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For a franchise known for exploring the unknown, Star Trek made one more big leap in a recent episode of Star Trek Discovery: “Forget Me Not” marked a franchise first in showing a romance between a non-binary character (Adira, played by Blu del Barrio) and a trans actor (Ian Alexander) — both of whom find their characters elevated to series regulars.
Del Barrio and Alexander play two young Trill characters — Star Trek’s race of humanoids that exist as human hosts to symbiont lifeforms that retain the host’s memories and characteristics as the symbiont passes from host to host.
The Trill have long been a part of the Star Trek universe, most notably in the form of the long-running Deep Space Nine character Jadzia Dax (Terry Ferrell) who later took the form of Ezri Dax in the body of a new host. But the Trill actually began back in 1991’s Next Generation episode “The Host” which presented the Trill as a deeply complex race with a unique lineage and characteristics that would shape not just Next Generation and Deep Space Nine but future generations of Star Trek to come.
Creator of the Trill and writer of “The Host,” Michel Horvat, took some time to reflect on the creation of the Trill in “The Host” and what they meant not just for that episode but for the Star Trek universe as a whole.
