What I Like Most About Picard and Discovery S3

[Winter]

It's repeatedly shown that Seven is instinctually picking men over women in Voyager. You don't just switch your sexuality, like you switch clothes.

In that case fair enough. It's a long, long time since I've seen any more of Voyager than the reviews here, which mostly seem to involve Harry failing to get anywhere near Seven, I don't remember much the other way around other than the later rather out-of-the-blue Chakotay relationship.

Well, in all fairness from an in-universe standpoint there really weren't that many options for Seven in terms of same-sex romance. Janeway is a mother figure to her and she and Torres never really liked it other (never mind Torres' relationship with Paris). Also she was still recovering from what the Collective did to her so it could be argued she was bi and just didn't realize it until she had more time to recovered.

[Riedquat]

Anyway I'm still trying to remember when in Picard this happened, it clearly wasn't anything that stood out to me and I'm normally one rolling my eyes at writers virtue signalling.

[TGLS]

I think Seven might have had a thing with the gangster lady who killed Icheb.

[Link8909]

Well, in all fairness from an in-universe standpoint there really weren't that many options for Seven in terms of same-sex romance. Janeway is a mother figure to her and she and Torres never really liked it other (never mind Torres' relationship with Paris). Also she was still recovering from what the Collective did to her so it could be argued she was bi and just didn't realize it until she had more time to recovered.

That's pretty much how I look at it myself, also, with Rick Berman in-charge at the time there was no way that they would explore this or even acknowledge same sex relationships in Star Trek, so there wasn't a change to actually explore this part of Seven, it would have been interesting if not only in the episode "Someone to Watch Over Me" she had picked out female crew-members as potential candidate along with the male crew-members, but she went out with a female crew-member and it went just as bad as with Lt. Chapman.

[Link8909]

Speaking of all this, I personally feel that both Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard have have really great representation of LGBT people, mainly because the characters are written like real people and not the stereotypes, and that the relationships are believable.

[Riedquat]

Speaking of all this, I personally feel that both Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard have have really great representation of LGBT people, mainly because the characters are written like real people and not the stereotypes, and that the relationships are believable.

Was there another one in Picard? If I can't even remember it as something that stands out it sounds like they might've handled it well. As I've said before these days sadly there's always the nagging question about whether such a relationship is there merely to tick the "look how progressive we are" boxes (the current equivalent of "token black guy"), yet with the number of main characters we've had over the years the odds are that some won't be straight. Tricky one to balance, and if a cynic like me thinks nothing of it and hardly notices it (although I've only got Chuck's Discovery reviews to go on for that series) they've probably done a good job of making it come across as nothing more than just what you'd reasonably expect to see.

[Link8909]

Was there another one in Picard? If I can't even remember it as something that stands out it sounds like they might've handled it well. As I've said before these days sadly there's always the nagging question about whether such a relationship is there merely to tick the "look how progressive we are" boxes (the current equivalent of "token black guy"), yet with the number of main characters we've had over the years the odds are that some won't be straight. Tricky one to balance, and if a cynic like me thinks nothing of it and hardly notices it (although I've only got Chuck's Discovery reviews to go on for that series) they've probably done a good job of making it come across as nothing more than just what you'd reasonably expect to see.

At the end Seven and Raffi were bonding over a game of Kal-toh (sad Icheb noises) but it looks like we'll have to wait until season two to see if it develops more, Star Trek Discovery has really been great with its representation not only with Paul and Hugh's roller-coaster of a relationship, but also with the new addition to the crew with Adira Tal and Grey Tal, and with always awesome Jett Reno.

Like I said, when it comes to newer Star Trek they've been good with representation, the characters feel real and genuine with no stereotyping, and unlike with Disney or J K Rowling that act more like an old person trying to be hip with the kids, the LGBT characters in Star Trek are apart of the story and these aspect of them aren't filmed so they're easily edited out, or stated after the fact and not in the actually material that ultimately have no real baring on the character.

[Asvarduil]

Like I said, when it comes to newer Star Trek they've been good with representation, the characters feel real and genuine with no stereotyping, and unlike with Disney or J K Rowling that act more like an old person trying to be hip with the kids, the LGBT characters in Star Trek are apart of the story and these aspect of them aren't filmed so they're easily edited out, or stated after the fact and not in the actually material that ultimately have no real baring on the character.

Building on this, the reason that the LGBT characters in Discovery in particular are so-well written, is that the LGBT part...is only a part of the character; the state of being LGBT isn't the character.

When I think of Stamets, sure, I do think "gay", but I also think "mad mushroom engineer", "winner of every snark-off from 2350 onward", "adoptive father to Adira Tal", "mentor to The Tilly", "guy who literally lost and re-found his husband", and "Jett Reno's acerbic best buddy". More recently I also think, "guy who got spaced by Michael and might just swear a blood oath against her."

Stamets is written as a person first, who just happens to be gay. This is similar to how Sisko was written to be a person first, who just happens to be black and/or a widower, and/or a Bajoran demigod.

Unfortunately, Stamets isn't the norm - Michael Burnham was written as a bunch of traits first, that happen to be attached to a person. Until Season 3, the other BOFFs were barely characters. Most of the villains still aren't well fleshed out, and we haven't yet seen an antagonist of the likes of either Kai Wynn or Gul Dukat introduced - villains who aren't cartoonishly evil (Osyraa, looking at you).

Now, another character in Disco S3 I like? Tilly. She went from a mildly-annoying spaz that wasn't quite Neelix-grade, to a bonafide, USDA Grade A badass, who also happens to be probably the nicest and most loving person on the Discovery...right up until you mess with her friends.

Don't f@#$ with The Tilly - doing so causes her to reroute all that power from engineering and science creativity, to ruining one's day; while she can be taken by surprise like anyone (Osyraa did that), it's not a permanent condition, and she clearly learned a few lessons from Mirror Georgiou.

Side note: In STO, I have a TOS Andorian captain, Fleet Admiral Ajheli Sh'Naloh, who pilots a Buran-class Command Dreadnought Cruiser, because it's a pretty tanky starship. She uses dual pistols, is an Engineering officer who beams literally everything in to defeat her enemies, and leads Blue Girl Group, the Federation's pre-eminent squad of Andorian avant garde away personnel.

When I saw Tilly dual-wielding, working with a squad of robots, and preparing to retake Discovery, the first thing I thought was, "Well, there's a coincidence!" The second thing I though was, "The Sisko would be proud."

[Link8909]

Like I said, when it comes to newer Star Trek they've been good with representation, the characters feel real and genuine with no stereotyping, and unlike with Disney or J K Rowling that act more like an old person trying to be hip with the kids, the LGBT characters in Star Trek are apart of the story and these aspect of them aren't filmed so they're easily edited out, or stated after the fact and not in the actually material that ultimately have no real baring on the character.

Building on this, the reason that the LGBT characters in Discovery in particular are so-well written, is that the LGBT part...is only a part of the character; the state of being LGBT isn't the character.

When I think of Stamets, sure, I do think "gay", but I also think "mad mushroom engineer", "winner of every snark-off from 2350 onward", "adoptive father to Adira Tal", "mentor to The Tilly", "guy who literally lost and re-found his husband", and "Jett Reno's acerbic best buddy". More recently I also think, "guy who got spaced by Michael and might just swear a blood oath against her."

Stamets is written as a person first, who just happens to be gay. This is similar to how Sisko was written to be a person first, who just happens to be black and/or a widower, and/or a Bajoran demigod.

Unfortunately, Stamets isn't the norm - Michael Burnham was written as a bunch of traits first, that happen to be attached to a person. Until Season 3, the other BOFFs were barely characters. Most of the villains still aren't well fleshed out, and we haven't yet seen an antagonist of the likes of either Kai Wynn or Gul Dukat introduced - villains who aren't cartoonishly evil (Osyraa, looking at you).

Now, another character in Disco S3 I like? Tilly. She went from a mildly-annoying spaz that wasn't quite Neelix-grade, to a bonafide, USDA Grade A badass, who also happens to be probably the nicest and most loving person on the Discovery...right up until you mess with her friends.

Don't f@#$ with The Tilly - doing so causes her to reroute all that power from engineering and science creativity, to ruining one's day; while she can be taken by surprise like anyone (Osyraa did that), it's not a permanent condition, and she clearly learned a few lessons from Mirror Georgiou.

Side note: In STO, I have a TOS Andorian captain, Fleet Admiral Ajheli Sh'Naloh, who pilots a Buran-class Command Dreadnought Cruiser, because it's a pretty tanky starship. She uses dual pistols, is an Engineering officer who beams literally everything in to defeat her enemies, and leads Blue Girl Group, the Federation's pre-eminent squad of Andorian avant garde away personnel.

When I saw Tilly dual-wielding, working with a squad of robots, and preparing to retake Discovery, the first thing I thought was, "Well, there's a coincidence!" The second thing I though was, "The Sisko would be proud."

I definitely agree on this, even Paul and Hugh being in a gay relationship is treated like any other relationship, they have great chemistry together and I genuinely care what happens to them (especially now with recent events.)

While I agree that season one of Discovery didn't flesh out its supporting character and should have, seasons two and three have been really good at making the other Bridge Officers more than glorified extras, and while I personally was fine with Michael from the start, I do personally feel that they've improved on her as a character and she is now more well rounded and fits better as the lead in the series, as they don't overcompensate on her importance to the story, and Tilly has always been awesome from the start and I happy she's had more to do during season three.

As for the Villains, I feel they haven't been give enough time to make them as compelling as other Trek villains because they keep killing them before they do, recently Osyraa has had some complexities revealed about her with her friendship with Aurellio and her plan of merging the Federation with the Emerald Chain, and it's great that Orions are getting more exposer and aren't just slave dancers, but I have a feeling that Osyraa isn't going to make it to season four, I do hope she does and continue to be a foil to the Discovery crew, but I'm not going to bet credits to navy beans on that.

[CharlesPhipps]

I'm not quite sure where ''becoming a lesbian'' fits into Seven's character development though. Maybe she kept her heterosexuality inside her catsuit and it fell out along with the padding when she took it off?

You seem to be ignorant of human sexuality. You see, there are women who like women, women who like men, and women who like BOTH.

Seven is what's called a BI-sexual.