Today in obsessive fandom...

I mean it this time, I have no intention
  of holding back on the nerdery.

Did they just...seriously? Can you believe that? I mean-huh? No, this one's actually not about stupid, ignorant things the President says, it's about Star Trek. Yup, I'm about to go on and on about Star Trek and in fact I'm going to get quite spoilery so if you're watching Discovery and aren't caught up yet, or if this topic is just straight-up too nerdy for you, maybe it's time to bail. Read a book, or spend time with loved ones. If you are caught up and nothing's too dork-tacular for you, buckle up that nerd belt, 'cause it's on. And by it I mean the nerdening.

Pictured: Star Trek eating itself.

Still there? Neat. Ok, so new episodes of Discovery are back. It's not a new season, they just broke season one into two parts. I guess they think it makes fifteen episodes feel like two seasons. They're wrong, but whatever, it was goddamn amazing. Well, mostly amazing. The episode fell into that old Star Trek habit of recycling old plot elements. It's a trap responsible for some of Trek's most that time Benedict Cumberbatch was Kahn somehow.

Next time on My So-Called Death...
'Cause he was on that show? Never mind...

On the other hand the plot element they recycled was the mirror universe and it was bananas. Good bananas, but like, bananas. For the uninitiated, the mirror universe is an alternate reality where the Federation is a fascist space empire and everyone has an evil, often be-goatee'd twin. Sure, it doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about it, but it's fun and lets the writers and cast get weird. Which is especially welcome in this, the grittiest of Stars Trek. What wasn't so great is that Dr. Culper, Wilson Cruz's character, got Game of Throne'd.

I guess we also learned that future
toothbrushes don't require that you spit,
but that's not really a character trait.

You know, Game of Throne'd? Like, suddenly and shockingly murdered to let us all know that this is an edgy, no-nonsense show where no one is safe. Fine, whatever, but did they really need to kill off the gay guy? And let me be upfront, I didn't find Cruz's character all that interesting. We never got to know much about him other than the fact that he's married to Anthony Rapp's character and that he's one of the ship's doctors. He was not only half of the show's only gay couple but also half of the gay characters in all of Star Trek. Well, the Prime Universe* anyway.

Look, I'm a big huge nerd, but Star Trek has, historically been a little quiet when it comes to LGBTQ representation. Outside of a couple of alternate universe versions of a few characters, and that one time Dax made out with another female Trill, Trek's been pretty straight. Except for The Outcast. Can we talk about The Outcast?

Explain? Don't mind if I do. You see, Dax's symbiote rekindled
 its relationship with its ex-host's widow's symbiote's new host
(because Trills), but that wasn't so much gay as it was complicated. 

Pictured: another hot and steamy
moment from Star Trek: TNG.

It's the TNG episode where Riker fall for an androgynous alien and it's the closest thing we ever got to an LGBTQ episode. And normally I'd give them points for presenting Riker as sort of bi, but the episode doesn't age well. Soren, Riker's new sex-pal, is a member of a species with no gender, but who identifies as female which on her planet is like super gay. Because of this, the authorities want to send her off to a pray away the gender identification camp, so it kind of feels like we're invited to root for the straight, heteronormative heroes as they flout the mores of a planet full of same-sex couples.

Adding insult to injury, Star Trek's only
gay planet has the galaxy's worst haircuts.

The message is murky at best. Maybe it's an ahead of its time parable about the challenges trans people face or maybe it's a behind the times episodes about gay conversion therapy. Regardless, it's kind of a mess and ends on a downer. Riker and Worf, apparently forgetting how the fucking transporter works, put together an on-foot and Prime Directive violating commando raid to free Soren. And then they get caught. Like super-easily. And Soren is hauled away to a reeducation camp, spouting off about how awesome it is to get cured. Boo. Just booooooo.

Anyway, all this to say hurray, Discovery has been pretty great so far, but ending one of sci-fi television's few committed healthy gay relationships by putting one partner into a multi-dimensional coma and killing the other off entirely for pure shock-value wasn't the best move given series' track record. But hey, this is Star Trek and scientifically dubious resurrections are easy as rokeg blood pie, so get on it.

Above: that scene in Star Trek Into Darkness where Dr. McCoy starts injecting
Khan's genetically enhanced blood into some dead tribbles he had laying
around only to discover the cure for death. No really, that happened. 

*the what? Don't worry about.