Those of you who’ve read my previous articles on the women of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, may have guessed that I’m kind’ve a sucker for romance. It’s true. I love romantic subplots, I get really excited about specrom books, I’m happiest as a writer when I’m working on UST-laden dialogue, and I’ve even been known to read the occasional mainstream Harlequin publication.

I do love a good romance - but, correspondingly, I loathe bad romance plots with the … READ MORE

I’ve been watching the DVD extras for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and they have interviews with the makeup artist who creates all the funky looks for various species of aliens on that show. He refers often to conversations in which the producers tell him they’ve hired a “pretty girl”, so he needs to “keep her pretty”. So he’ll do just a little forehead ridge or some wrinkly stuff at the bridge of the nose, or … READ MORE

Revena has written several articles profiling the women of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, which I highly recommend. But having just finished the entire series on DVD, I want to chime in and say a little something about the series overall:

This is one of the very best series I have ever seen in terms of the portrayal of women. Off the top of my head, the only other show I can think of to contend with it is … READ MORE

I haven’t finished watching Star Trek: Voyager yet, but there is one problem that’s bugged me from the start. Janeway was the first female captain to have her own show in the Trek franchise. So what do they do in the very first episode? Give her a male co-pilot in the form of Chakotay, a Starfleet trained renegade captain whose ship crew must be integrated into Voyager’s if both crews are to survive.

Technically he’s her first officer. But let’s … READ MORE

In Stargate DVD commentaries, Peter Deluise described the short-lived Season Four character Anise/Freya as an attempt to replicate the popularity of Star Trek: Voyager’s Seven of Nine. He described both characters as “sexy female aliens” brought in to ramp up ratings among young male viewers. Then, he said, they decided their ratings were fine as they were, and they dumped Anise after a few episodes.

Let’s examine what Anise and Seven have in common so we may gain greater … READ MORE

This post contains spoilers through the early fourth season of Star Trek: Voyager.

When I first started watching Star Trek: Voyager on DVD, I found I really liked Kes (Jennifer Lien). She was unfailingly kind and good and innocent and brilliant and all that Mary Sue stuff, but it worked for two reasons: the character’s background supported those traits, and Jennifer Lien played her part very low-key. Then the character developed: she chose to become The Doctor’s assistant, she … READ MORE

This is the third in a (sporadically updating) series of articles, following “Jadzia’s Gender,” and “Leeta’s Love Life.”

Miles and Keiko O’Brien are right up there near the top of my List of Favorite Sci-Fi Married Couples, and have been for ages. I think the actors who portray the two characters - Colm Meaney and Rosalind Chao, respectively - have a really believable on-screen chemistry, and the writers on both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine have done a … READ MORE

I’ve been watching Star Trek Voyager on DVD recently, and after I’ve seen it all I’ll probably do a series of articles on several of the female characters. But for now, I want to comment on one thing that’s standing out for me:

Of all the cultures Voyager’s crew meets in the Delta Quadrant, not one of them has been a matriarchy.

Maybe the writers feel having a female Federation Captain just isn’t interesting unless her gender is perpetually at odds … READ MORE

I’ve been watching Star Trek: Voyager on DVD lately, and a single line of dialog has been stuck in my head for days. It’s a scene in which Q comments to Captain Janeway that she’s so authoritative but still manages to preserve her femininity. Now, Q is needling her at the time, so I’m not sure whether this reflects the view of the writers or merely the view of an antagonistic character. But it reflects a view … READ MORE

I want to continue with my series about the female characters of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (see the previous article, “Jadzia’s Gender,” here) without too much of a gap between articles, but, of course, I’ve been insanely busy for the last few weeks, and haven’t had any time to do the prep work for another article, much less write one.

So I’m gonna cheat a little bit, and write about Leeta (played by Chase Masterson). This is easy, because … READ MORE