Lost “Star Trek” Episode Breaches Final “Gay” Frontier
Warning: this article contains mild spoilers.
The most alien creature in the Star Trek universe? An openly gay person, none of whom have been seen in more than forty years of official Star Trek movies and TV spin-offs.
But the USS Enterprise will be at least a little gayer this Saturday when Peter Kirk, the openly gay nephew of Captain James T. Kirk, and his boyfriend set foot on board the starship.
No, this isn’t a storyline in any upcoming series sanctioned by CBS, which currently own the rights to the Star Trek TV franchise, nor is it part of J.J. Abrams “reboot” of Paramount’s Star Trek movie franchise coming in May. As far as we know, all the “official” Star Trek projects on the horizon remain steadfastly gay-free.
This storyline is part of an independent online project called Star Trek: Phase II, which imagines a “fourth” season of the original series using new actors in the classic roles of Kirk and company. CBS and Paramount allow such “fan” projects, providing they’re not moneymaking operations.
Jonathan Zungre as Lt. Chekov, James Cawley as Captain Kirk, Ben Tolpin as Mr. Spock, Jay Story as Transporter Chief Kyle
The three existing episodes of Phase II, one of which starred Star Trek actor George Takei, have already been downloaded more than thirty million times.
The new “gay” episode, “Blood and Fire”, will be released in two parts. The first part is available for free download this coming Saturday on the show's website, and Part 2 will be released in February.
The episode, provided exclusively to AfterElton.com for preview, is professional in its execution — not surprising given that the project uses some of the original Star Trek sets and that many veterans from the actual movies and series have donated their talents to the project.
Indeed, “Blood and Fire” was co-written and directed by David Gerrold, the out gay writer of the classic “The Trouble with Tribbles” Star Trek episode and a writer and associate producer on the first Star Trek spin-off, Star Trek: The Next Generation. “Blood and Fire” was originally written for that series, with the strong support of series creator Gene Roddenberry, and it was intended as a metaphor for AIDS.
But at the time, television executives and the show’s producers balked at the inclusion of two minor gay characters. “We treated them like they were really good friends,” Gerrold says of that original script. “But someone does ask them: 'How long have you been together?' Well, a few people in the office went ballistic! A memo came down that said, 'We don't want to risk the franchise by having mommies calling the station because they saw gay people on Star Trek.'"
Peter Kirk (Bobby Rice) and Alex Freeman (Evan Fowler)
James Cawley, the executive producer of Phase II who also plays James T. Kirk in the project, knew about the rejected script. When he contacted Gerrold, the Star Trek veteran was enthusiastic to adapt his old script for the project, working with Phase II writer Carlos Pedraza to make it more relevant to today.
In Part 1, the Enterprise receives a “distress call” from another starship. En route to the source of the call, we meet a new Enterprise crewmember, Captain Kirk’s nephew, Peter (played by Bobby Rice, an actor from another gay-friendly Star Trek online fan series called Star Trek: Hidden Frontier).
Bobby Rice as Peter Kirk and Evan Fowler as Alex Freeman
But there’s tension between Peter and his famous uncle, who is determined to keep him out of harm’s way, even if it means treating him differently than the other crewmembers. Eventually, Peter reveals the real reason he requested a stint on the Enterprise: to be near his boyfriend, Alex Freeman (Evan Fowler). When the couple make plans to marry, Kirk agrees to officiate, but only “after the away mission” — which may or may not bode well for the future of this relationship.
“The episode isn’t about ‘being gay,’” Cawley says. “It’s about family tensions and a lot of other things.”
Still, the gay couple does share several kisses and a surprisingly steamy bedroom encounter (which begins with a cheeky homage to recent Phase II guest star George Takei when one of the two men climbs on back of the other, covering his eyes and asking, “Guess who?” “Mr. Sulu?” the other answers. “You wish!” the first responds).
The gay elements are interwoven nicely into the plot and don’t feel forced or part of a “very special episode”. The couple is accepted by the crew as something perfectly normal though at one point Captain Kirk does ask another crewmember if he was the only one who hadn't known about Peter.
Furthermore, the portrayal of Peter and Alex's romantic relationship is treated no differently than any of the dozens of heterosexual relationships the various Star Trek incarnations have included over the decades. Indeed, the storyline is incorporated so naturally as to make the “official” Trek's inexcusable lack of gay characters even more obvious.
Eventually, the Enterprise discovers that the ship sending the distress call has been ravaged by something called “bloodworms,” which quickly infect all those on the away mission too. Meanwhile, Kirk and those back on the Enterprise are left to wrestle with the uncomfortable implications of a contagious, fatal disease that was previously thought to be contained.
Lt. Freeman and Lt. DeSalle (Ron Boyd)
Denise Crosby, who played Tasha Yar in Next Generation, appears in Part 2 of “Blood and Fire”. In addition to Takei, Walter Koenig, another actor from the original series, guested on an earlier episode of Star Trek: Phase II. The episode in which Takei starred was nominated for a Hugo Award.
“Blood and Fire” looks and sounds a lot like one of the original Star Trek episodes, but with much better special effects and a much more contemporary feel. Star Trek: Phase II underplays its portrayals of characters such as Kirk and Spock, so famously portrayed by iconic actors William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.
Cawley does a particularly good job with his “re-creation” of James T. Kirk; wisely, he doesn’t do a distracting, full-fledged imitation, choosing instead to do something that is merely reminiscent of Shatner’s portrayal (and one that is probably more understated than Shatner’s).
James Cawley as Captain Kirk
Still, in another very funny bit, which is so “meta” it makes your head hurt, Peter Kirk imitates the much-mocked inflections of Captain Kirk.
“It’s a deadly serious story,” Cawley says,”but David [Gerrold] wanted it to have that humor that Star Trek is famous for.”
But the most refreshing aspect of the episode is definitely its long-overdue integration of gay characters into the Star Trek universe (though, sadly, gay fashion sense has declined dramatically since the 23rd century, with Peter Kirk appearing in a jumper in one scene that is almost surreally ugly).
Better still, Cawley plans to make Peter an ongoing character in the online series. In addition to the two-part “Blood and Fire” episode, the character appears, with gay-related storylines, in two more episodes that have already been filmed and are currently being edited. They will also be released in 2009.
"Star Trek in the 1960s wasn’t afraid to show half-naked women, different races working together, challenges to the Vietnam War,” says Cawley. “You look at those stories, they were ballsy. But Star Trek hasn’t had the guts they had in the 1960s to have a gay character. They should have been the first science fiction series to do this, but they weren’t.”