this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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I agree completely with your point about the Orville. It was really well done.
I don't agree with your assessment of New Trek, however. I know it's all very variable and I don't want to generalise, but even if we accept this:
Then, I have to point out the obvious: if it's so lacking in nuance, then yes, if you don't accept it you are a bad person. For example, if it's saying, "gay people are ok and normal", there's no subtlety to that because it's not something anyone in the future will hopefully give a shit about. And if someone in their society did, then yes, they would be in the wrong. 100%.
But this is exactly my point. "Gay people are ok and normal" shouldn't be a plot. It's like a "murder is bad" plot. Yes, murder is bad. We know. That's just not an interesting theme to explore. Maybe if it were presented as a trolly problem, where a crew member were forced to kill someone in order to defend their own life, or the life of a friend, that could be an interesting plot. Forcing the viewer to explore the tension of morality between killing or being killed, or taking an innocent life to save another innocent life. That could be interesting television.
We could apply this to a "gay" plot as well. What if the crew met a civilization that were on the brink of extinction for some reason, and they had outlawed homosexuality for reasons of survival. The crew could explore the tension between individual liberty and existentialism. Someone might argue, "our civilization doesn't deserve to survive if we strip people of such basic human rights." Another might argue, "if our civilization is to survive we must make hard decisions as we have always done during war and other crises." They might argue it's only "temporary," and someone else might argue, "it's been 30 years!"
The issue is driven by one-dimensional plot.
Trek expresses gay people being normal. It's explicitly not the plot. There's no plot point about it. The plot is about kids (for a certain Steve McQueen value of "teenager") being in school and battling Space Foes. I'm picking on "being gay" as a point because I imagine it's what the people who cancelled the show had an issue with, but I could well be wrong.
There was no exploration of the things the right-wing hate in Academy. They just exist. There's no ongoing plot about anyone's sexuality, or if you think there is then it's dwarfed by the same plot with other straight characters.
It sounds so much like saying you can't have a gay character unless there's an interesting moral plot point about why they're gay. That's not what Academy did.
If these themes are ancillary and not the one dimensional focus, no problem. In Ko’Zeine, the entire episode arc hinges on Darem being gay. It is the plot. To make it worse, there was never any ambiguity. The writers telegraphed the “correct” outcome from the beginning and never let the viewer stew in any kind of reflection or moral dilemma. We knew exactly what the outcome would be and the only reason we watched was to see how we would reach the only “right” conclusion. That’s not good storytelling. It’s a poor choice of plot. So would be a “murder is bad” plot. The issue isn’t a gay character existing. We have plenty of examples of gay characters existing in media in which “the right” takes no issue. See Six Feet Under, Will & Grace, Willow in Buffy, Remy in House, and a thousand other examples.
The issue is the poor writing. I levy similar criticisms of any writing like this. If these episodes revolved around “I’m short,” or “I’m ugly,” or “I’m fat,” they would also be uninteresting. There needs to be more complexity and moral ambiguity to provoke thought. I don’t watch Star Trek for the flashy lights. I watch it for the interesting dilemmas. Academy is the very lowest brow Netflix slop I could imagine.
None of that episode hinges on Darem being gay, though? What would have changed if he was straight? It's not the plot. The plot is that he has responsibilities to his home world and has new found family with Star Fleet.