Pt. 1 of DISCO series. Contains spoilers.

DISCO is a series of posts, containing my commentary on Star Trek: Discovery. The first few are general notes, then I have episode breakdowns.

DIS. What an awful abbreviation. No, that’s not the reason I’m criticizing the show. I’m criticizing it because I like it. I’m a huge Trekky. And I want to push it to be the best show it can be. When I heard there was a new Star Trek show coming I was so excited, finally a new progressive show, pushing 2017’s boundaries for TV. I had high standards, I expected it to throw off the tropes and stereotypes I’m tired of, and include and put at the center of the story cool, full, diverse people.

Then I heard that the show was going to focused on one character. Uh-oh, I thought. Its going to be a white guy, cis, strait, able, smart, strong… and still have flaws, areas to grow, and interesting. Luckily, my fears where lessened by the previews.

And now it’s hear. I can and will, now judge the show for myself. I liked it. I like Michael Burnham. She is an awesome character. I love, love, love the first two episodes. Just what I would expect from good story telling. I like how the story throws out suggested cannon facts it needs to. A female captain before Kirk? Oh-yeah. But it also has huge downfalls. The biggest of which is the killing of female people of color. I have others, which I will discuss in future posts.  But this is the biggest and most hurtful mistake for the show to make because it devalues the lives of woman of color. Other federation (good guy/main) characters die, but the other characters don’t have names, lines, personalities and don’t even appear in two episodes. Captain Philippa Georgiou and chief of security Ellen Landry are the only main characters to die (as of 2017), are both woman of color. This shows the creations don’t care about the lives of woman of color.

A sample of my other criticisms: the show also continues to interduce men. Why is two or three female characters enough? Why can’t there be more than one woman of color?

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