It's been fifty years since Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry first envisioned a diverse, inclusive future for mankind. Star Trek: Picard is the ideal show to push this even further, bridging the past with the next generation (ahem). Unfortunately, the new series fails to boldly go where other shows have gone before in one key regard, even taking a step back from the progress made by Discovery.

Franchise newcomer Isa Briones told Digital Spy and other press that Star Trek shows like Picard are "supposed to be representing the future. We would be doing it a disservice if we didn't look like the people watching."

To be fair, Star Trek and by extension, Picard, does a great job of representing the future in a number of key ways. The original series included the first interracial kiss ever seen on TV, which Picard star Michelle Hurd told us was "huge" for her personally: "It was the first time basically that I got to see my mum and dad represented to the world."

CBS

Picard continues this tradition by casting a number of mixed-race actors in key roles, reminding viewers that diversity matters, especially when it comes to visions of mankind's future... And that's exactly why it's so disappointing to see Star Trek's latest voyage ignore queer people in their entirety.

For decades, the future Star Trek represents "didn’t look like the people watching" at all, at least, when it comes to the franchise's considerable queer fandom. It wasn't until Discovery arrived in 2017 that not one, but two gay characters finally appeared in the form of a couple.

The portrayal of Lt Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and Dr Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) drew widespread praise from fans at first. Here were two main crew members who contributed significantly to the narrative without letting their queerness define them.

However, it wasn't long before the writers undermined all of this by killing off Culber early on, which fed into the old-fashioned idea that gay characters should be punished – even killed – for being who they are. Regardless of whether this was intended or not, the trope "Bury Your Gays" was coined for a reason, and seeing this play out yet again in such a quick fashion made Star Trek feel more dated than ever in 2018.

Discovery rectified this mistake eventually, bringing Culber back via some convoluted magical sciencey stuff because Star Trek. Still, this whole debacle wasn't a great look for a franchise which prides itself on inclusivity.

Bearing that in mind, Picard represented a new opportunity for Star Trek to integrate queerness without falling prey to the damaging tropes of yesteryear. However, as anyone who's watched the first few episodes can attest, there's no LGBTQ+ representation to be found whatsoever.



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So why didn't the Picard team make it so?

When Digital Spy asked the executive producers this question directly, their response wasn't particularly encouraging.

Kirsten Beyer said LGBTQ+ themes are "very important to the universe that we’re occupying," and "The values that underpin all of the Star Trek universe are present in Picard as well," but there's no evidence of that in the show so far.

Beyer went on to admit: "I'm not sure that specifically it's a thematic thing we're looking at, or that it informs exactly what we're doing right this minute."

Fellow producer Akiva Goldsman tried to back Beyer up by celebrating the franchise's diversity while ignoring the ongoing lack of LGBTQ+ representation: "Star Trek, in all its iterations, but especially in those that we have and continue to collaborate on, is not value-neutral when it comes to diversity."

According to him, the Picard team "stand on the shoulders of those that came before us gratefully," and while Goldsman was referring to Star Trek's inclusive legacy, it seems their latest venture has also inherited the franchise's clunky mishandling of queerness too.

CBS

Aside from the involvement of gay latino actor Jonathan Del Arco, there's no hint of anything remotely queer in Picard's first three episodes. While that could change as the series progresses, what Beyer said to us in particular suggests that won't be the case.

Some fans might wonder why this is even an issue at all, but representation matters. During this same interview, Briones excitedly spoke about a fan who recently dressed up like her character at the LA premiere because "it really inspired her to see a fellow Asian-American on screen".

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While stories like this prove Picard is progressive in a number of important ways, it's frustrating to see that queer fans have once again been sidelined in Star Trek's vision of a "utopian" future.

At one point, Del Arco mentioned to us that "Star Trek has always been a show about human beings, and how we can live up to our potential." It's just a shame that Picard has let us down in that sense, failing to represent a future where characters in Star Trek finally look "like the people watching" back home.

Star Trek: Picard premieres new episodes on Thursdays on CBS All Access in the US. A new episode debuts every Friday on Amazon Prime internationally, including the UK.

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