The panels are out and questions have been answered (to some degree or another). Since things were pre-taped, there’s an odd balance of what’s revealed and what’s not, but let’s get to the takeaways from shows we love.
- Star Trek: Lower Decks
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While not outwardly, openly, queer, the show runners have been public that they needed to be more overt and better at:
You also just mentioned something about Mariner that I didn’t really pick up on during the show: Her friend, Capt. Amina Ramsey, was her lover when they were at the Academy?
Yeah. We weren’t explicit about it, because most of the relationships in this show are familial or friendship love. It’s not physical love. That character showing up, the story we’re telling about them has nothing to do with any previous relationships they’ve had. For me and for the writers as we were making this, we didn’t intentionally mean for anybody to be strictly heteronormative or straight or cis. Every Starfleet officer is probably at the baseline bisexual, in a way. That being said, I am not the most amazing person at writing those kind of stories. I think we get a little bit better about it in the second season.
You’re right that no one on the show is exactly explicitly straight, but no one is explicitly LGBTQ either. It sounds like that’s something you’re digging into more for Season 2?
It is. It’s something I think we need to be better about. If there’s anything I can say about inclusiveness — whether it’s about sex or gender or race or anything — is that I know that I can always learn more and be better about it, and I’m always trying to do that. This is one of those cases where we could have done a better job of explicitly stating the things that the writers always knew about Mariner. It seeps in there in little ways, which even irritates me even more, like you start off the season with Mariner saying, “Whoa, she’s like the hottest girl on the ship, are you nervous?” — that’s one of her first lines. That doesn’t put a stake in the ground, which I wish we had done a little bit more explicitly. It’s always a learning experience. We’re going to be trying to be better about it. And we are more explicit about it in the second season.
Variety: ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ EP Mike McMahan On That TNG Cameo and LGBTQ Characters in Season 2Now that said, I (the LezResident Trekkie Nerd) won’t add Mariner or Ramsey to the site until there’s actually something explicit. I expect to be able to add the show with Season Two and, with that in mind, here’s the trailer for the silliest, most fun Star Trek series to date:
- Motherland: Fort Salem
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Our wild and messy witches are still in the middle of everything confusing and complicated. From the show, we know Tally’s been de-Biddied, but that it also left lasting scars on our perpetual exclamation point (who is now a question mark). Tally has more and more questions about what all this means.
Anacostia is falling out of love with Alder, as it were, also questioning what the goal is and which is the right side. Working with Scylla is making her question more and more, as it should!
Of course, our ship
#rayllais still up in everyone’s mind. Amalia says that Rae and Scylla are endgame (in her heart) but that Scylla has a lot of explaining and apologizing to do. Taylor knows that Rae has a lot of growing to do, and learning how to love herself. - Doctor Who
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The queerness is complicated here, but I will throw-down anyone who tries to tell me that the Doctor isn’t queer. Gender is sort of meaningless to the Doctor.
The Doctor (JODIE WHITTAKER) Yasmin Khan (MANDIP GILL), Dan (JOHN BISHOP) – Doctor Who _ Season 13 – Photo Credit: James Pardon/BBC Studios/BBC America Anyway. New season, new companion, same Doctor, same shenanigans.
- Legends of Tomorrow
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It’s a wedding! I can’t believe Sara “slept my way through time” Lance has the nerve to wear white, but there you are. Wedding crashers, bowling, twisted Clue, magic mushrooms, and John Constantine’s bad decisions will follow us for the rest of the season!
The cool news is more and more of the cast are getting to direct! Which is how Jess came around to direct the bowling episode (I didn’t think I could love her more and there we are). They’re also talking about what they’d like to see. Wes Anderson directing is one, jump to the future, or a Moulin Rogue episode. That is extra hilarious since Caity and Jess want to do it, but neither can really sing.
Of course, Jess wants to do a rap ala Hamilton, while alien Gary beatboxes. What about a Boogie Nights episode with Nate as Dick Diggler and Gary as Burt Reynolds. Ships people like? GaAvaLance (Gary + Ava + Sara Lance) and Spoonstra (Spooner + Astra) both are amusing, but I’ll go for Spoonstra. sorry, Gary, but I ship Garantine (Gary + Constantine).
I do have to disagree, though. Gus is not cuter than Beebo, and would not win a fight.
Anyway, there are some serious spoilers if you watch, especially about weddings, people leaving and coming, and basically how weird season 7 is going to be.
- The Walking Dead / Fear the Walking Dead / The Walking Dead: The World Beyond
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The Walking Dead universe contracts and expands. While we’re all still a little iffy on the show (seriously they killed off too many queers).
On Fear, cast member Alycia Debnam-Carey will make her directorial debut in Season 7, but Isabelle will be back!
What ComicCon@Home 2021 panels did you watch and what do you think?
