Star Trek Discovery Bechdel-Wallace Test

This data is testing if the episodes per season of the TV show Star Trek Disovery pass or fail the Bechdel-Wallace test. For more information check the Bechdel-Wallace, and for the full list of character names and details Star Trek Discover file. Simple criteria for the test to end in a pass is the following:

Criteria :

  1. must have 2+ named women
  2. named women talk to each other
  3. topic of discussion is not a man/ men including regarding relationship(s)

This data analysis will do some comparisons to Star Trek DS9 TV series for 2 reasons; DS9 data is one that was collected and is available to me, and as some yardstick for progress comparisons.

Note :

  • List of all characters of the show are listed in the markdown file, along with the criteria for data collection and the pass/fail of episodes.
  • This data analysis consists of Seasons 1 to 3.

Bechdel-Wallace initial pass/fail

The show has 2 seasons that have relatively high values for passing the test based on 42 episodes, and previous Trek series.

Bechdel-Wallace fails by season

This plot shows the inverse of the previous one, season 2 was not a great season for passing the test due to the high frequency of Michael Burnham (the main character) mostly involved in talking about brother Spock. Also, L’Rell talking about Klingons (mostly males) or to them.

Discovery Directors Bechdel-Wallace Pass by Season

Season 2 has the fewest test passes with only directors Maja Vrilo and Jonathan Frakes for those 2 passes.

Discovery Directors by Gender - total count

The DS9 series had 7 seasons and 173 episodes, with a total of 7 female directors, so for Discovery - based on 3 seasons, has made progress in regards to female directors.

The DS9 show had 7 season which makes an unfair comparison by episode count alone, but this table shows the number of episodes that pass or fail the Bechdel-Wallace test.

DS9 Directors by Gender

Bechdel-Wallace test and female directors

This plot is looking at the number of episodes that pass the Bechdel-Wallace test that have a female director by season. Season 3 has the highest value thus far of 3 episodes.

Discovery Writers by Gender group

For the Discovery series the writers have made strides in more females writing episodes, 4 times more female pairings than with DS9 series (from 1 to 4).

The total episodes count by writer gender groupings.

DS9 Writers by Gender

Comparing the writer groupings, the Female & Male group on DS9 was 7 and on Discovery it is broken down to Female & 2 Males or Male and 2 Female writers. It is good to see that 2 Female writers to 1 male group has a count of 5, which is also tied with 1 Female writer to 2 Male writers.

Discovery Bechdel passes by Writers’ Gender group

The writers for Discovery have more diversity than DS9 and more episodes passing the Bechdel test. The Discovery show has more Male writers than Females alone, but not the nearly the gap that DS9 had of 151 Male writers alone.

DS9 Writers and the Bechdel Test of episodes

For the Male only writers passing the test count for 11% of the 173 episodes, while the Discovery have a passing percentage of 26.2% of 42 episodes. For DS9 Female writers who have a Bechdel pass account for < 1% (0.578%), while the Discovery Female writers have 16.66%. The Female-Male group who have a pass, < 1% [DS9] vs 11.9% [Discovery] (grouping Female-Male (2) and Male-Female (2) writers together).

Discovery Bechdel-Wallace fails by Writer groups

Female Directors and Writers

Lee Rose, Gretchen J. Berg, Kirsten Beyer, Kim Bo-yeon, Erika Lippoldt, Lisa Randolph, Hanelle Culpepper, Marta Cunningham, Michelle Paradise, Hanelle Culpepper, Maja Vrvilo, Jenny Lumet, Anne Cofell Saunders, Kalinda Vazquez, and Norma Bailey.

Disovery Writers Episode count

Discovery has only 3 seasons completed thus far and already there is a variety of writers, and with more Females behind the scenes.

Female Writers Michelle Paradise, Jenny Lumet, Bo-yeon Kim, Erika Lippoldt and Kirsten Beyer are leading the counts for episodes in which they are involved with.

Discovery Episodes count by Director

The Female directors of Discovery are Norma Bailey (1), Marta Cunningham (1), Hanelle Culpepper (3), and Maja Vrvilo (2).

Discovery Director Episode count

DS9 Director Episodes count

Other Information