‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Boldly Goes Where No Show Has Gone Before — A Fully Woke Universe

No matter the era in which it’s produced, Star Trek has always reflected the liberal concerns and neuroses of the moment. The original 1960s Trek posited an egalitarian yet still male-dominated galactic paradise where the universe sang in harmony to the tune of science and reason. Early Star Trek movies saw key characters drift into the void to the siren song of a Me Generation disco light, and even found time to Save The Whales. The Next Generation‘s preoccupations with polymorphous perversity, gaming, and cyber-utopias might as well have been lifted from the pages of early issues of Wired.

In modern times, the Enterprise drifted into blank space. The J.J. Abrams movies, like the Democratic Party itself, are an empty shell of past Trek glories, obscuring their lack of ideas or principles with star-powered flash and lip service. But leaping into that shallow, Abrams-created gap comes Star Trek: Discovery, a somber show of principle and substance on the CBS All Access streaming service. Like the best Trek, Discovery has a lot to say about The Way We Live Now. It’s the most on-message TV show this side of Black-ish or Broad City. They might as well call it Star Trek: The Woke Generation.

Star Trek has always said that it takes place in a post-sexism universe, but Discovery is the first show that seems to actually embrace the idea of gender diversity beyond the easy gesture of “put a lady on the bridge.” Discovery’s hero is a black woman named Michael. Unlike Nichelle Nichols’ Uhura, whose Star Trek job was always “wear a skirt with dignity and show up at conventions for 50 years,” Michael Burnham —played stiffly by Sonequa Martin-Green— is as much a bad-ass with her phaser or her leg sweep as any man. In addition to being a Starfleet celebrity, she’s also the star pupil of Sarek, who even the most cursory of Trekkies will recognize as Spock’s dad on the planet Vulcan. In essence, Michael Burnham is Kirk and Spock simultaneously. She gets to have all the moral complexity, but also some of the sex, and she kills the baddest bad guys with impunity. She exists to save us from ourselves, and to stare angrily into the void. She is the one she’s been waiting for.

In other news, Anthony Rapp plays the show’s second-most-powerful character, a brilliant scientist who gets some spice when he fuses his genes with those of a magical space tardigrade, giving him the tragic ability to see through space and time. If that doesn’t sound like your cup of computer-generated soup, well, this is Star Trek, not Chicago Med. He’s also gay and in a relationship with a Puerto-Rican doctor who is so boring that it makes the gay marriage on Modern Family look like a rolling sex party. It’s Call Me By Your Starfleet Serial Number.

Whereas a Next Generation episode about gay marriage would have gotten banned by the local Birmingham affiliate, in Discovery, Rapp’s personal life is presented as a tertiary character trait, at most. So when his eternal space love takes a tragic turn midway through the first season, it lacks emotional impact. In a show where the personal is super-political, it’s just another tragic twist in As The Multiverse Turns. Unlike in other Trek shows, where characters slowly developed in tedious 30-episode chunks, every minute in Discovery is infused with self-discovery.

“Star Trek Discovery‘s treatment of its straight male characters reveal the show’s wokest impulses. The show exists in a universe where the straight guys are no longer the tough guys, and are no longer really in charge.”

By the time we hit episode five, just about every character in Discovery has been revealed to be Deeply Troubled. Doug Jones plays yet another in a long line of sexy tall fish-men, a rubber-masked dude born into a perennial state of fear, as desperate to find inner peace as my teenage son is to find a decent Wi-fi connection. But it’s Discovery‘s treatment of its straight male characters that reveal the show’s wokest impulses.

The Discovery’s captain is named Gabriel Lorca, proving that someone on the screenwriting team took “Intro To South American Literature” at Harvard. Lorca, played with huffing intensity by Jason Isaacs, suffers from a strange case of light-blindness. He takes orders, barely and reluctantly, from a spectral Starfeet Vulcan commander who looks and talks like a Space Obama. A loose photon torpedo cannon, Lorca has PTSD, which causes him to make questionable decisions, personally and professionally. In one memorable moment, he even does a bad sex move on a lady Starfleet Admiral. No one ever stormed out of the room when Kirk or Picard leaned in for the smooch.

The show’s other straight male, a security officer who’s sort of an Emo Riker, finds himself eternally tormented by having spent months in captivity getting serially raped by a kinky female Klingon interrogator. He’s a capable dude, but he has flashbacks that make him scared and sweaty. For solace, he must turn to Michael Burnham, who has her own set of traumas but deals with them with dignity and minimal nightmares.

Discovery‘s male characters are strong on the surface, but in reality, they are actually quite weak. The show’s quartet of female heroes roll their eyes, quietly dealing with their own crap while performing, as The New York Times editorial page is fond of telling us, “emotional labor in the workforce.” Then, in Season One’s ludicrously overplotted, lugubrious, and dimly-lit second half, it’s revealed that both the straight white male characters are imposters of one sort or another, one sinisterly plotting to overthrow the natural order, the other an unwitting tool of evil. While it’s probably true that most white men aren’t to be fully trusted, Discovery lays the message on a little thick, like too much mayo on an already-overstuffed sandwich.

But this is still Star Trek, at least sometimes. Every episode more or less revolves around magically materializing into space at the right time to prevent the Klingons from vaporizing the truffula trees with their didgeridoo or whatever. In the best episode of the first season, an intergalactic con man, played by Rainn Wilson with plenty of zing, traps the Discovery in an infinite time loop. It’s classic Trek where no one is particularly tormented, except by the bad guy.

That little side mission excepted, there’s always the subtext; Discovery exists in a universe where the straight guys are no longer the tough guys, and are no longer really in charge. Even some of the Klingons are white in Trek’s current incarnation, and they’re more annoying than ever. But the new Star Trek doesn’t suffer because of its race and gender politics. From Rey to Black Lightning to Black Panther to Wonder Woman, it’s about time that our pop-culture universe diversified its hero pool. That said, you’re going to hand the helm over to Michael Burnham, you’d better make sure that she has some of the zing and swagger that always made Trek so much fun. She’s got plenty of troubles, and plenty of capability and intelligence, but she, like her show, is self-serious, and self-absorbed, to the point of unwatchability. Who wants to boldly go anywhere when the captain’s such a log?

Neal Pollack (@nealpollack) is the author of ten bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction. His latest novel is the sci-fi satire Keep Mars Weird. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Watch Star Trek: Discovery on CBS All Access