In news with a zero percent chance of surprising anyone, yet another new-era Star Trek series is swirling around the bottom of the proverbial ratings toilet bowl. The creative team running the franchise at Paramount+ either does not understand the viewing audience, the principles the series has always stood for, or has committed itself far more to normalizing deviant sexual behavior than to creating quality storytelling.
Personally, I think it’s the latter. How else can anyone explain Star Trek: Starfleet Academy introducing a gay Klingon character who wears a dress? The very notion flies in the face of everything the Klingon race—a warrior society through and through—stands for. For longtime fans, the idea of a gay Klingon alone already strains credulity. A gay Klingon wearing a dress pushes it two miles over the line.
The show is struggling, to put it mildly, to crack the top ten in the Nielsen Ratings. That failure is definitely hurting the streaming service, which poured eight figures into each episode of Starfleet Academy. But what did Paramount+ expect after allowing a show to soak its characters and plot in left-wing identity politics? The series is packed with bisexuals, lesbians, girl bosses, and other character archetypes modern audiences have grown tired of seeing forced into every franchise.
One plotline in particular has longtime fans blowing smoke out of their ears: the character Klingon Ja-Den. Played by gay actor Karim Diane, the character betrays decades of carefully built lore surrounding the aggressive, war-driven Klingon race. Instead of portraying a warrior like nearly every other Klingon, the show presents Ja-Den as a vegan bird-watcher with two dads.
As soon as Ja-Den arrives at the academy, he starts a same-sex relationship with a human male student. But the writers don’t stop there. They pile on another layer of twisted drama by revealing that Ja-Den also lusts after another male student. The result? A gay love triangle involving a Klingon in a dress. This is what the showrunners think audiences want—or, more accurately, what they believe audiences need in order to further normalize sexual deviancy.
The series adds even more “creative” twists. A jock-type male student swings both ways. A young female character shows up with zero flaws, radiating standard girl-boss energy. Lesbian teachers fill the faculty. The whole mess gets topped off with a captain who refuses to wear shoes and never combs her hair. Nothing says professionalism quite like that.
Then there’s the dialogue. Nearly every line desperately tries to sound like modern-day America rather than a futuristic academy. Writers sprinkle modern slang and curse words throughout the script. In short, the show resembles a soiled diaper that feels nothing like Star Trek.
“Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has consistently failed to make much of a dent in the Nielsen Ratings, rarely—if ever—breaking into the top ten, even as many charting shows have already been on hiatus for months,” Breitbart News reported. “That means shows more than two months old are outperforming brand-new episodes of Starfleet Academy.”
When the first episode aired on YouTube, it attracted only 1,500 live viewers. For a franchise that has existed for six decades, that number is pathetic. To put it in perspective, a live broadcast of a motionless Spock action figure drew triple the viewers.
This hunk of space debris has three episodes left before the first season ends, and nothing suggests improvement is coming. Sadly, Paramount+ already greenlit a second season—and finished filming it—so the network will absolutely air it. With no opportunity for course correction, season two will almost certainly be just as bad as season one.
The takeaway is simple: woke ideology kills franchises.
Editor’s Note: With President Trump back in the White House, the state of our Union is strong once again.
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