Star Trek: Discovery Spoilers!!!

[ISaySteadyOn]

First glimpse of Starfleet officers in the first fifteen minutes are two women, a captain and a first officer. Not only that, but the first thing they talk about is if they are lost or not. Seems a good start so far.

With all the bad news going round, I just wanted to share something good.

In other words, in the first fifteen minutes, it shows two women in high positions and passes the Bechtel test.

It does pass Bechdel from the off, and incredibly refreshing to see 2 women (and women of colour no less) in senior positions and their sex is not the issue. I also appreciated the contrast between the 2 senior officers (female) commenting "and what does the soldier in you say?" (paraphrasing - but it indicated Capt Georgiou a military background) and later a junior officer (male) asking "why are we fighting? We're explorers not soldiers".

I'm still on the fence about it on the whole..... just listening to the feminist freqcast on the first 2 episodes and they are making some excellent points about essentialist racism portrayed. Plus LtC Burnham isn't exactly in anyone's good books by the end of ep 2, and very sad they SPOILER killed off Michelle Yeoh so quickly!

I am reserving judgement and looking forward to the next eps though.

Not massive in the grand scheme of things, but DP pointed out - the women's uniform boots aren't high heels! I always thought it was stupid that all the women were in heels and Kira / B'Elanna would have chosen much more practical shoes.

I have only seen half of episode 1 and I just got so enthusiastic about the two women. And dammit, I:suspected Michelle Yeoh's character would die and was already grumpy about that as I would completely have watched a show with her as Captain.

I'm so annoyed Michelle Yeoh has been killed off.
The relationship between the two leads was fantastic and would have made a great show to watch. i think Yeoh brought a gravitas to the whole thing which I think will be lacking with just Burnham

Argh sorry for spoilering you! She was billed as 'guest star' though.

It is annoying that they start of pushing the female lead thing, just to kill one off and replace her (presumably) with Jason Isaacs. I feel mislead!

We all watched the other night. Even watched the 'After Trek' after show talk show thing.

Jason Isaacs is going to be the new Captain. Don't think this is a spoiler, we saw a trailer during the football last night.

Anyway, thumbs up from us so far.

On a similar note, has any watched any of Orville? I was fully prepared to hate it, but I thought it was actually quite good, especially episode 3 which was a very Trek worth ethical dilemma based on sexism.

I think I read on 'A Mighty Girl' ages ago that the lead was going to be a female First Officer. Like, it's the first time the Captain isn't the main character.

I quite like that.

I guessed from the credits. Rats, rats, rats though. I was hoping that it was because Burnham was going to command the Enterprise and Giorgiou would stay on the Shenzhou and pop up to offer mentor ly wisdom every so often.

I am with you all how great it is to see two female leads, but

• one of them is killed off very soon, and from what other posters say, replaced by a male character
• apart from the leads, there seems to be only one other female character on the bridge so far (and she has not really said anything yet)
• so that means even 300 years in the future the 50:50 sex representation is not achieved
• all or nearly all of the Klingons seem to be male, if they have male/female sexes at all, who knows !

And what seriously annoys me in many many current films / TV series - every female character is perfectly groomed and made up, even in the most challenging situation. I mean, just back from the sick bay, defending the ship, but the lipstick and eye make-up is perfectly applied ? How realistic is this ?

Hang on, are we completely sure that Giorgiou is dead? Her body was not brought back after all.

Klingons do indeed have males and females, the latter being if anything more aggressive. (nerd hat)

When Battlestar Galactica was filmed, all of the crowd scenes had 50:50 F:M and a range of different races. All the time. As if it were natural & normal.

And a female civil leader, & male military, as well as 2 top pilots, one male, one female.

Not hard to do.

Patricia is right. There are definitely female Klingons. There was a wonderful scene in Next Gen where Worf explains Klingon courting.

No, I agree, Kickass that it isn't hard to do. It just struck me. I've never seen Battlestar Galactica though.

I think one of the Klingons was female, but since it was the heads of the ancient houses they would normally be male (see random DS9 episode where Quark marries a Klingon woman?). Though of course, that's a stupidly patriarchal concept in itself.

Hope you don't mind me joining the debate.
I really loved the two leads in the opening episodes. But I will be interested to see how they split the main characters on the new ship Discovery. From the short clip they showed on 'Next Trek' It did look like there were other female characters too.

I did find it much darker than previous series, which i think can only be a good thing.

Enid yes the hair thing was pointed out in the feminist frequency podcast! Although even though it is less tamed in ep3 it still looks styled to me, I’m no expert on black hair though. One of those eternal space mysteries, how the women generally manage to maintain impeccable hair and makeup. Whenever Janeway’s updo came a bit loose, that’s when you knew Voyager was in real trouble .

Was slightly bummed in ep3 when it was pointed out how unusual Michael was as a female name, I know giving female characters male names is the Bryan Fuller’s ‘thing’, but I was kinda hoping that by the 23rd century we’d be beyond that!

The hair thing is more to do with her upbringing and current mental staight.

She grew up with foster parents (Spocks mum and dad) trying to fit in on an alien planet. When we first see her, her appearance/hair/behaviour is typically vulcan.

She meets the Klingons and all that goes to shit. 20 tears of supressed emotion/starts a war etc. So now we are seeing the emotional, broken side of her which is reflected in her more human, natural appearance.

I like that they appear to have a female character with autism. Whilst Autistic people are still massively under represented on TV, all the ones that do exist tend to be male (and fit the ‘savant’ stereotype). I think some female representation is great to get rid of the idea that only boys can have autism.

One of the many strengths of Star Trek has been its ability to relate fiction to the politics of the real world.

I found the first two episodes interesting in that the Federation's approach was shown as not always the right one. They did not understand that Klingons require battle for respect. Not death, battle.