10 Most Messed Up Deaths In Star Trek: Discovery

Even after all these years, and with the hindsight of his (just as goopy as the first time) rebirth, Doctor Culber's death in season one still remains one of the most controversial in at least the run of Star Trek: Discovery. The quick and casual, senseless brutality of it at the hands of a reawakened Voq, combined with the fact that Culber was one half of the TV franchise's very first openly gay couple, begs the questions: Did he (really) have to die, and did he have to die like that?

Producers knew this one had the potential to upset quite a few people, and with good reason. This is a trope with a lot of unfortunate repetition. To mitigate in advance, they sagely ran the deathly decision by LGBTQ rights organisation GLAAD for approval, and we were assured and re-assured without having to wait that Culber was coming back. Showrunner Aaron Harberts told Variety in 2018 (the day after Despite Yourself had first aired) that the Doctor's "[death] is not an ending, it's a beginning".

Death is still death, however. Star Trek just sometimes digs its characters a very shallow grave.