Shit, I didn’t even know the In&Out Burger actually existed until this thread. I just thought it was a made up franchise from The Big Lebowski. Go figure.
I loved (and still do love) the original ST from the 1960’s, and the feature films. After some initial resistance I started watching TNG and came to think that that show was also quite good. DS9 started to lose me, and as for Voyager, I gave up after two or three episodes. I agree with the comment above that the premise is too constricting, and as for Doctor, couldn’t understand why, if they had a holographic (or whatever he is) physician why they couldn’t also have holographic everyone else.
I used to love the original show, but now? It’s like rereading your old high school diary. What seemed so deep and meaningful and cool back then now makes you say “My GOD, was I really that big a dork?” Shatner’s ham acting, the casual way women were trivialized, the lip service to respecting other cultures while forcing the Federation’s “enlightenment” on them. Ugh.
Still, TOS had it’s points. The stellar scriptwriters (no pun intended), the diversity of aliens depicted, and the attempts, however uneven, at using the shows as a vehicle to examine deeper issues.
The Next Generation? It’s main strength was it’s engaging cast of characters, including Q and the Borg. But very weak scripts; either this week’s technobabble crisis, or a throwaway plot involving one of the character’s personal lives. Still, a few diamonds in the dungheap.
Deep Space Nine: After a weak start, a fascinating arc that over months showed real people dealing with real issues. The best show yet in terms of the Galactic “big picture”.
Voyager: I have to admit, most of it’s episodes are literally forgetable, yet somehow I keep watching. Still, there’s this sad sense of wasted potential.
I would say the episode The Visitor from DS9 is as fine a show as has ever been seen in ANY version of Trek, and damn near as good as anything ever produced for TV.
Voyager, that’s the one that had the bad ratings, so they brought in a broad with great big hooters who wears spandex, right?
Every time I flip past that show, I laugh my ass off. Mrs. danalan like Star Trek, and gets really pissed off at my laughter. But I can’t help it – it’s such an obvious play for ratings.
I’m surprised no one else has mentioned Galaxy Quest – I thought it was a good send-up of the whole Star Trek craze.
matt_mcl, Esprix, how do you reconcile your affection for Star Trek with the fact that, in the Roddenberrian mythos, no one appears to be gay?
And that it’s not just that there haven’t been any homosexual characters. Paramount has even hinted or promised, at least twice, that it would introduce gay characters or reveal them to be gay (Geordi LaForge on TNG and Seven on Voyager). In both cases, it was subsequently made clear that neither character could be gay.
Don’t y’all find that the least bit frustrating?
Of course there have been gay characters (or at least bi characters) on Star Trek. In fact one of the first female/female kisses on primetime television series happened on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine if I am not mistaken (between Jadzia Dax and a former mate now in a female Trill host). There is of course also the mirror universe Kira Nerys who is quite blatantly bi as well. And I personally see it as acceptable that it has only been done on DS9 since I personally see it as the best example of a television series of all time.
Fiver, problem is, not only did Roddenberry do a flip-flop, but things have changed since he passed away. In the very beginning of the franchises (early 80’s, when TNG was first getting off the ground) and gay fandom made several pleas about gay characters, Roddenberry’s response was, basically, that homosexuality had been “cured” by the 24th century (not that this was ever stated on the show, but was what Roddenberry had to say on the subject). Of course, it didn’t stop his somewhat unisex view of the future (if you look closely, there is a male crewman in a background shot on the Enterprise in the first episode, “Farpoint,” wearing a skirted-style uniform). Still, gay fans weren’t happy with that response. But as the series wore on, Roddenberry acquiesced somewhat and said, no, that’s not right, people are more accepting of differences in the future. Still, though, no openly gay characters to be seen.
Then, sadly, Roddenberry died, somewhere towards the end of TNG (the exact date escapes me). And when the mantle was passed on to Berman and that lot, things not-so subtly changed. First, there was the episode regarding the Genii, a genderless society where one member expressed a feeling of “femininity” to Riker, which is seen by their society as forbidden and unnatural. (Seeing any parallels here? Sadly, many, many straight folk who saw the episode didn’t get the metaphor, as unsubtle as it was.) Although the character was given medical treatments to “cure” “her,” it was clearly depicted as the wrong thing to have done. And then, on DS9, as drewcosten pointed out, there was a very visible scene between Jadzia Dax, in a female host, getting back together with a former spouse, also in a female host. The best part about that episode was not a single character saw it as out of the ordinary at all that it happened to be two women; what the problem was that Trill society made it forbidden, with harsh consequences, to return to any aspect of a host’s former life (since the whole point of hosting a symbiont is to ensure it lives several lifetimes, and wasting one by repeating it is anathema to the Trill). In the end, the two women realized the cost of persuing their relationship would be too high.
Are these positive gay characters? Eh, not really. But at least the portrayals of them are not negative; if anything, the characters surrounding them are sympathetic, realizing it is society’s pressure that is causing them harm, and that they, in and of themselves, are completely fine. But moreso, none of these characters were explicitly queer - these were all kind of that subculture of “sci-fi alternasexuality” which you see many, many authors explore when dealing with alien cultures. (Oh, and drewcosten, the Dax kiss was hardly one of the first - if anything, it was a Janey Come Lately. I might recommend to you a book by my very dear friend Steve Capsuto entitled Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television, 1930s to the Present. He details quite thoroughly the first controvertial kisses on television, and he and I have had this conversation many times. 
)
The best representation so far has, indeed, been the alternate universe portrayals, not only Kira, but Rom’s wife Lyta as well. Nice curveballs thrown in in those episodes, and, although alternate universe beings they be (and baddies at that), it was very well done. (IMHO, women are still “safe” to make lesbian or bisexual - the real breakthrough will be when they get around to giving Will on Will & Grace not only a boyfriend, but one that he kisses onscreen and means it.)
Was Geordi supposed to be gay? Seven lesbian? (Do I even need to ask about Harry? Puh-lease - we’ve all heard the “I have a girlfriend back on Earth” excuse before! 
) Maybe, maybe not. Would it be nice? It’d be great! But I’m not holding my breath - for all the ground-breaking work Star Trek has done in the past (for example, the first onscreen interracial kiss was between Kirk and Uhuru), sometimes it shys away from the stuff it’s supposed to be commenting on, for as many reasons as you can guess exist. But time will tell. In the meantime, I like what it says about humanity in general, not just the queer experience.
Esprix
Sorry, my mistake. You can tell I don’t pay much attention to the majority of television (just the Star Trek, X-Files, and Buffy universes, although that makes at least 8 shows to watch). 
I’m aware of all the episodes you’ve referred to, Esprix, and what I’m trying to understand is why they don’t just make you more frustrated.
Starting with the Trills. Remember the first time we met the Trills and their symbionts? It was on TNG; a Trill was onboard the Enterprise and died; his symbiont was put into Riker temporarily, and he and Dr. Crusher fell in love.
Then a new Trill host arrived, the symbiont was implanted, and Beverly was excited to meet her lover’s new face: until she saw it was female. They resolved the episode clumsily with the old sop “how can I love someone who changes so much” or some crap like that, but the fact that they cut to a commercial right when Beverly first saw the female host and her face fell, made the subtext clear: this can’t work BECAUSE they’re the same sex now.
The Dax episode you mentioned was really just the flip side of that: “it’s okay if these two women kiss, because they’re really a man and a woman inside.”
And as for alterna-Kira: she was so clearly a product of the Joe Eszterhaus/Sharon Stone/“Basic Instinct” school of “bi or lesbian women are vampy, campy and eeeevil,” I’m astonished you can see that as progress.
There’s been a weasel factor in all the cases brought up; room for the audience and producers to say “well, not really.” Does it really not bother you at all that Star Trek seems incapable of showing Starfleet or Federation personnel who just happen to play for the other team? That there hasn’t been an offhand gay relationship on the same order as Picard/Vash or Worf/Troi, or even Neelix/Kes?
My best friend and former roommate, who is gay, but not a Trekkie, came home all excited three or four years ago because he’d read in the local gay paper that Seven was going to be “brought out.” I knew better, and was sad for him. As long as the popularity of the franchise is driven by insecure teenage boys, it’s not gonna happen.
And this is a problem because…?
Accepting homosexuality doesn’t mean that everyone has to automatically be bisexual.
If Dr Crusher had been portrayed as a lesbian in all her other relationships, and had fallen in love with a Trill in a female host, and then was shocked and disappointed when the new host was male it would be the same thing - but it reads here like you wouldn’t be outraged by that.
The man who was her lover is dead. The woman who has his memories is fundimentally different. She’s a woman. Beverly - judging from all previous relationships we know about (Westley’s father, Picard, this Symbiant’s former host) is heterosexual. Therefor, the sexual chemestry is gone - or at least severely reduced. While the person (A different person, BTW) might still be good as a friend - a romantic/sexual relationship wouldn’t work.
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Fiver
Oh, don’t get me wrong - it does frustrate me. But I like Star Trek for the whole of it, not just because I’m hoping someday they’ll have an openly gay character on the show. Bottom line is, people are accepted for who they are, and generally people seem to go beyond tolerance of differences to outright celebration (I reference Riker spending time as an officer on a Klingon ship). No, this hasn’t been directly dealt with in a queer context (although the above references indirectly do), and I long for the day they are, but until then, I’d still rather live in the Star Trek universe than my own.
As pointed out, Bev ain’t lez, so it wouldn’t work. Not an issue to me. And I don’t think her excuse was a cop-out at all - it was the truth.
Perhaps, but I think it was the other characters’ reactions to their relationship that made the episode strong, at least to me.
Heh, you really do need to read the book I referenced earlier - his summation of lesbians of 70’s television was that they were all man-hating murderers. But campy or not, it was still a nice twist to the character, IMHO.
You’re right - this issue has not been tackled head-on as Star Trek should, as it has in the past. And although “insecure teenage boys” may or may not be their demographic, pressure from the long-time fans has its own weight, as Paramount knows they are the ones that drive the series, and trust me, queer fandom continues to encourage them to present openly queer characters. I think one of the problems is Berman et al. have the mindset of, “Oh, well, in the 24th century, nobody cares, everybody accepts it, so it wouldn’t make sense to focus on it,” which is the curse of the invisibility of the queer community sometimes - because we can blend in, people assume that, well, we do, so why show it?
Perhaps the next series…
Esprix
Point taken re: the Beveryly/Trill episode.
Esprix:
Although the same argument could be made about racism or sexism, and that didn’t keep us from having episodes like DS9’s Benny Russell story or TOS’s “Let That Be Your Final Battlefield” or even TNG’s (shudder) “Angel One.” Homophobia is the elephant in the living room of social issues Trek has ignored.
I know, I know, when you’re dying of thirst in a desert, you don’t care if the water’s dirty. Still, it stinks.
Like I said, TOS was far more “social justice” oriented than its ancestors - this is what die-hard original series lovers complain most about, that the series went from “hard-hitting” to “sci-fi pap.”
Esprix