Coffee, Toast, and Starfleet Academy

My vacation from work is now half over. Where has the time gone? I’m just glad that I didn’t have to rush to get up this morning to write my blog post and that I have time to watch Starfleet Academy. I can take my time drinking my coffee, eating some toast for breakfast, and watching the show.

When I first learned about the series (they’ve been saying for years that they would make a show about Starfleet Academy, but I didn’t really believe they would), I was disappointed to see that it was going to take place in the 32nd century like the final seasons of Discovery. I also thought it odd that Holly Hunter would be the captain and Paul Giamatti would be the villain.

As far as I know, this is the first time that an Oscar-winning actor has led a Star Trek series. Hunter won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Piano (1993). It’s not the first time a Best Actress winner has appeared on Star Trek, though. Louise Fletcher won the Oscar for her portrayal of the antagonist Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). However, Fletcher only had a recurring role as the Bajoran religious leader Kai Winn Adami on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999), which happens to be my all-time favorite Star Trek series.

When Star Trek villains are discussed and ranked, Kai Winn always ranks near the top because her public persona did not match her private villainy.

Anyway, Starfleet Academy has been fantastic. Sandro Rosta, who plays Cadet Caleb Mir, is a beautiful man with impossibly big shoulders that might look disproportionate on anyone else but are damn sexy on Rosta—and we get to see him several times without a shirt. George Hawkins, who plays Mir’s fellow cadet Darem Reymi, is a character you want to hate. While admittedly an asshole, he has a soft heart and is not only fucking gorgeous but also cute as a button—and he’s bisexual.

Then there is Karim Diané as Jay-Den Kraag, a Klingon medical student and Star Trek’s first gay Klingon. Diané is a very talented West African-American actor, singer, and songwriter who appeared on The X Factor USA. Though Klingons have never really done it for me, outside of the makeup Diané is also pretty damn good-looking.

There’s also the cute and goofy War College cadet Kyle Jokovic, played by Dale Whibley, who becomes romantically interested in Jay-Den.

Some Star Trek “fans” have complained loudly about the teenage drama—which any school-related series is going to have. These are the same people screaming that Klingons can’t be gay. One of the greatest warriors in human history, Alexander the Great, was gay, and by all accounts he was both a fierce warrior and a compassionate man, much like Jay-Den.

There will always be supposed Star Trek “fans” who get upset over diversity and claim that Star Trek is “woke.” It’s part of why Deep Space Nine was unpopular with some viewers when it first aired because the lead actor, Avery Brooks, was Black. But these same people are missing the entire point of Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a future without prejudice.

Seriously, in the 1960s Roddenberry had a Black woman on the bridge, a Russian as the ship’s navigator, and a Japanese man at the helm. The original Star Trek pushed the envelope on a lot of social issues at the time, and every series since has done the same.

Roddenberry never directly addressed LGBTQ+ subjects, the series of the 1990s did so in limited ways, and Paramount+’s modern Star Trek revival has been openly LGBTQ+ inclusive. Starfleet Academy, in my opinion, is the most LGBTQ+ inclusive yet—and why not? The characters are at the age when many of us first discovered or explored our sexuality.

Alright, I’ve babbled on long enough. My coffee is getting cold and the penultimate episode of the season isn’t going to watch itself. I hope everyone has a great day—now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a trip to Starfleet Academy to get back to.

P.S. I almost forgot to mention the wonderfully queer comedian Tig Notaro as Jett Reno, who is in a relationship with the part Klingon, part Jem’Hadar Lura Thok. The two of them are hilarious together, though Tig can’t help but be funny in anything she does.