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Star Trek has a black hole of queer love, but out actors hint at hope
(from left) Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura and Melissa Navia as Ortegas in season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Out actors Jess Bush, Melissa Navia, and Celia Rose Gooding on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds share their hopes for more LGBTQ+ representation and for a better future.
Fans can expect to see action, drama, romance, mystery, parody, and even zombies in the third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, streaming on Paramount+ on Thursday. But sadly, after a nearly two-year wait since season 2's cliffhanger, the only sexual action these space travelers find in the final frontier are of the stereotypical boy-meets-girl variety.
Actress Jess Bush, who plays nurse Christine Chapel and identifies as queer, told Out last week she would be all for having LGBTQ+ couples hook up in the series. “I would love for our show to represent queer love on screen,” Bush said. “I think that that would be wonderful!”
And Bush, who spoke with Out during a break from filming the second half of season 4 in Toronto, hinted that LGBTQ+ fans may see themselves represented as lovers in a future episode. “I can't say too much, because I don't want to reveal anything,” the Australian actress teased.
Chapel did have one line in the first season of Strange New Worlds in which she acknowledged having dated a woman in her past, which many queer fans took that to mean the character is bisexual in this iteration. By contrast, nothing about Majel Barrett's portrayal of the character in the original series, filmed in the late 1960s, would suggest Chapel was anything but straight.
In fact, LGBTQ+ representation in Star Trek has been as rare as gold-pressed latinum. Over its nearly 60 years of TV episodes and movies, the iconic franchise has almost exclusively stuck to cis-het romances, with rare exceptions:
Paramount+ announced this summer that Strange New Worlds will be canceled, too, after a five-episode fifth season.
One thing Star Trek fans can always count on, however, is its enduring message that we will survive the struggles of today’s world and can hope for a better tomorrow, where everyone is accepted for who they are.
“There's still darkness. There's still war. There's still all the same things that humanity grapples with today,” said Melissa Navia, who portrays the Starship Enterprise’s pilot. “But at the heart of that, we see the best of what humanity can be when we work together.”
Navia has spoken openly about how she personally embraces the queer energy and gender fluidity of her character, fan favorite Erica Ortegas, without feeling the need for a label. Given the mounting attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, Out asked her last week how the show’s inclusive message still resonated and what lessons can be learned.
“It's our differences that make us stronger,” she said. “And it seems so basic and universal, and yet it seems that people on a fundamental level miss that or fight that for all sorts of reasons. Star Trek, at its core, [says] that it's our differences that make us stronger, and without embracing that, we are not going to reach the future that we want, and the future that is Star Trek.”
Navia’s other out queer costar, Celia Rose Gooding, pointed to the message in “Keep Us Connected,” a song the actress belted out in the season 2 musical episode, “Subspace Rhapsody.”
“Our differences, our diversity is what keeps us connected,” Gooding told Out, and then cited a phrase that the original TV show established as the basis for Vulcan philosophy many generations ago. “‘Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations’ is, I think, a core quality of Trek, and I think our present 2025 world could learn a lot from that.”
Gooding plays Nyota Uhura, the talented communications officer, who this season grows in confidence while also growing out her closely cropped hair. Uhura also explores a cis-het romance with a guy, and this does not sit well with Ortegas. Because, at least for now, this is where the series is not-so-boldly going.
But the crew does have fun and exciting adventures along the way. See for yourself as season three of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams on Paramount+ starting Thursday.
Below, check out the Strange New Worlds junket, which also includes interviews with Babs Olusanmokun, who plays Dr. Jospeh M'Benga, about the respect he has for his queer costars, as well as newcomer Martin Quinn, an actual Scotsman who plays Montgomery Scott, a.k.a. “Scotty,” about what he wore under his kilt and why he hated wearing it so much.
