The new Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is out and it’s dividing fans over what many are calling its “woke” adherence to progressive ideology, including casting an array of LGBTQ+ characters, so-called “girl bosses,” and bringing down the patriarchy. “This show is pure torture,” wrote The Critical Drinker in a review of the show. “I mean, I expected it to be bad. Its made by Alex Kurtzman after all. But even I didn’t expect Star Trek: Starfleet Academy to be the laughable farce it turned out to be. Enjoy this review because I had to suffer a great deal to make it.” While the show remains popular with critics, earning an 88% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it scores a 43% with regular viewers. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller slammed the show on X, calling for William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk on the original series, to take over complete creative control of the franchise.

Cast members of the show and past Star Trek alums, however, have rushed to the show’s defense. But rather than shirking off claims of the show’s “wokeness,” they have embraced it. “Woke is a good word. It’s been given negative connotations. But woke just means you’re awake and aware of everything that’s going on in the world around you,” said actress Gina Yashere, who plays Lura Thok on the show. She claimed Star Trek has been “woke from day one.”  Robert Picardo, who plays “Doctor” on multiple iterations of the show, also upheld it as being “woke.” “Long before the term existed, Star Trek’s heart was ‘woke’ & even though that word has been hijacked & made a cudgel to insult, to ridicule & – at the toxic extremes of social media – to justify prejudice & racism, Star Trek’s heart is strong & still beating for those listening.”

Whoopi Goldberg, who played Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation, also embraced the show for being woke. “If you’ve never been asleep, you can’t be woke, see? This was a show that was created with the idea that people from other planets would come, and we would all find a way to exist together,” she said on “The View.” “This was Gene’s [Roddenberry] idea, this was his dream. And when you watch ‘Star Trek,’ that’s what it shows you.” Instances of the show encouraging social change, such as featuring the first televised interracial kiss between Shatner and actress Nichelle Nichols have been cited of examples of the show being “woke.”

One Star Trek fan, however, suggested it was a misunderstanding of the terms. “Star Trek was not ‘woke’. It was progressive. It was forward-thinking. It was innovative. Imaginative. Rooted in science fiction and humanism. It put loyalty, friendship, sacrifice, duty and honor above the individual. It told us that there was a better future, but even in that future, we had much to learn. That the human experience never ends. It taught us that the best part of humanity is in all of us,” wrote the user. “The woke think they have everything figured out. They think that anyone who deviates even one iota from their fantasy society is to be extinguished and forgotten. They are the uneducated and the uninformed.” He went on to list various episodes that dealt with difficult topics yet did so in ways where the message was “used as a cudgel.” “We haven’t changed. We’re still here, loving humanity, and missing the stories about our species. We’re waiting. We’re waiting for a return to science fiction, of good stories that put humanity to the test and give us the opportunity to ask questions without being judged.”