Age of The Nerd
Look, I’m not a super big Trekker; I’ve seen a few dozen episodes of Voyager and Enterprise and I’ve enjoyed all three of the recent movies, but that’s honestly it. Something I am familiar with, though, is Discovery showrunner Bryan Fuller’s work. As an avid Hannibal and Pushing Daisies fan I was ecstatic to hear he was taking charge of the new series, and after hearing his plans, I’m pumped for new Star Trek.
The Hollywood Reporter first broke the news that Fuller’s Discovery would be led by a woman, but instead of being a Captain, she’s a lieutenant commander. Fuller says this allows them to explore the show from different viewpoints. Adding to the diversity of the cast, he pointed out that the crew will feature more alien members: “Star Trek started with a wonderful expression of diversity in its cast: a Russian, a black woman, an Asian, a Vulcan … we’re continuing that tradition and our lead of the show is going to be subject of that same level of who is the best actor and what can we say about diversity in every role we’ll have on the show… We wanted to paint a picture of Star Fleet that’s indicative of encountering people who are much more different than we are.”
Fuller, openly gay himself, has added that there will be a gay character on his Star Trek show. He had received a lot of hate mail while he worked on Voyager for rumors of a character being gay, so during a Comic-Con panel this year he urged everyone to hold hands and promise to leave the room with hope and love. Note that Sulu in the current Star Trek films is gay, but they didn’t state this from the beginning, rather, they revealed it later on. Fuller’s Star Trek will be the first to feature a gay character from the start.
With all of this news breaking, it’s still up in the air about who the new Captain of the ship will be. While the show’s lead won’t be the Captain, the Captain of every Starship is still a very important role. Kirk (both of them), Picard, Janeway (the OG female lead in a Star Trek series), Riker, all of these Captains gave the show its vision and direction. Our lieutenant commander’s interactions with the Starship’s Captain will undoubtedly shape the show for better or worse, so we’ll keep you updated as the news comes in on who that will be. Stay tuned!
