On October 14, the Season 2 finale of Star Trek: Lower Bridges airs on Paramount +, and although the show is hailed by some for ‘breaking new ground’ as a sci-fi comedy and mature adult animation, critics often don’t talk about the LGBTQ portrayal at the heart of the show. herself.

Star Trek: lower Bridges, which premiered on the CBS All Access streaming platform (later renamed Paramount +) in August 2020, is the first animated series in the Star Trek franchise since Star Trek: The Animated Series Aired on NBC from 1973 to 1974. It was nominated for three Critics’ Choice Super Awards and an Emmy Award for dubbing, animation and sound editing. The series focuses on low-ranking officers who engage in menial work, rather than the senior officers or captains, who support the characters.

The series has four main characters: Ensigns Beckett Mariner (voiced by Tawny Newsome), Brad Boimler (voiced by Jack Quaid), D’Vana Tendi (voiced by Noël Wells) and Sam Rutherford (voiced by Eugene Cordero). Supporting characters include Carol Freeman (voiced by Dawnn Lewis), Captain of the Cerritos, Mariner’s mother, First Officer Jack Ransom (voiced by Jerry O’Connell), Tactical Officer Shaxs (voiced by Fred Tatasciore) and Medic. -Chief T’Ana (voiced by Gillian Vigman).

Mike McMahan, the creator of Solar opposites and writer and producer of Rick and morty, is the creator and showrunner of the series, while the music is composed by Chris Westlake and Titmouse, Inc. hosts the series. Both series include LGBTQ characters, specifically genderless aliens Korvo and Terry in Solar opposites. Sleepy Gary and Jerry Smith on Rick and morty are queer, with Gary as bisexual and Smith as bisexual or pansexual, as shown in recent episodes.

The ten-episode first season of the series involves crazy adventures ranging from battling a viral infection and terraforming agent on the ship, to retrieving the ship, a surprise party, and a family secret, that Freeman is the mother of. by Mariner. The second season raises the ante, with the divine possession of a crew member, a dangerous mission with a “collector”, a mission to retrieve a “special item” for T’Ana, a crook and a race of beings who duplicate themselves when they are afraid. Other episodes focus on lower decks cleaning up unpredictable anomalies from previous missions, malicious computer AI, crew drills they’re designed to fail, a 12-hour warp, and a risky first contact mission. .

Through it all, Mariner’s odd character is emphasized. In the first season of the series, Captain Amina Ramsey (voiced by Toks Olagundoye) is shown to be buddies with Mariner in the episode “Much Ado About Boimler”, and in the episode “No Small Parts”, she was shown to have dated Steve Levy before. , a lieutenant. She also stated in the episode “Envoys” that she previously dated a humanoid and a female Anabaj to anger her mother. In an October 2020 interview, McMahan confirmed that Ramsey was Mariner’s ex-girlfriend at Starfleet Academy, and said that “every Starfleet officer is probably the base.[,] bisexual ”and hinted that this would be extended in the show’s second season. This meant that by the end of the show’s first season, it was implied that Mariner was bisexual.

However, the Season 2 episode “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris” blew him out of the water. At one point, Mariner tells Tendi that she “always dates bad boys, bad girls, bad gender non-binary girls, ruthless alien brains, [and] bad bynars. As such, it implied that she was pansexual, as some reviewers have noted. Additionally, in the show’s season two finale, Mariner admitted that she loved an alien featuring a female, Jennifer Sh’reyan (voiced by Lauren Lapkus), after Sh’reyan saved her from the dead in the void of space, as the walls of Mariner began to come. down. This has led some fans to speculate that the two could be featured as a couple in the upcoming third season.

There appear to be other LGBTQ characters in Star Trek: Lower Bridges thus, their identity is undoubtedly implicit. On the one hand, Andarithio “Andy” Billups (voiced by Paul Scheer), the chief engineer aboard the Cerritos and Prince of Hysperia, is undoubtedly understood to be asexual. In one episode, “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie,” he has no interest in having sex with the male guardian or the female guardian. In another, in the mock exercise called “Naked Time”, where the entire crew is naked, either kissing or having foreplay, which frightens poor Mariner, he does not participate in no sexual act. The fun part about this last exercise is that apparently they could all see this exercise going on with their own eyes. Now that would have been an interesting scene, although many of them could have been life-marked if they had seen it.

In an interview this month, Quaid said that Boimler could be gay, saying he “won’t rule him out,” and adding that in the Star trek universe, it is an “ambitious future and sexuality is a specter”. This has turned out to be the case with queer characters – for example, Hikaru Sulu, a gay man in various Star Trek movies, while Hugh Culber, who is in a relationship with Paul Stamets in Star Trek: Discovery. This latest series also features Gray Tal, a trans man. Kira Nerys, from the mirror universe, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is bisexual and in a relationship with a woman, Ezri Tigan. This should not be confused with the Kira Nerys in the main universe, who did not have such relationships and had a different sexual orientation. Tigan, meanwhile, also flirts with women other than Nerys from the Mirror Universe. In the same series, Dax is a symbiote who has become an icon for trans people who change their gender. In Star Trek: Picard, Raffi Muskier is the romantic partner of Seven of Nine.

It is likely that Sh’reyan, an Andorian woman, will have a more recurring role in the next season of the series. This can be extrapolated from McMahan’s recent interview with SYFY where he explains how the arc with Sh’reyan started with an ad-lib from Tawny Newsome, with Sh’reyan dismissed in the episode “Cupid’s Wandering Arrow” . Aside from the interaction between Mariner and Sh’reyan in the season two finale and the two briefly crossing paths through many episodes, Sh’reyan is coded as loving women. She is shown kissing Barnes, an ensign, in the simulation “Naked Time”, speaking with an officer, Castro, in the episode “wej Duj”.

Many Mariner shipping fan fictions are biased more toward men, like Boimler and Ransom, and less toward anyone, with these fan fictions shipping Mariner with Boimler, a ship dubbed “Marinler” by fans that is popular on AO3 and Tumblr. These fan fictions are just as valid as those that embark on him with women like Tendi, or those who describe Mariner as in polyamorous relationships, to give two examples. Marinler fans see Mariner and Boimler as more than just friends and buddies. Rather, they see Mariner as Boimler as two romantic people to each other. This perspective is quite understandable based on the interactions between Mariner and Boimler over the course of the series, although other fans, like me, interpret the interactions between Mariner and Boimler as being more platonic. While Marinler fan fictions will undoubtedly continue to thrive and grow, even without a dedicated subreddit, in the fandom as a whole, it is possible that there will be more fan fictions that embark Mariner with non-male characters. After all, McMahan has confirmed that Mariner will be dating Jennifer in the next season of Star Trek: Lower Bridges. McMahan also noted that while the show is “not about Mariner’s romantic relationships,” it rather focuses on how Mariner “sees herself and how she treats her friends and colleagues more than her romantic partners,” according to her. words.

A third season of Star Trek: Lower Bridges is already confirmed and will likely air sometime in 2022. If Mariner has a girlfriend, like Sh’reyan, as suggested in the Season 2 finale, and is shown to explore her identity further during the season , that would mean the series would really be one of the best representations of mature animation for a while. This would far exceed the portrayal embodied by the lesbian protagonist in the mature animation. Final space, named Ash Graven (voiced by Ashly Burch), for whom I gave an overly optimistic (perhaps too optimistic) rating that led to the annoyance of Redditors angry with my “incorrect” rating of the series.

contrary to Final space, which unfortunately was canceled earlier this year due to the merger of Discovery and Warner Media according to Final space creator Olan Rogers, Star Trek: Lower Bridges will continue due to its apparent support from the leadership of ViacomCBS and CBS. As such, the series has the ability to expand its LGBTQ portrayal, outside of Mariner and possibly Billups, to, hopefully, others in the main cast like Tendi, Rutherford or Boimler, or even in the support distribution. However, it doesn’t appear that any of the cast members are part of the LGBTQ community, which is unfortunate.

As such, Star Trek: Lower Bridges has the ability to move mature animation in a more inclusive direction, joining the ranks of ongoing mature animations like The big North, Invincible, RWBY, Disenchantment, Harley quinn, Tuca & Bertie, Bojack Horseman, and gen: LOCK, to name a few, series featuring LGBTQ characters. Although I remain cautiously optimistic that Star Trek: Lower Bridges will do that for LGBTQ representation, I’m not holding my breath as the season might take a different direction and focus on something else.

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