Ian Alexanr and Blu l Barr will appear the third season of CBS Televisn's Star Trek: Disvery — a show which broke boundari by featurg a married gay uple as central characters for the first time the anchise's history.
Contents:
- STAR TREK’S FIRST GAY COUPLE THAT WASN’T
- STAR TREK INTRODUC ITS FIRST GAY COUPLE TO THE UNIVERSE
- GAY "TREK"
- ‘DISVERY’ WILL INCLU STAR TREK’S FIRST OPENLY GAY COUPLE ON TV
STAR TREK’S FIRST GAY COUPLE THAT WASN’T
* star trek gay couple *
So why did DS9’s producers ci to take such a huge risk wh a gay uple on their new show? Creator Gene Rodnberry promised that there would be gay characters, and wrer David Gerrold even wrote a script to fulfill that promise for TNG’s first season.
They axed the script wh two gay men; when Gene proposed showg same-sex upl the background, they told a wrer to ignore him. Years later, shownner and wrer Ira Steven Behr would exprs remorse at their failure to plumb those pths, and said that he wished they’d had Garak e out as gay so they uld have explored the relatnship further.
STAR TREK INTRODUC ITS FIRST GAY COUPLE TO THE UNIVERSE
Star Trek: Disvery has boldly gone where no Star Trek show has gone CBS: All Accs drama troduced a gay uple to s dience Sunday -- a first the long-nng televisn anchise. Pl Stamets, ma history when he was troduced episo 3, beg the first clearly gay character this universe. 1508180517Star Trek: Disvery was -created by an out gay man, Bryan Fuller.
Although Fuller has left the seri due to schlg nflicts, Aaron Harberts, who is also gay, remas as the shownner.
“My attu toward homosexualy has changed,” he told The Humanist 1991.
GAY "TREK"
I have, over many years, changed my attu about gay men and women.”. Even after his ath, took another 28 years for the first gay character to appear Star Trek’s televisn seri (although y, novel tie-s, ics, fan works, and other non-nonil media featured a markedly improved number of LGBT Starfleet officers).
Given that the first openly gay recurrg character on televisn wouldn’t appear until the edy Soap 1977 (and played by Billy Crystal, so not exactly a nuanced character portrayal), pictg one the ‘60s when Star Trek first aired would have been unthkable to most people. Of urse, much of what Star Trek did to highlight actors and characters of different ethnic backgrounds would have been pretty far-fetched for many televisn dienc of the time, too – so what ma gay stori different at the time?
But still others were spired – enough that Kirk and Spock’s endurg nnectn to one another has remaed a potent symbol of homosexual love for Trek fans.
‘DISVERY’ WILL INCLU STAR TREK’S FIRST OPENLY GAY COUPLE ON TV
Durg a 20th anniversary nventn 1986, show creator Gene Rodnberry was asked by a foundg member of a Boston LGBT science fictn group (lled, charmgly, the Gaylaxian Network) whether or not the recently announced The Next Generatn would troduce gay characters to Starfleet. We should probably have a gay character.'". That same year, Gerrold (who’s bt known for wrg the TOS episo “The Trouble Wh Tribbl”) began workg on a script which revolved around two gay characters beg afflicted by an curable, tergalactic blood disease that mirrored the spread of HIV.
Dpe this, Rodnberry still seemed mted to makg good on his promise to the Gaylaxians, who by 1990 had begun a letter-wrg petn (spurred partly by Gerrold’s stori of his episo’s mise at var nventn appearanc).
In a letter to The Advote, Rodnberry wrote that " the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generatn, viewers will see more of shipboard life some episos, which will, among other thgs, clu gay crew members day-to-day circumstanc.” Unfortunately, Rodnberry died unexpectedly October 1991, and the day-to-day circumstanc he envisned never materialized.