Star Trek goes gay?

From syfyportal, "Writing a script and getting it produced when you're already on staff of a television show seems like it would be simple enough. But for David Gerrold -- the man behind one of "Star Trek's" most popular episodes "The Trouble With Tribbles" -- it was a voyage that was not five years, or even 10.

"The script was written as a promise," Gerrold recently told AfterElton. That script was "Blood and Fire," and was intended for the first season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" that is now celebrating its 20th anniversary.

The story itself is classic Star Trek. The crew encounters a mysterious alien infection somewhat analogous to AIDS, and has to find a way to combat it before it's too late. But it wasn't the story that Paramount Television -- which was producing TNG -- had a problem with. It was a couple of characters that Gerrold had written into the script.

"There was a subtext that they were gay, but we treated them like they were really good friends," Gerrold said. "But someone does ask them, 'How long have you been together?' Well, a few people in the office went ballistic. A memo came down that said, 'We don't want to risk the franchise by having mommies calling the station because they saw gay people on Star Trek."
The mommies better arm their phones, because 20 years later, gay people are coming to Star Trek, even if it's the kind of Star Trek created by the fan-film "Star Trek: New Voyages."I knew about the script and the story, and I approached David with an idea of using it in our series," said James Cawley, the executive producer for "New Voyages." "A few of the original elements were kept intact but changes to make it relevant to 2001 as opposed to 1987."

The characters also were adjusted to serve on Kirk's Enterprise rather than Picard's, with one of them actually being a nephew of Capt. Kirk himself.

"I really feel this is something Gene Roddenberry wanted to do," Cawley said. "He had promised there would be gay characters. That was the episode that was going to deliver. They never had the guts to tackle the issue, which is a shame. If we don't pick up this torch, it's never going to happen."

"New Voyages" producers -- who have garnered the attention of the Roddenberry family as well as former actors and crew members from the real Star Trek franchises -- claim more than 30 million downloads of its previous three episodes. It has by far become the poster child for successful fan productions, and acts as a continuation of the original "Star Trek" series using intricately re-created sets and professional actors.

The original series was known to tackle very taboo issues, something that many fans were disappointed when those types of messages didn't continue into more modern series. Cawley told AfterElton that he wanted to go back to that original mindset.

"Producers did not want to address homosexuality in Star Trek even though the original series talked about race and war and drugs and hippie culture," Cawley said. "All the subsequent shows have been adventures in space. We have dared to [do] something that the franchise holders would never do. We are including an openly gay couple [on] the Enterprise, showing the world that it is a totally acceptable thing ... in the future. The prejudice and the bias will be gone."

Actors Bobby Rice and Evan Fowler will play the two characters, Peter Kirk and Lt. Alex Freeman. While Rice expressed the fact that he's already a fan of the series, the 22-year-old Fowler admits that he's new to the Trek universe.

"The more I ask people about Star Trek, the more I hear about the social undertones regarding race and social issues," he said. "The original script was very realistic but a little docile. The new one is up a notch, and the issues it tackles are even more prevalent today than when we wrote the original."

At one point, Gerrold adapted the unused script into a novel into his Star Wolf series, winning both a Nebula and a Hugo. Unfortunately, however, it was how Paramount treated this script back in TNG days that pushed him and his talent away from the series.

"I walked away disappointed at the stories that weren't going to be told," Gerrold said. "I wanted to recreate the spirit of the original series. The episode where you are up against some terrible threat [and] as long as you were fighting it and seeing [it] as an enemy, you were going the wrong way. The only way [to succeed] was to stop resisting and learn how to be friends."
No release date for "Blood and Fire" has been issued. For more coverage of the "Star Trek: New Voyages" production, check out AfterElton's full story by clicking here.