ArcticFox wrote: However, I'll bet you a week's pay against a jelly doughnut that there will be the first openly gay regular character in Star Trek. That isn't a deal breaker for me unless the show uses that character to get all preachy.
In fairness, I've not really liked Star Trek when it's "preachy" about anything. I think Star Trek is at it's best when it takes the assumption that everyone is on the same page and rolls with it. It's much nicer to find out a character is gay organically through dialog and natural conversation rather than "Look at me, I am gay, see we (the production company) can play the progressive game too!" sort of thing. A good example (Well, from what I recall, it's been a VERY long time since I watched it) was Felix Gaeta in the rebooted BSG. He was bisexual (revealed if you watched the webisodes in addition to the main series) but rather than harp on it, they accept it as a normal thing for that society, and as such, it rarely comes up. Which is how you SHOULD handle it in a fictionally society where such behavior is not seen as abnormal (or wrong, at the least). They never made proclamations about how his character "swung both ways" and "this is how things should be, people who disagree are wrong!" In spite of that, he was an interesting character. His character arc was interesting (I won't go into more, because spoilers).
The problem I had with "The Outcast," which was TNG's attempt to address transgender issues, was that it was hamfisted. It wasn't just forced, it was bashed over the head to the point of breaking immersion in the story. I can believe a 24th century society would be accepting of gender issues (And that alien cultures would not), but the way it was handled seemed to be directly saying "Hey 20th century audience! Listen to this radical proposition!" completely broke my immersion as a viewer.
While I don't think it's bad to address such issues, it's important to make sure that it's done without breaking immersion. The best discussion of issues arises from stories where you weren't even aware they were bringing up the issue because of how well it worked. This is why 2001: A Space Odyssey works so well as an allegory for human progress. It doesn't bash you over the head *well, not with dialog anyway) with the idea of technological development being an evolution of humanity, it suggests it throughout the entire experience while ostensibly being a chronicle of mankind. This is part of why 2001 is still seen as worthy of scholarly study, and "The Outcast" is not.
Apologies if this doesn't make much sense, I was really tired when I wrote this. XD