Lillyan Ratcliffe has degrees in history and Library Information Sciences. She is a newish Trekkie, but she's enthusiastic about seeing the franchise become even more diverse and inclusive.
As Picard airs its last episodes, fans are saying goodbye to beloved characters, yet one of the most important—Tasha Yar—is missing from the series except as a fleeting image in Data’s memory. Even though she originally died in the…
Deep Space Nine premiered thirty years ago. Although it divided fans as it was very different from prior Trek, the evolution of the Ferengi from semi-feral aliens to a species that was meant to satirically reflect the audience is widely…
Star Trek is well-known for creating positive representation of diverse characters, yet early Trek seems to have an odd prejudice against the Irish, with beloved Irish engineer Miles O’Brien not seeing most of his character development until Deep Space Nine.…
Star Trek has often been ground breaking, whether that meant having an ethnically diverse cast, promoting peaceful protest, advocating birth control, or discussing many other taboo subjects. Yet one area where Trek noticeably lagged behind for decades was in its…
Star Trek often suffers when adding romantic plotlines, sometimes resulting in a rotating line up of “Love Interest of the Week” or “Villain Seducing Lead” if not pairing off characters who do not compliment each other. Then there are the…
“Threshold” from Voyager manages to be simultaneously famous and infamous. Famous for the body horror make-up, including Tom Paris’ tongue falling out of his mouth, and infamous for the transformation of Paris and Janeway into ‘space salamanders’ who then have…
Star Trek may have started out as stand alone episodes, as most TV series of the era were, then followed the trend of serialized storytelling, but Trek also calls back to previous series, whether by expanding on hinted at stories…
Star Trek has had many memorable guest stars over its various iterations. Some were one shot characters who only had one appearance, such as David Ogden Stiers as Doctor Timichin in The Next Generation episode “Half a Life” while others…