‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Will Continue And Improve Upon The Franchise’s Tradition Of Inclusiveness

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As we’ve detailed, Star Trek has had a long, complicated history with gay characters. The series has alluded to homosexuality a number times over its long run, but due to television standards at the time, never got to pull the trigger with an explicitly LGBTQ character. Recently the Star Trek film franchise revealed that their version of Mr. Sulu is gay, but even that, in 2016, wasn’t without its controversy.

Thankfully, it seems like Bryan Fuller’s Star Trek: Discovery will continue and update Star Trek’s long tradition of inclusiveness. The new show will not only feature a female protagonist, but at least one major gay character.

“Absolutely we’re having a gay character. We’ve come a long way since [my days writing Voyager]. I feel like actually gay rights have come a lot further in that time than race issues and women’s issues.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, one of Discovery’s core characters will also be played by an openly gay actor – no word on if said actor will be the new gay character, but there’s no reason that has to overlap. The core cast will also include a “female admiral, a male Klingon captain, a male admiral, a male adviser and a British male doctor.”

Fuller also clarified a lot of other stuff about the show, including where the show falls in the timeline (after Enterprise, and about a decade before The Original Series). He also confirmed the show will feature robots, which seems like an important detail. We covered a lot of the details in this post here, so do check that out.

Star Trek: Discovery begins its voyage in January 2017 on CBS and the CBS All-Access streaming service.

(Via Variety and The Hollywood Reporter)

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