U.S. - The internet has been abuzz with reactions to Star Trek: Picard, the year's most hotly-anticipated spin-off of a spin-off.
Since the original series premiered in 1966, modern science has been unable to calculate the precise number of Star Trek spin-offs, though current estimates are almost as high as the 384 known genders. While spin-offs such as Star Trek: SexyBorg, Star Trek: CommieBabble, and Star Trek: A Little Something For The Gays all had their own dedicated fanbase, none quite captured the universal popularity of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Covering such ground-breaking subject matter as androids exploring human emotions, finding a loophole in the Prime Directive, and androids exploring other human emotions, Next Generation inspired sci-fi television and lewd fan fiction for years to come. Now, after more than twenty-five years off the air, Patrick Stewart is back to reprise his television role as Jean-Luc Picard, the Frenchman with a British accent in the hotly-anticipated Star Trek: Picard.
As always, the new series takes place within the United Federation of Planets, a utopian intergalactic society that apparently exists somehow without the use of non-binary pronouns. In Picard, the title character is a heterosexual cis-gendered white male who, of course, has spent a lifetime leveraging his unearned privilege to achieve a high-ranking position in the military-industrial complex known as "Starfleet." The show also features appearances from several other Next Generation alumni, all of whom just happen to be gendered according to their birth sex, rather than selecting from the 452 other equally valid gender identities.
Along with the familiar cis-gendered faces, Picard introduces a mysterious new character named Dahj, whom we inexplicably know to be a girl, despite nobody taking the time to ask her gender identity. In fact, the whole universe appears to function perfectly fine for some reason without anyone interrupting the story flow to introduce their "they/them" pronouns, express outrage at being misgendered, or yell, "Stunning and Brave!" every time an LGBTQ character enters a room. The notion that a futuristic society could operate so flawlessly without including all 576 unique genders might just stretch the "fiction" in science fiction beyond belief.
Other problematic themes in the series include food replicators that clearly use GMOs, and disagreements wherein nobody is compared to Nazis.