Starfleet Academy: Finally we get to see the fabled space school. But will they explore strange new worlds, or will it be "who's dating who"?

 One of the iconic moments of my childhood was seeing a shirtless Sulu (George Takei) sword-playing his way across the Enterprise while high on alien water on Star Trek (Episode 1.4, "The Naked Time"). I was a big fan of the original series, and occasionally watched The Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine: Exploring "strange new worlds" was so intriguing that you could easily ignore the crewmen kissing different alien babes every week, and forgive the utter absence of LGBT persons. 

Sooner or later, viewers were told that every crew member -- without exception -- "graduated at the top of your class at Starfleet Academy."  Apparently the classes were very, very small, and they had ten graduations per year.  

We don't learn much more about the Academy: you have to take a class in "Ancient Mythology and Religion"; they teach the Kobayashi Maru no-win test (save your own ship or a ship full of civilians?); and the entrance exam is staggeringly difficult. Even future space-time voyager Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton, left) and Greatest Captain of All Time Contender Jean-Luc Picard failed on their first try.

So I was excited when I heard that that Paramount Plus would be airing a new tv series, Starfleet Academy.  

The premise: Around 3069, 800 years after the original series, dilithium crystals across the galaxy failed.  That means no faster-than -light travel: everyone was stuck in their solar systems, and Star Fleet (and the United Federation of Planets) collapsed. Now it's around 3300, the crystals have been restored, Star Fleet has returned, and the first class of cadets arrive at Starfleet Academy.  

Maybe we'll see some of those incredibly difficult classes.  There'll be some new species as well as old favorites like Klingons and Romulans, and...

Uh-oh, it looks like we're going to get a major dose of boy-girl romance, and once again the utter absence of LGBT characters. The promo shows three boy-girl couples.

Sam is a Kasquian, a new species: a sort of sentient hologram, only a few weeks old but created as a young adult.  She has to deal with anti-hologram prejudice. The trailer shows her being effervescent and on a date with:

Jay-Den Kraag, a Klingon who wants to become a medical officer. There were evil Klingon villains on Star Trek from the beginning, and allies beginning with Whorf on The Next Generation.

 Jay-Den is played by Karim Diané, who has a femme look here, but is actually straight, bringing the Love of His Life on a vacation to Tulum.

Tarima Sandal, is a Betazoid, the daughter of the president of her planet, who wants to become a starship captain (don't they all).  We've had telepathic Betazoids since Deanna Troi of The Next Generation.

The trailer shows her falling in love with, kissing, on a date with, on a battlefield with, kissing, and kissing:

Caleb Mir: a human outcast/outsider/rebel who hates Starfleet, but the Chancellor promised that if he joined, she would help him find his missing mother.  Why does she care so much?  That appears to be the main mystery of the season.

More after the break

"Run Away": Creepy Dad investigates his daughter's disappearance. With a hot hitman, a gay drug dealer, some cute guys, and Pointing's p*nis

 

Link to the n*de photos

The Netflix movie and tv adaptions of Harlan Coben's novels all have the same plot: a nuclear family starts to fall apart when a "dark secret" from the husband or wife's past emerges.  There are no gay characters, and all of the professional and friendship pairs are men and women -- no gay subtexts.   But the location shots are very pretty, there are ample hot guys wandering around the swimming pools of elegant mansions, and it's fun to watch a critique of the family structure that so aggressively erases gay people.  So I'm reviewing Run Away (2026):

Prologue: A girl walks across the campus of Lanford College, climbs a lot of stairs, and enters her room, where a guy wearing a mask is waiting.  She remember him dying, or killing someone, and screams. So she didn't run away, she was kidnapped?

Scene 1: A Nuclear Family Dad (Coben movie regular James Nesbitt) complains about his daughter spending all her time doing "TikToks," talks to his son, away at university (played by Adrian Greensmith, who is gay in real life), and gets a text from someone named Dan Divine telling him to go to the park.   Are you being blackmailed by a drag queen, buddy?

He goes to a park full of frolicking people, waits on a bench, and looks at some videos of his missing daughter, Paige.  A lady wearing a Lanford College jacket is playing the guitar, just like Paige used to.  Could it be?  Yep -- the guitar has the sticker he gave her, of a smiling bee.  Where did she get Paige's guitar?  Could it be...

Yep, it's Paige!  The "missing daughter" plotline was resolved very quickly.

But when he calls,  she runs away.  He give chase and grabs her, which doesn't look right to the crowd.  A passing hippie (what is this, 1969?) tells him to back off, so Dad beats him to a pulp.  Other guys intervene, and Dad is arrested.  Looks like aggravated assault. 

Scene 2:  In the lockup.  We really don't need all of these cringe pictures of Paige frolicking with Dad and her friends, while he sings "Kiss me like there's no tomorrow...I love your eyes."  I think this is supposed to display paternal love, but it comes across as extremely creepy.

An Extremely Elegant Lawyer visits. He was filmed, the video has gone viral with the title "Rich Guy Beats Up Homeless Man."  He's not going to get a self-defense for repeatedly kicking the guy after he collapsed.  

"But he was my runaway daughter's a*hole boyfriend, Aaron." So he wasn't a random hippie -- Dad knew the guy.  He was excessively violent because he blames him for Paige's disappearance.  Aaron is played by Thomas Flynn, who was in the gay romance Red, White, and Royal Blue.

Back story: Dad last saw Paige six months ago.  She came home from college a bedraggled mess, screamed at everyone, then left with Evil Boyfriend Aaron.   Are you a reliable narrator?  

Scene 3: Extremely Elegant Lawyer got the judge to dismiss the case before it went to trial.  Well, Dad is rich.  The rich get richer, and the poor get prison.  "By the way, my fee is $2 million."

Meanwhile, a Middle Aged Woman gazes intently at a Vegan Lady walking with her dog and toddler.  She steals the dog, then calls to say that she found him.  "Just give me your address, and I'll drop him off."  Weird way to get someone's address.  How about the Internet?

They do the retrieval at Vegan Lady's restaurant.  Vegan Lady offers her a free meal in gratitude. She picks a table that allows her to gaze creepily  at the toddler.  So you're a kidnapper?  Why not just grab the child?

Phone: A second rich guy, Sebastian Thorpe, asks if she's Elena, the private investigator?  He wants help finding his son.  Big Reveal: she's not a kidnapper!  So what's with the surveillance of the Vegan Lady? 

Scene 4: Dad goes home and reads the comments on the viral video.  They aren't exactly sympathetic.  Mom and the TikTok daughter (who uses a wheelchair, for reasons that I'll bet will become important), get the word and rush home to yell at him for being so stupid -- beating up the Evil Boyfriend in front of hundreds of people with cell phones?

Evil Boyfriend's evil backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Then Dad goes to work, at an elegant glass office, where the staff appears to be entirely female.  They support him; in fact, they think that the video makes him attractive.  Most Harlan Coben movies have a lot of beefcake, but here it seems to be ladies all the way down.

At his desk, he looks at the reels of his daughter yet again.  Do we really need to see them again? 

Scene 5: Two detectives investigate a murder scene:  it's Aaron, Missing Daughter Paige's Evil Boyfriend! There are two coffee mugs -- he was killed by someone he knew. 

"This is how you end up when you live a life with no rules," Pompous Detective Isaac (Alfred Enoch) pontificates.  Everybody follows rules, jerk.  They're called the norms of your culture or subculture.

When he leaves, one of the investigators (they're all women) comments on how nice he smells.  That's cringe too, lady. You don't discuss people's smells.

Scene 6: Dad and Mom at a parents' event at the school. Teachers say that the daughter is doing well, in spite of the recent...um...distraction.  The other parents stare angrily.  Pompous Detective Isaac and his partner interrogate him about where he was last night, because...gasp...the guy you beat up "in self defense" has been murdered.  We already knew that.

Cut to Dad and the Extremely Elegant Lawyer at the police station, being interrogated again.  Last night he got home at 6:15, took a run, cooked dinner, and watched tv while his TikTok Daughter was in her room and Mom was at work (pediatric nurse).  Pompous Detective finds it very suspicious that he doesn't know the exact time his daughter went to her room. "Normal people know the exact time that their children do everything."  

Dad then describes the scene in the park again, finishing up with "If Aaron is dead, that makes me very happy.  I hope he suffered."  The Detectives don't like that answer -- neither does the Extremely Elegant Lawyer.

Outside the police station, Extremely Elegant Lawyer slams Family Man for saying that he's glad a guy he's suspected of murdering is dead, and he slams her for flirting with the Detective.  "Well, he's attractive."

More after the break

Tyler Alvarez: The "Witch Way" chuy and "American Vandal" p*nis investigator is wild about girls. And a homos*xual. His word, not mine.

  

Link to the n*de dudes

In Ghosts Episode 2.20 (2023), the attic ghost Stephanie, a teenager murdered on her prom night in 1987, learns that her crush Trevor (Asher Grodman) is dating someone else (he's not interested anyway, since she's 17, and he died at age 33).   The irate Stephanie schemes to break up all of the "happy couples" at Woodstone. This doesn't work, of course, and basement ghost Nancy saves the day by introducing her to teenage cholera victim Ralph (Tyler Alvarez).

Wow, cute face and an insouciant tease of a muscular chest. He's getting a closer look.

Tyler was born in 1997 in the Bronx.  His first major screen role was in the Nickelodeon telenovela Every Witch Way (2014-15).  Focus character Emma discovers that she is a witch (and the Chosen One, naturally).  She has various teen angst and Harry Potter-style adventures, and is torn between two boys: the rebellious, "arrogant" wizard Jax (Rahart Adams) and the responsible but human Daniel (Nick Merico)

Tyler plays Diego, a chuy (magical being who can control the Four Elements).  He has an on-off girlfriend, but he also has a gay-subtext buddy-bond with Mac (Mavrick Moreno), at least before the showrunners noticed and wrote him out of the story.

Not a bad start.

Next came The Fosters, about a family of foster and adopted children.  In Season 5 (2018), he played Declan Rivers, an online gamer who starts flirting with Jude (Hayden Byerly), causing tension with his boyfriend Noah (Kalama Epstein).  

American Vandal (2017-18) sounds like it's about the Vandals motorcycle gang, but actually some high school vandals painted p*nises on 27 teachers' cars.  Journalists Peter (Tyler) and Sam (Griffin Gluck) investigate the crime.

I figured that they must have a gay-subtext buddy bond, but according to Reddit, there is an animosity between them, and one turns out to be the culprit.

More after the break

Valin Shinyei: Billy Elliot's gay friend, a gay monster hunter, a straight ballet dancer, and a Lego boy who cooks. With Valin/Vladimir d*cks

Link to the n*de dudes

Billy Elliot (2000) encourages homophobic parents to relax: boys who like dance are absolutely, positively, 100% not-gay, although they might have gay friends.  I heard that the musical gave the gay character a less "endless angst and misery" plot arc, as demonstrated by a production by the Vancouver Arts Club in 2016, with Valin Shinyei as Billy's gay friend.  

Interesting name, even more interesting underwear photo (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), doubtless gay in real life, and there's something in his bio about the Paralympics -- I always like to promote disabled representation.  He's definitely getting a profile.  

Vallin Shinyei (the name is Sanskrit and Japanese) was born in Vancouver in 2001 to an artist dad, a choreographer mom, and an actress sister.  He was home schooled through eighth grade while studying dance at the Peggy Pearl School.  Then he enrolled at the Thomas Haney Secondary School, graduating in 2019.

Valin began doing commercials and modeling in 2006, and moved into television in 2009, playing a Little Boy in an episode of Smallville and one of the kids being nanny-ified by Mrs. Miracle. 

Plus he began dancing nightly s at the Pacific Exhibition ("British Columbia's choice for diverse events and experiences.". 

At the 2010 Paralympic Games, Valin passed the torch to the Russians at the closing ceremony.

He also hosted the ceremony commemorating Rick Hansen's 25th Anniversary Tour:  In 1987, Rick completed his Man in Motion Tour, traveling around the world in a wheelchair to raise awareness spinal cord injuries. In 1987, he repeated the tour, traveling across Canada.

Valin does not personally have a disability.  I don't know what his connection to the disabled community is.

He broke into film with A Christmas Miracle (2012), about eight strangers stranded  in an abandoned church, who...well you can figure it out.  Star Dan Payne played a gay guy (and showed off his backside) in Mulligans (2008).  Valin won a Young Artists Award for his role as a boy lost in the woods.

Continuing the Christmas theme, Valin starred in A Christmas Story 2 (2012), a straight-to-video sequel to the 1983 movie, with the 16 year old Ralphie (Braedon Lemasters) wanting a car and the Girl of His Dreams rather than a rifle. Valin plays his piggish younger brother.  It got horrible reviews, but three years later (2015), Valin was playing Ralphie in A Christmas Story at the Vancouver Arts Club.

In 2016, he began as the understudy for Billy (Nolan Fahey) in the musical Billy Elliot.  Then he took over as Billy's gay friend Michael, who has a crush on him.  Billy isn't into guys, but he does agree to a drag number, "Expressing Yourself," and he kisses Michael on the cheek. That's better than endless angst and misery, I guess.

More after the break