star trek wtf fact

8 WTF Moments In Star Trek: Voyager That Keep Me Up At Night

Thankfully the Delta Quadrant is far away.

Star Trek: Voyager contains some of the absolute best episodes in the Star Trek franchise, and, unfortunately, some of the worst as well. What's even more interesting, however, is that there are plenty of episodes with "wtf" premises, but none of those are entirely bad or good. When comparing it to similar features we've done on shows like The Next Generation , that's not common. 

Things can get a bit freaky in the Delta Quadrant. This list will prove that in spades as we recap some of the wilder moments from Star Trek: Voyager that have me staring at the ceiling on late nights and just wondering, why? Check out the list, and then binge these episodes with a Paramount+ subscription for a terrible night's sleep. 

When Tom And Janeway Turned Into Salamanders And Mated ("Threshold" Season 2 Episode 15)

It's hilarious that a Star Trek episode that won an Emmy is considered one of the worst of all time. Granted, that Emmy was for Outstanding Makeup, and there's no denying the makeup is incredible, even if the episode is awful and upsetting. In a quest to achieve Warp 10, the adventure somehow devolves into Janeway and Tom Paris turning into salamanders. 

Not only do Tom and Captain Janeway become salamanders, but also mate and have three children together. If that wasn't bizarre enough, Voyager decides to abandon those children upon rescuing Tom and Janeway, possibly so no one has to acknowledge it ever happened again. So many bizarre decisions were made for this episode that I can't help but lie awake and wonder how it ever got made. 

When An AI Clown Turned A Utopia Into A Neverending Nightmare (“The Thaw” Season 2, Episode 23)

"The Thaw" is a famous episode of Star Trek: Voyager thanks in no small part to a phenomenal performance by Better Call Saul actor Michael McKean. It's also known for its creepy premise, in which the Voyager crew finds a group of aliens trapped inside of a virtual reality simulation. B'Elanna and Harry go in to investigate, only to find the aliens hostage to an AI clown who has constructed an evil circus and is feeding on their fear. 

There's so much to really send a chill down your spine in this episode. The idea that an artificial intelligence could fuel itself on fear and physically impact the actual humanoids within it. There's also the wild reality that had Voyager not interfered, these lifeforms would've been trapped inside of a virtual hellscape until they finally gave up and died. In an age where we're giving more and more power to AI, the clown deserves his slot on Voyager 's greatest villains . 

How The Hirogen Gravitated Toward Nazism (“The Killing Game” Season 4 Episodes 18 and 19)

"The Killing Game" is a two-part adventure for Star Trek: Voyager in which the Hirogen captured the crew and kept them brainwashed inside a holodeck scenario in order to train and hunt them for sport. Out of the vast library of content available for training simulations, the Hirogen decided to be Nazis and have the Voyager crew work as French spies in the resistance. 

CINEMABLEND NEWSLETTER

Your Daily Blend of Entertainment News

There's a part of me that acknowledges Star Trek: Voyager used that parallel intentionally, but thinking in-universe, it's scary to see the Hirogen adapt and relate to Nazi ideals so readily. One scary reality about the idea of extraterrestrials is them having a feeling of superiority and the advanced tech to do some real damage to those they believe are lesser than them. This one always makes me wary of potential first contact and the first species humanity could come across in real life should that day ever come. 

Janeway Temporarily Dies And Almost Has Her Spirit Taken By An Alien Ghost (“Coda” Season 3 Episode 15)

Captain Janeway wrestles with death in "Coda," though she's not immediately aware she's fighting for her life. What started as a time loop scenario devolved into an out-of-body ghost story in which Janeway is confronted by what she believed to be the spirit of her father. Janeway ultimately learns it's an alien hoping to seize her spirit to nourish itself, but fortunately, she makes it back to the land of the living. 

It's weird enough there's a corporeal alien spirit attempting to grab Janeway's soul. This being took things to the next level, however, by emulating her father! I know she made it out of the whole ordeal alright, but it's moments like these I'm amazed the Voyager crew isn't just wrecked with trauma from all they endured during this journey. Something like that would keep me up for weeks, and certainly not capable of resuming my duties as captain.  

The Doctor Changes His Programming And Starts Trying To Murder And Torture People (“Darkling” Season 3 Episode 18)

Self-improvement is a natural part of life, and when you're an EMH, it's pretty easy to accomplish. Unfortunately, The Doctor's attempt to better himself by taking on the personalities of past figures he admired resulted in crafting a dark persona that did some truly terrible things. This included trying to murder someone by pushing them off a cliff and paralyzing B'Elanna with a toxin when she tried to stop him. 

The most upsetting part of this was that The Doctor thought he was doing something for the betterment of everyone, and it had devastating consequences. Apparently the problem-solving of artificial beings isn't perfect even in the distant future either. It's all the more reason to make me just a bit leerier of the speaker assistant next to my bed. 

Kes Being Thrown Between Through Times In Various Points In Her Life (“Before And After” Season 3 Episode 21)

Kes is hurdled through time randomly in "Before And After" and is confused as she attempts to navigate chunks of her life she has lived and other moments she never experienced. It's all due to "chroniton particles" in her body, which nearly wiped her out of existence. Fortunately, The Doctor was able to purge Kes of the last of the chroniton particles as she became a single egg, which transported her back to the present timeline. 

"Before And After" really messed with me when I first watched it because I had no idea how I'd be able to navigate the whiplash of whipping between different times and ages. Just the thought of it makes me feel like I'm losing my mind, so all the credit in the world to Kes for keeping her wits about her and making it through the ordeal. 

Icheb Realizing His Parents Intentionally Gave Him Up To Attack The Borg (“Child’s Play” Season 6 Episode 19)

Star Trek: Voyager introduced Icheb as part of a mostly dead Borg colony, and it was believed he was stolen from his parents and assimilated. In "Child's Play," we learned that the actual reality was far darker. Icheb hailed from the Brunali people, who had managed to survive the Borg attacks on their planet for years thanks to their advanced understanding of genetics. Icheb eventually learned that he wasn't assimilated, but rather deliberately meant to be captured by the Borg because his DNA contained a virus that was fatal to adult Borg.

It's a terrible revelation and one that Icheb would've never known had the Voyager crew not pressed him to meet his parents. I feel like if I was one of those people that pushed, I would have trouble sleeping that night after finding out the type of people his parents truly are. 

The Traumatic Year Of Hell (“Year Of Hell” Season 4, Episodes 8 and 9)

Remember when Star Trek: Voyager crossed paths with a Krenim Captain hellbent on using his dangerous command of time to restore his species to its former glory and save his wife? Who would've thought one man's quest would send Voyager on a long battle that resulted in Tuvok losing his sight, the death of many crew members and a near end of this journey home?

"Year Of Hell" is in contention for one of the best Star Trek stories of all time, and possibly could have even worked as a standalone Voyager film . The amount of hardship, tragedy and pain that Captain Janeway and the crew endured would've broken any lesser individual. Janeway, of course, isn't just any individual, which may be why people want to see Kate Mulgrew's character back in live-action so badly. 

Star Trek: Voyager is available to stream right now on Paramount+. Be sure to hold onto that subscription for all the upcoming Star Trek shows around the corner and for access to other great sci-fi as well.  

Mick Joest is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend with his hand in an eclectic mix of television goodness. Star Trek is his main jam, but he also regularly reports on happenings in the world of Star Trek, WWE, Doctor Who, 90 Day Fiancé, Quantum Leap, and Big Brother. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Radio and Television. He's great at hosting panels and appearing on podcasts if given the chance as well.

Billie Eilish Opens Up About Sexuality After Being Outed On A Red Carpet: ‘The Whole World Suddenly Decided Who I Was’

After FBI: Most Wanted's Harrowing Close Call, One Easy-To-Miss Clue Has Me Hyped For The Season 5 Finale

Poor Henry Cavill’s Dealing With All The James Bond Questions Again After An AI Trailer Racked Up 3.5 Million Views

Most Popular

• 2 Nightbitch: Release Date, Cast, And Other Things We Know About Amy Adams' Upcoming Horror Movie
• 3 'There Are A Lot Of Suspicions': Elsbeth's Carra Patterson Talks Kaya's Conflict And Being 'Very Worried' About The Partnership
• 4 Every Best Picture Winner From The First 40 Years Of The Oscars
• 5 After New Details About Game Of Thrones’ Scrapped 10,000 Ships Spinoff, Here’s How Faithful It Would Have Been To George R.R. Martin’s Source Material

The 15 Biggest WTF Moments From Star Trek: Discovery Season 1

On the strength of the opening episode alone, it was clear that Star Trek: Discovery was not going to be quite like the rest of the existing Star Trek canon. Sure, the core content of the various other TV shows in the franchise had always sought to examine the darker sides of life, with some pretty gruesome and horrific issues facing the intrepid crews of various Federation starships.

The fact was though that these issues, whilst usually referenced, did not actually tend to play out onscreen. Admittedly, on occasion they did, but due to the time-slots that the show was traditionally broadcast in, plot devices such as torture and murder were never allowed to be depicted in any particularly gruesome detail. Even in the cinematic outings of the various incarnations of the USS Enterprise, a slightly painful disintegration was usually the worst fate awaiting a doomed away-team member.

Discovery tore up that rule book within the opening episode, deciding that the only way to truly convey the hopeless and desperate situations that a Federation Officer could face, was to show them in show them in all their brutal and colourful glory. People died painful deaths. Planets died painful deaths. Relationships… Well, you get the idea…

This radical change of direction in the show’s format has been a complete game-changer. Critics who had been sat sharpening their knives, predicting yet another tired re-work of the show’s traditional format, have instead found themselves writing Five-Star reviews. A whole new generation of Trekkies has been born.

Of course, It’s not just the sex and the violence that have made the show such addictive viewing. Since Star Trek: Enterprise aired its final (really quite disappointing) episode 13 years ago after four long seasons, the whole face of television has changed. Audiences are no longer satisfied by the same old storylines and character arcs. People want twists, and a show simply can’t survive without them.

Netflix in particularly has actively sought out new and exciting projects where the storylines assault the senses of audiences. The company has made it’s name by picking shows that will force viewers to engage with the material, question it; and then jump straight onto social media to discuss it afterwards. They took the Marvel franchise and improved on it, now they’ve gone and done the same for Star Trek.

The show’s debut 15 episodes were all of the highest quality, there wasn’t a single filler episode amongst them. Every individual episode was memorable for some reason, and a large number of them contained a twist or a narrative rug-pull that left viewers screaming “WHAT THE ACTUAL F-CK?” Into their screens.

There’s little doubt that the show’s already-announced second season will be just as visceral and entertaining fayre. So let’s relive the most mind-bending and unexpected moments that we’ve just witness in from Season 1:

15. Negotiation Tactics…

Anderson quickly takes charge of the situation, ordering the Klingons to cease fire and agree terms. As their leader agrees to ‘send somebody to negotiate’, a cloaked Klingon cruiser rams into the side of the Europa, carving it in half and violently detonating the warp cores on both vessels. Which most likely wasn’t what Anderson had in mind…

14. Not Part Of The Plan…

Needless to say, the plan goes south as soon as they arrive. The resultant clusterfuck initially sees Georgiou killed, prior to Burnham dispatching T’Kuvma. Bearing in mind the writers had just spent two episodes bigging up the Klingon Torchbearer, and that killing him is entirely the wrong thing for Burnham to do, it’s pretty damn unexpected when she elects to blow him away with a vengeful phaser blast.

13. Rest In Pieces…

Georgiou’s death, we can deal with. It’s when we find out what happened to her body that things take a turn for the truly horrific. With Saru having forced Burnham to leave Georgiou’s body behind on the Ship Of The Dead, it’s subsequently revealed that the Klingons cooked, and then ate her remains. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t recall that ever happening in The Next Generation…

12. Red and buried…

The show quickly established that Landry was exactly the kind of no-nonsense bitch that was too hard for a marauding alien nasty to kill off. And then immediately had her killed off five minutes later by the same captive marauding alien nasty, who she’d decided to pop down to the science lab and torture . I guess some things never change…

11. Further Negotiating Tactics…

The acknowledgment that THIS IS A TRAP is painfully obvious from the outset, but the manner in which said trap is sprung is truly shocking. As Cornwell steps out of her transport to greet the Klingon envoys, her captivity is signalled by the fact that her escorting officers immediately have their throats slit to the point of decapitation. Yowsers…

10. Jump Around…

Arguably the most spectacular of these was the mind-bending series of mini-jumps he was forced to rattle out in order to destroy a marauding enemy cruiser.

Hammering out 133 micro-jumps in seconds, Stamets is able to map out the cloaking and shield frequencies of the Klingon ship, before Discovery blows it away.

9. Body And Soul…

The first of these was the revelation that all-round nice guy and love interest Ash Tyler wasn’t all that he appeared. The months of torture he had undergone in Klingon captivity turned out to be something much more sinister. He had actually been killed at the Battle Of The Binary Stars, only for the Klingons to hollow out his body, using an experimental procedure to surgically graft one of their own warriors into his corpse.

8. Do No Harm…

The show had spent the entire first half of the season establishing what a painfully nice guy Culber was. Essentially the ship’s social conscience, it came as something of a shock when the panicked Tyler promptly twisted Culber’s head through 180 degrees, instantly snapping his neck. Tyler then went even further, framing the dead doctor’s poor comatose husband for the crime. What a dick….

7. A Change Will Do You Bad…

On the subject of painfully nice human beings, Culber’s demise promptly opened the door for the writers to make bubbly Ensign Tilly the show’s most loveable character. Which also provided a handy way of highlighting the differences between the crew’s reality, and their parallel-dimension equivalents.

Having now found themselves over in the mirror-verse, Burnham sets about clarifying which of the crew still exist in this frightening new reality. It transpires that most of them do, and over here, the aforementioned diminutive and socially awkward junior officer is a ship’s captain. A notoriously vicious and ruthless captain who goes by the monicker of ‘Killy Tilly’. Yikes…

6. Double Trouble…

It just so happens that his mirror-verse opposite is in exactly the same situation, and is on hand to update him about exactly the predicament he now finds himself in. It also transpires that mirror-stamets is kind of a douche, who happens to be slowly destroying all of reality. Ever. Which is seriously not cool….

5. Imperial Identity…

The Emporer’s identity arrives in the form of the annihilation of a whole planet, and a brief Skype Call explaining just how pissed off she was that she’d had to do the job herself. That’s right, it’s the return of Philippa Georgiou; which brings with it a whole lot of emotional upheaval for Burnham, and a whole load of problems for the rest of the crew.

4. Information Management

Mirror-Georgiou chooses to interrogate Burnham in front of her Inner Council, determined to make an example of the ‘daughter’ who chose to betray her. On learning of the Discovery’s true origins, and without any warning, she immediately uses the real Georgiou’s emblem to slaughter all but one of her council, so this new threat to her power-base remains a secret.

3. Say What Now?

A couple of determined internet speculators had indeed raised issue with Lorca’s conduct prior to the big reveal, but few had actually managed to successfully guess that he was in fact mirror-Lorca in disguise. Hints such as his eye condition, and the phaser under his pillow had been plain to see, but the strength of the script and Jason Isaacs’ amazing performance meant the reveal was the biggest WTF moment of this season.

2. And then…

The show had spent its whole season building Lorca up into a massively integral character. First replacing Georgiou as Burnham’s mentor, then appearing as a salvation for a doomed Federation, he went from the biggest hero to biggest villain in an instant. It’s almost hard to see where the story will now go without him. Here’s hoping Cornwell’s passing comment about ‘my Gabriel’ having no chance of survival in the mirror-verse is a way of setting up the real Lorca’s return.

Instead, the show-runners chose to go a slightly different way. As Discovery sets off for Vulcan with the Kilingon War now at an end, they encounter a garbled transmission from a nearby Federation vessel. As the ship’s ID code comes through, it becomes apparent that the USS Enterprise has not only survived the war, but that Captain Pike has something of importance he needs to talk to the crew of the Discovery about.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

20 Enterprising Facts About Star Trek

By bryan reesman | sep 8, 2021, 4:00 pm edt.

NBC Television, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

On September 8, 1966, Gene Roddenberry's galaxy spanning Star Trek saga debuted on NBC and helped transform sci-fi television from tired stereotypes into a genre rich with multi-layered drama, ethnically diverse characters, and real world issues. While it wasn't a big hit at the time, Star Trek eventually developed a loyal following that continued through an animated series, the long-running film franchise, and other live-action television series from the late 1980s onward. The show sometimes hired iconic sci-fi writers including Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Theodore Sturgeon, and Harlan Ellison (who won a Hugo Award for his episode, " City On The Edge Of Forever "), while Isaac Asimov developed a friendship with Roddenberry.

To commemorate this momentous occasion, let's look back at the groundbreaking series, during which the crew of the Enterprise journeyed on far-flung peacekeeping and rescue missions, answered distress calls on distant planets, and faced confrontations with warmongering aliens. There has been plenty written about this iconic show, but there always seems to be something new to learn.

1. Captain Pike preceded Captain Kirk.

The unaired pilot “The Cage” (which finally debuted on home video in 1986) featured an almost entirely different cast and crew, with Mr. Spock being the lone holdover on the bridge when the classic team appeared in the first official episode. Jeffrey Hunter ( The Searchers ) starred as Captain Christopher Pike, who gets abducted by telepathic aliens for psychological experiments involving a human woman. The original pilot was actually pretty good, but the cast lacked the same warmth and diversity that would ultimately emerge. When the studio rejected the original pilot—allegedly for being too cerebral and lacking in action—creator Gene Roddenberry sought to make another, but Hunter chose to move on to other projects. In the end, it was good that NBC rejected the original pilot, because the show was revamped into something much stronger.

2. Captain Pike returned for two episodes and the Star Trek movie reboot.

Several episodes in, the producers of Star Trek created a two-part episode called “The Menagerie” that utilized much of the original pilot. Mr. Spock was taking a now battle-scarred and disfigured Captain Pike back to the planet Talos IV (which was off limits to Federation vessels) for unknown reasons, and he would not reveal why until he seized control of the Enterprise and faced a court-martial. It was a clever and cost-effective way to reuse the unaired material and craft a new storyline. In J.J. Abrams' 2009 movie reboot, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman brought back Pike (played by Bruce Greenwood) as Kirk’s superior officer and mentor on his first mission in space. It was a nice nod to the original series.

3. Star Trek ’s original number one was a woman.

In the original pilot, Gene Roddenberry’s girlfriend and future wife, Majel Barrett, was Kirk’s first officer (who still had to deal with the Captain’s presumptions about women on the bridge). Test audiences allegedly did not like her character because they thought she was too pushy and tried to be like the men, but modern audiences would not think of any of those things. When Pike was kidnapped, she led a mission to the planet to rescue him and proved herself to be a capable leader, but this was about a year before the women's liberation movement began gestating in America. The Star Trek universe finally got its first female captain with Captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager , which aired between 1995 and 2001.

4. Majel Barrett Roddenberry worked on every Star Trek series.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry returned in many episodes of the original series to play Nurse Christine Chapel, who had unrequited romantic feelings toward Mr. Spock. She played a more nurturing character, but did not have the command duties of her original role. Following that, Barrett Roddenberry—who has been called “The First Lady Of Star Trek ”—had roles in every Star Trek series, playing Nurse Chapel, Lt. M'Ress, and other characters on Star Trek: The Animated Series ; Lwaxana Troi and the voice of the Enterprise Computer on Star Trek: The Next Generation ; and the computer voices on Deep Space Nine , Voyager , and Enterprise . She also appeared as Dr. Chapel in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and as Commander Chapel in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , and she provided voice work to other films (including the 2009 reboot) and various video games. After her husband died in 1991, Barrett Roddenberry served as executive producer on two series he had created: Earth: Final Conflict (1997-1999) and Andromeda (2000-2005). She passed away in 2008, but not before recording—you guessed it—the Starfleet Computer voice for J.J. Abrams's 2009 movie reboot.

5. Kirk had a dark past before Star Trek.

Prior to venturing into space and encountering all sorts of intergalactic nemeses like the Romulans, Klingons, and the superhuman Khan, William Shatner appeared in a variety of dark film and television projects. In Roger Corman’s underrated film The Intruder , he played a racist agitator in a Southern town who pushes things too far. In Incubus , a film shot entirely in the Esperanto language , he played a good-hearted man with whom a succubus falls in love, angering her sister and setting about retribution. His appearance as a man terrified of a gremlin on the wing of a plane in an episode of The Twilight Zone is famous, but he also made a turn in possibly the best horror TV episode ever, “The Grim Reaper” on Thriller , as a man who warns his aunt that the previous owners of the portrait of the titular character, which she now owns, have died violently.

6. Star Trek ’s Spock has greenish skin, but it was originally meant to be red.

While Spock’s skin has a slight green tint to it, the original plan was to give him red skin. But back in the mid- to late 1960s, a majority of households still had black and white televisions, so his skin would appear very dark when viewed on their sets. In one early episode, however, Spock looked really green. Someone messed up the color palette that day. One wonders if the chance to see the shows in color during their subsequent syndicated runs helped lure new viewers and give excited longtime fans the chance to re-watch the episodes in a way they had never seen them before.

7. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy both got tinnitus on the set of Star Trek .

After an explosion on the set of one of the Star Trek films, both stars developed tinnitus, a ringing or buzzing in the ears than is often permanent and can be debilitating for some sufferers. After seeking help all across the country, Shatner learned to deal with it through habituation by wearing a hearing device for a time that produced white noise to help him cope. He has helped others as well. "I’ve talked people down from suicide," Shatner told me in an interview for The Aquarian . "A famous musician got a hold of me cold. I didn’t know him. He knew I got it because I was the official spokesman for tinnitus at one period, and I talked him down and encouraged him to do habituation, you know, the white sound, because when I was asked when I first got it how it affected my life from 1 to 10, it was 9 1/2. Now I don’t hear it except when you and I are talking about it."

8. A lot of Star Trek technology became reality.

If one looks at the original series, much of the technology being used ultimately became real. The communicators are like modern cell phones, the earpieces worn by Uhura and Spock are basically Bluetooth devices, the Universal Translators are echoed by the use of modern voice recognition software, tricorders have become the LOCAD-PTS , a portable biological lab used by NASA, and the use of interactive video screens (telepresence) is akin to current video conferencing. While Enterprise crew members recorded audio on hard-cased cassette tapes, they looked like soon-to-be modern floppy discs, which are now outdated in our digital era.

9. There have been more than 125 Star Trek -related video games.

Since 1971, more than 125 video games based on or inspired by the Star Trek series have been created, beginning with a text game written in BASIC in 1971, a standup arcade game in 1972, and later early computer and gaming systems like the Commodore 64 and Atari 5200 through to modern PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles. Many of the titles are quite colorful, like The Kobayashi Alternative , Klingon Honor Guard , and Delta Vega: Meltdown on the Ice Planet . It would probably be hard to collect them all at this point—or to be able to play them, unless one owns all the various video game platforms required—but perhaps someone has.

10. Star Trek ’s Vulcan salute is actually a Hebrew blessing.

Leonard Nimoy did not create the Vulcan salute that means "Live Long and Prosper" out of thin air for the season two opener "Amok Time," which was the first time we got to see Spock among his people on Vulcan. It was actually borrowed from something he had witnessed as a child when he was attending a service at an Orthodox Jewish synagogue with his family.

"Five or six guys get up on the bimah, the stage, facing the congregation," Nimoy told the Yiddish Book Center in 2014. "They get their tallits over their heads, and they start this chanting—I think it's called duchening —and my father said to me, 'Don’t look.' So everyone’s got their eyes covered with their hands or they've got their tallit down over their faces ... And I hear this strange sound coming from them. They’re not singers, they were shouters. And dissonant. It was all discordant … it was chilling. I thought, 'Whoa, something major is happening here.' So I peeked. And I saw them with their hands stuck out from beneath the tallit like this [ does salute with both hands ] towards the congregation. Wow. Something really got hold of me. I had no idea what was going on, but the sound of it and the look of it was magical.”

The hand gesture represents the Hebrew letter Shin, which represents the word Shaddai , a name for God. It looks like a lot of people have been blessing each other without knowing it.

11. Star Trek ’s Kirk/Spock connection continued in real life.

The bond that Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock enjoyed throughout their long onscreen association was also echoed by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy's off-camera relationship. It's interesting to note that while Spock seemed like the more isolated member of the crew who needed that human connection with Kirk, in real life Nimoy was an important person for his co-star. In a 2016 interview with The Aquarian , Shatner admitted that he never had had a close, intimate friendship with anyone before then. "I had that with Leonard, and that was the only time I had it," he confessed. "I envied it for the longest time, achieved it, then the book [ Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man ] continues on. It’s a very interesting aspect of life, developing a friendship. Not the 'Let’s go get a beer' friendship, but deep, deep down, 'Here’s my problem, I need your help.'"

12. In a way, Star Trek was the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer .

Despite not really having many ass-kicking women on the original show, Star Trek was the predecessor to Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Angel , and like-minded shows that were not ratings toppers, but which hit a key demographic effectively every week. When Roddenberry's show was canceled after just three seasons, the advertising people at NBC allegedly complained to programming executives because, while the show was not highly rated, they were reaching the target audience they wanted. That statement is supported by the success that the series experienced in off-network syndication, especially since the show's three seasons (1966-1969) were one shy of what was generally required for daily syndication, and the emergence of the first Star Trek convention in January 1972. Today, a show like Star Trek would have likely lasted at least twice as long.

13. One of Bones's signature Star Trek lines was taken from a 1933 movie.

"I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!" Bones was always making a variation on that gripe when asked to ascertain or do something outside of his medical expertise, and it is one of many Star Trek lines that has become a permanent part of pop culture lexicon. However, the idea originated with a 1933 film called The Kennel Murder Case , which starred William Powell and Mary Astor. In the film, the character of Dr. Doremus utters these quips: "I'm a doctor, not a magician." "I'm a doctor, not a detective." "I'm the city butcher, not a detective." Bones McCoy had many variations to offer throughout the Star Trek TV and film series, and he certainly made the gag his own.

14. Star Trek has a connection to Stanley Kubrick.

Before he appeared as an astronaut on the Jupiter mission sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s classic sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey , Gary Lockwood appeared in the episode " Where No Man Has Gone Before ," which was the third episode of season one. His character attained godlike powers that made him drunk with power and posed a grave threat not just to the Enterprise , but to the galaxy itself.

15. Star Trek strived for ethnic and gender diversity, but the women still had to look sexy.

While Gene Roddenberry strived to push boundaries as much as he could, women were still sexed up for the show. Consider that Lieutenant Uhura, Yeoman Rand, Nurse Chapel, Dr. Helen Noel, and other female members of the Enterprise crew all wore mini-dresses. Further, close-ups of the female crewmembers were given a slightly softer focus to make them look dreamier, which was a common Hollywood trick at that time. While some of the female characters were strong, others—like Lt. Marla McGivers in the "Space Seed" episode—were rather frail when it came to men. Things got better for women in later Star Trek series, but then they came about in more enlightened times.

16. Many of the effects in the original Star Trek series were upgraded for HD broadcast and release in 2006.

When Star Trek: The Original Series was being prepared for its initial HD broadcast (and subsequent HD-DVD release) for the fall of 2006, Paramount decided to take a chance and upgrade all of the sequences involving the Enterprise flying and any background shots of space or environmental matte paintings. While some fans (and Leonard Nimoy , at least at first) thought this was heresy, visual effects producer Michael Okuda—who had been involved with the franchise since Star Trek V: The Final Frontier —made sure that the new CGI sequences and backgrounds were integrated smoothly with the old footage.

17. Mark Lenard was a Romulan, a Klingon, and a Vulcan on Star Trek .

Actor Mark Lenard had a dramatic visage that lent itself well to space opera, and he was the first actor in the franchise’s history to have played members of three different alien races. In the season one episode "Balance Of Terror," he played the Captain of an ultimately doomed Romulan vessel that has invaded Federation territory. In the opening to Star Trek: The Motion Picture , he plays a Klingon commander on a doomed ship caught in the path of the mysterious cloud that is wiping out anything in its path. But his biggest role in the franchise was portraying Spock’s father, Sarek, in the second season episode "Journey To Babel," the Animated Series episode "Yesteryear," and in the third, fourth, and sixth Star Trek films.

18. Malcolm McDowell received death threats after killing Captain Kirk onscreen.

McDowell played the charmingly misanthropic droog Alex DeLarge in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange , but he was on the receiving end of Star Trek fans’ wrath when his character, Dr. Tolian Soran, killed Captain Kirk in Star Trek: Generations— the first film born from the Star Trek: The Next Generation series that bridged the two series onscreen. In 2010, McDowell admitted that he was shocked at the vitriol of devout Trekkies—and that he actually received death threats.

"I didn’t take it seriously," McDowell told me . "The studio took it seriously. I suppose they had to because they didn’t want a lawsuit. They assigned two detectives to come with me to New York to do the press. It was a complete waste of time and quite funny. I kept telling the guys to go home, and they were going to stay outside my room the whole night at the Carlyle Hotel. I went for a walk, and they came with me. I literally came out of the Carlyle at 10 o’clock at night. I looked this way and that way, and there wasn’t one person on the street. Not one. I went, 'Wow, this is some death threat.' I said, 'I feel embarrassed that nobody’s tried to kill me, for Christ’s sake! I feel like I’m letting the detectives down.'"

19. Star Trek ’s episodes are not in chronological order.

If one lists the stardates for each episode, it is soon apparent that the series is not told in order—not that it was intended that way, since the episodes of the original series were not always broadcast in production order, leaving some fans to scratch their heads. Roddenberry improvised an explanation that worked at the time. "I came up with the statement that 'this time system adjusts for shifts in relative time which occur due to the vessel's speed and space warp capability. It has little relationship to Earth's time as we know it. One hour aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise at different times may equal as little as three Earth hours. The star dates specified in the log entry must be computed against the speed of the vessel, the space warp, and its position within our galaxy, in order to give a meaningful reading,'" he told The Making Of Star Trek author Stephen E. Whitfield. "Therefore stardate would be one thing at one point in the galaxy and something else again at another point in the galaxy. I'm not quite sure what I meant by that explanation, but a lot of people have indicated it makes sense. If so, I've been lucky again, and I'd just as soon forget the whole thing before I'm asked any further questions about it."

20. William Shatner pissed off Star Trek fans when he hosted Saturday Night Live .

While the thespian with the famously quirky cadence has embraced his Star Trek legacy, he has not let it define his life since he has become known for other roles in other shows as well, most notably T.J. Hooker and Boston Legal . But back in the 1980s, when the movie franchise was a hit and conventions kept growing, the befuddled star decided to make a statement about the ardent fandom that he had not yet understood by doing a skit when he hosted Saturday Night Live on December 20, 1986.

In the sketch (which you can watch above), Shatner played himself attending a convention of newly renamed "Trekkers" and, once he started getting ultra nerdy questions, he literally told the crowd to get a life. "You're turned an enjoyable little job that I did as a lark for a few years into a colossal waste of time," he griped. "I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves?" Some fans did not appreciate the joke. In 1999, Shatner penned a book called Get A Life! , which examined the cult of Star Trek fandom, and was turned into a documentary in 2011. It seems like Kirk decided to appreciate his followers after all.

A version of this story ran in 2018; it has been updated for 2021.

Screen Rant

Star trek is officially redefining what "where no one has gone before" actually means.

The phrase "where no one has gone before" has been a rallying cry for Star Trek fans for years, and now it has taken on an awesome new meaning.

• The iconic catchphrase "where no one has gone before" gets an epic new meaning in Star Trek #19, by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly and Megan Levens.
• Captain Sisko and his crew are heading into the Pleroma, Star Trek's newly revealed "realm of the gods," prompting Doctor Crusher to call it "where no one has gone before."
• One of Star Trek's key tenets is that humanity can evolve and transcend, and the journey to the Pleroma is the first step in this quest.

For generations of Star Trek fans, the catchphrase “where no one has gone before” has been an iconic call to adventure, but now it has taken on a whole new meaning. In Star Trek #19, the crew of the Theseus is heading to the Pleroma, a mysterious new realm that promises great adventure–and great peril. As they prepare for the hazardous journey, the franchise’s catchphrase takes on new layers.

Star Trek #19 is written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly and drawn by Megan Levens. T’Lir, the enigmatic Vulcan, has been revealed to be the last of the Organians and has charged Sisko and company with a new mission: travel to the Pleroma and help fix the damage Kahless has caused. Sisko is wary of the Pleroma, having been forbidden to travel there by the Prophets.

He discusses the impending journey with Doctor Crusher, and she refers to the Pleroma as “where no one has gone before.”

For Over 60 Years, Star Trek's Opening Monologue Has Perfectly Set the Show's Tone

It has undergone several changes over the years.

The catchphrase “where no one has gone before” is one of the most memorable in pop culture. Part of a larger opening monologue, the phrase has undergone a few alterations. When Star Trek premiered in 1966, the line read: “where no man has gone before.” When Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in 1987, it was updated to the much better and more inclusive “where no one has gone before.” This has since become, with a few exceptions, the standard across the franchise, still recited in both the Abrams Kelvin-timeline movies and Strange New Worlds.

In the pilot episode of Star Trek: Enterprise , it was revealed Zefram Cochrane coined the phrase "where no man has gone before."

Star Trek is a story of exploration and discovery, and this catchphrase perfectly sums up this philosophy. Every week, the crews of the various Star Trek shows encounter bizarre alien life forms and awe-inspiring stellar phenomena. Ships like the Enterprise, Voyager or Discovery expanded the frontiers of knowledge while keeping the galaxy safe. Star Trek’s opening monologs set the tone perfectly for the incredible stories that follow. Now, on the eve of one of the biggest discoveries in galactic history, it is taking on a new meaning.

Star Trek Already Confirmed Its Real Final Frontier (& It's Not Space)

Star trek is about more than just exploring space--it's about exploring the human heart too, the pleroma may hold the key to humanity's evolution.

Yet, Star Trek is more than just stories of the exploration of space, but also expanding the potential of humanity . In addition to featuring a future where strife and war have been eliminated, the franchise has shown humanity has great potential, something Q alluded to in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “All Good Things.” Humanity will one day be like gods, and the Theseus’ journey to the Pleroma is the first step along the way. The Pleroma opens new possibilities in the Star Trek franchise, giving new meaning to “where no one has gone before.”

Star Trek #19 is on sale now from IDW Publishing!

• Weird Stuff
• Miscellaneous
• Movies And TV
• Pop Culture
• Random Generator
• Privacy Policy

100 Interesting Facts About Star Trek

1 Majel Barrett

Shortly before she died, Majel Barrett recorded an entire library of phonetic sounds, allowing her voice to be used in future products outside of Star Trek and, quite possibly, as the computer voice in Star Trek: Discovery. Thus, she could live on as the voice of Starfleet possibly for all time.

2. A professional linguist in Native American languages was asked to invent Klingon for Star Trek. He speaks Klingon but notes that others have attained greater fluency

3. Galaxy Quest, a satire of Star Trek and fandom, is so popular with the latter's fans that it was named the 7th best Star Trek film at the 2013 Star Trek Convention. Actors of TOS, TNG, Voyager, and DS9 also have expressed admiration for the film.

4. The first black-white interracial kiss on American television was on an episode of Star Trek. However, the producers were worried about the show being banned in the South because of it and tried to shoot alternate versions of the shot. The actors intentionally flubbed those shots.

5. Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan features cinema's first entirely computer-generated sequence: the demonstration of the effects of the Genesis Device on a barren planet.

Latest FactRepublic Video: 15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History

6 Patrick Stewart

Patrick Stewart signed a 6-year contract for "Star Trek: The Next Generation" because he, his agent, and others with whom Stewart consulted all believed that the new TV show would quickly fail, and he would return to his Shakespearean career after making some money.

7. The first Space Shuttle was to be named "Constitution", but after a major letter-writing campaign by Star Trek fans, its name was affectionately changed to "Enterprise".

8. The King of Jordan, Abdullah bin al-Hussein was an extra on Star Trek: Voyager

9. Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame is a Star Trek fanatic and can quote every line of dialogue (from all characters) from the original series.

10. We ain't found sh*t! a trooper from Spaceballs is Tim Russ, who also played Tuvok in Star Trek Voyager.

11 Gene Roddenberry

Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was once in a plane crash in the desert in Syria. With two broken ribs, he repeatedly went back into the burning plane to evacuate passengers, then organized search teams to look for civilization.

12. Mae Jemison, the first female African-American astronaut, was inspired to apply to NASA by the Star Trek character, Lieutenant Uhura. Jemison later went on to make a cameo appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

13. The visor Geordi La Forge wore to give him a vision in Star Trek: TNG made his actor Levar Burton 90% blind while filming.

14. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry served in World War 2 with a pilot named Kim Noonien Singh and lost contact with him following the war's end. Roddenberry named the villain Khan Noonien Singh after his comrade in hopes that Singh would notice and contact him.

15. E.T., Blade Runner, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Poltergeist, and The Thing were all released on the same month and competed with each other at the box office.

16 First pilot of Star Trek

After NBC rejected the first pilot of Star Trek, Lucille Ball of I Love Lucy Fame used her clout to convince NBC to give Gene Roddenberry a second chance.

17. There is only one syndicated program to ever receive a Best Series Emmy nomination: Star Trek The Next Generation

18. Stark Trek’s star Spock (Leonard Nimoy) fought to get pay equity for Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) on Star Trek in the 1960s.

19. DeForest Kelley disliked repeating Dr. McCoy's catchphrase "He's dead, Jim", which appears 20 times in the original Star Trek series. It became so famous, however, that he joked that the line would appear on his tombstone. It did appear in the first sentence of Kelley's obituary.

20. When the studio behind 'Star Trek' received a letter from a builder asking how to make automatic sliding doors that opened and closed as fast as on the Enterprise, their reply explained that the doors were manually operated by an offstage crewman. If too late, the cast would hit unopened doors.

21 Patrick Stewart's baldness

Gene Roddenberry was asked by a reporter about casting Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: TNG. "Surely by the 24th century, they would have found a cure for male pattern baldness." And Gene Roddenberry responded, "No, by the 24th century, no one will care."

22. Some of the male background characters in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' can be seen wearing skirts. This was explained as "a logical development, given the total equality of the sexes presumed to exist in the 24th century."

23. When Florence Henderson arrived to do her Brady Bunch screen test, there was no one on staff to do her make-up. She went over to the adjoining studio where Star Trek was filmed and ended up in a make-up chair surrounded by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and "six or eight space monsters".

24. James Doohan, "Scotty" on Star Trek, was shot by 6 bullets storming Juno Beach on D-Day: four in his leg, one in the chest, and one through his right middle finger

25. There are exactly 1,547 Lens Flares J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Movies

RELATED ARTICLES MORE FROM AUTHOR

Screenplay Sagas: 50 Remarkable Movie Rights Facts

50 Untold Behind-the-Scenes Movie Tales – Part 12

Art of Cinema: 50 Movie Details You May Have Missed – Part 8

Great stuff Great stuff Great stuff

One day, we will build a spacecraft and we will name it the U.S.S. William Shatner A well deserved accolade.

#94 is BS. Lucille Ball could not have prevented the cancellation of STTOS in 1964 as the series did not premier until 1966! What she did in 1964 was, when the network didn’t like the first pilot for the series “The Cage,” she used her clout to get NBC to go along with a second pilot, which aired as the episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” NBC liked the second pilot and picked up the series. It premiered in September 1966.

#46 – The movie title is correct (The Undiscovered Country), the sequence number is not. It’s Star Trek VI, not IV.

The ‘Hypospray’ may have been fictional, because it was self contained, but the method of using high pressure to force medication through your skin was already in use prior to Star Trek. The Army was using it in 1959, and school kids were being immunized with it, in the early 60’s. The only difference was an air hose powered the piston that did the injections. This allowed a production line process, as hundreds of people walk past workers who cleaned the injection site, and another who did the injection. The process was not only faster, but the injector was more accurate that individual syringes since the injector was self metering. All Star Trek was replace the air hose with a compressed gas cartridge. That was only possible, because it would only do a few limited shots without being reloaded.

LEAVE A REPLY Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

POPULAR POSTS

The human body: 40 surprising facts few know – part 4, 100 interesting facts about queens, 34 curious wedding statistics & facts everyone should know, 45 fancy random facts about practically everything | random list #255, popular tags.

Leading destination on the internet for people who crave knowledge and facts. We got Random Facts Generator, Fact Cards, Interesting Puzzles, History Facts, all with sources in one place.

© Copyright 2017-2022. Fact Republic All Rights Reserved.

Privacy Manager

king of jordan in star trek wtf fun facts

King of Jordan in Star Trek – WTF fun facts

Share this fact:  

1 thought on “king of jordan in star trek wtf fun facts”.

LoL, whaat?!

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

10 Biggest WTF Moments From Star Trek: Voyager

Voyager's wackiest adventures in the unexplored depths of the Delta Quadrant.

Star Trek: Voyager certainly didn't shy away from the strangeness of exploring unknown space. The crew of the ship experienced a lot of messed up stuff during their stay in the Delta Quadrant. They had to contend with malfunctioning tech, awkward alien encounters, and much more on their journey home to Earth.

So, with that in mind, let's go through the most absurd moments in S tar Trek: Voyager , and on the way we'll learn more about the ship's crew and the history of the Trek universe in general.

Fire up your nacelles for warp 10, and get ready to hear about some of Starfleet's weirdest adventures.

10. The Doctor's Opera Performance

Of course we had to mention Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy , the episode where The Doctor added the ability to daydream to his program. This was one of Voyager 's more comedic episodes and a goldmine for WTF moments.

Among other things, The Doctor daydreamed about all the female senior officers fighting for his affection, and imagined himself commanding the ship and bravely defeating the Borg, but the weirdest daydream came right at the start of the episode.

Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy opened with The Doctor singing the Italian opera aria, La donna mobile , to the crew in the mess hall. As the song progressed, Tuvok started acting stranger and stranger, first bursting into tears before laughing uncontrollably and falling to the floor. Tuvok pushed Paris aside and The Doctor told everyone to stand back and, to the melody of his opera, sang that Tuvok was going through his pon farr, and losing his mind at his sexual frustration. Still in song, The Doctor told Paris to load a hypospray, which The Doctor was able to use to knock out the hormonal Vulcan with one shot to the behind. It was only after this sequence that we learned it was all a daydream.

This scene was definitely one of the most memorable cold opens in Trek history. The Doctor's singing, combined with everyone else's ambivalent reaction to the whole situation, absolutely makes this one of the most jaw-droppingly absurd moments to come out of Voyager .

Marcia Fry is a writer for WhatCulture and an amateur filmmaker.

Star Trek: Discovery Finally Gave Us A Closer Look At The Franchise's Most Mysterious Villain

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Star Trek: Discovery."

"Star Trek" might represent an idealistic vision of a bolder and brighter future, but the last few seasons of "Discovery" have proven that there will always be bad guys with a penchant for muddying up those ambitions in unexpected ways -- even in the 32nd Century. While the Borg, Romulans, and the warlord Khan often have a stranglehold on the title of "Best 'Trek' villains," one alien species in particular has remained shrouded in mystery for decades. First mentioned in foreboding whispers in "The Next Generation" and finally seen in the flesh (well, so to speak) in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," the Breen have played a significant role throughout the franchise in the years since ... yet Trekkies still had to wait until now to actually see what lies underneath their distinctive helmets.

The advantage of never showing us a Breen's face, as it turns out, is that "Discovery" was able to hide one in plain sight all along.

So far, the addition of scavengers Moll (Eve Harlow) and L'ak (Elias Toufexis) has felt like a shoe waiting to drop. The close-knit pair continue to frustrate Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the rest of the Discovery crew (nowhere more dramatically than in last week's time-traveling bottle episode ), remaining one step ahead of our heroes in their quest to recover whatever Progenitor technological treasure hides at the end of this galaxy-spanning rainbow. About midway through episode 5, titled "Mirrors," the writers unleashed their big twist. L'ak, thus far considered an unknown type of extraterrestrial, actually reveals himself as a Breen. Or, rather, an emotional Moll lets this information slip by accident during a particularly fraught moment. In the process, "Trek" finally unmasked its most enigmatic aliens.

Read more: Every Star Trek Show And Movie In Chronological Order

Putting On A Brave Face (Or Two)

In the span of one episode, "Discovery" officially made "Star Trek" history.

Long treated as a mystery that left everything up to our own imaginations, the Breen reveal puts a specific face to what had previously only been a name ... actually, make that two faces. While Moll and L'ak come to a tense faceoff with Burnham and Cleveland Booker (David Ajala) on board the mirror-universe version of the USS Enterprise while trapped in multidimensional space (it's a long story), the writers treat this as the perfect opportunity to delve into the scavengers' shared past. In a series of flashbacks, we find out that L'ak was part of the Breen royal family and disgraced by his powerful Primarch uncle. Hoping to earn his way back to his people's good graces, all his plans are upended by a torrid romance with then-courier Moll. With their backs against the wall and nowhere else to turn, the lovers choose their own path altogether and, along the way, L'ak reveals his most private aspect of himself: his Breen face.

Of course, the episode adds another twist and introduces the concept of the Breen having two  faces -- a solid, corporeal form they can present to others if they so choose, and a more translucent one. (Really, it can only be described as  squishier. ) In fact, this creepy and altogether unique visage symbolizes a much more meaningful difference, as we learn when L'ak's uncle calls his chosen face an "insult to your heritage." Apparently, most Breen have moved beyond this "weak" form and consider this some sort of societal faux pas. In just a few minutes, we discover more about Breen culture than we've ever known before.

New episodes of "Star Trek: Discovery" stream every Thursday on Paramount+.

Read the original article on SlashFilm

16 All New WTF Fun Facts About Animals

Animals are cool and it's always fun to learn something new about them. Ammiright? Not only are animals cool, but there are many random, interesting and weird facts about them. Knowing these facts is good for your trivial knowledge bank, as well as looking smart in a conversation when you casually bring up a fact like you know a lot more than you do (my advice for maintaining the impression of being smart is to move through the facts quickly, so that no-one can question you further about something you only know one fact about). Get ready to learn some juicy animal facts. 

• Advertisement

For a weekly dose of animal-themed community challenges - Subscribe to our Newsletter!

Can't get enough of ICanHasCheezburger? Find us on Instagram!

Next on I Can Has Cheezburger?

Follow The Laughs