punkrockspock

As a result, where Star Trek has a lot of the time been the first, pushing the boundaries, Star Trek was instead the last. A gay character was not introduced until 2017 and this, here, is the first time ever someone has said that they’re gay on screen in a Star Trek series. 2019.

So fuck Rick Berman. Fuck him and his homophobic, reactionary ass.

So yeah, he’s a misogynist as well as a homophobe. He’s the worst.

He was also a major reason why Wil Wheaton left TNG, which you can hear more about on his episode of the Mission Log Podcast:

While I’m at it, I may as well mention a couple specific instances of Berman’s homophobia:

- He told Andrew Robinson (Garak) to “tone down” his portrayal when it became clear that he was flirting with Bashir. In later seasons of DS9, their screentime together is significantly reduced and they were both given female love interests, presumably because the producers couldn’t risk people thinking they could be gay.

- When Kate Mulgrew (Janeway) pushed for a gay character on Voyager, Berman said “In due time” and then never followed through. He had no intention of ever creating a gay character on Star Trek, despite support from several actors.

- A script was written for an episode of TNG called “Blood and Fire”, which was supposed to be an AIDS metaphor and have 2 minor, background gay characters. Berman shot it down, and it was never filmed.

But who shot down that idea? Yeah, you guessed it.