or have chosen to ignore (for good reason).

So, as you read on, please keep in mind that this comes from someone who genuinely holds Star Trek near and dear to her heart. Indeed, watching copious amounts of Star Trek as research for this article was a far more enjoyable experience than when I watched Netflix shows as research for my Killing Creativity series. Pointing out that Star Trek has always had an agenda (typically a progressive one) is not meant to shame anyone for watching it in the past or continuing to watch and enjoy it in the present. We can enjoy things that don’t 100% line up with our values without deluding ourselves into thinking those things are something that they are not.

Disclaimer aside, let’s get into it.

Gene Roddenberry

I considered starting this off with a summary of the political, social, and religious views of Gene Roddenberry — the original creator of Star Trek — and how they seeped into the fictional universe he created. However, Roddenberry’s direct contribution to the overarching franchise, though foundational, was relatively short-lived. He, of course, created The Original Series (TOS) and its movie spin-offs, The Animated Series, and The Next Generation (TNG). That being said, his direct involvement in Star Trek reportedly began to wane by the end of the first season of TNG, with him being almost entirely out of the picture by the end of the third season (though still credited). He then passed away in 1991. This means that much of TNG (and its spin-off films) and all of Deep Space Nine (DS9), Voyager (Voy), and Enterprise were created without his direct participation. To dive into Roddenberry’s beliefs would then require me to dive into the personal beliefs of all the showrunners, and that is simply a level of research I am not interested in doing for a single article that has already taken me far too long to write.

Furthermore, while knowing some of Roddenberry’s personal beliefs certainly solidifies the idea that he, whether consciously or subconsciously, used Star Trek as a vehicle for presenting those beliefs to the world, this background isn’t really necessary to see the agendas embedded throughout the franchise. All one has to do is watch the episodes with open eyes and (sooner or later) one will start to see the agendas (both good and bad) that are present.

Imagine There’s No Heaven

As I said before, political and social agendas were woven into the very fabric of Star Trek. To claim that it did not use to be what we today call “Woke” — or at least wasn’t blatantly Woke — is to ignore the foundational world-building within the series. The United Federation of Planets is, more or less, a socialist utopia. There is no need for money. There is no shortage of resources. There is minimal crime. Religion, of any sort, is virtually non-existent (at least for humans; more on that later). Earth (along with the majority of planets encountered throughout all the various installments) has a one-world government. A continually stated premise of the show is that it takes place in a future time period when humanity has “evolved” beyond the petty, religious, capitalistic humanity of present-day reality.

Star Trek is, essentially, the embodiment of John Lennon’s Imagine. But in space.

Of course, because a socialist utopia is an oxymoron, there are inconsistencies throughout the franchise. Depending on which series, or even which season of a series, one is watching, one could be forgiven for forgetting this foundational premise. For example, the first season of TNG brings up humanity’s “evolved” state and perfect society nearly constantly. Voyager, on the other hand, takes place in a part of the galaxy outside of Federation influence; consequently, it talks about the Federation’s perfect society less often and typically in a more passing way.

Perhaps, though, I am getting ahead of myself. Perhaps, before getting into the various older series, it would be best to start with Star Trek: Discovery and why it offends so many long-time fans.

Some Background

The aforementioned post was not the first time I have heard sentiment regarding Discovery being a Woke, DEI mess. Back in 2017, when the series had not yet premiered and was still in the promotional stage, these discussions were already taking place. The casting was a large reason for this; I saw many on the Right lamenting that white male actors were in the minority. In 2017, the term “DEI” was not well known to most people, and the word “Woke” hadn’t quite made its way into the everyday vernacular (though it was going strong in younger, Left-leaning corners of the internet, such as on Tumblr), but even then people could see the diversity-for-the-sake-of-diversity casting that had started emanating out of Hollywood. Many saw this cast and assumed it was more of the same.

It also didn’t help that the creators of this series outright stated that Discovery’s Klingons — the antagonists during the first season of Discovery — were supposed to represent MAGA. Naturally, this ticked off Trump supporters and even conservatives who weren’t necessarily big fans of Trump, but who — correctly — recognized that Hollywood makes no distinction between “good” conservatives and “bad” ones. This statement only confirmed the bias many Star Trek fans — especially MAGA and MAGA-adjacent fans — were developing towards the show before it had even aired.

I did not watch the show at the time. Not only was it behind a paywall that I couldn’t afford, but I had my concerns about it. Though I was cognisant of Hollywood’s forced diversity push, the casting of Discovery did not bother me. This was an original show featuring all original characters; this was not a case of Hollywood gender or race swapping already established characters (or even historical figures, as has happened) for the sake of forced diversity. Not to mention that pushing the boundaries of racial and gender diversity has been a staple throughout Star Trek, going all the way back to The Original Series. Having women on the Bridge Crew of the original Enterprise was a big deal in the 60s; so much so that Roddenberry’s original pitch, which featured a male captain with a female first officer, was rejected. He revised and came back with the Kirk and Spock we all know and love. Captain Pike and Number One (as this female first officer was called) now live on in the currently running series Strange New Worlds.

Additionally, I’ve always found it a bit hypocritical that many of the same prominent voices who are most upset by today’s diversity casting were, just a few years prior, the same people telling the “representation is important” crowd that they shouldn’t need characters to look like them in order to relate to said characters. But suddenly that tune changed when white men were no longer the default in Hollywood. You can’t have it both ways: either representation is important (for everyone, not just you) or it is not.

No, a racially diverse cast that featured a fair number of women was not something I was concerned about. The comments about MAGA Klingons, on the other hand, were concerning. I also suspected (correctly, as it turns out) that Discovery would push LGBT themes.

Additionally (and perhaps most importantly, for myself), the marketing surrounding Discovery had a decidedly dark tone to it. One of the things that makes Star Trek stand out from other Science Fiction — especially 21st-century Science Fiction — is its remarkably positive tone. Even when it deals with darker issues, it maintains an optimistic view of the future and of humanity that is often missing in modern Science Fiction. However, the marketing surrounding Discovery left me with the distinct impression that it would be more akin to something like The Expanse rather than its fellow Star Trek installments.

All of these concerns were strong enough that I had zero interest in watching Discovery, at the time. However, early last year, I found myself curious (and with a good deal on Paramount+) and decided to go ahead and give it a try. So is it a Woke disaster? Is it the betrayal of its predecessors that many, myself included, predicted?

Yes and no.

In some ways, Discovery is not nearly as bad as I had anticipated. Don’t get me wrong, it is still terrible, both from an ideological perspective and from an entertainment one. I barely made it through three of the four seasons, which were out at the time (the fifth and final season has since aired), before I threw in the towel and switched over to Deep Space Nine. But even so, some of the negative things I had anticipated were not there.

To start with, my fears that Discovery would be a dark, depressing piece of modern Science Fiction were, more or less, unfounded. Discovery does deal with some dark themes, as do all of the Star Trek installments, but it also maintains that overall optimistic view I’ve come to expect from the franchise. Perhaps even to an extreme; at times it was almost saccharine.

Additionally, the Klingons-are-MAGA message never came through for me. I understand that the Left has a very different view of MAGA than I have, but even when I attempted to watch the show through TDS goggles, I couldn’t see it. This may have been one of those instances when showrunners say something provocative about their show, only for it to not really be true when one watches the final results.

We recently saw this same phenomenon with the 2023 Dungeons and Dragons movie. Prior to release, the filmmakers made a comment about how they liked to demean their male characters, only for the movie to not bear that out in any particular way. For many (myself included), Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was actually a pleasant surprise in a movie landscape that has been largely unwatchable for the last decade or so.

I don’t know exactly why showrunners do this. Is it to make their work seem relevant to the Current Year™? Is it to score points with their fellow Leftists? Is it to provoke anti-Woke commentators into decrying a film or show before it airs, in an attempt to make them look like fools when they’re wrong about their predictions? Is it to lay the foundations that will allow them to blame racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia if the show fails to perform well? I don’t know. It could be any of these reasons or any combination of them. Regardless, if Discovery’s Klingons truly were supposed to be some sort of reflection of MAGA, then this was done with a level of subtlety and finesse that is nonexistent throughout the rest of the series.

Perhaps the villainous Klingons were meant to be MAGA, from the start. And perhaps the showrunners realized that they had undersold that message, because in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (a spin-off of Discovery and prequel to TOS that began airing in 2022), they threw subtly out the window when it came to attacking MAGA. In the very first episode, the audience is quite literally shown news footage from January 6^th and told that that event led to World War III (a canonical event in the Star Trek timeline, but one which — to my knowledge — had never before been pinpointed to any specific real-world event). Still, regardless of Strange New Worlds’ (SNW) lack of subtlety when attacking MAGA, Discovery’s promise to do so didn’t really come to fruition.

All this being said, “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be” is truly the highest praise I can give Discovery. The writing is awful. Aside from what was presumably meant to be a heartfelt tone often coming off as cloying and sappy, the protagonist, Commander Michael Burnham, may just be the most on-the-nose, textbook Mary Sue character that I have ever seen. In fact, she is so much a Mary Sue that I found myself wondering, more than once, if the writers were actually being self-aware and wrote her that way on purpose. After all, the Mary Sue trope (or at least the name for it) was birthed out of Star Trek fan fiction.

Come to think of it, Burnham is not the first Mary Sue character in a Star Trek franchise (though she is the most blatant one). Wesley Crusher (TNG), the boy genius who saves the day numerous times, whose only real character flaws are that he works too hard and cares too much, and who is liked by everyone — even Captain Picard who, we are repeatedly told, does not like kids — is essentially a Mary Sue (or Marty Stu as male Mary Sues are sometimes called), at least in the earlier seasons.

However, the big difference between Wesley and Burnham is that he is a side character while she is the protagonist. It is easy to forget Wesley’s perfection when he only shows up every few episodes. Burnham, however, is in every episode and the majority of the plots revolve around her. It’s difficult to get away from her Mary Sue characterization when it all but smacks you in the face every time she is on screen.

While Mary Sues seem to be a common trope in much of Woke fiction, they are not, in and of themselves, Woke. They are simply bad writing, which can plague any sort of fiction, regardless of its political leanings. That being said, Discovery absolutely does have an agenda to push. But the question is this: is it any more Woke than previous iterations of Star Trek? I would posit, not really.

The More Things Change…

When I first started thinking about this piece and doing research for it (and by “research” I mean watching lots and lots of Star Trek), I thought I would be reiterating a point I have made in previous articles: in today’s world of hyper-politicized entertainment, we often look back at film and television from the past through rose-colored lenses. We forget or fail to notice that the entertainment from the past was being used to socially engineer society just as much as it is being used today (and arguably more successfully, as it wasn’t turning nearly as many people off). The programming looked a bit different, but — as I noted in my Tropic Thunder piece — it was paving the way to the entertainment that we see as “Woke” today.

But as I started watching older Star Trek series, with an eye to spot the propaganda, I was surprised to see how often the messaging between the two eras was right in line with one another. I was surprised at how often concepts, storylines, and agendas in the series from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and early 2000s could have been written today, with very few, if any, real changes.

Take, as an example, Episode 20 of Season 1 of Deep Space Nine, “In The Hands of the Prophets.” In this episode, the space station’s Federation teacher, Keiko O’Brian, is confronted by a member of the Bajoran clergy, Vedek Winn, for teaching something contrary to the Bajoran faith. Even though the vast majority of her students are Bajoran (and faithful ones at that) and the space station technically belongs to the Bajorans (though administered by the Federation, for reasons we won’t get into today), Keiko refuses to alter her curriculum. Commander Sisko, claims, “On this station, there is room for all philosophies,” yet does not order Keiko to adjust her curriculum to reflect any philosophy other than her own. At the same time, he rejects the suggestion that a second school for Bajoran children be established. Throughout the episode (and series, for that matter), Vedek Winn is portrayed as a disingenuous, conniving, political snake (who by the end of the episode is revealed to be behind an assassination attempt on her political rival). On the flip side, Keiko is portrayed as principled and unfairly persecuted.

The real-world parallels and socio-political agendas at play in this episode are unmistakable. The show is clearly against the idea of school choice and parent involvement in the classroom. Additionally, it paints people of faith as backward, anti-science zealots. And just in case the agenda wasn’t obvious enough, at one point Keiko, when offered a compromise, says, “When we get to theories of evolution or creation of the universe, what then?” as one of her reasons for rejecting the compromise. This is an odd statement given that in the Star Trek universe, real-world secular origin theories (i.e., evolution) seem to be almost universally accepted by technologically advanced societies, even the religious ones. The only reason for this comment is to drive home, with all the subtlety of a jackhammer, the message of the episode: under no circumstances do Faith and parental involvement have a place in education. Take this episode, plop it into Discovery or Strange New Worlds, and it would not be all that out of place.

Overall, Deep Space Nine actually handles discussions regarding religion, and even the juxtaposition of faith and science, rather fairly. This episode stands out as being uniquely, blatantly anti-religion. Throughout the rest of the show, whether or not the Bajoran’s beliefs about the Prophets (sentient beings who live in a wormhole above their planet) are superstition or legitimate is more or less left up to the audience. We are shown what the individual characters believe; the Federation characters largely believe the wormhole beings are advanced aliens, while the Bajorans believe them to be deities. However, viewers are given a balance of information to support either belief as they see fit. That being said, this is not always the case in other Star Trek installments.

Many alien races are allowed to have spiritual beliefs in Star Trek. There are even indications that some of those beliefs could be real. For example, the Voyager episode “Barge of the Dead,” essentially confirms that the Klingon beliefs about their afterlife are true. That being said, Star Trek’s affirmations of alien religious beliefs are spotty at best. In another Voyager episode, “Mortal Coil,” Neelix (a Talaxian) has a near-death experience and with it a crisis of faith as he comes to realize that his people’s beliefs about the afterlife are likely untrue.

Regardless of inconsistencies in how the shows treat the religions of alien species, humans do not practice religion. As far as I am aware, there is only one recurring human character that is an exception to this. Voyager’s Commander Chakotay, who is Native American, maintains his ancestors’ spiritual beliefs. However, even those beliefs are shown to originate from aliens. And if we’re going to talk about progressive agendas, let’s face it, it is no coincidence that the one religious human is Native American and his beliefs are those of his ancestors. After all, it would probably look like colonialism if the (white) showrunners had made him just as atheist or agnostic as the rest of the human characters.

Despite the exceptions, Star Trek is overall anti-religion. Sure, the atheist characters are generally (though not always) respectful of other people’s faiths, but when it comes down to it, they, especially the human characters, are quite proud of how they have grown beyond such “primitive” beliefs, instead trading up for the much superior Science.

Discovery seems to largely avoid the topic of religion, even among aliens. However, in Season 2, Episode 2, Commander Burnham does encounter a religious group of humans. These humans are descendants of a group from World War III who were mysteriously transported to a different planet, where they were isolated from the rest of human development. As such, they did not embrace the rest of humanity’s atheism, but instead combined Earth’s religions into a sort of Universalism. Burnham, like most atheistic Star Trek characters, is respectful but comments that her religion is science.

The implications of this episode are clear. Belief in Science is preferable to a belief in a god, but if one must follow a religion, then let it be the religion of the Coexist bumper sticker. The whole thing is a bit ham-fisted, especially when compared to Voyager or Deep Space Nine’s generally much more thoughtful handling of the topic of religion and faith. However, I would argue that the earlier seasons of The Next Generation (one of the most beloved installments in the Star Trek universe) are often just as ham-fisted about pushing agendas as Discovery is.

In the very first episode of TNG, we are introduced to Q, a virtually all-powerful alien who puts the crew of the Enterprise on trial for all the crimes of humanity, both past and present. Just in case the image of a cold, god-like being sitting on a (literal) throne, harshly and unfairly judging the sins of humanity wasn’t in your face enough, there is Q’s opening monologue.

In this monologue, he lists the sins of humanity, which include religion, patriotism, and anti-communism. Captain Picard responds not by defending these things as good or at least neutral, but rather agrees and calls them “nonsense,” but that humanity has moved beyond them and should not be judged for the actions of those past, evil humans who worshipped God, loved their countries, and hated communism.

Very subtle.

In this case, the messaging of this episode would not only fit perfectly into Discovery or SNW, but the blatant, obnoxious, poorly written, propagandistic tone of the episode would have fit too! And this isn’t a one-off. Many episodes, in part or whole, from the early seasons of TNG would also fit in with modern Star Trek iterations.

In Season 1, Episode 6, there is a moment when we see a male crewman wearing a dress. Literally a mini-skirt uniform that was a clear throwback to the women’s uniforms in TOS. Apparently, there were actually five episodes that featured men wearing “skants” (as they were officially called), in the first season of TNG, but the above one is the only one I caught.

Some episodes later (Episode 19), we see Captain Picard and Commander Riker (both men, just in case you’ve, bafflingly, made it 4000 words in and aren’t a Star Trek viewer) wearing their dress uniforms, which are…dresses. I suppose that you could argue that they’re long tunics…with tights. But the show’s dialogue makes a point of mentioning their outfits and specifically their legs. It is difficult to imagine that this wasn’t an attempt to push the gender norms envelope.

In Episode 7, Riker makes a snide comment to an alien race (which we’re meant to see as a bit barbaric) about how humans “no longer enslave animals for food purposes.”

In Episode 17, we get a mention of Earth’s past issues with Climate Change, in the form of the ozone hole.

Remember that? When was the last time we heard about the ozone hole?

Climate Change is a recurring theme throughout the various Star Trek installments as characters either bring up how close past humanity (that’s you and I, for the record) came to destroying the Earth, or they encounter planets dealing with the consequences of Climate Change.

In Season 1 of TNG, we are also introduced to the Ferangi. An entire alien species that serves as a critique of capitalism. Could you imagine how people on the Right today — Star Trek fans on the Right — would react if a new Sci-Fi show came out with an alien species whose entire culture revolves around being the greediest, nastiest stereotype of capitalism, all while acting as a foil to a perfect socialist society?

The Ferangi not only show up from time to time in TNG, but also play a fairly large role in Deep Space Nine. They even appeared once in an episode of Voyager, where they (not to spoil an almost 30-year-old episode), in their greed, thwart a chance for the crew of Voyager to get back home. They are rarely shown to be good people; they’re typically either straight-up villains or comic relief. The few times we do see Ferangi being portrayed in a positive light, they are (either permanently or temporarily) eschewing their capitalistic culture and impulses

Subtle. Very subtle.

Some of the examples I’ve given, I had in mind, going into writing this article, even before I started my rewatch. Others I had forgotten about, but was quickly reminded of as I delved into the older franchises. And still others I had never picked up on in the first place. Even with my vague memories of specific storylines, I was surprised at how truly contemporary the agendas were, but there was one particular throughline that I was most surprised by.

Rainbows In Space

I mentioned earlier, one of my reservations regarding watching Discovery was my belief that it would push the LGBT agenda. Up until this point, Star Trek had not had any openly gay characters. Predictably, Discovery changed that by featuring a gay couple as the ship’s Chief Engineer and Doctor. Strange New Worlds also added in LGBT characters. Nurse Chapel is bisexual (or perhaps pansexual, I’m not sure bisexuality is allowed anymore since it indicates gender is binary), and the show had an episode featuring a guest character who is non-binary. Discovery also has its own non-binary character, added in the third season. But more on that in a moment.

I fully expected LGBT characters to be added into the new franchises for no other reason than that it was the Year of our Lord 2017, when Discovery premiered. Yet, while I doubted Rodenberry (who, reportedly, shortly before he passed away, stated he wanted to add gay characters into TNG,) or other Star Trek showrunners would have been against this, I was fairly sure this would be the first time the franchise would dip its toes into the rainbow waters.

I was wrong.

As I’ve said, I was surprised at how much of the progressive agendas in the older series really would not be that out of place by current “Woke” standards. I expected to see more of, well, more of a progression. It was spotting the LGBT throughline that actually caused me to first note how far ahead of its time Star Trek really was. It’s a throughline that revolves around one particular alien race: the Trill.

The Trill have gone through some revisions over time. They were first debuted in a single episode of TNG. Later, in DS9, the first recurring Trill is introduced in the character of Jadzia Dax, a female Trill. During that interval, the Trill were changed in appearance, how their culture works, and their association with the Federation, among other things, but that’s not terribly relevant to this article, so I won’t get lost in the weeds with it. What is important to know is this: the Trill are what they call a “joined species.” There is a humanoid host and a symbiote that lives inside the humanoid; the symbiote has a longer lifespan than the host, so when the current host dies, the symbiote is transferred to a new host, where it imparts the memories of its previous hosts upon the new one. And while the host’s mind and personality remain intact, they are influenced by the memories of previous hosts and the personality of the symbiote. The last name of joined Trill is the name of the symbiote (so with Jadzia Dax, Jadzia is the name of the host and Dax is the name of the symbiote). Oh, and hosts can be male or female; the symbiotes don’t seem to have a gender. Perhaps you can see where this is headed.

In the Trill’s inaugural episode (The Host), a Trill named Odan comes aboard the Enterprise to assist with a diplomatic mission. During his stay, he sparks a romantic relationship with Beverly Crusher, the ship’s doctor. Things take a turn, however, when the host is killed and the symbiote needs to be transplanted to a new host. Commander Riker, though human and not compatible long-term, volunteers to be a temporary host until a Trill host can be found. This is jarring for Dr. Crusher, and she must wrestle with the idea of continuing a relationship with someone who has a different body, but eventually she thinks she comes to terms with it. Then, Odan gets a new, permanent host. This time, the host is a woman. While Odan is willing to continue the relationship, Dr. Crusher is not. Notably, she does not say she is unwilling to continue because the new host is a woman, but because she “can’t live with…[the] uncertainty” of never knowing how long Odan will keep a host and how often that will change.

Fast forward a few years to DS9, there is an episode (Rejoined) in which Jadzia Dax encounters another female Trill. This Trill’s symbiote, Kahn, and the Dax symbiote’s former hosts were married (it’s complicated, I know). Though both former hosts are long dead, and these former hosts were male (Dax) and female (Kahn), the memories and feelings from that past relationship remain. Long story short, these two, currently female, Trill end up sharing a long, 90s-style, lesbian kiss. In the end, they decide not to pursue the relationship (it’s taboo in Trill culture to continue intimate relations once a symbiote changes hosts — one of the changes from their original appearance in TNG), but it seems clear that this 1995 episode’s purpose was to push the boundaries of both sexuality and gender fluidity.

Throughout DS9, Jadzia makes comments about having been both a wife and husband as well as both a mother and father, via past hosts’ lives. Though what we see of Jadzia Dax is far more than these instances (in fact, she’s one of my favorite characters throughout all of Star Trek), between her character and Odan’s character in TNG, a pattern has started to form. Not only were the Trill being used to push same-sex relations, but they were also used to blur the lines between genders. The emphasis on the T in LGBT has been a relatively new push in Hollywood. Yet, here is Star Trek, a good fifteen to twenty years ahead of the rest of the industry.

Then we fast forward to Discover. I mentioned that Discovery has a non-binary character. Well, can you guess what species this character is? That’s right, Trill. Well, sort of. Adira Tal is actually a human with a Trill symbiote (even though the two are supposedly incompatible species), but the connection is still there. Additionally, Adira’s “boyfriend” (a humanoid Trill, who was the previous host of the Tal symbiote) is a trans-man.

Per usual, Discovery is far more ham-fisted than the past iterations. There is no subtlety. There is no metaphor or allegory that leaves room for audiences to put two and two together. There is no playing around with what-ifs and plots that make audiences think. Still, despite the terrible writing, Discovery is pulling from an established tradition within the Star Trek universe. Adira did not just come out of nowhere, but instead is simply the natural (if poorly realized) progression of what came before.

As of writing this, there are almost 1,000 episodes in the Star Trek canon, plus over a dozen movies. Over the course of about a year, as I researched this piece, I got around to about 350 of these episodes, so obviously, there are going to be bits I missed. Thankfully, that is what Wikipedia is for. Though seeing this consistent playing around with gender and sexuality through the Trill is what made me catch on to the LGBT themes within Star Trek, it turns out there were more examples that I either did not come across or that didn’t register upon this recent rewatch. These examples range from gender fluidity to polyamory. While Hollywood was just starting to introduce (the comparatively bland) gays and lesbians and the occasional bisexual, Star Trek was going beyond, introducing versions of sexuality and gender that the rest of Hollywood has only begun exploring (or shoving down our throats) in the last few years.

Blinded By Nostalgia

I could give more examples of how the older Star Trek series and the newer ones are not all that different, ideologically speaking, but I think you get the point. So I guess the question remains: why do many conservative Trek fans live under the belief that New Trek is so much ideologically worse than Old Trek?

I think there are a number of reasons for this.

Obviously, the writing for New Trek is far inferior to what longtime Trekkies are used to. As much as Old Trek may have pushed agendas, they were typically (though not always) presented in a thought-provoking, rather than preachy, way. They used aliens, with their different customs, societies, and even biology, to present ideas in a “what if” manner; it felt more like playing with concepts and ideas rather than an ideological push. Often, these concepts were just presented for a single episode, rather than being constantly reinforced by recurring characters or story arcs. The older series also had more episodes per season, which meant they could spread out their more agenda-driven episodes between more unifying ones. It is only when one sits back and starts to look at all these little moments as a whole that the pattern starts to emerge.

All this contributed to a more diluted experience. Conservative-leaning fans could write off many agendas as simply Star Trek creating interesting alien species and playing with the interactions between those species. If a particular episode came off as preachy, well, it’s easy to forget it when the episodes surrounding it were far more enjoyable. Old Trek made it easy for its more principled, conservative fans to simply roll their eyes and move on when something blatantly against their values was presented. New Trek, on the other hand, with its poor writing, never-ending agendas, and fewer episodes, makes this nearly impossible.

But I think there are other reasons as well.

For starters, the internet wasn’t around (or, at least, didn’t hold the same cultural sway it does today) during most of Old Trek. There was no Twitter where every casual fan could voice his or her displeasure at any Star Trek news or rumor they heard. There were fewer outlets for idiot showrunners to make inflammatory comments on. There were no YouTubers creating hours-long videos analyzing the minutiae of every episode, character, species, etc. There was no Substack where someone would write a 7000+ word essay on how little the values have changed between the various series.

If people wanted to talk Star Trek, they had to be satisfied with conversing with the people in their lives who actually watched the show. Or they had to go to conventions. Or (in the later years) online message boards where they were likely only surrounded by other die-hard fans. That’s not to say controversies and displeasure never happened or were expressed, but they weren’t amplified like they are today. You really had to go looking for those things; they weren’t going to just float across your Twitter feed as you drank your morning raktajino.

Add to that that for many of us, we experienced much of Old Trek when we were younger. Whether you were a Boomer growing up with The Original Series, GenX with The Next Generation, or a Millennial with Voyager, many of us likely were introduced to Star Trek before we were old enough to understand and recognize how controversial certain moments, casting, costumes, characters, etc, really were. All the more so if you were going back and watching older series that were presenting things that may have been new and edgy in their day, but that were considered far more acceptable by the time you got around to it.

TOS presenting the first televised interratial kiss in the 60s was highly controversial, but if you were a young child and not informed as to why that was a big deal by your parents, or if you were a GenX or Millennial going back and watching it decades later when interracial relationships are no longer taboo, that controversy (or the level of controversy) may have been lost on you. And while casting the first black lead for DS9 or the first female lead for Voyager in the 90s may not have been as bold a move as when Roddenberry tried to cast a female first officer, decades prior, it was still likely a bigger deal than most of us remember or realized. But had many of those same decisions been made today, in the current social and political climate, the shows would have been accused of practicing DEI by many of the same people who don’t have a problem with (and may even approve of) Commander Sisko, Captian Janeway, or Kirk and Uhura kissing.

Which leads me to another reason past iterations of Star Trek are often looked at in a golden light.

Over the past few years, many people have undergone a change in worldview. Sometimes this shift is extreme. I’ve seen atheist Leftists become Christians and take on a politically conservative worldview in a matter of just a couple of years. Sometimes the shift is less extreme. People who were moderate on certain social issues have come to see that the slippery slope fallacy wasn’t actually much of a fallacy after all. Other times our worldview — our values — don’t necessarily change, but we become more aware of things that contradict our worldview. However big or small the shift, sometimes we don’t apply our new worldview to our memories of things we enjoyed in the past, leading us to assume that those old things are still in line with our updated worldview.

Because we came to love those things in the past, before the worldview shift, we may not have picked up on the problems inherent in them. It isn’t until we go back and experience those things with the lens of our new perspective that those issues are noticeable.

And while it may not be that big of a deal to look at entertainment we enjoyed in our past through rose colored lenses, this nostalgia for the past can often lead to shallow thinking when it comes to considering what we need to do to build a better future. Of course, we should learn from the past. Of course, we should look at what was truly good back then — the things people got right — and bring that to the future. But if we refuse to look at the past with clear eyes, being truthful about what they got wrong just as much as about what they got right, then we’re just going to end up in the same spot again, sooner rather than later.

Star Trek got a lot right. It created good, interesting, well-rounded characters that were thought-provoking. It presented the idea, in all seriousness, that maybe every conflict doesn’t have to end in violence (though, realistically, there were still plenty that did). It told stories of how sometimes the well-meaning solution can have consequences down the road. It looked to the future with optimism and hope. Not every agenda it pushed was bad.

However, there were bad aspects, and those bad aspects paved the way for the much worse New Trek. Thinking “I really wish we could just go back to the Star Trek of my childhood” is just kicking the can down the road. In another 20 years or so, a new Discovery or Strange New Worlds will rear its ugly, progressive head.

It is fine to enjoy things that don’t completely line up with one’s worldview. Doing so can present us with different perspectives, which is helpful for understanding others, and can lead us to deeper thinking about our own worldviews. But we can’t let that enjoyment blind us to the problems. If we want to build a better future, we can’t allow ourselves — whether we’re talking about entertainment or much weightier issues — to be blinded by nostalgia. Because when we refuse to look at the problems in history, we are doomed to repeat them.