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Series / Star Trek: The Original Series

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"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise . Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before!" — Captain James T. Kirk , the legendary Opening Narration

Star Trek is the first show in the Star Trek franchise. After the release of multiple spinoff series and movies, it has been retroactively called Star Trek: The Original Series to differentiate it from the franchise as a whole.

The origin of the show came when Gene Roddenberry was looking to write hard-hitting political and moral commentary and could not do so with the regular dramas of the time. He deduced that by creating a science fiction show borrowing heavily from the film Forbidden Planet , he could slip in such commentary disguised as metaphors for the various current events. As such he pitched Star Trek to the networks as a merging of the two most popular genres of the time, science fiction anthologies and Westerns . note  Notably, he pitched it as " Wagon Train in space ", not " Wagon Train To The Stars ".

While troublesome to produce, the show was a major Trope Maker , especially in Science Fiction (each of the three main characters has a trope named after them, and that's just for starters!). The cast was a dynamic mix of ethnicities and cultures, and while the focus was nearly always on Kirk , Spock and McCoy , they still had a Russian , an Asian and a black African woman in positions of responsibility, authority and respect , despite recent , brewing or ongoing conflicts concerning people of those ethnicities in Real Life . According to the cast members, near everyone in Hollywood wanted to be a part of Star Trek because of the steps forward it was making. In particular, George Takei said that almost every Asian actor wanted to be Sulu because they wouldn't be required to use an Asian accent or engage in Asian martial arts, instead breaking cultural stigma by being a practitioner of European fencing. note  Takei facetiously put down fencing on his resume so he wouldn't be given a katana; once it came up in the script, he got a crash course the weekend before filming. He remains an avid fencer to this day. This also resulted in attracting multiple high-profile guest stars and guest writers, including Harlan Ellison , Theodore Sturgeon and Richard Matheson . Plots varied widely in quality from episode to episode and from season to season, depending upon who was writing and/or directing. An episode chosen at random can be anything from high camp to geopolitical allegory to genuinely intelligent drama, and is likely to be at least two out of those three .

In some ways the show was way ahead of its time ; in other ways, it is a product of its time . The women usually (but not always) appeared in the roles of assistants and secretaries , wearing go-go boots and miniskirts. note  At least some of that was due to Executive Meddling ; additionally, Grace Lee Whitney has mentioned that the female regulars objected to initial efforts to have them wear pants because they preferred showing off their legs . Whitney and Nichelle Nichols were both professional dancers, and Nichols used to whipstitch her skirt shorter in between takes because she thought it was too long, leading to a few shots where you can see her matching panties . While the visual design of the show was ambitious, the actual production quality has not aged well.

The show did have some developmental history before it came to air. The original Trek pilot featured Captain Pike played by Jeffrey Hunter , and Majel Barrett as his first officer . The pilot was praised by the network as great science fiction, but was considered " too cerebral " for the target audience and not as action-packed as the network wanted to market it . This resulted in a near entire-cast replacement for a second pilot episode, except for Spock. In fact, Doctor McCoy didn't appear until after the second pilot was filmed. However, that first pilot has remained as part of the franchise canon and did not go to waste—Roddenberry used a lot of it for the series' only two-parter, " The Menagerie ," which proved a Hugo science fiction award winner, and the pilot has been included in various releases of the series. Captain Pike himself was recast in Star Trek (2009) by Bruce Greenwood , and played by Anson Mount in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery (with Rebecca Romijn as Number One, Ethan Peck as Spock, and the Enterprise herself), wherein afterwards Pike received his own show called Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , coming full circle.

While the show was considered popular with general audiences note  the actors and studio were flooded with mail, and there was a huge amount of tie-in merchandise almost immediately and plenty of demand for more , the Nielsen ratings branded it a flop . Star Trek barely managed three seasons before being officially canceled, with a close call on the second season . Within a few weeks of its cancellation was the monumental first Moon Landing , and as a result the subsequent reruns of Star Trek were more popular than the original run . Television was also changing at the time, starting to account for demographics along with overall ratings, and found that Star Trek had snagged the most coveted 18–35 male group that nearly every show was aiming for. Star Trek conventions were jammed with thousands of dedicated fans, and seeing the potential for a revisit led into production for a new TV series. The first attempt was Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1973, which suffered from Filmation 's cheap production values, but more than compensated by having most of the original writers and cast, producing a great series that earned the franchise's first Emmy Award. Later in the decade, in the hope of creating a Paramount television network, a new Star Trek series was developed, dubbed Star Trek: Phase II . After Paramount's owner ditched the network plan, the intended pilot was reworked into the first Star Trek feature film , Star Trek: The Motion Picture , in 1979, after the monumental success of Star Wars . This led to an ongoing film series, the success of which led to the Sequel Series in 1987, Star Trek: The Next Generation , and another 18 straight years of Star Trek on television.

The subtitle "The Original Series" is a Retronym used solely for commercial clarification once Star Trek: The Next Generation came out. It has always been referred to as Star Trek in its own opening sequence.

Shatner returned to Paramount Television (which succeeded Desilu Studios as the show's production company during the second season) in 1975 for the series Barbary Coast , which was not nearly as successful as Star Trek , lasting only one season. Nimoy also continued with PTV after Star Trek ended, joining the cast of Mission: Impossible , which also began under Desilu.

Common plots:

• Something will threaten the ship and wreak havoc with the crew, either by harming them directly , manipulating laws of physics/reality or screwing with people's minds .
• Kirk leads a landing party to a planet with a single major defining element in their culture . Commonly, it will be a society that perfectly mirrors one from Earth's history . note  No need to build new sets for an alien planet when you can just shoot a local city street and reuse props designed for the Roman Empire! Their hosts rudely steal their communicators and phasers, usually because they just can't bear to let them leave . Lots of running around and fistfights ensue. Expect at least one Red Shirt to bite the dust. At the end, Kirk gives a speech to point out what's wrong with the planet's culture . Alternatively, the people on the planet will be a worshipping a " god " who turns out to be a computer that controls every aspect of its citizens’ lives . Kirk will then destroy it to emancipate them, acknowledging that while their new life may become equally dangerous , freedom is a right that should never be sacrificed .

Character profiles and roles in the script:

• Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ): The ship's exec and Science Officer , in charge of all scientific departments. His Human-Vulcan heritage was intended as an emphasis that we are out in space and alien people are common. While he is very emotionally reserved as a matter of Vulcan cultural tradition , in truth, he is as human as much as he is Vulcan . As a child, he was bullied for his mixed heritage , causing him to occasionally act in rejection of his human half (Thus, calling him "cold-blooded" or "unfeeling" will result in him thanking you for the "compliment"). But he is not as cold as he seems .
• Leonard "Bones" McCoy ( DeForest Kelley ): Chief Medical Officer , The Heart , and The Watson . The least "military" person on the ship. Given a Promotion to Opening Titles in the second season.
• Montgomery "Scotty" Scott ( James Doohan ): The Chief Engineer from Scotland , both a reliable officer and daring in battle .
• Hikaru Sulu ( George Takei ): A compulsive hobbyist (botany, gun collecting, fencing) and a Fan of the Past . The ship's helmsman , again an almost unthinkable position then for a minority, especially an Asian .

• Christine Chapel ( Majel Barrett ): Ship's nurse in Mad Love with Spock. Given The Cameo in a couple of the films.
• Yeoman Janice Rand ( Grace Lee Whitney ): Ms. Fanservice with a Beehive Hairdo . The original Bridge Bunny literally — early reviews of the series called her a "Playboy Bunny–type waitress." She was supposed to be one of numerous yeomen, a "succession of young actresses, always lovely". The yeomen served Kirk as an executive secretary, valet and military aide and were supposed to be treated as completely equal with men of the same rank. Rand and Kirk had Unresolved Sexual Tension until she fell victim to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome . note  By her own account, she was raped by an "executive" attached to the show — her description fits Roddenberry himself — and subsequently fired. Given The Cameo in a few of the films.
• Harcourt Fenton "Harry" Mudd (Roger C. Carmel): The Trickster , Con Man , and all-around scoundrel, Mudd was the focus of two episodes, and another in the animated series .
• Cyrano Jones: A more affable, less competent Trickster than Harry, who likewise reappears in an episode of the animated series .
• Khan Noonien Singh: An Affably Evil Human Popsicle and Designer Baby Übermensch who was once an Evil Overlord . Though he only appeared in one episode , he later became The Unfettered of the second movie .

This series provides examples of the following tropes:

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• Absurdly Dedicated Worker : In "The Return of the Archons" Landru guards his planet, long after its usefulness has ceased. Ditto the automated defense bot Losira in "That Which Survives".
• Act of True Love : "The Empath", McCoy sacrifices himself to save Kirk and Spock from death or insanity via Cold-Blooded Torture. Again, he lives, but he didn't know that.
• Adaptation Title Change : Two episodes' titles were changed when James Blish adapted them as short stories: "The Man Trap" became "The Unreal McCoy " (which may have been a working title from a draft script), and "Charlie X" became "Charlie's Law."
• Adaptational Alternate Ending : In the episode "Operation - Annihilate", Spock is temporarily blinded when they test a cure for a neural parasite on him before using it to free a planetary population. In the novelization of that episode, the planet is freed from the infection before Spock goes through the procedure, which does not blind him.
• Affectionate Parody : "A Piece of The Action" is an Affectionate Parody of gangster movies.
• Afrofuturism : Star Trek, while not afro-futurist in and of itself, did have an influence on the genre due to the presence of Uhura; the fact that a black person had a place on a futuristic space ship left a serious impact on young viewers. She was identified in the first episode as a Swahili (there are many Swahili peoples, James Blish described her as Bantu), had a few lines in Kiswahili in a couple of episodes, and the official Star Trek Writers' Guide established that she was from the United States of Africa.
• In "The Return of the Archons", a computer has effectively stagnated a planet's entire culture into an ongoing, meaningless cycle of merely existing.
• In "For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky", a computer keeps the generational refugees under its watch ignorant of the fact that they're living in an asteroid, and punishes those who try to find the truth.
• In "The Changeling", one of Earth's probes - programmed to seek out life - collided with and damaged an alien probe that was programmed to sterilize soil samples from other planets. The alien probe used parts of Earth's probe to repair itself, resulting in their programs merging to " seek out life and sterilize it ".
• In "The Ultimate Computer" the M-5 unit, designed by Dr. Daystrom, goes rogue after it mistakes a wargame for the real thing.
• In "Dagger of the Mind", Dr. Helen Noel saves the day by using a passage to get to the power room and shut off the Tantalus Colony's force field.
• In "Miri", the children use an air vent to infiltrate the lab where the Enterprise crew is working and steal their communicators.
• In "The Trouble With Tribbles", Scotty speculates that the tribbles got into the food processors on the Enterprise via the actual air vents. Spock realizes that the grain the Enterprise is guarding on the nearby space station is in storage compartments with similar vents, prompting Kirk to beam over and leading to the episode's funniest moment.
• Alice Allusion : "Shore Leave": Both in the characters seen by the good doctor, and the fact that the planet turns out to be one big Wonderland.
• Alien Non-Interference Clause : The Prime Directive, which forbids any interference with the internal development of pre-warp civilizations. Story-wise, it's used as a plot device to keep the main characters from just using the easy way out of a problem.
• All Planets Are Earthlike : Considering the technical and budgetary constraints, ridiculously so. The show hand waves it sometimes by making planets specifically based on Earth. Or making the episode actually take place on Earth .
• The final draft of the “Dagger In The Mind” script clarified that Kirk thought Helen Noel was a passenger at the party, not a member of the crew, and he flirted with her to his embarrassment.
• All Women Are Lustful : Contrary to his reputation, Kirk doesn't initiate a lot of his kisses, and when he does it's nearly always used as a means to an end.
• The Horta is initially presented and believed to be (as the episode title states) a "Devil in the Dark", but turns out to be a mother protecting her eggs.
• Balance of Terror is the first episode to feature the Romulans, who are introduced by launching an unprovoked sneak attack. In the selfsame episode the two main Romulan characters are examples of My Country, Right or Wrong and What a Senseless Waste of Human Life , and it is made very clear that if it weren't for their being on opposite sides of battle, Kirk and the Romulan Commander could have easily been friends.
• The episode Errand of Mercy marks the first appearance of the Klingons, and in that very episode the Organians - a more enlightened species than Humans or Klingons - predict that at some future date , the Klingons and the Federation will become allies, working together. There's also "Day of the Dove", when after learning that they are being manipulated by an Energy Being into a senseless, endless war with Kirk's crew, the Klingons team up in an Enemy Mine . Kang: I do not need any urging to kill humans. A Klingon kills for his own reasons! Only a fool fights in a burning house!
• In the Pilot Episode , Captain Christopher Pike's character was subjected to an illusion of Hell when he refused to cooperate with his Talosian jailers. The illusion was stated to be made from information gotten from his own mind, implying that he was raised as a Christian.
• At the end of "This Side of Paradise" , when the Enterprise is leaving Omicron Ceti III, Dr. McCoy , reflecting on the euphoric effect the planet's spores had on the crew, states that "Well, that's the second time man's been thrown out of Paradise."
• Captain Kirk's famous line to the alien impersonating the Greek god Apollo in "Who Mourns for Adonais?" : Kirk: Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate.
• In "The Ultimate Computer" , both Dr. Richard Daystrom and, consequently, the sentient M-5 computer he built believe in God. Kirk makes the M-5 realize that in committing murder, it has sinned, and it shut itself down out of remorse.
• In "Bread and Circuses" , Kirk and Crew come upon a planet dominated by a Roman Empire but with 20th century technology, where a persecuted, pacifist new religion worships a sun god. At the end of the episode, Lieutenant Uhura discovers that this new religion does not worship the Sun but the Son, clearly referencing Jesus. Kirk even considers remaining at the planet for a number of years just so they can "watch it happen all over again."
• Near the end of "The Way to Eden" , Adam, one of Dr. Sevrin's followers, literally dies on the planet Eden after eating a poisoned apple ; Spock sardonically points this out.
• Amnesia Danger : In "The Paradise Syndrome", the danger was that the amnesiac character (Kirk) had forgotten that there was a danger.
• The unfortunate fate that Captain Pike is ultimately reduced to.
• The fate of Lazarus and Anti-Lazarus in "The Alternative Factor".
• Charlie's reaction to the ending of "Charlie X".
• And Your Little Dog, Too! : Villains often find that this trope is what forces Kirk to comply to them. Textbook case in "The Squire of Gothos", with Spock as the collateral.
• The episode "The Enemy Within" involves a transporter accident separating Kirk from his aggressive side. While the unchecked aggressive side causes nothing but trouble, Kirk realizes he needs that side of him to be an effective leader. Kirk asks this aggressive side "Can half a man live?"
• In "This Side of Paradise", anger frees Kirk and then Spock from the spores' influence. Later sonic frequencies irritate the rest of the crew and the colonists, freeeing them as well.
• Antagonistic Governor : Kodos the Executioner, who was governor of a human colony that was facing starvation because of an exotic fungus. He executed 4,000 citizens in order to see to it that the other 4,000 wouldn't starve . He later disappeared, presumed dead, but in reality, had changed his name and was living life as an actor.
• "Charlie X": Charlie Evans turns out to be a Reality Warper and starts abusing his powers when the crew of the Enterprise doesn't bow down to his every whim.
• "The Enemy Within": Kirk is split into a good and an evil version . Guess which one is the enemy.
• "The Devil in the Dark": Subverted. The silicon-based Horta was killing the miners to protect its eggs. The Enterprise crew heal it and communicate with it.
• "The Doomsday Machine": It is a planet-eating machine from another Galaxy.
• "The Ultimate Computer": A.I. Is a Crapshoot .
• "The Tholian Web": The energy web is being created by the Tholians to destroy the Enterprise .
• Apocalyptic Log : Losira's computer log in "That Which Survives", which explained how her colony died.
• Applied Phlebotinum
• Armor-Piercing Question : Surprisingly, one towards Kirk from the leader of the Organians in "Errand of Mercy" when they've stopped the Federation and the Klingon Empire from fighting. Kirk: Even if you have some power that we don't understand, you have no right to dictate to our Federation— Kor: Or our Empire! Kirk: —How to handle their interstellar relations! We have the right— Ayelborne: To wage war, Captain? To kill millions of innocent people? To destroy life on a planetary scale? Is that what you're defending?
• Arc Words : When Gene Coon was involved, soldier vs diplomat. A lot of the time it’s Kirk’s Conflicting Loyalty and Character Development , but other characters have the conflict too, and it’s a continuing theme for other Trek series.
• Artistic License – Physics : In "The Naked Time", the Enterprise is observing a planet in the process of breaking up. The only explanation given for why the planet is breaking up is that its star has gone dark, which would make no difference. It's as if it's just spontaneously exploding. What's more, they talk about its mass changing, which absolutely cannot happen under the laws of physics. note  The closest thing in real life would be, A.) Change the effect of gravity in some way (and most of the numbers related to gravity are called 'constants' for a reason), or B.) remove some of the planet's matter, which would change the total mass and either its density or volume (or both).
• Ascended Extra : Most of the main crew members (with the exception of Kirk and Spock) are not credited with starring roles in the opening credits, even McCoy (for the first season). Many of them don't appear in certain episodes, and don't even receive any real focus or characterization until late season 1 and throughout season 2. Only the movies credit them with starring roles.
• Aside Comment : At the end of "Journey to Babel", Doctor McCoy looks directly into the camera and happily states, "I finally got the last word."
• As You Know : In "Wolf in the Fold" Spock explains to Captain Kirk how ordering the computer to compute the value of pi to the last digit will drive the Redjack creature out of it .
• "Ass" in Ambassador : How many times has the presence of Federation diplomatic personnel actually helped matters? More often than not Kirk and company have to smooth over problems created by overbearing Federation officials. Alien ambassadors aren't much of an improvement.
• Asteroid Thicket : In "Mudd's Women", Harry Mudd's ship flies through one.
• Attack Reflector : Played With in the episode "The Corbomite Maneuver". Kirk threatens to use the eponymous strategy with a device embedded in the Enterprise . If any destructive energy hits it, the corbomite creates a reverse reaction of equal strength that destroys the attacker. He was bluffing: there was actually no such device and no such maneuver.
• Author Appeal : Gene Roddenberry admitted in the book “Where No Man” that a lot of episodes were his sexual fantasies. He’s at least equal opportunity about it, giving Kirk gratuitous shirtless scenes and apparently letting Shatner stick his ass out as much as he wanted, saying fans liked to watch him leave a room.
• Auto-Kitchen : The Enterprise has slots in the wall which can produce any food desired by inserting the correct computer tape. In The Next Generation , these are replaced by replicators.
• Ax-Crazy : Captain, no, Lord Garth. Also most of his "court" of fellow asylum inmates, notably Green-Skinned Space Babe Marta, who is compelled to murder those she "loves." note  She is the only green space babe who kisses or is kissed by Kirk; and they certainly don't do it, as she reached for her dagger almost immediately.
• Badass Crew : The Original Series establishes a long and proud tradition of these in Starfleet.
• Batman Gambit : Kirk is very good at reading his opponents in battle, and thus can pull these off in ways that would make Batman himself proud. The Corbomite Maneuver is a distinct example, and the entirety of Balance of Terror has Kirk continuously doing this to the commander of a Romulan ship, estimating his every action and intention based on the maneuvers he makes: (Enterprise fires on the still cloaked Romulan ship, scoring a near-miss ) Romulan Sub-Commander: "How, commander? HOW?!" Romulan Commander: "He is a sorcerer that one, he reads the thoughts in my brain!"
• In the episode "Miri", at one point, the Long-Lived children get together and start chanting the word "Bonk" repeatedly (as in "Bonk on the head") as an indication of what they plan to do to the Enterprise crew who have beamed down to their planet.
• Similarly, the space battle music from the episode "The Doomsday Machine" became a standard used over and over again in later episodes.
• Beard of Evil : "Mirror Mirror" provides the Trope Codifier of Evil Twins with beards, thanks to the Mirror-universe Spock's natty goatee.
• Beeping Computers : Computers in the original series beeped because it was a futuristic interpretation of the rather noisy computers of The '60s (which really did have blinking lights too).
• In "Wolf in the Fold", it turns out that Jack the Ripper was just one of many creatures possessed by a Puppeteer Parasite over the centuries.
• "Requiem for Methuselah" concerns an immortal being who takes credit for the deeds of many historical figures .
• Inverted from perspective "Patterns of Force." We follow the crew of the Enterprise looking for John Gill, a Federation historian. It turns out he's created a replica of the Nazi movement on an alien world and made himself the Führer. Said aliens, and their planetary cousins, are shocked to learn of this.
• Don't insult the Enterprise within earshot of Scotty, much less to his face. The Klingons find this out the hard way in "The Trouble With Tribbles". Then again, they are Klingons, so they may have been looking for that fight.
• Don't imply to McCoy that logic is a good substitute for compassion in a crisis.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished : Very often, Kirk would be sweaty and his hair messed up in a fight, let alone be injured, but look perfect again the very next scene.
• Benevolent Dictator : Khan Noonien Singh held this reputation, despite his pro-eugenics beliefs and absolute power throughout his conquered empire, he was regarded as the best of the Eugenics wars Super men, with his ruling style being described as "firm but fair" and it being specifically stated that under his rule their was "no mass killings, no wars that weren't started by other parties". By the 23rd century his rule has even become somewhat romanticised, with him being compared to the likes of Leif Ericson, Richard the Lionheart and Napoleon Bonaparte. This reputation even leads to the crew of the Enterprise seriously underestimating just how ruthless and ambitious the still living Khan really was.
• In "Plato's Stepchildren", Alexander is first seen as a massive shadow against a wall. Said shadow shrinks as he approaches Kirk, Spock, and McCoy , revealing he's actually rather short compared to them. The actor playing Alexander was 3 feet, 11 inches tall.
• Lazarus in "The Alternative Factor".
• Charlie Evans does this in "Charlie X".
• Black-and-White Morality : Averted . The Federation may be a near- Utopia , but they only remain as one through military power. They get called out on this more than once .
• Black Comedy : "A Piece of the Action", and "The Trouble With Tribbles" both thrive on this trope. It can also be seen in dialogue moments in other episodes, such as this exchange in "This Side of Paradise" where Kirk and Spock ( the only crew remaining on the Enterprise ) are going to build a transmitter utilizing the communicators' emergency channel, but first Kirk has to fight Spock to free him of the spores: Spock: As you are probably aware , striking a fellow officer is a court-martial offence. Kirk: If we're both in the brig, who's going to build the transmitter? Spock: A logical point, Captain.
• Black Dude Dies First : Averted in "The Galileo Seven" and "By Any Other Name"; in both cases, the black male character survives to the end of the episode while one or more white characters die.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality : Eminiar and Vendikar, the two warring planets in "A Taste of Armageddon," have so sanitized their war with each other that they no longer send actual missiles—instead they just send computer signals signifying an attack and then have all civilians who happened to be within range of the theoretical attack disintegrate themselves in booths designed for that purpose. The leader of Eminiar considers Kirk a monster because he refuses to allow the same thing to happen to the crew of the Enterprise when the ship is calculated to have been "hit" by an "attack," and even more so when he destroys Eminiar's attack computers, immediately breaking the stalemate between the two planets.
• Bluffing the Authorities : The episode "City on the Edge of Forever". After Kirk and Spock go back in time to 1930's New York City, they're about to steal some clothing to replace their Enterprise uniforms but meet a police officer and have to explain Spock's pointed Vulcan ears. They come up with a story that Spock is Chinese and had a childhood accident involving a mechanical rice picker and plastic surgery, but the cop doesn't buy it .
• Bluff the Eavesdropper : In "The Deadly Years", due to having been rapidly aged by mysterious radiation and gone senile, Kirk has been forced to step down from command. His incompetent replacement has led the ship through the Romulan Neutral Zone, and the Romulans are about to destroy them. Suddenly a cure is found, a restored Kirk appears on the bridge and gives an order to relay a message to Starfleet—using a code previously established as having been broken by the Romulans, which briefly causes the crew to wonder if he's still senile. Nevertheless, they open the channels and Kirk sends a message that the Enterprise will self destruct via the Corbomite Device and destroy any ship in a huge radius. The Romulans intercept the message and leave in a hurry .
• Blunt Metaphors Trauma : Thanks to his incredibly rationalist thinking, Spock has notable difficulty with understanding human euphemisms and metaphors.
• Boldly Coming : Kirk is the Trope Codifier . That said, Kirk's reputation for sleeping his way across the galaxy has been greatly exaggerated in the public mind ; out of 79 aired episodes, he kisses another character in only 19 of them, and of those, thirteen are while he's under duress or doing it specifically to manipulate them . In fact, Kirk makes out with a woman purely for pleasure, with no other motive or emotional attachment, exactly once in the entire original series. Sex is likewise only implied in a few rare instances: once when he marries a native girl while amnesiac, and gets her pregnant; once when the show returns from commercial to find a woman brushing her hair in his room while he puts his boots back on; a Sexy Discretion Shot to an overhead lamp as Kirk kisses a Sex Slave girl who's been "ordered to please" him note  A line that was cut had Kirk drinking wine and saying "good," eating something and saying "excellent," and then — "And you?" and the woman says "Superb, I'm told." ; and Kirk sitting up in bed taking a call from the bridge, the woman (France Nuyen as the Dolmen Elaan) lying next to him, she rolls over and sits up to lean on his shoulder.
• Many episodes begin and end on a shot of the Enterprise flying through space as the dramatic fanfare plays her in (or out).
• A more meta example: Sulu and Rand share a scene in the first episode aired, "The Man Trap". They don't share another scene until the sixth and final movie , with Rand as a Bridge Officer under Sulu's command.
• Borrowed Without Permission : Incorrigible larcenist Harry Mudd recounts how he managed to escape from a Federation penal colony to Captain Kirk and Mister Spock. Harry Mudd: I... borrowed transportation... Captain Kirk: He stole a starship!
• Bottled Heroic Resolve
• Brainwashed and Crazy : This happens in numerous episodes.
• Brandishment Bluff : "The Corbomite Maneuver" Kirk: This is the Captain of the Enterprise . Our respect for other life forms requires that we give you this... warning. One critical item of information that has never been incorporated into the memory banks of any Earth ship. Since the early years of space exploration, Earth vessels have had incorporated into them a substance known as... corbomite. It is a material and a device which prevents attack on us. If any destructive energy touches our vessel, a reverse reaction of equal strength is created, destroying— Balok: [over intercom] You now have two minutes. Kirk: —destroying the attacker. It may interest you to know that since the initial use of corbomite more than two of our centuries ago, no attacking vessel has survived the attempt. Death has... little meaning to us. If it has none to you then attack us now. We grow annoyed at your foolishness.
• Episode "Arena". Captain Kirk and the Gorn captain are forced to fight each other with improvised weapons. During their battle, the Gorn captain picks up a boulder and throws it at Kirk, pinning Kirk's leg to the ground.
• One of the cavemen uses a boulder to pound on the shuttlecraft.
• During a funeral ceremony, one of the cavemen throws a boulder at Spock, pinning him to the ground.
• Bread and Circuses : The aptly named episode "Bread and Circuses" explores a planet in which the Roman Empire never fell. Gladiator sports are broadcast on TV and interrupted by commercial breaks.
• Chekov does more screaming-in-pain than the rest of the crew combined. He even has a torture scene in the episode "Mirror, Mirror". This was explained as a convenient way to show there was mortal peril. In a nice inversion, he's the only one who doesn't get hit with the aging disease in "The Deadly Years". He still ends up getting subjected to a thousand and one medical checks, though. Chekov: Blood sample, Chekov! Marrow sample, Chekov! Skin sample, Chekov! If—if I live long enough, I'm going to run out of samples! Sulu: You'll live. Chekov: Oh yes, I'll live. But I won't enjoy it!
• Butterfly of Doom : In "The City on the Edge of Forever", Edith Keeler's death must occur or else it will cause an alternate timeline where Germany wins World War II and Starfleet does not exist.
• The Saurians were later established in Star Trek: The Motion Picture to be lizard people; there were a couple of them on the Enterprise .
• Calvin Ball : Fizzbin, the imaginary card game Kirk and Spock make up to confuse the gangsters in "A Piece of the Action", is an Ur-Example .
• Captain's Log : The Trope Maker ; Kirk's famous voice-over logs were conceived as a way of quickly introducing or recapping plot points that may have otherwise been confusing. He seems to do them in his head even when he's nowhere near a recorder. In early episodes (e.g, "Mantrap"), he even adopts an "Ominiscient Narrator" stance when referring to future events. When he says "Captain's log, stardate.... unknown", it can be downright chilling.
• Cargo Concealment Caper : In the episode "Dagger of the Mind", a criminal from a penal colony sneaks aboard by hiding in a cargo container that's beamed up to the ship.
• Cartwright Curse : So frequent you could almost take bets on whether the Girl of the Week is going to buy the farm by the end of the episode (or if she doesn't, pull a High-Heel–Face Turn ).
• Cast Full of Pretty Boys : The show’s habit for putting the main men in obvious mascara and eyeshadow is well-documented and much appreciated. This observation began with the digitally remastered editions and wasn't noticed at the time. The relatively heavy television makeup was designed to create highlights and shadows since the cameras of that time saw flat. So to a 1960s viewer, even watching on a color set, the actors did not look heavily made up.
• Catchphrase : Dr. McCoy 's " I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder " and " He's Dead, Jim ." Spock's "Fascinating" and "Illogical."
• Catch the Conscience : "The Conscience of the King" plays with this trope; a man suspected of being the murderous tyrant Kodos the Executioner happens to be an actor currently starring in a production of Hamlet .
• Usually in the form of the Enterprise or a second landing party arriving to save the day.
• Lampshaded in "Friday's Child" when Kirk wonders why " the cavalry doesn't come over the hill in the nick of time anymore ." Then Scotty arrives with a Redshirt Army .
• While Kirk has a lot of trauma and is a Broken Hero in the show, the writers obviously didn’t know they were going to have a movie series and give him a son that he knew about but had to stay away from. The Autobiography of James T. Kirk can do some fancy Arc Welding with how much Kirk likes running away from his problems; having the kid from “A Piece Of The Action” remind him of David, the traumas of season three pushing him to think he wants to be an Admiral, and reasoning that the more trio-based episodes after the first season is because of what happened with Edith and Sam.
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan took Kirk’s penchant for Just Ignore It and applied it to the nature of the show, forcing him to actually deal with his consistent loss and pain, and certain villains of the weeks coming back to prove he can’t just run away from everything. “Generations” and his 10-Minute Retirement after all he’s gone through, does it as well.
• Characterisation Click Moment : Originally, Spock didn't have the impassive, scientific characterization he is famous for. Leonard Nimoy said the character first began to click for him in "The Corbomite Maneuver", when the director suggested he "be the scientist, stay detached", and react to Balok's threatening ship with "Fascinating."
• Cheated Angle : The Enterprise is almost exclusively seen from the starboard side, even straight on angles are slightly turned away. The reason was a combination of budget and limitations of model-making technology, the electronics for the lights were fed in through the port side of the secondary hull and thus the starboard side was the only one fully detailed with painting, windows and decals (including the inside of the port nacelle, which would face the camera). Whenever there was a need to show the port side they would mirror flip the decals and then mirror the footage. The Remastered version of the show, with a CGI model, was able to do this more often.
• Chewing the Scenery : The Klingon executive officer Korax in "The Trouble With Tribbles" insults the Enterprise For the Evulz , underlining the last two words of this speech loud and clear with a wide-eyed stare: "I didn't mean to say that the Enterprise should be hauling garbage. I meant to say that it should be hauled away as garbage! " note  Fans adore this line and loudly reciting the whole insult parade became a favorite gag at the conventions of the 1970s.
• City in a Bottle : "For The World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" featured this on a generation ship.
• " That Which Survives ". Thousands of years ago, a Human Alien civilization called the Kalandans made an artificial planet to live on. Unfortunately, the process created a microorganism that killed the personnel stationed on the planet. By the time they died, the disease had been transported back to the original civilization via supply ships, completely wiping it out.
• '' Operation: Annihilate! " Going back to ancient times, a number of civilizations on different planets have been destroyed by outbreaks of mass insanity. The cause of the insanity is alien creatures that attack people and inject material into their bodies that takes control of their nervous systems. The aliens make the victims travel to other planets using starships, thus spreading the infection.
• " What Are Little Girls Made Of? " The aliens who lived on the planet Exo 3 created android robots to serve them. When the androids developed Artificial Intelligence , the aliens became afraid of them and started to turn them off. In self defense, the androids Turned Against Their Masters and destroyed them.
• " The Changeling ". The interstellar probe Nomad uses its alien technology-enhanced weapons to completely wipe out the population of the Malurian system, killing more than 4 billion people.
• " I, Mudd ". The aliens who created the androids originally came from the Andromeda galaxy. Their home planet's star went nova and destroyed their civilization except for a few outposts, whose inhabitants died out over time.
• " The Immunity Syndrome ". The entire population of the Gamma Seven-A system, consisting of billions of inhabitants, is killed by having their Life Energy drained by a giant space amoeba.
• " Return to Tomorrow ". A half million years ago, a highly advanced Human Alien civilization fought an apocalyptic war that destroyed the surface of their planet, ripped away the atmosphere and killed all living creatures on it. Before the end, a few members stored their minds in advanced devices to wait rescue.
• " The Empath ". The star Minara is about to go nova, and all of its planets (several of which have populations) will be destroyed. The Humanoid Alien Vians can only save the population of one planet. They do so, but the other civilizations are doomed.
• " Let That Be Your Last Battlefied ". The Humanoid Aliens of the planet Cheron completely wipe themselves out in a genocidal war.
• " The Lights of Zetar ". Long ago, every living thing on the planet Zetar was killed. The minds and Life Energy of 100 of its Humanoid Aliens inhabitants traveled into space and search for new bodies to possess.
• " For the World Is Hollow, And I Have Touched The Sky ". Several thousand years ago, the Fabrini people's home sun went nova and destroyed their planets, but some of them were put on a ship resembling (or disguised as?) an asteroid and sent to another planet.
• " Plato's Stepchildren ". When the planet Sahndara is destroyed by its sun going nova, almost all of its civilization is annihilated. A small number escape to Earth, then later another planet.
• " Wink Of An Eye ". On the planet Scalos, radioactive water causes the entire race to live at hyper-accelerated speeds (which tremendously shortens their lifespans) and makes the male part of the population sterile. By the time the Enterprise arrives, there are only a few Scalosians left.
• " All Our Yesterdays ". When the star Beta Niobe goes nova, its only planet, Sarpeidon, will be destroyed. However, the entire population of the planet has used time travel to journey into the planet's past. They are mentally and physically conditioned to fit in, but their civilization in the future is effectively destroyed.
• Happens once in a while. In "Journey to Babel", Sarek is accused of murdering a Tellarite ambassador. The culprit is an Orion pretending to be a staff member of the Andorian ambassador. In "Court Martial", Kirk is accused of causing the death of one of his crew members. The crew member has faked his own death and is trying to sabotage Kirk's career, as he blames Kirk for ruining his.
• Scotty has to do this in "Wolf in the Fold" after being set up for several murders by none other than Jack the Ripper himself—actually an alien entity who took possession over the centuries of (among others) Jack the Ripper and the city administrator investigating Scotty's alleged murders (conveniently stonewalling the investigation in the process).
• Even Spock gets in on the fun in "The Menagerie", although the crime in Spock's case is mutiny, not murder, and the whole ordeal is arranged by an alien entity just like the other incidents, albeit out of compassion rather than any sinister motive. Then again, unlike in the other cases, Spock is actually guilty, and not mind controlled or framed - he just has a very justifiable motive.
• Clip Show : "The Menagerie" shows us most of the original pilot episode, "The Cage".
• Clothing Damage : Kirk must have a pretty steep uniform allowance to cover all of those shirts that get torn up (or completely torn off of him). An unintended case can be seen in "The Savage Curtain" when Kirk's pants split open in the back for a brief moment.
• Combat by Champion : "Arena" has Kirk vs. Gorn captain. "Amok Time" has Kirk vs. Spock. "The Gamesters of Triskelion" has Kirk, Chekov, and Uhura vs. an Amazing Technicolor Population .
• Comic-Book Adaptation : Gold Key Comics published its first Star Trek comic in 1967 and the series outlived the TV show by a full decade (ending only because Marvel Comics took over the rights so it could publish comics set post- Star Trek: The Motion Picture ). Early issues are noted for their bizarre artwork and extreme breaks with TV continuity, due in part to the artist being a freelancer living in Europe who had never seen the series and only had publicity photographs to work with. As a result, one issue features a cut-away drawing that suggests that the Enterprise isn't much bigger than a large yacht, while another issue has the Enterprise landing on a planet, decades before Star Trek: Voyager does it. Later, Marvel, DC Comics , and IDW Publishing all took turns publishing comics set in the TOS era.
• This is the main draw of the franchise for many. Professional people from a variety of fields act professionally and work together to solve problems by the end of the episode.
• Some newer Trek stuff is controversial with the old fans for the characters acting less professionally and competently and getting by more on luck and Indy Ploys .
• Constellations as Locations : Implied with the Orions (the original Green-Skinned Space Babes). Background information and later parts of the franchise established that the green-skinned aliens were from the planet Orion, which is located in the Orion Sector (which sector is presumably geocentrically named for the Earth constellation).
• Corrective Lecture : Attempted by Kirk in "Charlie X", when he attempts to explain to Charlie why slapping Yeoman Rand on the butt was not appropriate behavior, but also not trying to come down hard on Charlie, who had (as Kirk believed at the time) no supervision as a child, being the sole survivor of a crash when he was young. Kirk, trying to avoid having The Talk with Charlie, can only sum it up by saying, "There's no right way to hit a woman."
• Couldn't Find a Pen : In one episode, a Horta (essentially a lava monster) burns, " NO KILL I " on the ground. Spock wonders if this translates to "I don't kill" or "Don't kill me". Or both? She doesn't explain, so it's left up to the viewer, but she's in agony and more concerned about her kids.
• In "The Menagerie", Spock gets put on trial for commandeering the Enterprise and taking it to a forbidden planet.
• " Court Martial ": Kirk gets put on trial for (seemingly) causing the death of a crew member through negligence.
• Courtroom Episode : " Court Martial ", "Wolf In The Fold"
• Cowboy Episode : "Spectre of the Gun", in which the main characters are forced to re-enact the gunfight at the O.K. Corral on an alien world.
• Creator Cameo : Gene Roddenberry himself voiced the ship's cook in " Charlie X ".
• Credits Montage : Featuring not only stills from the episode in question, but random shots from various other episodes as well.
• In "Miri" they just do the familiar "nyah nyah-nyah nyah nyah" chant but it's made very sinister.
• Cunning People Play Poker : The Corbomite Maneuver " when faced with Balok's incomprehensible mothership threatening to destroy the Enterprise, Spock contextualises their situation as a game of chess and concludes Balok has declared checkmate. Captain Kirk changes the game to poker, and then bluffs that Enterprise has a defense feature that will ensure that if it's destroyed, Balok's ship will also get blown up.
• Spock is totally unaffected by Tribbles. He is only petting it because it is logical ... What's everybody looking at?
• And cats. He has no particular fondness for the creatures . note  Vulcans were often compared with cats in fan essays of the time, and someone wrote a half-serious essay on how they could have evolved from felidae.
• And dogs, too. See the space dog in "The Enemy Within".
• Used as foreshadowing in “The Enemy Within”, as good Kirk (who thinks he’s the original at this point) is weepier than normal and gets distracted by the animal he’s holding being soft while trying to give orders. It turns out to be just a side of him that he needs, along with the toxic aggressive part of himself.
• The Cloud Minders , which features the oppressive sky-city of Stratos and its subordinate, ground-dwelling Troglytes, some of whom have formed the rebellious Disrupters in an attempt to overthrow the city.
• Return Of The Archons in which a whole society is run by a mind-controlling computer, and an underground resistance has formed to overthrow it.
• Daddy's Little Villain : "The Conscience of the King" (a tragic Double Subversion ). The daughter of a former villain in hiding uses their cover as a performing theater troupe to kill off the remaining witnesses to her father's previous crimes as a way of "protecting" him from recrimination. Her father is extremely displeased with her when he finds out, having hoped to start a legitimate new life in their cover identities, and appalled that the blood on his hands had irreversibly stained her, as well.
• Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster! : "A Piece of the Action". The inhabitants of Sigma Iotia II are so enamored of 1920s Chicago gang culture that they decided to base their entire civilization on it .
• Damsel out of Distress : Double subverted in “A Taste Of Armageddon”, as Kirk is held hostage and Spock comes in just as he’s got himself out of it. Kirk replies to “we thought you needed help” with admitting he still does.
• Dangerously Garish Environment : " The Way to Eden " shows a group of space hippies taking over the Enterprise to fly to a "paradise planet." The planet is beautiful enough, but everything on it is lethal , and the hippie leader dies when he refuses to believe it.
• "For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky" is this for McCoy .
• "A Wolf in the Fold" and "The Lights of Zetar" for Scotty.
• Days of Future Past : Primarily a Space Western , with Kirk frequently acting as the Army Scout who helps the struggling colonists. But there was also plenty of "Age Of Sail" IN SPACE and the American Cold War IN SPACE.
• Dead Man Writing : "That Which Survives". Losira's computer message to her fellow Kalandans about the death of the colony. Also the last surviving crewman of the USS Exeter recording a log warning anyone who finds it of the plague (while logging, the crewman succumbs).
• Averted in "Spectre of the Gun" when Spock surprises McCoy by giving him a genuine compliment. McCoy : "I doubt that this combination of things was ever used for any purpose quite like this." Spock : (Sincerely) "Perhaps they would've been if [these people] had your ingenuity, Doctor." McCoy : (Looks up and blinks in surprise)
• Death Ray : Phasers, at their highest setting, become Disintegrator Rays .
• Decadent Court : The Romulan government at several points is implied to be one. The Platonians in "Plato's Stepchildren" started out with a good idea—create a society based upon Plato's Republic —but ended up as this after centuries of isolation. In "The Gamesters of Triskelion," the three brains running the planet have resorted to pitting random aliens against each other in gladiatorial combat after losing their purpose in life.
• Deconstructed Trope : Kirk uses his sexuality a lot like a male version of a Heroic Seductress , but not only does he see it as Necessarily Evil , gets him a rep in-universe and he’s called out if he gets too cold, but Janice Lester is able to get away with Never My Fault (claiming he left her when it got serious when clearly she was the abusive one) and he’s drugged or coerced in some way no less than four times.
• Depending on the Writer : The actors themselves have admitted that the characters’ levels of feminism range from early women’s lib with messages like right to choose at best, slightly patronising or just outright sexist insults at worst, depending on who was writing the episode. The main show creators to be sincere feminists were Gene L. Coon and D.C. Fontana.
• A de-materializer, which breaks down the object in a controlled fashion.
• A buffer, which holds the disintegrated object until transmission.
• A transmitter, which transmits the disintegrated object as a beam of energy.
• A re-materializer, which reintegrates the object in a controlled fashion.
• invoked Contrary to popular opinion, the transported object is indeed the original object from the start, and the device does not kill living things that are being transported; it's the same matter, just transmuted into energy, beamed to a new location, and then transmuted back to matter. note  People transported are in fact conscious during transport. If there's unbroken continuity of consciousness, then there cannot have been a death. However, as you can probably imagine , transporters can be rather scarily dangerous if some part of the process were to be interrupted .
• Deus est Machina : Several episodes, notably "The Apple".
• Deus ex Machina : "Charlie X" (the Thasians), "Shore Leave" (the Keeper), "The Squire of Gothos" (Trelane's parents), "Errand of Mercy" (the Organians).
• In "Obsession," the vampire cloud, which has been freely munching on the crew, finally heads home to reproduce. Kirk beams down to the planet Where It All Began to deliver a chunk of antimatter. When it blows, it rips half the planet's atmosphere away .
• In "The Immunity Syndrome", the Enterprise must deliver an anti-matter bomb to the nucleus of the giant space amoeba . In a twist, Mr. Spock volunteers for a separate suicide mission , to deliver the probe that enables Kirk to target the nucleus.
• The planet Gamma Trianguli VI in "The Apple" includes plants that throw poisonous thorns, rocks that act like anti-personnel mines, and directed lightning strikes. The novelization explains that this is because the planet's 'god' identifies the Starfleet people as a danger and want to eliminate them before they can interfere.
• The planet Eden in the episode "The Way To Eden". Looks beautiful, but beware of differing chemistry; the fruit is poisonous and the even the grass is highly acidic.
• Death of the Old Gods : "Who Mourns For Adonais" has the Enterprise meeting Apollo, the last of the Greek gods (who were actually Sufficiently Advanced Aliens ). Kirk pretty much tells him to stuff it, and then gets schizophrenic about whether humanity has Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions as religion in general, or just moved on to Christianity.
• Depraved Bisexual : Dr Coleman from “Turnabout Intruder” is Janice’s lover, but is also fine with her spirit being in the body of Kirk, and responds to Janice-in-Kirk’s seduction.
• Devil's Advocate : Spock would occasionally perform the duty of the Devil's Advocate, typically countering McCoy 's or Kirk 's spontaneous, Gut Feeling -inspired actions.
• Various extra-series material (novels, for example), often refer in a disparaging way to the more "out there" episodes from The Original Series , usually in the form of Starfleet Officials claiming Kirk made up a large number of his reports, with his motive being contempt for his superiors. Invariably mentioned is the universally disbelieved incident in which aliens "stole the brain of Kirk's Science Officer," a reference to the episode in which Spock's brain is, indeed, stolen by alien babes, and which is considered to be the worst episode of the original series, if not of Star Trek as a whole.
• The foreword to the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture essentially says that the original series is a overwrought dramatization of actual events which should be regarded as unreliable. Fans debate its canonicity, since, while Trek literature is officially considered non-canonical, it's the only novel written by Gene Roddenberry himself.
• Disintegration Chamber : In "A Taste of Armageddon" the (virtually) warring planets Eminiar and Vendikar use "disintegration machines" to dispose of persons who have been deemed casualties.
• Disney Dog Fight : At the end of " Requiem for Methuselah ", Robot Girl Rayna Kapec must choose between Flint and Captain Kirk. The strain causes her to overload and die.
• Distress Call : 14 different episodes (including both pilots) start with the Enterprise receiving or already responding to a distress signal.
• Does This Remind You of Anything? : The platonians in “Plato’s Stepchildren” are played like domestic abusers. Parmen’s speech after he makes Kirk slap himself for speaking up to him is making excuses for himself and plying the three with gifts. When they force Kirk to act like a horse and Spock to laugh then cry, they blame Bones for what’s happening, and all three men are traumatised by it afterwards.
• Door Jam : Several episodes (notably "Arena" and "The Tholian Web") contrive ways for Kirk to end up alone facing the Monster of the Week without back-up, whether becaue of alien meddling, transporter malfunctions, or interdiminesional anomalies.
• Doomsday Device : "The Doomsday Machine" features a planet-eating device.
• Doppelmerger : In one episode, a Teleporter Accident results in both Captain Kirk and a doglike alien getting turned into two individuals, one of whom has all of their negative traits. They eventually get fused back together in the transporter, and while the alien dies (ostensibly from too much fear), Kirk survives.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male : Lampshaded in “Turnabout Intruder” when Lester in Kirk acts like it’s ludicrous to imagine a small woman like Lester overpowering a muscled man like Kirk. Ends up being an example anyway, as she’s Easily Forgiven to the point where even Shatner complained nothing was resolved, and Nimoy was disgusted she’s just treated as a stupidly Hysterical Woman , by design. His rant on this subject for the book Shatner: Where No Man is well known and often quoted online.
• Even discounting the times he uses his prettiness and charm to get himself or his crew out of trouble, Kirk has a pretty bad track record on the whole being able to consent, whether it’s the one Green-Skinned Space Babe of the series forcing a kiss on him in “Whom Gods Destroy”, the Bed Trick in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , Deela enjoying kissing him when he’s not aware of her in “Wink Of An Eye”, mind raped in “Dagger Of The Mind” to believe he had sex and was in love, or having sex with Elaan after her tears drug him. He’s not exactly happy about all of it, but it seems to be something he feels like he just has to deal with.
• Spock gets his own turn in “This Side Of Paradise”, Leila deciding that she wants him to stay, and giving him no choice in the matter by subjecting him to spores that affect his mind.
• Doves Mean Peace : The Elba II and Tantalus Penal Colonies (which are both colonies that dealt with trying to treat the insane and cure them of their insanity) use insignias with a dove in it.
• Downer Ending : "Who Mourns For Adonais", "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", "The City On The Edge Of Forever", "Requiem for Methuselah", "Charlie X" and "A Private Little War".
• Dramatic Chase Opening : "The Return of the Archons" starts with Sulu and another crewman running from some pursuers in a city street. They're both caught.
• Dramatic Downstage Turn : Several instances, especially during dramatic scenes featuring female cast members. One simple example appears in a conversation between Leila and Spock near the end of the episode "This Side of Paradise".
• Dress-Up Episode : a lot . "A Piece of the Action", "Return of the Archons", "Assignment: Earth", "The City on the Edge of Forever", that one where they ended up dressed as Nazis ("Patterns of Force")... This trope was popular because it allowed them to use standard, pre-existing costumes, props and sets, rather than having to make expensive new ones. There had been very few science fiction television shows (as opposed to movies) up to that time, outside of children's series like Captain Video and Tom Corbett Space Cadet . Series like One Step Beyond (1959) and The Twilight Zone (1959) often had people in normal clothing facing unusual situations. There were very few props hanging around to be re-used, unlike today, when science fiction has been popular for a long time.
• Perhaps the most famous example, Captain Pike from the first pilot. More accurately, everyone but Spock was replaced.
• The 2nd pilot episode, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", has Ship's Doctor Mark Piper, Communications Officer Alden, and Yeoman Smith. They were replaced by Leonard McCoy , Lieutenant Uhura, and Janice Rand, respectively, in the series.
• Drowning My Sorrows : Bones and Kirk have a tendency to drink together, especially when Bones thinks Kirk isn’t handling shit well.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma : Deela from “Wink Of An Eye” is upfront about liking to kiss Kirk when he’s not aware of her, teasing that he’s probably used to that happening to him, and coos over him being pretty while he’s unconscious.
• Spock's no slouch either. He's in the Vulcan Scientific Legion of Honor, and received two decorations for valor from Starfleet Command.
• Duel to the Death : "Arena", "Amok Time", "The Gamesters of Triskelion".
• Dutch Angle : Used in "Wink of an Eye" to denote the scenes taking place in hyper-accelerated time.
• Dysfunction Junction : Despite the Status Quo Is God (series-only, not the films), everyone except Chekov is a mess; Kirk bases his identity on serving the Enterprise and thinks he doesn’t deserve to be happy, Spock is subject to Half-Breed Discrimination from everyone and has an estranged family , Bones has Chronic Hero Syndrome and killed his dying father only for there to be a cure months later, Chapel’s fiance goes insane and kills himself, and All There in the Manual has Uhura be a lonely Stepford Smiler , Scotty start drinking after his nephew dies at his post, and Sulu’s home be victim of a terrorist attack when he was young.
• Dying Race : The Talosians in "The Menagerie," the Calandans in "That Which Survives," and the Scalosians in "Wink of an Eye."
• And speaking of warp, the original Enterprise uses warp all the time, even for combat maneuvers, unless circumstances force them to rely on her impulse drive. Later series have ships use warp drive when they need to get from one place to another very quickly while sticking to impulse for combat and in-system maneuvers.
• Though it's more subtle and less jarring than the transition from pilots to series, the first half of the first season (produced by Roddenberry) has a much stronger Wagon Train to the Stars emphasis, with the Enterprise functioning as a deep space exploration vessel whose missions often involved surveying uncharted space and re-supplying isolated frontier posts. When Gene Coon took over as showrunner, he introduced the United Federation of Planets, the Prime Directive, and the Klingon Empire, and the Enterprise took on many more diplomatic and strategic missions more consistent with a Cold War setting than The Wild West .
• In this series, the Klingons are generally duplicitous schemers while Romulans are honor-bound warriors . This is the exact inverse of how these two races would be portrayed in later series. The more primitive make-up also means both races lack their forehead ridges ; the Klingons are just copper-skinned humans while the Romulans are more explicitly identical to Vulcans.
• The Prime Directive functions quite differently in this series compared to any other — here it's effectively "don't make contact with primitive civilizations unless you absolutely have to, and never give advanced technology to primitives". The Prime Directive is waived in cases where said civilizations would be in danger from external forces (usually the Klingons) if the crew didn't act. By the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation , the Prime Directive has been redefined as "don't get involved in the affairs of any other civilization, regardless of their technology level, even if they ask you directly for help".
• Speeds of Warp 10 and higher are mentioned a few times. Later series would establish Warp 10 as infinite speed and the absolute maximum way that speed can be quantified.
• Most viewers are familiar with the red, blue, and green/gold uniforms used throughout most of the show, but in the first few episodes produced - including the pilot and " Where No Man Has Gone Before " - members of the Services department wear bronze uniforms. Notably, Spock, Gary Mitchell, and Lt. Kelso in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" all wear bronze uniforms that are quite distinct from Kirk's gold uniform.
• Kirk takes point on almost every landing party. Later series (especially Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager ) have The Captain stay on the ship more often while the Number Two leads the away teams. In addition, the later series give the captain an office next to The Bridge for filling out paperwork and meeting with people one-on-one, something Kirk didn't have.
• Easily Forgiven : The Kelvans in " By Any Other Name ". They hijack the ship, threaten the entire crew, and kill a female yeoman as a demonstration of their power (she wasn't acting as a danger to them in any way). And yet, at the end, Kirk forgives and agrees to help them.Then again, this could be sheer pragmatism given the Kelvan's power level and the fact that he has barely managed to convince them not to kill the rest of his crew (which they could do very easily).
• Eat Dirt, Cheap : The Horta. It's a silicon lifeform that eats rocks.
• Aside from the “you’ll be taught how to use your tongue” line, Kor in "Errand Of Mercy" circles Kirk and very obviously looks at his ass.
• In “Spock’s Brain”, a woman comes onto the Enterprise, makes everyone collapse and because Kirk fell in a way that shows off his ass, she checks it out.
• The Echoer : Played with. The episode "Assignment: Earth" has the mysterious Gary Seven conduct a covert operation on Earth during a 1968 orbital platform launch. While at his workstation, a secretary named Roberta walks in. Gary Seven needs to know what happened to two other agents on the same assignment, so he has Roberta sit at a dictation machine: an electric typewriter with a microphone and speech recognition software. When the machine starts typing every word Roberta says, she gets increasingly flustered, and Gary Seven is compelled to switch it off.
• Eldritch Starship : The ethereal Thasians' ship, an odd lighting effect; the Planet Killer, a conical machine miles long that eats planets; and Balok's enormous, odd spaceship, the Fesarius .
• Empathic Healer : Gem of " The Empath " heals injuries by taking the patient's pain into herself.
• Empire with a Dark Secret : In " The Mark of Gideon ", there is a germ-free "paradise" of a planet which is willing to join the Federation. However, the reason why they invite only Kirk to their planet is so they can decrease the planet's overpopulation by using Kirk, who had a rare disease in his blood, to infect people.
• The Klingons team up with the Enterprise crew in "Day of the Dove" to escape the emotion-eating entity that wants them to fight to death for its amusement.
• In "Errand of Mercy", ironically, Kirk and Kor seem to be united in their mutual loathing of the Organians, somewhat to Kirk's surprise and Kor's amusement.
• Enforced Cold War : Examples abound, since the show was written during the Cold War. Examples of this include the plots of "Balance of Terror", "Errand of Mercy", "The Trouble with Tribbles", "Friday's Child", and "Elaan of Troyius".
• Enlightened Self-Interest : In " Whom Gods Destroy ", the insane Garth tries to convince Kirk and Spock that they should be friends (with the implication that the other option would be "or I kill you"). Spock: On what, precisely, is our friendship to be based? Garth: Upon the firmest of foundations, Mister Spock. Enlightened self-interest.
• Escort Distraction : In "Mirror, Mirror", Lieutenant Uhura gets slinky-minky with Mirror!Sulu on the bridge so that Mirror!Sulu won't notice a warning light on his com panel. Engineer Scott is disabling the ship's phasers and bypassing transporter protocols in an effort to return the landing party to their correct universe. Once the tampering alert stops flashing, Uhura curtails the snugglies.
• Everyone Can See It : A growing trend in the series and movies would be for Kirk and Spock to be off in their own little world, and background characters look either curious or annoyed. Original Series fans often viewed this (and wrote fan fiction accordingly) as close comrades thinking alike or even incipient telepathy rather than sexual interest, especially after Kirk was shown in a few episodes picking up on things intuitively.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending : Well, everybody but Spock. "Shore Leave", "The Trouble With Tribbles", "The Galileo Seven", "Spock's Brain". An actual plot point in "Day of the Dove", when the laughter drives the Energy Being away.
• Evil Is Hammy : "The Enemy Within" has Evil!Kirk Chewing the Scenery .
• Evil Twin : "The Enemy Within", which featured Kirk's evil self separated from his good self via transporter malfunction, and "Mirror, Mirror", which featured an entire universe of evil twins.
• Explosive Breeder : The Tribbles are hermaphroditic and born pregnant. McCoy : The nearest thing I can figure out is they're born pregnant... which seems to be quite a time saver!
• Expositron 9000 : The ship's computer.
• A key example can be found in the episode "Requiem for Methuselah". In Flint's home, Mr. Spock finds a waltz by Johannes Brahms written in original manuscript in Brahms' own hand, but which is unknown. Likewise, Flint has a collection of Leonardo da Vinci masterpieces that have been recently painted on contemporary canvas with contemporary materials. Flint later admits that he was Brahms and da Vinci , among others.
• "Who Mourns for Adonais?" reveals that the Greek gods were actually nearly-immortal aliens who helped inspire and build classical Greek culture in exchange for being worshipped .
• The Face : Uhura is the Communications Officer , though Kirk handles important parleys, negotiations, and First Contacts himself.
• Fade Around the Eyes : In the episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before", in one scene with Gary Mitchell after he has undergone his transformation, the rest of the screen fades out, leaving only his silver eyes visible.
• Failed Future Forecast : The fact that it was a show set in the future but made while the Soviet Union was still around means that a lot of things said by the Russian Chekov got outdated. There's his My Grandma Can Do Better Than You exchange with Scotty where Scotty tells Chekov that Scotch whisky is a man's drink, and Chekov replies that it was invented by a little old lady from "Leningrad" . Chekov also attributes one of the "Russian inwentions" to somebody in Minsk, which was part of the Soviet Union but is now in modern-day Belarus.
• Fallen Hero : Gary Mitchell, John Gill, Garth of Izar.
• In "The Immunity Syndrome" Spock is in a shuttlecraft, adrift, and losing power. Kirk gives the order to bring the shuttle aboard, but Spock, fearing such a delay would endanger the ship, tries to warn them off. McCoy is having none of it. McCoy : Shut up, Spock! We're rescuing you! (nods at Jim, who nods back) Spock: ( Fascinating Eyebrow ) Why thank you, Captain McCoy .
• Fan of the Past : Sulu and his Fleeting Passionate Hobbies , which the rest of the crew regard as unusual for the time period.
• For people more into the men, the original uniforms, even untouched, were particularly flattering. The tendency for Kirk to get his shirt off or torn certainly counts, too. "Charlie X" features Kirk shirtless and in tights. It's very distracting. Also, Sulu goes topless in "The Naked Time".
• And then for the fetish crowd, there's "Patterns of Force" with its whips, chains, and shirtlessness.
• " The Devil in the Dark " has a mining colony be terrorized by an unknown creature. Captain Kirk and First Officer Spock explore the mine, and find the creature - a Horta. When it advances, they fire their phasers at it, creating a wound and causing it to retreat. However, once Spock conducts a psychic rapport with the creature, he and Kirk realize it's a brood mother defending her egg clutch. Doctor McCoy is brought in to heal the creature, which he does with silicon-based spackling compound. This ad hoc bandage works well, to the doctor's surprise.
• In " Journey To Babel ", Bones performs surgery on Spock's father Sarek. As a Vulcan, Sarek's organs are arranged a bit differently than a human (his heart is where a human's liver is, for example), and Spock is the only crew member who can donate blood to him.
• The episode " Spock's Brain " has a humanoid alien incapacitate the crew of the Enterprise . Upon recovery, they discover that she has absconded Spock's brain, leaving his body alive but mindless. It becomes the episode's mission to track down the brain thief and recover Spock's brain before his body fails from lack of purpose. Bones is ultimately able to operate on Spock and get his brain back in.
• Dr. McCoy seems full of it, insulting Spock's "green blood," "computer" mind, and other Vulcan traits. Kirk and Spock often comment on the differences between Vulcans and Humans, but in a Gentleman Snarker way without any malice.
• Spock gives back as good as he gets with his snarking about "human emotion." However, the context makes it clear that this is nothing more than banter amongst good friends and colleagues. Anyone but Kirk, Spock, McCoy , or (occasionally) Scotty trying to invoke this trope gets smacked down hard (usually—and appropriately—by Kirk, but Scotty does it to a junior officer in at least one episode).
• Several episodes also revolve around two alien species' hatred of each other for no good reason.
• Fascinating Eyebrow : When Spock raises his eyebrow, he says "fascinating" very nearly every time.
• Feigning Healthiness : Whilst transporting numerous dignitaries in " Journey To Babel ", Captain Kirk is hospitalised by an assassin and Spock takes over command of the Enterprise. Meanwhile, Spock's father Sarek (one of the diplomats) needs a blood transfusion, with Spock as the only viable donor. However, as the quantity needed would also put him out of action for several days, Spock's sense of duty won't allow him to relinquish command whilst the ship is still in danger. To avoid him being responsible for his father's death, Kirk fakes an early recovery to retake command. He initially plans to simply hand over control to Scotty and return to his own treatment once the operation has started, but at that moment the Enterprise is attacked, forcing Kirk to stay on the bridge during the battle in spite of his wounds.
• Female Gaze : The show had a loving relationship with Kirk’s ass, including a lingering shot of it as he walks out of his quarters in “The Corbomite Maneuver”. Nichelle Nichols in “Where No Man…” discussed the trope, summing up why female fans responded so well with both Kirk and Spock; Spock was emotionally unavailable, leaving women to want to get through to him, and Kirk was emotionally open as a man, when not many male characters were like that.
• The Final Temptation : In "This Side of Paradise", the spores caused the target to be content with living a simple comfortable life, abandoning any greater ambitions.
• Food and Animal Attraction : In "The Cage", during one of the illusions the Talosians create for Captain Pike, a horse starts nuzzling his jacket pocket in search of the sugar therein.
• Forbidden Fruit : In "Requiem for Methuselah", the only part of Flint's mansion that Rayna Kapec is forbidden to enter is one specific room. Guess where she wants to go more than anywhere else? Flint doesn't want her to go in there for a good reason. It's the laboratory where she was created: she's a humanoid robot . The clue is when she tells Kirk that the area just outside that is the place she goes when she's troubled and wants to think things over.
• Forceful Kiss : Deela plants one twice on Kirk in “Wink Of An Eye”, who struggles against her both times and is more concerned that all of his crew are in slow motion. Any other kisses between them are him trying to get her guard down. He gets a few of these in general, as well as can aggressively kiss women himself if he’s desperate or doing a particularly cold con.
• Force-Field Door : The ship's brig has one of these.
• In “Court Martial”, much is made of how Kirk has devoted his life to the service, and he could finally have had a breakdown, causing a lapse in judgement. Later episodes will have him genuinely messing up, and more on how his Married to the Job life is unhealthy, getting taunted in “Shore Leave” about how he can sleep forever if he wants to.
• “Miri” is Close to Home for Kirk, Bones and Spock. For Spock it’s being between two worlds (a carrier, but still can’t go back to the ship), for Kirk we’ll see in “Conscience Of The King” why he assumes kids would just want comfort after a massacre, and for Bones, who had to let his father die, he has to race to find a cure before the last one of them goes mad and kills himself.
• In “What Little Girls Are Made Of”, Kirk and his robot clone have a discussion about food, which ends by Robot Kirk (who knows Kirk’s backstory) smugly telling the real one he’ll never starve. A few episodes later, we find out that as a child, Kirk was a survivor of a famine-induced massacre.
• In " Amok Time ", McCoy uses the fact that Spock hasn't eaten for three days in an attempt to convince Kirk that something is wrong, and Kirk dismisses it as simply being Spock in one of his contemplative phases.
• Another example is " The Paradise Syndrome ", where Spock hardly eats for weeks while studying the obelisk.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend : Everyone who got killed on the show. Deconstructed in the movies, movie novels and the All There in the Manual bios, as Kirk intentionally tries to forget about losses, because otherwise he can't deal. There's a tinch of evidence for this in the show too, as some characters like Dr. Korby or Sam Kirk are alluded to in episodes before they get axed, but never after.
• Forgot the Call : In "The Paradise Syndrome", Kirk loses his memory and becomes a simple farmer, living on a planet with a bunch of displaced Native Americans.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With : Trelane (" The Squire of Gothos "), the Organians (" Errand of Mercy "), the Thasians (" Charlie X "), the Metrons (" Arena "), and the Kelvans (who get stuck in that form in " By Any Other Name .")
• Frequently-Broken Unbreakable Vow : Captain Kirk's willingness to break the Prime Directive whenever he needs to save the Enterprise and/or a "stagnant" culture is well known. He's also a hypocrite on the issue, condemning Captain Tracy in "The Omega Glory" for doing something he has done before and will do again.
• Freudian Trio : Kirk (Ego), Spock (Superego) and McCoy (Id) form the page image for this trope.
• Spock risks his career, and possibly his life, for his former captain (Pike) in "The Menagerie". Kirk does the same for Spock in "Amok Time", and again in the third movie.
• Friends Are Chosen, Family Aren't : Spock has a very good relationship with his crewmates (particularly Kirk and McCoy ) considering he's culturally required to be The Stoic , but he has severe issues with his father, to the point where they didn't speak to one another as family for almost two decades. Stories involving his family show a different and troubled side to Spock.
• FTL Test Blunder : "The Naked Time" has Spock and Scotty performing a Dangerous Forbidden Technique to restart the Enterprise's warp engines after they'd been shut down. It was an untried technique, with the possible consequence of blowing up the ship, but not doing it would guarantee crashing on a collapsing planet. Fortunately, the only consequence of the forced restart was that the Enterprise was flung three days back in time, introducing the idea of using the warp drive for time travel to the series, which would feature in other episodes and the franchise as a whole.
• The Gadfly : Chekov and his constant, deliberately erroneous references to Glorious Mother Russia . It's made very clear that he only does it to mess with people's heads.
• The paradise planet in "That Side of Paradise" is a lush world where no one can die and fills everyone with an innocent joy, even Spock. Spock outright calls it "a true Eden" and the episode ends with Kirk and McCoy concluding that the trouble they had on the planet means man was meant to leave the Garden of Eden.
• The name "Eden" pops up in the episode "The Way to Eden", which is about a group of space hippies searching for the mythical paradise Eden. It turns out to be a False Utopia . Although Spock strongly encourages the hippies to continue to look for the real Eden, or make it themselves.
• The Garden is also referenced in the episode "The Apple", where a race of innocent humanoids serve a "god", Vaal, a computer shaped like a serpent head. According to Chekov, the original Garden was located just outside Moscow. After Kirk and company save the day and destroy the false god, the knowledge of good and evil is then known by the inhabitants. Spock makes a reference and Kirk asks if there is anyone onboard who remotely resembles Satan. Spock: No-one to my knowledge.
• Genocide Survivor : In "The Conscience of the King", Kirk is stated to be a survivor of a genocide on the planet Tarsus IV, where the Governor ordered thousands of citizens killed to ensure the rest could survive, using eugenics to decide who lived and died. Oddly, Kirk's status as a survivor of a genocide is rarely touched on elsewhere in the series.
• George Lucas Altered Version : The late 2000's saw the series get a high-definition transfer for the series, but created special edition versions to show in syndication with remaking the existing visual effects shot for shot, some enhanced visuals to expand the environment and some newly created shots to help flesh out the story (largely establishing shots to help capture the look of other planets and cultures, including one of Starfleet Command). By and large the effort was made to capture the look and feel of the original FX with updated CGI renders rather than trying to play catch up on later parts of the franchise, though established Trek production legend Mike Okuda was the one to oversee it.
• In the episode " The Naked Time ", Kirk does this to Spock. After several slaps, Spock finally retaliates and sends Kirk flying across the room. It does seem to work though.
• Kirk attempts it on McCoy , who is under the influence of the Lotus-Eater Machine in " The Return of the Archons ". This one isn't so successful.
• Get Back to the Future : "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", "All Our Yesterdays".
• Glowing Eyes of Doom : Gary Mitchell gains these when he gains godlike powers.
• In " The Paradise Syndrome ", an amnesiac Kirk is mistaken for a deity by transplanted American Indians on a distant planet.
• " Who Mourns for Adonais? " has an actual surviving Greek God who reveals he's just a powerful alien who had become too used to being worshiped by mortals.
• In " The Omega Glory ", Spock is mistaken for the devil. (This was actually a real-life objection the producers had to his appearance.)
• Godwin's Law of Time Travel : " The City on the Edge of Forever " has a plot where McCoy saving the life of Kirk's Girl of the Week causes a peace movement that leads to the US losing WWII and the Federation never existing. The episode ends with Kirk letting her die to preserve history.
• Godzilla Threshold : In " A Taste of Armageddon " where Kirk and the landing party are being held captive by a civilization whose leaders' simply will not listen to reason and Kirk see that things are going to go from bad to worse to apocalyptic, he interrupts their leader speaking to Scotty through a communicator. Speaking quickly before he's restrained, he gives Scotty an encrypted order the aliens don't understand (General Order 24). Scotty calls them back to inform them that if they don't play ball, he'll use the Enterprise's weapons to destroy the entire surface area of their planet. His quiet, grim tone when he's telling them this leaves no doubt that he'll go through with it.
• Gold-Colored Superiority : The captains wear gold uniforms. Anyone wearing a Red Shirt is not so lucky. This all changes starting with Star Trek: The Next Generation , however. The command uniforms were originally a greenish shade close to chartreuse, but the color came out on many people's TV sets as yellowish, so eventually the producers threw in the towel and changed them to gold.
• In " The Alternative Factor ", Matter!Lazarus goes stark raving mad upon learning of the existence of his Anti-Matter double and becomes bent on destroying him, even if it means the destruction of both universes.
• " Is There In Truth No Beauty? " revolves around Kollos, an ambassador of the Medusan race , whose physical appearance is so hideous: or maybe so beautiful: that any humanoid who looks at them directly goes insane. This is a subversion, as Kollos, in contrast with Shoggoths and Eldritch horrors, is clearly a good guy.
• In "Patterns of Force," John Gill, a Human historian, broke the Prime Directive and encouraged the inhabitants of Ekos to institute fascism in order to combat its disorganized anarchy. It worked.
• In "That Which Survives," a people rendered extinct by disease tried to prevent others from their planet from joining them by setting up a self-defense mechanism. It worked.
• The adults in "Miri" tried to prolong their lives through bioengineering. They ended up creating a disease that did preserve life, but only in children. Adults are killed within a week.
• "The Ultimate Computer" is meant to replace starship captains, but ends up killing Red Shirts because it is the most efficient way of doing things.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil : In "The Savage Curtain", Surak, Spock, and President Lincoln have a hard time understanding the motives and actions of the opposing "evil" side. Only Kirk seems to have a grasp of their potential for deceptiveness and duplicity.
• In "Return of the Archons" Spock decks somebody with an ordinary punch and Kirk says "Isn't that a little old-fashioned?"
• Good Republic, Evil Empire : Why the Federation is unlike the Klingons, according to Kirk.
• Got the Whole World in My Hand : The Terran Empire's sigil from "Mirror, Mirror" shows a dagger stabbed through the Earth.
• Grand Theft Me : In " Turnabout Intruder ", the Girl of the Week and Mad Scientist Dr. Janice Lester uses an alien device to swap her mind into Kirk's body (poor, desperate girl) in order to fulfill her dream of being a starship Captain, because, y'know, chicks can't do that stuff in The Future (although it's made fairly clear that her mental instablity and not her gender is what prevented her from achieving success, for which she irrationally blames Kirk)... Anyhoo, Hilarity Ensues , and we get to watch William Shatner act like an Large Ham with a side of girl, instead of the usual Large Ham .
• Grand Theft Prototype : In "The Enterprise Incident", the Starfleet Command sent the Enterprise on a mission to steal a cloaking device so they could learn how to neutralize it.
• The Great Repair : In " The Galileo Seven ", an Enterprise shuttlecraft is pulled off course and crashes on an unknown planet. The crew is repeatedly attacked by primitive humanoids, and there's dissent over Commander Spock's decisions while Scotty attempts to repair the shuttle.
• In the episode "Bread and Circuses" Bones gives Spock a Grudging "Thank You" and receives a Think Nothing of It in return. McCoy : Spock, er, I know we've, er, had our disagreements. Er, maybe they're jokes, I don't know. As Jim says, we're not often sure ourselves sometimes. But, er... what I'm trying to say is... Spock: Doctor, I am seeking a means of escape. Will you please be brief? McCoy : What I'm trying to say is, you saved my life in the arena. Spock: Yes, that's quite true. McCoy : [indignant] I'm trying to thank you, you pointed-eared hobgoblin! Spock: Oh yes, you humans have that emotional need to express gratitude. "You're welcome," I believe is the correct response.
• There's another one in "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield". One of the aliens of the week is set up as someone who's hotheaded and difficult, but ultimately at least somewhat sympathetic. Viewers get a hint of that second half coming when in his first exchange with Kirk and McCoy , after reacting very angrily to their (perfectly accurate) accusation that he had stolen a Federation ship, the alien visibly pulls himself together enough to thank them quite sincerely for rescuing him.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy : In "A Taste of Armageddon", "Space Seed", "All Our Yesterdays", "A Piece of the Action" and "Whom Gods Destroy".
• "A Piece of the Action" is the funniest example. Captain Kirk positively revels in giving all the mob chiefs offers they can't refuse.
• The series was partially inspired by the Horatio Hornblower books.
• Guy on Guy Is Hot : Practically a fandom nod in “Wink Of An Eye”, as Deela notes Kirk “feels great affection for the Vulcan”, and wonders if she can make him demonstrate that, the actress’s tone of voice knowing full well what she’s insinuating.
• Halloween Episode : " Catspaw ", which was first broadcast on October 27, 1967.
• Hands-On Approach : In “Requiem For Methuselah”, and as he still has no clue how to play from “Piece Of The Action”, Reyna teaches Kirk to play pool.
• Hate Plague : In "Day of the Dove", an Energy Being that feeds on hate brings the Federation and the Klingons, who are trying to abide by the peace treaty, into conflict. It goes as far as implanting False Memories so that the manipulated will have an extra source of conflict. Those who are killed are somehow brought back to life with their fatal wounds healed to fight again. Once they all figure it out, the creature is repelled from the ship by laughter. Lots and lots of laughter.
• He Who Fights Monsters : This trope is why Alexander, the court jester of the Platonians in "Plato's Stepchildren", refuses to take McCoy 's concoction that will give him psychic powers. As much as he loathes Parmen for his abuse, the idea that he could turn out as cruel and manipulative as his master, along with even greater psychic abilities to boot, sickens him even more.
• "This Side of Paradise" After Kirk deliberately provokes Spock to anger to kill alien spores manipulating him. Spock says that striking a fellow officer is a court martial offense. It's clear Spock is embarrassed by his emotional behavior, no matter how involuntary. Kirk reasons, logically as Spock notes, that if they're both in the brig no one can build the device needed to free the rest of the crew.
• "Amok Time" has Spock in the grip of blood fever during a bout of pon farr . Spock explains the situation to Kirk and McCoy , who both tell him that they'll never tell another soul about the private information he's divulged to them. This is especially poingnant for the Doctor, as he and Spock are Vitriolic Best Buds , and it would be easy for him to mock Spock over it, but he never does.
• The Hero : Captain Kirk
• And Spock in Amok Time when he believes he has killed Kirk.
• High-Heel–Face Turn : Frequently with women Kirk seduced.
• Historical Domain Superperson : In the episode "Requiem for Methuselah" the Enterprise crew meets an old human named Flint who is both immortal and possessed of superhuman strength. Flint was originally born around 3800 BC and lived as many notable historical figures during his long lifetime including King Solomon, Alexander the Great , Johannes Brahms , Leonardo da Vinci , and Lazarus. He kept his immortality secret by letting each persona eventually "die" and establishing a new identity elsewhere.
• Hollow World : "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched The Sky" has a variation, a shell covering an artificial planetoid to hold the atmosphere in.
• Hollywood Torches : In "Errand of Mercy" and "Catspaw".
• Holodeck Malfunction : Subverted in the episode " Shore Leave ". The planet's safety protocols are working just fine, but the landing party doesn't know that and thinks they are actually in danger. The protocols do break down when the Enterprise returns to the planet in the animated series because the guy in charge died in the meantime and the AI chose to go rogue through sheer boredom.
• Honor Before Reason : In "Spectre of the Gun", Kirk refuses to ambush the Earps, in spite of the severe danger they present. Even after one of them kills Chekhov, he doesn't kill the defeated party.
• Hotter and Sexier : Look at “The Corbomite Maneuver” in comparison to “The Cage”. The women’s uniforms go from turtlenecks and pants to mini-dresses, and stern Chaste Hero Pike gets replaced with Captain “tits out in the hallway” Kirk.
• Human Aliens : Most alien races encountered are indistinguishable from humans, even the Klingons; they weren't given rubber foreheads until the films. This is mostly due to budget reasons, though it's odd that only Spock requires a disguise whenever the crew infiltrates an alien world.
• Humans Are Interesting : Or fascinating , even.
• Spock as well, in "Operation Annihilate" where he is in unbearable pain as a result of being infected by an alien parasite and nearly driven insane. He still insists on returning to duty, claiming (truthfully) that he can control the pain with Vulcan techniques.
• I, Noun : " I, Mudd ".
• I Have Your Wife : Plenty of villains seem to know that threatening Spock will get Kirk to cooperate (at least for a while), and vice versa. Sometimes it’s “I have your crew”/”I have your captain” but mostly it’s just those two.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight : Kirk and Spock in "This Side of Paradise"; Kirk has to get Spock angry enough so he can overcome the influence of the mind-altering spores. It worked a bit better than Kirk was counting on.
• Idiosyncratic Cultural Gesture : "Journey to Babel" reveals that Vulcan couples extend their pointer and middle fingers from their hand and touch the tips as a sign of being in a relationship.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder : Trope Maker ; Dr. McCoy 's Catchphrase whenever called upon to perform a task or give advice outside of his expertise.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy : In " Friday's Child ", a usurper named Ma'ab kills Aka'ar, the Teer (tribal king), in an attempted coup. He then demands Aka'ar's pregnant wife Eleen and her unborn son killed, as the unborn son is the true heir of succession. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have to go on the run with Eleen to keep her safe.
• The Gorn in Arena shrugs off injuries that would kill a human and is very strong, but isn't very agile. Kirk finally manages to stop it using an improvised cannon.
• The two aliens in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" are the last members of their respective races and still continue to fight it out.
• Impostor-Exposing Test : In "The Trouble with Tribbles", the Tribble dislike for Klingons is used to identify the Klingon spy disguised as a human.
• Improvised Bandage : A mysterious alien creature has been menacing some Federation miners, and Captain Kirk and First Officer Spock investigate. When they encounter the creature, it ignores warnings to stay back, so they fire phasers at it. The creature is wounded, and retreats. Later, the pair discover the creature is intelligent, and menaced the miners to protect its eggs. A silicone-based spackling compound is used to patch the creature's wound, and its hatchlings start digging tunnels faster than the miners ever could.
• Improvised Weapon : The rough-and-tumble fights often involve these. Kirk in particular is a master: ropes, pillows, and that stick thing resembling a reactor control rod he uses to beat Khan.
• In-Camera Effects : The series would achieve the shaking of the bridge when under attack by simply shaking the camera and getting the crew to wobble about . Later SF productions with a bigger budget, such as the Trek films, replaced the cheesy effect with Practical Effects : sets would be placed on top of a large platform and the camera would be still while the entire set was shaken. That would be counted as Practical Effects .
• Industrialized Evil : In "A Taste of Armageddon", the Enterprise discovers two planets are involved in a bizarre war in which computers simulate the conflict, and civilians deemed "killed" in the simulation are required to report to disintegration chambers. The people willingly go to their deaths, believing that in doing so, they are preventing an actual war from breaking out.
• Inertial Impalement : In "The Menagerie", during the illusionary battle between Captain Pike and a Rigelian warrior, Pike is kneeling in a courtyard holding up a broken spearhead braced against the ground. The warrior jumps down on him and impales himself on the spearhead.
• Inexplicable Cultural Ties : A key element of Roddenberry's goal for the series, to tell stories applicable to Earth in The '60s . The alien-culture-of-the-week will therefore be similar enough to one from Earth to get the point across. "Bread and Circuses" acknowledges the prevalence of these and implies that the phenomenon is understood by Federation scientists, providing an alternate Trope Namer , the Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planet Development.
• Innocuously Important Episode : “Shore Leave”, character-wise, as Finnegan calling Kirk old leads to Kirk actually getting an edge in their fighting, and upgrades his wish to just rest for a few days to a deeper need to “ sleep forever ”. “The Deadly Years" is similar, showing Kirk’s denial over his getting older and less competent, taking it the worst out of all of them, and learning the lesson that he needs to be young in order to be a good Captain. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan even does a Continuity Nod to it.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence : Kirk and Spock’s fight in “Amok Time” gets… grindy. Spock choking Kirk out cures him of Pon Farr, and while said choking is happening, Kirk starts to put his legs around Spock’s back.
• Involuntary Group Split : Happens to Kirk and Spock in "Devil in the Dark".
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time : Why Sarek married Amanda Grayson: "At the time, it seemed the logical thing to do."
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks! : invoked Used by Spock as a Logic Bomb in "I, Mudd": Spock: [to Alice 27] I love you. [to Alice 210] However, I hate you. Alice 210: But I'm identical in every way with Alice 27. Spock: Yes, of course. That is exactly why I hate you; because you are identical. [both Alices succumb to the logic bomb] Spock: Fascinating.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique : Garth uses this on Dr. Cory and Kirk in "Whom Gods Destroy" in an attempt to learn the transporter code word. Naturally, it doesn't work.
• Jack the Ripoff : Subverted : the killer actually is Jack the Ripper , who was really a noncorporeal alien possessing human bodies .
• Jekyll & Hyde : In " The Enemy Within ", a Teleporter Accident splits Kirk into Good and Evil halves. They both have to be convinced that they need each other before the split can be undone.
• Jerkass Has a Point : In “The Trouble With Tribbles”, with the exception of Chekov, nobody in the bar objects when the Klingon calls Kirk a swaggering dictator with delusions of godhood, which gets the betrayed Puppy-Dog Eyes look from Kirk later on.
• Jerk Jock : Though not a jock, Kirk was tormented endlessly by upperclassman Finnegan when he was younger. One of his fantasies is finally getting to punch him out.
• The titular device in " The Ultimate Computer " is designed to run a starship with a minimal crew; the Enterprise is chosen for its test run.
• In "A Taste of Armageddon" entire governments have been replaced this way.
• Judicial Wig : When Trelane puts Kirk on trial for defying him in " The Squire of Gothos ", he wears a white and long curly wig along with his judges' robes.
• Just Testing You : Kirk and Scotty set up a challenge/response password before Kirk beamed down to a planet in order to prevent imposters from getting beamed up. Naturally a shapeshifter takes Kirk's form and tries to get Scotty to beam him up. When he doesn't know the password, he tries to cover it up by saying that he was just testing Scotty. Scotty catches on immediately and concludes that Kirk must be in trouble, since the real Kirk would never "test" him like that.
• Kill the Cutie : Edith Keeler in "The City on the Edge of Forever". After all, You Can't Fight Fate .
• Kill the Poor : In the episode " The Cloud Minders ", on the planet Ardana, rather than being killed, the poor are enslaved and forced to live out their entire lives underground.
• Kirk Summation : The Trope Namer and Trope Maker . Kirk (or occasionally another character) would often either try to reason with the episode's antagonist or put them in their place before ending things.
• Knockout Gas : In the episode "Space Seed". After Khan takes over the Enterprise, Kirk orders that all decks be flooded with Neural Gas, which would render everyone aboard unconscious. That attempt fails, but later the attempt succeeds.
• Watching in production order, Spock is understating it when he says the crew has had a few rough months in "Shore Leave", with two court martials , Kirk being revealed to have survived a genocide and suffering Mind Rape helped on by the ship psychologist , Spock getting a load of racism , everyone going insane on a planet where all the adults die , and Chapel losing her fiance .
• Gene Coon in “A Piece Of The Action” did a gentle poke of how much a Lust Object Kirk was in the show, with Krako putting his hand on Kirk’s shoulder guiding him away, and both Shatner and Nimoy’s faces have Here We Go Again! expressions.
• The “alternate earth” of “Miri” has Kirk saying in voiceover, just on the edge of sighing, “it seems impossible, but there it is”.
• WEEEEE ...THE PEEE -PLE!
• The actual reason was revealed recently: Control freak Roddenberry often rewrote, and re-rewrote, and re-re-wrote the scripts up to the last nanosecond, such that it became very difficult to memorize lines. Instead of asking "Line?" and ruining the take, Shatner would laboriously strive to remember what he was supposed to say, creating the effect.
• Last of His Kind : "Who Mourns for Adonais?", "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield". "Devil in the Dark" plays with this one; the Horta is merely the last of her generation , trying to guard over a massive hoard of eggs until they hatch.
• "The Trouble With Tribbles": Kirk asks Scotty what it was that the Klingons said that made him disobey orders and start a fist fight with them. Scotty passionately replies, "They called the Enterprise a garbage scow! Sir."
• "Friday's Child": Upon learning that the new baby destined to one day rule a tribe is named Leonard James Akaar, Spock cannot help but be flabbergasted by the smugness of Kirk and McCoy . Spock: [genuinely exasperated] I think you're both going to be insufferably pleased with yourselves for at least a month. Sir.
• Scotty also has his own leitmotif, typically used in lighter moments. It is prominently heard in both "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "By Any Other Name".
• Let's You and Him Fight : In "Amok Time" Spock's "fiancée" has chosen another, and elects to invoke a ritual in which the two fight for her hand. He's perfectly willing to fight Spock for her, but she elects Kirk as her champion instead - for reasons that Spock later describes as "logical." Unfortunately, since Vulcans have a really bad case of mating fever, Spock is not in his right mind at the time and fully capable of killing his much weaker captain and Kirk (who agreed to be the champion because he thought he could simply throw the fight and walk away) doesn't know it's a Duel to the Death till it's too late to back out.
• Liberty Over Prosperity : In "Space Seed", after Khan's attempt to take over the Enterprise fails, Kirk says that he and his followers can either be punished under Starfleet regulations (which would presumably involve a long prison sentence) or accept exile on an uninhabited planet. Khan: Have you ever read Milton , Captain? Kirk: I understand. [later] Scott: It's a shame for a good Scotsman to admit it, but I'm not up on Milton. Kirk: The statement Lucifer made when he fell into the pit. "It is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven."
• Star Trek: 25th Anniversary is a combination flight simulatior/ Adventure Game voiced by the original cast, plus one generic Redshirt who is routinely the first to perish should the player screw up. The game was followed by Judgement Rites , in which Chekhov and Uhura are finally allowed to join the landing party (something they rarely did in the series).
• There was also a 25th Anniversary port for the NES , though the setting and storyline are different. As exhaustively covered (and suffered) by The Angry Video Game Nerd , the final level deposits Kirk back on Iotia II, where Bones foolishly bet and lost his communicator in a card game. This causes a calamity in the future, forcing Kirk to complete a massive Chain of Deals to get the communicator back.
• The Game Boy version of 25th Anniversary again changes the storyline, this time involving a Doomsday Machine roaming through space. Work on a defensive weapon begins in earnest, but the weaselly Klingons dissemble the device into 12 pieces and scatter them all over space, requiring Kirk to Catch 'Em All .
• Star Trek: Starfleet Academy takes place in Kirk's era, though the Enterprise does not appear. It is, however, possible to beat the infamous Kobayashi Maru scenario by naming yourself " James T. Kirk ", unlocking a prototype ship.
• Star Trek (Bally) was tied to the original television series, with minor art changes to help promote The Motion Picture .
• Star Trek (Data East) was released in time for the 25th anniversary of the show.
• Bally's Star Trek , originally featured the crew in their television designs. Soon after production, however, it was redecorated to bring it closer to Star Trek: The Motion Picture instead.
• Data East's Star Trek was released as part of the 25th Anniversary of the television series. Features oodles of character cameos on the playfield and a great transporter effect on the backglass.
• Lima Syndrome : Deela kidnaps Kirk to be a Sex Slave in “Wink Of An Eye”, and demands the right to like him. Of course she wants him to be docile, and then decides she likes him better as a Defiant Captive , so her assertions to the trope are nebulous.
• Literal Maneater : The salt vampire from the episode " The Man Trap " mostly operates this way, though there is one exception where it takes on a hunky male form to attract Lt. Uhura.
• Literal Split Personality : In "The Enemy Within", Kirk gets split into his good half and his evil half.
• Literary Allusion Title : Rather famous for the grandiloquent episode titles. There's "The Conscience of the King", "Bread and Circuses", and "Is There In Truth No Beauty" among others.
• Lobotomy : The episode " Spock's Brain ", in which aliens, to put it simply, steal Spock's brain, and the episode revolves around the Enterprise crew getting it back and reattaching it.
• Logic Bomb : One of Kirk's favorite tactics for dealing with rogue computers ; it invariably causes a shutdown, and occasionally a self-destruct. Examples include "The Changeling", "I, Mudd", "Return of the Archons", "The Ultimate Computer", and "Wolf In The Fold".
• Long-Lived : The children in "Miri" (hundreds of years) and Mr. Flint in "Requiem for Methuselah" (six thousand years). The tie-in novel Cry of the Onlies has Flint coming to the children's planet to be a mentor for them, especially those who chose to have treatments so they would age at a normal rate.
• Loss of Inhibitions : In "The Naked Time," the crew experiences strange feelings and behaviors after a landing party investigating a mysterious disaster beams back to the ship, gradually infecting almost everyone. Dr. McCoy ultimately realizes the water on the planet had mutated, causing it to affect the brain like alcohol. While some effects more resemble delusions (e.g., Sulu calling Kirk "Richelieu" , unless he's playacting), a lot of them (Sulu leaving his station early to fence at the gym, Christine Chapel making an Anguished Declaration of Love to Spock, Spock breaking down in tears over his inability to accept either part of his heritage completely and Kirk confessing how stressed he feels because of his position) fall under the lack of inhibitions that alcohol typically causes.
• Lotus-Eater Machine : This was the plot of the original pilot, " The Cage ," though Pike sees through the ruse easily. However, another character trapped there doesn't want to leave the setup—and knows that it's all an illusion—as after having been horrifically mangled in a crash the aliens were able to restore the illusion of her original beautiful appearance. They give her a illusory Captain Pike to live with until the real Pike returns to the planet in a later episode made up of the original pilot.
• In "A Private Little War", Kirk and McCoy discover that the Klingons gave flintlock weapons to village-dwelling native people who didn't have guns before. Instead of their tradition of peaceful trade with the nearby hunter-gatherer people, the Klingons encourage the villagers to attack them. To restore the balance of power, Kirk provides the hunter-gatherers with similar weapons. McCoy compares their situation to the "Brush Wars" of the mid-20th Century .
• "Bread and Circuses" features a world with 1960s-level tech (television, firearms) but a society that mirrors the Roman Empire , complete with the slow rise of Christianity (albeit 2000 years late).
• Ludicrous Precision : Spock's figures, constantly. Discussed in "Errand of Mercy".
• Machine Empathy : Scotty could often sense when something was wrong with the Enterprise from subtle changes in her "feel". Possibly justified, because machines cause vibrations that engineers familiar with said machine can actually feel when touching it, such as through the hull of a starship—Scotty himself confirms this in the NextGen episode " Relics " when he compares the Enterprise -D to his Enterprise with Picard.
• Made a Slave : Season three has the dubious honour of trying to do this five times in one season, with Bones, Kirk, Spock, Chapel and Uhura used for entertainment in “Plato’s Stepchildren”, Bones again forced to stay in “For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky” and “The Empath”, Kirk kidnapped for breeding in “Wink Of An Eye” because he’s “pretty”, and captured in “Mark Of Gideon” to spread an STD and stem overpopulation.
• Mad Love : Nurse Chapel and Spock (well, on Chapel's side, at least), McGivers and Khan.
• The Mafia : "A Piece of the Action" is an entire episode revolving around a Mafia planet.
• The Main Characters Do Everything : Kirk and his highest bridge officers often beam into danger despite the presence of specialists on board for that purpose.
• Male Gaze : In "Mudd's Women", the camera rather obviously pans to the women's derrieres as they walk along the corridors of the Enterprise after leaving the transporter room.
• The Man in Front of the Man : In "Patterns of Force", a society of Human Aliens has emulated the regime of Nazi Germany, complete with atrocities committed in for racial and cultural motives. The officers of the regime carry out the orders of their Fuhrer, who they only see via television broadcast. It turns out later that the Fuhrer was drugged and under the control of his Deputy. It was the Deputy Fuhrer who was really responsible for giving orders to the Nazi forces, while the true Fuhrer had good intentions all along.
• Mars Needs Women : "Mudd's Women"—Mudd is transporting the women to provide companionship to lonely colonists.
• Martyr Without a Cause : All three of the main trio have admitted at some point that peace and happiness are not regular emotions for them, and are just that little too willing to sacrifice themselves. The kicker is that Bones will complain when Kirk and Spock act like self-sacrificial idiots, but then do the exact same thing himself.
• Master-Apprentice Chain : Pike—>Kirk—>Sulu (although seen briefly in TOS, the Pike-Kirk relationship is only shown in any detail in the reboot and in the non-canon Expanded Universe ). Chekov appears to be a mentee of Kirk as well, but ends up on a different career path (in Starfleet Intelligence as opposed to starship command) after the second movie.
• Mate or Die : The Vulcan pon-farr period provides a biological imperative that strong, as seen with Spock in " Amok Time ". The Federation has no knowledge of it, as Vulcans do not speak of it even among themselves.
• The drone-like Lawgivers in "Return of the Archons." In that case, the drone-like humanoids were controlled by an intelligent supercomputer.
• The original builders of the Androids on Exo III were also stated to have been a society of biological creatures who ruined their homeworld and retreated underground where they became a more mechanized, machine-like society.
• The Kelvans from the Andromeda Galaxy are implied to have a culture like this; they are completely organic beings, but in their true form they experience none of the sensory distractions of humanoids, and consider themselves much more efficient. They go about trying to take over the Milky Way with very straightforward methods (transforming Kirk's crew into vulnerable dust-cubes that only their technology can restore to human form, for example) but without any of the typical Trek villains' hamminess. The Federation is saved from them by the fact that, when in artificial humanoid form, the Kelvans become Sense Freaks and can be incapacitated in a variety of ways, such as by the effects of alcohol or unfamiliar emotions like pleasure or jealousy.
• The Eyemorg (humanoid female) society in the infamous episode "Spock's Brain" were totally reliant on a mechanized underground industrial complex run by advanced computers (for which purpose they tried to steal "Spock's Brain," because they lacked the knowledge to maintain this infrastructure themselves); this was in contrast to the primitive, Ice Age-like culture of males that lived on the surface.
• The Fabrini who lived aboard a generational asteroid ship, which they all believed was actually a planet, were similarly run by an advanced, tyrannical computer called The Oracle. The Fabrini were less "rigidly mechanical" and more "rigidly traditional" though, the rigid traditions being enforced by The Oracle.
• The Doomsday Machine is a planet-eating, extragalactic superweapon hypothesized to have destroyed its creators, and is now moving through the Federation's part of the galaxy. It's practically indestructible, and has an anti-proton beam capable of easily obliterating most starships, and consumes entire planets. In the end, it isn't even destroyed, just shut down due to internal damage.
• Nomad is a hybrid of human and alien probes which travels through space on a mission to "sterilize" planets, i.e. kill all organic life forms for no other reason than they are imperfect. It was first encountered after killing four billion people , is powerful enough to easily outgun the Enterprise despite only being about five feet long, and can bring the dead back to life. It was only beaten by showing it that it, too, was imperfect , motivating it to self-destruct.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender : Only three female personnel are killed in the whole series, whereas dozens of male Starfleet personnel are killed. In one of the three aversions, "By Any Other Name", the Black Dude Dies First trope is also averted, as the white female redshirt is killed by the Kelvans (sparing the black male redshirt in the party) when the Kelvan could have killed both of them just as easily.
• Military Science Fiction : The U.S.S. Enterprise is the focus of the show, and she is explicitly a military vessel in the service of The Federation Star Fleet . However , due the fact that the Enterprise operates entirely in deep space, her crew complement is not comprised entirely of soldiers. Instead, the crew consists of spacemen who are specifically qualified to operate the ship. This doesn't in any way reduce her status as a military craft: the Enterprise is designed to and fully expected to both facilitate and withstand combat, and is often diverted from her explorations - by order from Starfleet Command - to perform various missions of a purely military nature, such as stealing sensitive technology from the Romulan Empire, or preventing the Klingons from establishing a base in a tactically important area. This strongly contrasts some of the later installments, particularly Star Trek: The Next Generation , which takes on a much more relaxed tone in comparison . "Although the Enterprise is a military vessel, its organization is only semi-military. The "enlisted men" category does not exist. Star Trek goes on the assumption that every man and woman aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise is the equivalent of a qualified astronaut, and therefore an officer." - The Making of Star Trek, page 209. "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat." - James Kirk
• Used by the Platonians in "Plato's Stepchildren", with the most blatant example being Parmen forcing Spock to laugh and cry.
• Mirror!Spock forcibly mind-melding with Dr. McCoy in "Mirror, Mirror".
• The Neural Neutralizer in "Dagger of the Mind" was used for this. Upon learning that it works, Dr Noel inserts a one night stand into Kirk’s mind when it didn’t go that way originally, though she draws the line at Adams installing an obsessive love for her in him.
• Minored In Ass Kicking : The reserved, cerebral Spock and his skill at hand-to-hand fighting (Vulcan nerve pinch! Judo chop!).Helped by his Vulcan strength.
• Dilithium crystals are a fundamental aspect of the Star Trek universe, as all Federation starships use them for their Faster Than Light engines. They have basically one important property: they are able to safely interact with antimatter to produce a controlled reaction. They cannot be replicated and can decay in quality, which adds to some tension in either repairing the imperfections in the existing crystal, or finding new sources of dilithium.
• Star Trek's technical manuals all try to provide consistent explanations for the science and technology of the series.
• Mirror Universe : "Mirror, Mirror" features an alternate universe where the Federation is part of the tyrannical Terran empire.
• Monster Is a Mommy : "The Devil in the Dark" has the Horta, which is only protecting its eggs.
• "Obsession". A couple of red shirt security personnel are drained of blood and killed by the vampire cloud in the opening scene.
• "The Devil in the Dark". Two miners and an Enterprise Security man are destroyed by the Horta's acid secretions, one in the first scene.
• "Wolf in the Fold". Several women are slaughtered by the "Jack the Ripper" entity during the episode. One of them dies before the opening credits.
• Monster of the Week : In SF author David Gerrold's book about writing the episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", he recounts seeing the first episode broadcast, which featured a creature that sucked all of the salt out of people's bodies, thereby killing them. He hoped Star Trek wasn't going to turn out to be a Monster of the Week show, which ironically for him, it did. (Only if one considers political intrigue, human(oid) assassins, hostage situations, high tech pseudo wars, missing persons, (sometimes in other times or dimensions), and direct military conflict to (somehow) equal "monsters of the week").
• Mood Lighting : Whenever Kirk is putting the moves on a female (of any species), the lighting softens, playing up the female's sexiness.
• Morality Chain : Kirk keeps Bones and Spock from being at each other’s throats (lampshaded in his final orders in “The Tholian Web”, assuming now that he’s dead the two are locked in mortal combat), Kirk calls Spock the “noblest half of himself”, and Bones keeps the other two from too much self-sacrifice.
• In "The Empath", when aliens offer Kirk the choice of sacrificing McCoy or Spock, McCoy takes out Kirk with drugs. Spock is glad; since this leaves him in command, he can make the sacrifice himself. McCoy proceeds to drug him as well and sacrifice himself.
• Ensign Garrovick attempts to do this in "Obsession", but Kirk isn't knocked out, and has no intention of sacrificing himself anyway. Just using himself as bait.
• Muggle in Mage Custody : Alexander is a dwarf who is not given the psychokinetic power that the other denizens of Platonius have. As a result, he is treated as a court jester and slave, and subjected to cruel treatment, particularly from Parmen.
• Multinational Team : Each of the bridge crew represents a part of the world (and an alien).
• In multiple episodes, they use their phasers to create a heat source, by shooting a rock.
• In one episode, Yeoman Rand uses a phaser to reheat Kirk's coffee!
• Mundanization : Episodes in which the crew visits Earth's past, or a planet that unusually mimics it, derive a lot of the humor from the Fish out of Water setting.
• In " Turnabout Intruder ", when a crazy ex-lover of Kirk switches bodies with him and the suspicious crew has no valid proof and she begins ordering the deaths of anyone who opposes her, Scotty suggests to McCoy that they mutiny, since they know that it would throw the captain into a fit and they would be able to stop him under regulations.
• Spock's actions in transporting Captain Pike to Talos IV constitute a mutiny, for which he is put on trial—which is a ruse to buy him more time.
• Kirk considers the crew's actions in "This Side of Paradise" to be a mutiny: they abandon the ship due to being Brainwashed and Crazy .
• My God, What Have I Done? : Dr Noel from “Dagger Of The Mind” puts a one night stand into Kirk’s mind (they originally just danced and he talked about the stars), but immediately regrets it once Adams tortures him and makes him think he’s dangerously in love with her. When Kirk says Adams died alone, without even a tormenter for company, she gets the message.
• My Grandma Can Do Better Than You : The exchange where Scotty tells Chekov that Scotch whisky is a man's drink, and Chekov replies that it was invented by a little old lady from Leningrad.
• My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That : in the episode "Mudd's Women", the computer tells the all-male hearing board the effect the women are having on them: elevated heart rate, sweating, rapid pulse. All except Spock.
• Neck Snap : The Vulcan tal-shaya technique performed by the Orion spy in "Journey to Babel".
• "The Immunity Syndrome" has Spock states that the Vulcan crew of the U.S.S Intrepid would have been incapable of realizing that they were dying without a logical explanation.
• "I, Mudd": Realizing that the androids were wholly logical, Spock prescribes a hefty dose of human illogic as just the thing to deal with them .
• Also from "I, Mudd", Chekov discovers that the android girls were programmed by Harry Mudd...which he decides isn't necessarily a bad thing. Alice 118: We are programmed to function as human females, lord. Chekov: You are? Alices: Yes, my lord. Chekov: Harry Mudd programmed you? Alices: Yes, my lord. Chekov: That unprincipled, evil-minded, lecherous kulak Harry Mudd programmed you? Alices: Yes, my lord. Chekov: This place is even better than Leningrad.
• "The Enemy Within", after a transporter accident splits Kirk into two people, one good and one evil, it's revealed that his good side isn't capable of command. Spock postulates that it is humanity's faults, tempered by their morals and ethics, that give them the ability to lead.
• Sylvia in “Catspaw” gets angry at Kirk for trying to seduce her, and he calls her out on how she captured him, has him chained up for half the episode, and brainwashed his crew, so why shouldn’t he try?
• Niceness Denial : In "Amok Time", Spock hugs Kirk and gleefully shouts his name when he finds out he's not really dead . However, Spock claims that he did this not because he sees Kirk as a friend, but rather because he's relieved that a captain hasn't been lost.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male : Bought up by Nichelle Nichols in the difference between how Kirk and Spock are treated in-universe (and by female fans). Kirk gets Eating the Eye Candy , ripped shirts and women kidnapping him because he’s pretty. Spock on the other hand, is actually wanted as a romantic partner any time he has to cope with a Girl of the Week , Expanded universe novels will further this on, Kirk having an undeserved reputation as someone who sleeps with anyone and Spock only looking more aloof and repressed (so I Can Change My Beloved ) in comparison.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction : At the end of " This Side of Paradise ", McCoy notes that this is the second time mankind has been thrown out of paradise. Kirk comments that, no, they left on their own, because maybe it's mankind's fate to only be happy when they have to struggle and fight for everything they get.
• No Immortal Inertia : In " Miri ", children live for hundreds of years due to a virus, but when they reach puberty, they become ill and insane and die within a few weeks.
• The character played by Majel Barrett in "The Cage" is referred to only as "Number One," the unofficial nickname attached to her position as Captain Pike's first officer.
• Neither the male Romulan Commander played by Mark Lenard in "Balance of Terror" nor the female Commander played by Joanne Linville in "The Enterprise Incident" are ever referred to by name.
• Non-Standard Prescription : Doctor McCoy has Scotty visit a club with a belly dancer, saying it's a prescription. In the films, Bones drinks Romulan Ale for "medicinal purposes." The ship's doctor in the original pilot also gives Pike a glass of martini instead of medicine, stating that there are things that people will tell their bartender that they refuse to tell their doctor.
• Although paper still exists, characters take notes on what are obviously tablet computers. Most characters find reading e-books off of screens to be more convenient than hauling wood pulp around. And this was over forty years ago.
• The characters are reading what the series calls "microtapes." Yet another example of Zeerust , in that microfilm was predicted to replace paper books back in the 1960's.
• Averted in the unaired pilot, where the ship's computer produces printouts.
• No Social Skills : Charlie Evans, due to being raised by Energy Beings .
• No Transhumanism Allowed : Discussed . When Khan is awoken in " Space Seed ", he has a discussion with Kirk once they have determined his identity, lamenting the fact that the humans of the 2260s are practically indistinguishable from those of the 1990s. He was hoping to awaken in a world of genetically modified Ubermenschen like himself, at the very least.
• Not Rare Over There : In "Elaan of Troyius", the ship's dilithium crystals crack in the middle of a battle. Unfortunately, there are none left... until they realize that Elaan's necklace has a bunch of them. She surrenders it gladly, bemused that they would want what to her planet are Worthless Yellow Rocks .
• In the episode " Balance of Terror ", the defeated Romulan Commander says that he and Kirk "are of a kind," just before blowing himself up. Romulan Commander: You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend. We are creatures of duty, captain. I have lived my life by it. Just... one more duty... to perform .
• In the Gene Coon written “Errand Of Mercy”, the Organians don’t see much difference between Klingon rule and the Federation (and neither does Kor), no matter how much Kirk would like to think otherwise.
• Not So Stoic : "Amok Time" has Spock react in excitement when Kirk isn't dead.
• Novelization : between 1967 and his death in the late 1970s, James Blish adapted virtually every TOS episode in short-story format for a series of paperback books ( Star Trek 1 , Star Trek 2 , etc.). A handful of leftover stories were subsequently adapted by his widow, J.A. Lawrence, as the final Star Trek 12 volume, plus the Harry Mudd stories were combined with an original novella to form the novel Mudd's Angels . Early Blish volumes exhibit Early-Installment Weirdness as they are based on early scripts of some episodes, resulting in noticeable differences in plot and characterization from the broadcast episodes.
• Numbered Homeworld : Rigel VII ... XII ... how many of those were there, anyway?
• A famous example is Edith Keeler from "The City on the Edge of Forever". A time-traveling Dr. McCoy saves her, and because she lives, she leads a pacifist movement that prevents crucial war research during WWII, causing the Nazis to win the war. Kirk has to let her die to reset the timeline.
• The Organians look like this for most of "Errand of Mercy". Spock describes the planet as a stagnant culture, and the planet seems to be populated by amiable old men who placidly allow the Klingons to conquer them, rebuking Kirk and Spock's efforts to inspire a resistance because they abhor violence so much they'd rather allow arbitrary executions than fight back . It's only at the end that we learn the Organians have simply pretended to be harmless (and executed, and humanoid) to make their visitors feel at ease . When tensions come to a head, they revert to their luminous true forms and make both sides sit in the corner.
• The most infamous example might be the fight in " Amok Time ", which features a stunt double that looks nothing like William Shatner fighting an equally non-Leonard-Nimoyish stuntman.
• Though you could also cite the fight between Ricardo Montalban's stuntman and whoever was doubling for Shatner in " Space Seed ".
• Or the fight in " Court Martial ", where seemingly two random guys fought in place of actors William Shatner and Richard Webb.
• In " Wolf in the Fold ", Hengist, (played by the non imposing John Fiedler), is doubled by someone a few inches taller and more than a few pounds heavier.
• Of the People : In the episode "The Return of the Archons", outsiders are said to be not of the body.
• Oh, Crap! : In "Amok Time" Kirk is chosen to face Spock in battle. Kirk agrees, reasoning that, if things get bad, he'll quit and Spock will be declared the winner. Then, when the lirpa (the staffs with really big blades) are produced, T'Pau announces, "If both survive the lirpa , combat will continue with the ahn-woon ." When Kirk asks about what she means, she tells him "This combat is to the death."
• Omnicidal Maniac : Matter!Lazarus from "The Alternative Factor". In order to kill his enemy, his Anti-Matter double, he has to cross the threshold into the other universe, but bumping into said enemy while in the same universe will destroy both universes. Despite knowing this, he's so far gone that he simply doesn't care.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten : In "Court Martial", this turns out that Ben Finney, the man Kirk supposedly killed by accident and caused the titular court martial to happen and who actually faked his death to try to make Kirk go to jail and in the climax tries to crash the Enterprise on a planet with everybody on board believes that, because of "one little mistake" that Kirk reported while they served in another ship earlier in their careers, he was being constantly mocked by everybody else in their class, who made Captain before him. It's made pretty obvious as the episode goes that Finney has become completely freaking insane from his obsession over this, including constantly sending letters to his daughter Jame ranting about it (which make Jame accept that maybe her father is crazy enough to try to frame Kirk) and the wide-eyed glee he shows as he tries to kill Kirk with his bare hands at the climax.
• One-Hit Kill : The Romulan Plasma Torpedo is this, but only at close range .
• One-Winged Angel : Sylvia in "Catspaw" turns into a giant cat when Kirk refuses to obey her.
• The Romulans appear in one episode per season: "Balance of Terror" in season 1, "The Deadly Years" in season 2 note  though they are not seen onscreen and their ship is reused stock footage from "Balance of Terror" , and "The Enterprise Incident" in season 3.
• Kirk faces a different Nefarious Klingon Commander once per season: Kor in season 1's "Errand of Mercy", Koloth in season 2's "The Trouble with Tribbles", and Kang in season 3's "Day of the Dove". (Both Koloth and Kang were intended to be a returning Kor, but the actor who played him was unavailable both times.)
• Once for Yes, Twice for No : if not the Trope Maker , then certainly the Trope Codifier with Captain Pike's portrayal in " The Menagerie ".
• Orchestral Bombing : Like many dramatic series of its era, the show makes full and effective use of a brassy orchestral soundtrack. In fact all music used in this series was recorded especially, avoiding the use of common "library" music heard in many other series such as The Twilight Zone and The Fugitive .
• The alien Kirk hunts down in "Obsession" is a shapeless cloud that can travel through space at warp speed without a ship, that subsists off of human blood.
• In the first episode aired, "The Man Trap", the monster can appear as someone the viewer finds attractive... but its true form is a shaggy creature with a lamprey-like mouth, that feeds through its fingers , on salt .
• Outlaw Town : "A Piece of the Action" has a planet whose culture has modeled itself after 1920s gangster culture.
• When his memories are about to be transferred over to an android double, Kirk quickly mutters, "Mind your own business, Mr. Spock. I'm sick of your half-breed interference, do you hear?" Later on, when the android meets up with Spock, it says those lines, alerting Spock that this isn't their captain and prompting him to quickly gather a team to beam down. (" What Are Little Girls Made of? ")
• Also occurs in "Day of the Dove," when Chekov is ranting about the Klingons having murdered his brother Piotr. Sulu immediately knows something is wrong because Chekov's an only child.
• The rest of the crew is alerted to Janice Lester's hijacking of Kirk's body by her increasingly irrational and paranoid behavior in "Turnabout Intruder."
• Used as part of a Batman Gambit in "Mirror, Mirror" when the crew convinces the Mirror Universe Spock to assist them in returning home and to set up the Heel–Face Turn that Mirror!Spock would perform later on, as referenced in subsequent episodes of DS9 and Voyager . Mirror Spock: You must return to your universe, and I must have my captain back.
• Out-of-Character Moment : "The Naked Time", "This Side of Paradise" and "Amok Time" are entire episodes about this trope.
• Papa Wolf : Kirk considers every man and woman under his command his responsibility, and if you harm them, he will not be happy.
• Parental Title Characterization : Spock, when not calling his parents by name, calls them "Mother" and "Father". This is because Vulcans ( his father's species ) tend to be quite formal in their language and don't tend to openly express affection.
• "The Squire of Gothos" has Trelane getting punished by his "parents" (who appear as blobs of energy)- just in time to stop him from finishing off Kirk.
• In "Charlie X", the alien species that raised Charlie return to take him back before he can do any more damage, and they undo most of the damage that he has already done, though they are unable to bring back the crew of another ship which Charlie destroyed, probably because there wasn't enough left after the explosion.
• People Puppets : "Plato's Stepchildren", and a literal example in the ending of the original version of " Catspaw ".
• Pilgrimage : Between the original series and the first movie Spock resigned from Starfleet and went to a monastery on Vulcan to eliminate his emotions. Everyone wears robes and meditates.
• Planet Spaceship : In "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", a group of aliens have been sequestered inside a large interstellar asteroid for so long that they have forgotten that they are actually inside one.
• Pleasure Planet : "Shore Leave" takes place on a planet where aliens go for amusement and the Enterprise crew finds danger and weirdness.
• Plot Hole : "The City on the Edge of Forever" makes no attempt to explain how Kirk, Spock, and McCoy get back after fixing the time rift in Earth of 1930. They simply show up. The Guardian of Forever heavily implies it can pull them back if the timeline was reset.
• Pointy Ears : On Spock and other Vulcans; appropriate for Space Elves . Romulans, which are related to Vulcans, also have pointed ears, and Spock comes in for some Fantastic Racism when the visual similarity is noticed.
• Polarity Reversal : The Trope Maker .
• Poorly Disguised Pilot : " Assignment: Earth " was intended to spin off a series of the same name. The existing script was reworked to include the Enterprise , but the focus is still clearly on Gary Seven and the other new characters; Kirk and his crew have almost no impact on the outcome.
• Powerful and Helpless : This trope is mentioned directly by McCoy in Whom Gods Destroy when the Elba II penal colony is overrun by the inmates and turned chaotic while their landing party is still on the now shielded and unapproachable planet. The Enterprise in orbit, though powerful enough to destroy a planet, can do nothing to get their men back - using the phasers to blow away the shield runs the risk of killing everyone they're trying to save . Scott: "We could blast our way through the (force) field, but only at the risk of destroying the Captain, Mister Spock and any other living thing on Elba Two." McCoy : "How can we be powerful enough to wipe out a planet and still be so helpless?"
• In his final log in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", Kirk merely notes that Mitchell "gave [his] life in performance of [his] duty", and omits the part where he first gained vast psionic powers and began to think of himself as a god who regarded humans as insects to be crushed. Justified in that not only is Mitchell not at fault for what was effectively an injury sustained in the course of duty (the galactic barrier which they had been ordered to explore) but he is also Kirk's friend from their academy days.
• Likewise, in "The Doomsday Machine" Kirk states that his log will note that Commodore Decker died in the line of duty, omitting the part where the man pretty much went insane with survivor's guilt and almost got the crew of the Enterprise killed. It's heavily suggested that Kirk is attempting to imply by omission that Decker performed a Heroic Sacrifice by piloting the Constellation into the Doomsday Machine to destroy it, instead of the truth, that he went out in a futile suicidal gesture by crashing into the machine with a shuttlecraft. Note that Spock is the one who brings up Kirk logging Decker as having died in the line of duty, which he seems to endorse despite having been in a power struggle with Decker for most of the episode. Although he doesn't say it in so many words, he obviously felt for Decker in the same way that he felt for Gary Mitchell.
• " Day of the Dove ". An entity that feeds on hate and violence invades the Enterprise , setting Kirk and Klingon Captain Kang and their crews against each other. Realizing that they're being manipulated, Kirk and Kang refuse to fight each other, Kang even giving Kirk a good-natured (for a Klingon) slap on the back that almost has the Captain reeling, but they manage to drive out the entity by refusing to feed it with their hatred.
• "The Menagerie": Pike realizes that the Talosians cannot read strong, violent thoughts, and also that they rely on him to supply the imaginations they use to fuel the illusions they attempt to trap him in. So he sits in his cell, stewing in hatred and anger until the Keeper gets careless and Pike seizes him. note  Footage came from the unaired pilot episode "The Cage".
• In the episode " And The Children Shall Lead ", the evil entity called Gorgan gets its power from the fact that the children believe it has power. When that belief is taken away, Gorgan dies rather messily.
• There is only one curse in the entire series, occurring at the end of " The City on The Edge of Forever ". It's notable for being one of the few curse words on American TV during the 1960s and showing just how hurt Kirk is as a result of the Bittersweet Ending . Kirk: Let's get the hell out of here.
• Bones does say "Don't give me any damnable logic..." in one episode , and a gangster from the gangster episode does say "hell" in a non-religious context. Neither case is given the emphasis of Kirk's declaration.
• Prodigal Family : Spock got estranged from his father after joining the Starfleet instead of the Vulcan Science Academy and rejecting his betrothal to another Vulcan. The trope is ultimately subverted as Sarek dies before he can get properly re-introduced in his son's life.
• Proud Warrior Race : While the Klingons and Romulans are the expected examples, there are many species in this series that fit this trope.... including humanity to some extent.
• Proxy War : " A Private Little War " has the Klingons supplying increasingly advanced firearms to one tribe of a primitive planet, to install them as a puppet leader of that world. Another tribe, one that Kirk had met years before, begins to demand similar weapons by the end, and Kirk begins arranging a Federation-aligned alliance of tribes to oppose the Klingon-controlled ones. He even references the brush wars of the 20th century as he does so.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend : Janice Lester in "Turnabout Intruder" is an ex-lover of Kirk's. She uses a machine to steal Kirk's position by swapping their brainwave patterns .
• Psycho Serum : McCoy 's adrenaline-like drug in "The City on the Edge of Forever" causes temporary insanity when injected at overly high doses. When the ship hits some turbulence, he accidentally injects himself with a very high dose.
• Charlie Evans from "Charlie X".
• Trelane from "The Squire of Gothos." Made even better by the fact that while he looks like an adult human, by his species' standards Trelane is a child.
• Psychotic Smirk : Chekov gets a particularly nasty one in "Mirror, Mirror" when he threatens to kill Kirk for disobeying an order. Doubles as Slasher Smile .
• In "Space Seed", Khan Noonien Singh was named for Kim Noonien Singh, one of Roddenberry's buddies from World War II . Roddenberry hoped that the name would attract the attention of the Real Life Singh in hopes that they would reconnect.
• David Gerrold did a similar thing in writing "The Trouble With Tribbles"; the space station on which the episode takes place is in orbit around "Sherman's Planet". Gerrold's girlfriend at the time was one Holly Sherman.
• Pummeling the Corpse : In " A Private Little War ", the previously violence-averse Tyree snaps when he sees his wife stabbed to death. In the ensuing climactic battle, Tyree rushes and quickly overpowers the man who stabbed his wife, and staves in his head with a large rock. Tyree's mind, clouded with berserk fury, does not register that his opponent is dead, so he spends the rest of the battle bashing the corpse's shattered head. Even after the battle ends, Tyree continues to bash the unresisting corpse until Kirk stops him.
• The appropriately-named Agony Booth in the episode "Mirror, Mirror."
• The neural neutralizer in "Dagger of the Mind" is not intended as such, but ends up being used this way.
• The Klingon Mind-Sifter in "Errand of Mercy."
• In "Operation: Annihilate!", parasitic creatures that resemble flying pancakes attack planetary colonists—and eventually Spock.
• In "Wolf in the Fold", the Enterprise crew encounters "Redjac", a noncorporeal parasite responsible for numerous serial killings throughout the centuries. One of the humans it possessed was Jack the Ripper.
• Put on a Bus : Yeoman Rand during the first season. (Grace Lee Whitney later said that the producers wanted girl-of-the-week guest stars as love interests for Kirk.) The starship comes back for the movies and a time travel episode of Voyager .
• In the episode "Who Mourns for Adonais". Kirk and Dr. McCoy are discussing Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas. McCoy : One day she'll find the right man and off she'll go, out of the service.
• Implied in the episode "Balance of Terror", when Kirk marries two officers , but is interrupted as a Red Alert goes off. The groom reminds the bride that for the moment he's still her superior officer. note  Though she could simply be transferring in some way - many militaries ban married couples from being in a direct chain of command.
• Taken up to eleven in " The Tholian Web " where there are three different time-sensitive crises (plus the non-time sensitive crisis of McCoy and Spock starting to lose their temper towards each other worse than usual due to everything else that's going on) going on at the same time: Kirk is lost in another dimension and running out of oxygen in his space suit, the Tholians are building the titular web around the Enterprise which will be unable to escape if it's completed before they fix their weapons and figure out a way out of it, and the part of the space they're in is also causing the crew to suffer Space Madness unless McCoy figures out a way to nullify its effect.
• Radio Silence : In "Balance of Terror", the Romulan ship heads home under cover of a cloaking device and comm silence. Unfortunately for them, one of the officers violates orders in order to call home base to report the success of their mission, and the transmission is detected.
• Ramming Always Works : How Kirk destroys the titular device in "The Doomsday Machine", using a derelict starship to which Scotty manages to restore some engine power.
• Rape by Proxy : Downplayed in “Plato’s Stepchildren”, as Spock and Kirk are forced to kiss Chapel and Uhura to the sadistic joy of the Platonians, and all four are traumatised and disgusted; Chapel not wanting her crush on Spock to be used like this, and Uhura feeling safe around Kirk, until now.
• Ray Gun Gothic : The Original Series was the last of the classic examples. Soon afterwards, 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Real Life moon landings introduced more realism into the genre.
• Readings Are Off the Scale : Said by everyone : Spock, Chekov, Uhura...
• Real Award, Fictional Character : In " The Ultimate Computer ", Dr. Richard Daystrom is cited as a 2243 Nobel Prize winner for the invention of duotronic computers.
• Reality-Changing Miniature : In "Catspaw", Silvia's little silver Enterprise causes the real ship to overheat when the model is exposed to a flame, and the old girl to be surrounded by a force field when the model is encased in hard plastic.
• In "Miri", the kids on a planet identical to Earth are hundreds of years old.
• In "Requiem for Methuselah", Flint is thousands of years old and posed as various historical figures .
• Reckless Gun Usage : Two instances, both involving Time Travel and the not-gun-shaped Phaser. In "The City On The Edge of Forever", a 1930s bum gets hold of one and vaporizes himself playing with it . In "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", Kirk is captured by Air Police in 1969, and cringes (with priceless facial expressions) as they fiddle with his weapon, toss it around, and several times almost press the trigger, conflicted between justifiable fear and the need to not let them know who he is or what they have.
• Red Shirt : Actually an Unbuilt Trope : By and large, most of the people who die in a given episode tend not to be very plot-important, but only 24 red-shirted crewmembers died across all 80 episodes, in a series fraught with evil computer programs , shape-shifting salt vampires , planet destroying superweapons , and explosive rocks . Considering their job, and the fact that the ship has 430 crewmembers, that's not bad for a five-year mission.
• Redemption Equals Death : Dr. Elizabeth Dehner in the 2nd pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and Captain Merik in "Bread and Circuses".
• Religion of Evil : The cult of Landru in " The Return of the Archons ".
• Repressive, but Efficient : " Patterns of Force ", in which a lawless planet adopts Nazism as its hat with the justification that it was "the most efficient state the Earth ever knew." Their version of Nazism is treated in-universe as just as flawlessly efficient.
• Resort to Pouting : "Tomorrow is Yesterday" introduces a rather inconvenient modification to the Enterprise's main computer, the installation of a feminine personality. After it refers to Kirk as "dear" one too many times when he specifically ordered it not to, he makes a notation in the log that he considers it a fault. If it cannot be repaired, his recommendation is that the whole thing be scrapped. There is an entirely audible pout as the computer replies with a sulking "Computed."
• Rewatch Bonus : While the thinking he can just assimilate other cultures would be called out later on by the Gene Coon era, “The Enemy Within” shows most of the flaws and positive qualities that would last Kirk the rest of his life, from even his good side wanting to pretend something bad never happened, to his bad side only showing intelligence when it’s time to act weak but charming, and his compassion both helping and harming him.
• Right-Hand Cat : Isis (to Gary Seven) in "Assignment: Earth" and Sylvia (to Korob) in "Catspaw".
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick : Inverted ; Captain Kirk is a charming Officer and a Gentleman . By contrast, his first officer, Spock, is more tactless and ruthlessly pragmatic. The fact that he's also The Stoic when he does these things probably doesn't do his image any favors.
• Trying to explain Spock's Pointy Ears to native people. The cake-taker has to be this gem, from "The City on the Edge of Forever": Spock: You were saying you'd have no trouble explaining [the ears]. Kirk: [to a cop] My friend... is obviously Chinese. I see you've noticed the ears... well, they're... actually easy to explain... Spock: Perhaps the unfortunate accident I had as a child...? Kirk: ...the unfortunate accident he had as a child. He caught his head in a mechanical... rice picker... but, fortunately, there was an American, uh, missionary living close by who was a, uh, skilled, uh, plastic surgeon in civilian life who... Cop: All right, all right. Drop those bundles and put your hands on the wall.
• Chekov claiming everything was "inwented in Russia." Chekov: It makes me homesick... just like Russia. McCoy : More like the Garden of Eden , Ensign. Chekov: Of course, Doctor. The Garden of Eden was just outside Moscow. Very nice place.
• Rubber-Forehead Aliens : Infamously, the Klingons (though they didn't even have the budget for that until the movies). Vulcans are Rubber Pointy Ear Aliens.
• In "The Omega Glory", the Yangs have a sacred text which turns out to be identical to the US Constitution.
• In "A Piece of the Action" our heroes discover a planet has been using a book about gangs in 1920s Chicago (left by a previous Federation vessel) as their holy book.
• Sadist : The Platonians enjoy humiliating Kirk and company in “Plato’s Stepchildren”, the wife especially looking like she’s finding it all sexually appealing.
• Sadistic Choice : Everyone is forced to make these every so often.
• Sailor Fuku : In the episode "Court Martial", Jame Finney wears a futuristic version of this.
• Sarcastic Devotee : Both Spock and Bones are devoted to the captain, but are also quite willing to question/make sarcastic comments about his orders when the situation warrants it. Spock: Captain, you are an excellent starship commander, but as a taxi driver, you leave something to be desired!
• Science Is Good : The show portrays a fairly utopian, post-scarcity, post-racism future for humankind, with Cool Starships and Faster-Than-Light Travel . Unlike many science-focused works, the original series is fairly idealistic and romantic, showing respect for both nature/tradition and new science and medicine.
• Scientifically Understandable Sorcery : While there are plenty of incidents where the Enterprise crew seems to encounter the supernatural, said supernatural thing is always shown to have a scientific basis when sufficiently analyzed by the characters. That said, sometimes the thing is too advanced to analyze with the Enterprise's technology, and thus remains indecipherable (though not actually thought of as "magic"; they just acknowledge that what they've encountered is so far above/beyond them that they can't realistically understand the principles it works on).
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! : Whenever Kirk violates given orders, it's specifically to avoid the loss of his ship and crew, or to avoid making a situation worse by not seeing it through to the end.
• Trelane, the Squire of Gothos... at least until Kirk breaks whatever it is he has behind that mirror. In the episode "Catspaw", Sylvia and Korob... until Kirk shatters the power transmuter wand tied to the illusions to themselves and the planet. You may notice a theme .
• Justified/Played with in "Charlie X", because he really doesn't understand the rules .
• Gary Mitchell from "Where No Man Has Gone Before".
• Screw the Rules, They're Not Real! : In " A Taste of Armageddon ", Jim Kirk and his crew discover that the Planet of the Week, Eminiar VII, is conducting a Forever War with a neighboring planet, Vendikar, entirely by computer simulation, with the "simulated" casualties ordered to report to the government for euthanasia. They're horrified but aren't allowed to do anything about it under the Prime Directive ... until the computer erroneously marks the Enterprise as a valid target and designates it "destroyed". Kirk refuses to abide by the Eminian-Vendikari rules, and instead starts blowing up the euthanasia booths and ultimately the computer. The Eminian head of state complains that with the computer gone, their underlying civilizations will be destroyed by war instead of merely people's lives. Kirk counters that the simulated war has taken all the horror out of the conflict, and with it any incentive to make peace , and how about they try that instead.
• Khan Noonien Singh and his cryogenically frozen followers, in the episode " Space Seed ".
• In "The Alternative Factor" , if Lazarus and his insane counterpart from the antimatter dimension were ever to meet in the same universe, that universe would be destroyed. Both of them are sent into an intermediate dimension so that this can never happen, and where the two of them will be locked in combat for all eternity .
• Sealed Orders : In "The Enterprise Incident", Captain Kirk receives secret orders to steal a Romulan cloaking device . As part of The Plan , he acts like a Jerkass as a form of Obfuscating Insanity .
• Second Episode Introduction : McCoy doesn't appear in either of the pilots, but does appear in the first proper episode.
• Secret Test : Balok in "The Corbomite Maneuver", the Ekosian Resistance in "Patterns of Force", and Korob in "Catspaw".
• Self-Destruct Mechanism : The Enterprise has one on board. It requires simultaneous voice input from three senior officers to activate.
• Serious Work, Comedic Scene : The show does this practically Once per Episode , breaking the tension of an episode's conflict with a joke. For example, the episode Spock's Brain features this exchange after Spock starts describing the culture of Sigma Draconis VI: McCoy : I should never have reconnected his mouth. Kirk: Well, we took the risk, Doctor.
• Send in the Search Team : Whenever the Enterprise loses track of important personnel on a planet, they send in the Redshirt Army to find them. This occurs in several episodes, with varying degrees of success.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains : Almost everyone in the mirror universe dresses skimpier than they do in the main universe. Though you'd be hard-pressed to take the basic female Starfleet uniform and make it skimpier without violating broadcast codes, they found a way.
• While both hammy, Kirk vs Mudd. In both episodes, Mudd complains that Kirk is uptight and needs to take orders (from him, specifically), while Kirk always fires back that Mudd is a criminal sleazeball.
• " This Side of Paradise " has the Enterprise on a rescue mission to settlers on a Federation colony, supposedly endangered by deadly radiation.
• In " The Way to Eden ", the crew of the Enterprise meets a group of space hippies who hope to settle a new colony on a planet they call Eden.
• In " The Trouble with Tribbles " the Federation and the Klingons are competing to develop a colony world. The Enterprise is tasked with delivering a special grain hybrid to kickstart the colony's agriculture. A Klingon agent subsequently poisons the grain.
• In the episode "Mudd's Women", Mudd has pills that he claims makes a woman more attractive.
• Mirror Universe Spock is this for many viewers.
• Shapeshifting Seducer : The pilot episode and the season 2 episode "Catspaw" feature women who change shape to find a form that pleases the captain.
• Shirtless Scene : Kirk has a lot of these.
• Shout-Out : To the show's precursor Forbidden Planet , which included the early line, "We'll reach D.C. point at 1701."
• Showing Off the New Body : In “Return To Tomorrow”, Sargon puppets Kirk’s body, saying it’s excellent and complimenting Bones on “maintaining” it, while Janice Lester in “Turnabout Intruder” takes the opportunity to grope his abs when she steals it.
• Show Some Leg : Lampshaded in “Is There In Truth No Beauty” when Spock needs a diversion to mind meld with Kolos, Kirk knows just the thing: flirting with Miranda Jones to distract her. For once it doesn’t work, and she’s only annoyed by the deception.
• Shown Their Work : In " Tomorrow Is Yesterday ", the Enterprise travels back in time to 1968. It's mentioned that three astronauts are taking part in a manned moon shot on Wednesday. Two years after the episode aired, Apollo 11 blasted off on July 16, 1969 (a Wednesday) carrying three astronauts (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins). Given that the Apollo program was already getting started around the time of this episode, however, it was already known that there would be three astronauts per spacecraft, and odds were good that at least one of the craft bound for the moon would launch on a Wednesday.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers! : In " A Taste of Armageddon ", the Eminian leader insists that peace is impossible and that their 500-year-old simulated war with declared casualties reporting in to be neatly and cleanly killed is the lesser of two evils. Kirk insists that they can make peace if they just try harder, and helpfully provides them with motivation to do so by shutting down the war computer and forcing them to choose between real-world messy warfare and swallowing enough pride to find a peaceful solution.
• " Let That Be Your Last Battlefield " is a commentary on race relations; two aliens who have mirrored skin tones (right side of the face black, left side white and vice versa) fight over this difference. When they reach their homeworld, they discover that they are the Last of Their Kind ; everyone else killed each other in the race war. They keep fighting anyway.
• In " A Taste of Armageddon ", the two warring powers have forgotten why they were fighting in the first place!
• Sliding Scale of Continuity : The series adhered to the level 2 of continuity ( Status Quo Is God ) well enough that with a scant few exceptions and Character Development for the main three (Bones and Spock are less at each other's throats, Kirk tries to be less of a soldier) you can watch the series in any order and it generally makes perfect sense.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism : The show was mostly on the idealism end of the spectrum, showing that in the future, humanity managed to finally stop fighting with each other and form a world government free of racism and other evils. It’s particularly notable seeing as how it was made during a time when America’s biggest issues were racism and the threat of nuclear war.
• Slut-Shaming : Both played straight and ultimately avoided with Kirk, as in episodes like “Dagger Of The Mind”, he’s gently teased by Bones and Spock for accidentally flirting with Dr Noel, but when things go badly wrong and she shoves a false one night stand in his brain, they’re both sympathetically hovering around him at the end of the episode, and it’s not treated as something he deserved. Played straight as an arrow with both in-universe and out “Kirk Drift” though.
• Smart People Play Chess : Spock, logically, as well as Kirk, who was stated to be quite bookish at the academy, play 3-D chess. They are often seen playing while having a conversation relevant to the plot.
• Many individual episodes also employ this trope: when a landing party beams down to a planet, there is usually exactly one woman on the team, whose narrative function is to have a romance arc with either another member of the landing party, or the episode's villain.
• "The Way to Eden" features a group seeking a world where they can set up such a society. In the end, it doesn't work out (both because the planet they've chosen is uninhabitable, and because their leader is a nut), but it's interesting that, out of the whole crew, the one who is most sympathetic to their goal is Spock. Spock : Miss Galliulin... It is my sincere hope that you do not give up your search for Eden. I have no doubt but that you will find it, or make it yourselves.
• "Errand of Mercy" features an alien society that thrived for eons without technological advancement. Although , they really don't need to use technology. They are, after all Sufficiently Advanced Aliens .
• In "Balance of Terror", both the Romulan and the Enterprise crews cut their ship's power to avoid detection. During this, the crews whisper so they will not alert the enemy. This is actually justified by the fact that starship sensors are established to be able to detect even very faint vibrations - such as heartbeats - from very long distances: the impact of voices hitting the hull could give them away.
• Space Is an Ocean : The Enterprise is a "ship," equipped with "torpedoes," and the crew is arranged along naval lines. Several touches are intended to put the audience specifically in mind of the age of Wooden Ships and Iron Men : the in-ship intercom's attention chime is a bosun's whistle, and the standard bit of incidental music played when the Enterprise is in flight is in a style often used for incidental music accompanying a sailing ship under way.
• Space Mines : In the episode "Balance of Terror", the Romulan ship uses one of its self-destruct devices as an impromptu mine in an attempt to destroy the Enterprise . It's also noted in the Writer's Guide that the Enterprise's photon torpedoes can be used as mines, but this is never actually done in any episode.
• Space Western : Gene Roddenberry famously pitched the series as " Wagon Train to the stars". The first season in particular gives the impression of the Enterprise'' crew as frontiersmen exploring and expanding into a vast and untamed wilderness.
• Spock knew that the shapeshifter in question couldn't hold another identity for more than a few minutes. He says so, and explains that all he has to do is wait. That's when the "Shoot him! No, shoot us both" dialogue occurs.
• Leonard Nimoy hated this episode, noting that as The Smart Guy Spock should have been able to easily and quickly create the kind of highly personal trick questions only his best friend, Kirk, should be able to answer properly to identify himself. According to Spock, he did not make his choice based on the order to shoot them both, but rather based on which one was winning: Kirk was recovering from serious injuries and thus was at a disadvantage against the healthier duplicate.
• "The Man Trap" features a shapeshifting creature that drains the salt from people. It shapeshifts several times before settling on shifting into McCoy 's form. It can be spotted by its tendency to curve its index finger and nibble slightly on the arc of the finger.
• In "The Enemy Within", Kirk is split by a transporter accident into his "good" and "evil" halves. In what might be considered a subversion, it turns out Kirk's "evil" half is not so much evil, as driven by passion and base instinct, and Kirk's "good" half, the logic and intellect side, is incapable of acting competently without it.
• In "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", Spock is able to spot the android Kirk because the genuine article focused on a particular out of character thought, embedding it in the android's programming.
• Despite the franchise's well-earned reputation for Rubber-Forehead Aliens , the original series did introduce some nonhumanoid aliens in some of the series' most highly-regarded episodes: the Horta in "Devil in the Dark," the tribbles in "The Trouble with Tribbles"; the true forms of Sylvia and Korob as seen at the end of "Catspaw"; and several non-corporeal aliens . Within the limits of the special effects technology available at the time, the original series actually did fairly well in this regard. Additionally, the Kelvans are stated to have had a truly bizarre physiology before taking on human form to steal the Enterprise .
• TOS also introduced the Tholians, an extremely xenophobic race that had the general appearance of a virus. Despite only appearing in one episode, they became a fan favorite and the subject of wild speculation. Eventually, throughout the remainder of the franchise, a few canonical facts were given about the species: They have six legs, no evidence of a circulatory system, require temperatures above 400 degrees Kelvin to survive (lower temperatures would cause their carapace to rupture and eventually explode), have two sexes despite being hermaphroditic, and can emit radiation as a means of communication.
• Stealth in Space : The Romulans' cloaking device technology shields them from both visible light and sensor readings, but also blinds the ship itself, and draws so much power that it must be dropped in order to fire, allowing for " Balance of Terror " to be a submarine episode (specifically, the 1957 film The Enemy Below ) Recycled IN SPACE!
• Stealth Pun : The name of the librarian in "All Our Yesterdays" is "Atoz". Which is what you get if you take the phrase "A to Z" and compress it.
• Stinky Flower : Discussed. When Kirk and his crew are spouting Non Sequiturs to get some robots to shut down , Spock says that " Logic is a wreath of beautiful flowers that smell bad ".
• Straw Vulcan : Among other examples, in " The Galileo Seven ", we're shown Spock's first command, as the shuttle he is in charge of crashes on a desolate planet filled with savage aliens. Spock determines that a display of superior force will logically frighten away these aliens while the crew make repairs to the shuttle. Instead, as Dr. McCoy points out, the aliens have an emotional reaction and become angry and attack, something Spock did not anticipate. In the end, Spock's desperate act of igniting the fuel from the shuttle to create a beacon proves to be the correct action since it gets the attention of the Enterprise and allows for a rescue. When called on this "emotional" act, Spock replies that the only logical course of action in that instance was one of desperation. Also, much of the conflict in the episode comes from Spock steadfastly refusing to take the emotional reactions of the men under his command into account, or to even acknowledge that they have them, expecting them all to act like cool, logical Vulcans. Spock's been around humans long enough he should know this attitude is illogical.
• The Strength of Ten Men : In "Space Seed," Khan's "I have five times your strength!" Spock, as well, being half-Vulcan - he's thrice as strong as a human. This is not always apparent since he tends either to avoid physical confrontation or end them instantly with a nerve-pinch to shut down the opponent, but on the few occasions he ended up in a fight, this trope is clearly in play.
• "Metamorphosis": Lost scientist Zefram Cochrane, inventor of the warp drive, is discovered by the Enterprise . He has an otherworldly companion that allowed him to live for centuries, not unlike the fey servant of the Ur-Example of this trope, Prospero .
• "Requiem For Methuselah": Mr. Flint owns a planet in the Omega system. He has a number of robots as servants and a beautiful female ward named Rayna Kapec. He has tremendous technological power, enough to destroy the Enterprise. He has two dark secrets. The first is that he is an immortal man from Earth and is thousands of years old. The second is that his ward is not human, but actually an android robot in female form, and he needs to have her emotions wakened so she will love him. Her name may be a reference to Karel Čapek , who coined the word "robot".
• Styrofoam Rocks : In "Return of the Archons", a melon-sized "rock" bounces off a stuntman's head and he keeps running. Apparently it wasn't supposed to hit him at all, and was left in under time pressure.
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien : "The Corbomite Maneuver", "The Squire of Gothos" and more.
• Super Cell Reception : Naturally, the communicators came before cell phones, but they look much like them (having arguably inspired their modern look), and are often subject to both ends of this trope.
• Take a Third Option : Kirk is famous for these. When faced with two undesirable options in "Operation: Annihilate!", he outright tells his crew to go and find him a third one.
• Talking the Monster to Death : Usually with Kirk delivering a Logic Bomb to a psychotic computer.
• Talking Is a Free Action , by way of the Captain's Log used to bring viewers up to speed on current events. In "By Any Other Name", as the Enterprise approaches the Energy Barrier, Kirk records a log detailing a plan to defeat the Kelvans—while the Kelvans are on the bridge with him.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky : Spock definitely fits into this trope.
• Tap on the Head : Often played completely straight with the human characters, especially Kirk, but Spock uses his famous Vulcan nerve pinch instead.
• Chekov was supposedly introduced after an article in the Soviet state newspaper Pravda allegedly mocked the show for not having a Russian, when the Russians had been the first into space.
• Chekov was then used as a delivery vessel for a number of minor Take Thats to the Russians for the remainder of the series, turning In the Original Klingon into an art form: Chekov: It makes me homesick. It's just like Russia. Bones: More like the Garden of Eden, Ensign. Chekov: Of course, Doctor. The Garden of Eden was just outside Moscow—a very nice place, must have made Adam and Eve very sad to leave.
• The insult "Herbert" that the space hippies use in "The Way to Eden" was definitely a Take That at a real-life Herbert. However, no-one is exactly sure who it was supposed to be: depending on who you ask, it was either Herbert Hoover or Herbert Solow, who was the show's production executive for the first two seasons.
• Uhura's normal place on the bridge was directly behind the captain's seat, the center of attention and focus. Many, many shots of Kirk included her. " There's a black lady on TV ", indeed.
• Team Kids : Uhura, Checkov, and Sulu are the Team Kids to the Kirk/Spock Team Mom and Dad, with Bones and Scotty as uncles . This is made apparent in "Who Mourns For Adonis", when Checkov suggests he comfort Lt. Palamas. Kirk asks him how old he is and when Checkov tells him, Kirk says he's too young.
• Teenage Wasteland : "Miri" features a planet where a virus has killed off all the adults, leaving the children to look after themselves.
• Teens Are Monsters : Charlie in "Charlie X." Being a juvenile Reality Warper with boundary issues doesn't help, though he does turn out to have a serious Freudian Excuse for his actions.
• Many (usually the transporter being out of order and unable to beam the heroes aboard), but notably in " The Enemy Within ", which creates an Evil Knockoff and a wimpy knockoff of Kirk.
• The lack of safety features of the transporter is highlighted in Season 3's "And the Children Shall Lead", when Kirk and Spock accidentally transport two crewmen into open space because the transporter system doesn't have any mechanism to warn that they are not locked on to a habitable location.
• Teleport Interdiction : Federation correctional facilities, such as the Tantalus penal colony in "Dagger of the Mind" and the Elba II asylum in "Whom Gods Destroy", include security fields that prevent beaming in or out while in operation.
• Sulu doesn't appear in " Space Seed ". He was replaced by Makee K. Blaisdell as Lt. Spinelli.
• Scotty and Sulu are absent from " The Alternative Factor ". For unknown reasons they were substituted in the roles of engineer and helmsman by Charlene Masters and Leslie, respectively.
• During filming of the episode " The Gamesters of Triskelion ," George Takei was busy filming The Green Berets . Chekov took his place in the script, with a barroom brawling style in the episode's fight scenes taking the place of the martial arts scenes planned for Sulu.
• Ditto " The Trouble with Tribbles "; Chekov's instant recognition of quadro-triticale makes more sense knowing that the script was originally written for Sulu, as Sulu had an established background in botany.
• Uhura doesn't appear in " The Doomsday Machine ", her duties assumed by Lt. Palmer, played by Elizabeth Rogers.
• For " Turnabout Intruder ", the final episode, Uhura takes the day off and is replaced by a Lieutenant Lisa. ( Nichelle Nichols had a singing engagement that conflicted with the shooting schedule.)
• Tempting Fate : In "The Menagerie", a few episodes before several traumatic missions and causes for my greatest failures , Kirk calls having to be part of Spock’s mutiny trial hearing the worst moment of his service. The Talosians tell him at the end that Pike has illusion and he has reality, and he can’t quite keep up the smile.
• In The Cage, Talosian society is revealed to be so addicted to their own natural ability to create realistic psychic illusions that they allowed their entire civilization to crumble around them while they endlessly enjoyed the fake realities they constructed.
• In The Apple, the Enterprise encounters a society that has been kept in primitive cultural stagnation by an advanced computer that carefully controls the entire planet they live on.
• That's an Order! : Occurred in 13 different episodes.
• This Is No Time for Knitting : In "Court Martial", McCoy is aghast to find Spock playing chess against the computer while Kirk is losing a court martial for criminal negligence. However, Spock reveals that he has been using the chess games to confirm that the ship's computer's memory banks have been tampered with to frame Kirk: since he's the one who made the chess program to begin with and thus the computer has to be at least as good as he is, he should only be able to force a stalemate at best, but he's won several games in a row by that point, proving that something is wrong with the computer.
• This Was His True Form : The shapeshifting creature in "The Man Trap"; the two telepathic aliens in "Catspaw".
• There Are No Therapists : Bones is apparently an expert on space psychology, and tries to Team Dad everyone, but he tells Edith he’s no psychiatrist.The crew could really use one.
• Those Wacky Nazis : "Patterns of Force" features a planet of Nazis!
• The Three Faces of Adam : Kirk is The Hunter (brash, impulsive and adventurous), Spock is The Lord (wise, rational and logical) and Bones is The Prophet (cynical, outspoken and compassionate).
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works : During one of the illusions that Captain Pike is subjected to in the original pilot episode, he winds up using this on a giant warrior threatening the Love Interest , causing it to fall and get impaled.
• Time Bomb : "Obsession", "The Immunity Syndrome", "The Doomsday Machine".
• "Wink of an Eye" features aliens who move so fast that they're invisible to the naked eye and everyone else appears frozen to them. (Interestingly enough, so long as none of the aliens or the people they abducted into their 'timeframe' by means of a drug are actually around to watch, both they and the crew seem to function in parallel and on the same timescale just fine. This point is never addressed.)
• Kirk receives the drug when it's slipped into his coffee, inadvertently making it look like he's on a rush.
• Time Travel : "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" has a time disturbance send the crew back to Earth of the 1960s. "The City on the Edge of Forever" has a weird time portal on a strange planet send the Power Trio back to the 1960s. "Assignment: Earth" has them do it deliberately for "historical research."
• Time Travel Episode : In " The City on the Edge of Forever ", Bones accidentally steps through a time portal that takes him back to the 1930s, where he inadvertently changes the timeline so humans never went into space. It's up to Kirk and Spock to follow him and repair the damage.
• Time-Travel Romance : Kirk falls for Edith Keeler in the 1930s in "The City on the Edge of Forever." Unfortunately, You Can't Fight Fate .
• Time-Travelers Are Spies : "Tomorrow is Yesterday", "Assignment: Earth".
• Doubling as a Wham Line , from the episode "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky". Old Man: You are... not of Yonada? Kirk: No, we're from... outside your world. Elder Yonadan: Where... is outside? Kirk: [solemnly] Up there. Outside, up there, everywhere. Elder Yonadan: So they also... [seizes in pain, whispers] Many years ago, I climbed the mountains, even though it is forbidden. [winces in pain] Kirk : Why is it forbidden? Elder Yonadan: [winces in pain] I am not sure. [winces again] But things are not as they... teach us, for the world... is hollow, and I... have touched the sky! [screams in pain, falling over dead]
• Most of the episodes get a Title Drop, including "Obsession", "The Changeling"' and yes, "Spock's Brain".
• That's What I Would Do : In "Balance of Terror", this is Kirk's comment after the nameless Romulan commander dodges one of the Enterprise 's attacks: "He did exactly what I would have done. I won't underestimate him again."
• Thousand-Yard Stare : Kirk has one in “Is There In Truth No Beauty”, telling Bones “we’re all vulnerable in one way or another” before staring off briefly with a haunted expression. He’s had a lot of brandy.
• Token Minority : Played with. On the one hand, Star Trek was perhaps the first mainstream show to actively do this, as part of its utopian themes. However, people from all sorts of minorities were shown almost every episode, which means they were hardly tokens, but also most of these characters were minor or one-shot. Among the main cast, it could be said that Sulu and Uhura fit this trope.
• One Girl of the Week has a guy obviously in love with her who is Too Dumb to Live. Given that said girl had to spend four years on Vulcan to retain her sanity, I'm sure trying to make her feel strong emotions is a wonderful idea! Oh, and what better way to get a girl to like you than by ruining her career by murdering the ambassador she's accompanying? The ambassador is an Eldritch Abomination the mere sight of which can make humans go mad. Just walk up, look it straight in the whatever-seeing-organs-it-possesses, and kill it. What could possibly go wrong?
• Special mention to Joe Tormolen in "The Naked Time" for taking off the glove of his hazmat suit to fucking scratch his nose. He then just leaves the glove off for no apparent reason, touching things with his bare hands. Then when Spock stresses the importance of not touching anything and they have to be decontaminated, Tormolen says nothing, doesn't even seem nervous like he's thinking "Hey, maybe I shouldn't have done that." His stupidity gets him killed and the entire crew infected.
• Touched By The Monster : Interestingly it’s Kirk that gets grabbed a lot by Ruk in all the stereotypical damsel ways in “What Are Little Girls Made Of”, including one bit where he’s held by the waist and forced in close.
• Tragic Bromance : Kirk and Spock, both ways. Kirk is completely broken when Spock dies, and doesn’t expect that he’ll actually come back, and in The Autobiography of Spock , Spock wonders if he could have saved Kirk one last time, and can’t bring himself to visit the man’s grave.
• Trespassing to Talk : During the first season episode "A Taste of Armageddon", Kirk escapes captivity and waits in his captor's office to have a calm, albeit at gunpoint, conversation about the reasons for Kirk's imprisonment.
• The Federation has a peace treaty with the Romulan Star Empire that established a demilitarized zone along their mutual border, the Romulan Neutral Zone. " Balance of Terror " revolves around a string of Romulan raids on Federation listening posts along the Neutral Zone, meant to test the Federation's willingness to retaliate for breaches in the treaty.
• " The Savage Curtain ": Kirk points out to Colonel Green that he was notorious for striking his enemies while in the midst of negotiating with them.
• True Companions : Kirk, Spock and McCoy .
• Kirk must face the Gorn captain in " Arena " in a Duel to the Death to determine which of them has trespassed into the other's territory.
• Kirk vs. Spock in " Amok Time " is the other classic example. Spock is badass enough when he's in his right mind. Spock driven beyond the point of insanity by his mating instinct is horrifying for Kirk and McCoy !
• Turns Red : The Companion, when Kirk and crew attack it with something like an EMP; it takes Cochrane to stop it from killing our gallant crew.
• Turn the Other Fist : The episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" features this kind of punch by good ol' Scotty when a Klingon is insulting the Enterprise .
• Two Girls to a Team : For most of the show, there are two women in the core cast: Lt. Uhura and Nurse Chapel. Initially, Yeoman Rand was part of the cast as well, but the actress was let go in the middle of the first season. Only one episode ("The Naked Time") features all three women; Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand never interact with each other, but Uhura seems to be on fairly good terms with the both of them.
• Two of Your Earth Minutes : Occurs in multiple episodes.
• In the episode "The Galileo Seven," Spock's legs get pinned between a large rock and a cliff. After he is freed, he is visibly limping; however, later in the episode, he is shown walking around the bridge with no indication that the injury had ever occured. Justified in that Spock may heal faster than humans and that McCoy may have had a chance to treat his injuries in the meantime.
• Underestimating Badassery : In " Errand of Mercy ", the Klingons conquer Organia, not knowing that the Perfect Pacifist People living there are actually ludicrously powerful Energy Beings . They didn't need the Federation's help to rescue their planet .
• Unknown Relative : In the episode "Journey to Babel" Kirk is surprised to meet Spock's parents . It's a little unrealistic that a Starfleet captain tasked with transporting a distinguished delegation to a vital conference would have no idea that Vulcan's ambassador to the Federation is his first officer's father.
• Unlimited Wardrobe : Guest star Barbara Anderson (Lenore Karidian, "Conscience of a King") shares the record with Ricardo Montalban and Joan Collins for the most costumes worn in an episode (six).
• Unsuccessful Pet Adoption : Zigzagged. In "The Trouble with Tribbles", Uhura adopts a Tribble (a little fuzzy alien), but has to give it away because all Tribbles multiply like crazy and are "born pregnant". However, it's a bit ambiguous on whether Tribbles are usually kept as pets. They are sold, but Kirk and other such characters frequently comment on how bad they are as pets.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom : Doctor McCoy (and Edith Keeler) in "The City on the Edge of Forever".
• Updated Re-release : The remastered episodes, with redone special effects, HD film transfers, and rerecorded stereo soundtracks.
• Khan suffers a brief one when no one from the bridge is willing to join him, even with Kirk's life at stake.
• In " Turnabout Intruder ", Dr Janice Lester grows increasingly unhinged as the rest of the suspicious crew begin to mutiny and rebel against her orders while she's in Kirk's body.
• "The Conscience of the King" deals with trying to discover if actor Anton Karidian really was a murderous tyrant named Kodos the Executioner. By the end of the episode, this has happened to two villainous characters. Karidian, who is Kodos and becomes spooked when he overhears an argument between Riley and Kirk about his past during a performance of Hamlet , breaks down backstage during the intermission , believing the voices to be ghosts from his past. At the same time, his daughter Lenore reveals she has murdered seven of the nine witnesses who could still identify him, and plans to kill Kirk and Riley, even swearing she would destroy a planet to save him. Kodos breaks down further as he realizes his actions in the past have corrupted his own child as well. In true Shakespearian fashion, this causes a chain reaction that ends in the death of Kodos, who dies trying to stop Lenore from shooting Kirk and instead takes the lethal blast meant for Kirk. Lenore is pronounced completely insane in the epilogue, as she believes her father to be alive and well.
• Evil Kirk in "Mirror, Mirror". " I. ORDER. YOU!!!! "
• And Evil Kirk in "The Enemy Within". "IIIIIII'MMMMMMMM CAPTAIIIIIN KIIIIIIIRK!"
• Virus and Cure Names : Rigellian Fever, cured by Ryetalyn.
• In "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," the inhabitants of Yonada believe themselves to live on a "world" but are actually living in a hollowed-out asteroid that has been turned into a starship, as one elderly Yonadan discovers by comitting the titular act, before being killed for his "heresy" by the Oracle that controls their ship.
• Wanting Is Better Than Having : Spock in "Amok Time", almost word for word. Spock: After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical... but it is often true.
• War Hero : Captain Kirk is openly stated to have been decorated many times for valor. Kirk doesn't talk about his awards or display them, preferring to keep them locked away in his quarters. His record is so impressive that in the episode " Court Martial " where Kirk was framed for the death of a crewman and put on trial, the prosecutor tried to have his decorations entered into the record without being read aloud to the court. Fortunately, Kirk's defense attorney saw right through this ploy and insisted that more of Kirk's list of medals be read into the record. Cogley: I wouldn't want to slow the wheels of progress. But then on the other hand, I wouldn't want those wheels to run over my client in their unbridled haste. Stone: Continue. Computer: Awards of Valor, Medal of Honor, Silver Palm with Cluster, Starfleet Citation for Conspicuous Gallantry, Karagite Order of Heroism... Cogley: Stop. I think that's enough. I wouldn't want to slow things up too much.
• Weakened by the Light : In "Operation: Annihilate!", the parasites that infected the colonists on the planet Deneva are destroyed by bright light.
• Weapon Running Time : In "Balance of Terror" , the Romulans' plasma bolt travels at sublight speed and has a limited range. This allows the fleeing Enterprise to travel far enough before the bolt hits that it survives the weakened bolt's impact. A full-power hit would have destroyed the ship.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist : The Vians in " The Empath " use a beautiful, mute empath in combination with our Power Trio to determine whether her race is worthy of survival before their sun goes nova. Their methods consist of torture and mutilation, resulting in gross physical and psychological damage. Turns out that the empath's race is worthy of preservation, and the Vians, logical and possessed of their own morals and ethics regarding life , needed only "good old-fashioned human emotion" to help them see that.
• We Need a Distraction : Both “By Any Other Name” and “Is There In Truth No Beauty” have the woman notice that Kirk is trying to seduce them as a blatant distraction.
• Kirk is often upset whenever one of his crew members (usually a Red Shirt ) dies. He is also clearly upset when the Romulans decide to self-destruct rather than surrender in "Balance of Terror".
• What's more, the Romulan Commander himself sees his own mission the same way: he's testing new weapons (a cloaking device and extremely powerful plasma torpedo) to see if the Romulans have a sufficient technological edge to win another war against the Federation, and to see if the Federation has grown soft in the intervening years. He is haunted by the fact that if his mission goes well, a new war will be the result, with senseless wastes of Human and Romulan lives on both sides. Nevertheless, he fights to the best of his ability, as his duty demands. This all serves to highlight the fact that he and Kirk aren't so different.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human? : The Horta (rock monster) in "The Devil in the Dark".
• Where's the Fun in That? : "The Squire of Gothos". Kirk asks his captor, "Where's the sport?" in simply hanging him, as he had planned. Instead, Kirk talks his captor into staging a "royal hunt" . This buys Kirk enough time for a Deus ex Machina rescue.
• Who Even Needs a Brain? : In "Spock's Brain", Spock's brain is stolen by aliens who use it as a computer to run their planet's infrastructure. For some reason, his autonomic functions still work, but he is completely unconscious. Kirk has to get the brain back quickly, because Spock's Vulcan physiology is especially dependent on that tremendous brain. (While a brain-dead human could be kept "alive" easily for quite some time.) So that they can restore the brain quickly when they find it, McCoy rigs up a device that fits on Spock's head and allows his lifeless body to walk around, manipulated by a remote control. With three buttons. S.P.O.C.K has made a song called "Mr. Spock's Brain", based on the above episode.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist : Edith Keeler in "The City on the Edge of Forever", a passionate advocate of peace— in the face of Nazi Germany . Spock: She had the right idea ... but at the wrong time.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity : "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and to a lesser extent (or at least power level), "Whom Gods Destroy".
• World of Ham : A galaxy of ham, in this case. With most of the principal cast being classically-trained stage actors and having earned their early TV credentials in Westerns, note  and, in Shatner's case, as a television lawyer in a Canadian Perry Mason copycat it comes with the territory.
• Worthy Opponent : Several examples, with the Romulan commander in "Balance of Terror" being a particular standout.
• Usually it's to show how evil the villains can get, as the main characters would rarely ever do it (unless their body is taken over or if they are under the influence of something). In one episode alone, one minion slaps Uhura and would do it on two more occasions if others hadn't stepped in.
• Another instance is when an ex-lover of Kirk's, while in Kirk's body, hits Kirk, who is in her body. This shocks the rest of the crew, who at this point haven't learned about the change and grow suspicious, as Kirk would never hit a girl like that.
• Kirk chins Shahna, his "drill thrall" in "The Gamesters of Triskelion", into unconsciousness, but it doesn't get him very far.
• However, Kirk has a weird tendency to lay his hands on female characters as part of "normal" conversation, including grabbing them by the arms or shoulders and shaking them, even women he hasn't been sleeping with. This tendency towards physical conversation also extends to male crew members.
• This tendency doesn't extend to when the girls hit first. Both Kirk and McCoy have slapped women right back in a few episodes.
• In the very first episode, when the salt vampire disguises itself as Nancy, the woman archaeologist who's supposedly been living on the planet, it's Spock who convinces McCoy by beating the living shit out of "Nancy" , who isn't affected at all, finally pretty casually backhanding Spock clear across the room.
• Xanatos Gambit : "Amok Time". T'Pring benefits no matter who wins the duel. Turns out Vulcans love these, since they are, as Spock comments, "Logical. Flawlessly logical." They're always looking to turn some kind of benefit from plans and events.
• Ye Olde Butchered English : T'Pau in "Amok Time" consistently messes up "Thee" and "Thou," using "Thee" as second person singular subject.
• You Can't Fight Fate : In "The City on the Edge of Forever", Edith Keeler must die so that Germany doesn't win World War II and wipe the Federation from existence. (Had she lived, she would have founded a peace movement that would have delayed the United States' entry into the European front of WWII, allowing Nazi Germany sufficient time to develop the atomic bomb and thus win the war.)
• Averted, at least for a decade or two, with the "microtape" data cartridges, which look very much like 3.5" diskettes and can store a fantastically large amount of information compared to modern technology. note  as in, one of them can store the entire Internet as of 2017. At the very least recording tapes still exist as a means of long term bulk data storage, with higher capacity tapes and better formatting being made to fill this niche need.
• Maybe the in-universe designers of the Enterprise wanted the crew to remember they were talking to a machine , but 21st century GPS units sound much more human and less mechanized than the ship's computer voice.
• There is now a remastered version of Star Trek with modern, CGI special effects. In contrast to the changes done on Star Wars , the remastering is generally (though far from universally) well-received (it helps that the Blu Ray release utilizes seamless branching to allow the viewer the choice of watching the episodes as they were originally broadcast, or with the updated special effects). It should also be noted they only remastered the original special effects and didn't take the opportunity to tweak any plot points . The CGI also embraces a degree of Stylistic Suck , so that the improved effects aren't jarring against original footage.

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The Church of Trek

In Futurama, the Star Trek fandom grew from easy-to-punch nerds to a religious cult that influenced countries, eventually getting to the point that world leaders executed Trekkies en mass and scrubbed every known existence of Star Trek from public knowlege.

Example of: Parody Religion

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In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets. In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets. In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets.

• Gene Roddenberry
• William Shatner
• Leonard Nimoy
• DeForest Kelley
• 276 User reviews
• 99 Critic reviews
• 16 wins & 31 nominations total

Episodes 80

Photos 1999

• Captain James Tiberius 'Jim' Kirk …

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• Trivia In the hallways of the Enterprise there are tubes marked "GNDN." These initials stand for "goes nowhere does nothing."
• Goofs The deck locations for Kirk's Quarters, Sickbay and Transporter Room vary (usually between decks 4-7) throughout the series.

Dr. McCoy : "He's dead, Jim."

• Crazy credits On some episodes, the closing credits show a still that is actually from the Star Trek blooper reel. It is a close-up of stunt man Bill Blackburn who played an android in Return to Tomorrow (1968) , removing his latex make up. In the reel, He is shown taking it off, while an off-screen voice says "You wanted show business, you got it!"
• Alternate versions In 2006, CBS went back to the archives and created HD prints of every episode of the show. In addition to the new video transfer, they re-did all of the model shots and some matte paintings using CGI effects, and re-recorded the original theme song to clean it up. These "Enhanced" versions of the episodes aired on syndication and have been released on DVD and Blu-Ray.
• Connections Edited into Ben 10: Secrets (2006)
• Soundtracks Star Trek Music by Alexander Courage

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• September 8, 1966 (United States)
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Star Trek: The Original Series/Characters

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• 1.1 Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner)
• 1.2 Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy)
• 1.3 Doctor (Lieutenant Commander) Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley)
• 1.4 Lieutenant Commander Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan)
• 1.5 Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols)
• 1.6 Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu (George Takei)
• 1.7 Ensign Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig)
• 1.8 Head Nurse Christine Chapel (Majel Barrett)
• 1.9 Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney)
• 1.10 Lieutenant Kyle (John Winston)
• 1.11 Kevin Thomas Riley (Bruce Hyde)
• 1.12 The Enterprise
• 2.1 Harcourt Fenton "Harry" Mudd (Roger C. Carmel)

Crew of the Enterprise [ ]

Captain james t. kirk ( william shatner ) [ ].

• A Father to His Men
• Acting for Two : In three episodes (Id!Kirk, Android!Kirk, and Mirror!Kirk) and in the sixth movie .
• AI Is a Crapshoot : Kirk went up against malevolent computers so often that it became something of a Running Gag in the Fandom .
• Always Save Spock
• Anti-Hero : Sixties sex symbol or not, Kirk stumbled into Type I in The Wrath of Khan where his mid life crisis wears heavy and some poor choices cost the lives of many recruits (and a bulging waistline and receding hairline didn't do him any favors...) Type II in The Undiscovered Country and Star Trek 2009 .
• Beam Me Up, Scotty : The Trope Namer , by omission. No, he never said it. (No, not even in Star Trek: The Animated Series - there he says "Beam us up, Scotty".)
• Berserk Button : Do not hurt his crew . Not when he is The Captain of Starfleet's flagship, with all the genius and heavy weaponry that implies.
• Boldly Coming : Although not nearly as much as his reputation suggests .
• Bunny Ears Lawyer : The things Kirk got away with...
• The events surrounding Khan's reawakening. After defeating Khan, Kirk marooned him on Ceti Alpha V to live out his days where he could bring no harm to the Federation. Six months later, Ceti Alpha VI exploded and turned the environment of Ceti Alpha V into a living hell that filled Khan with a burning desire for revenge against Kirk for condemning the Augments to such a fate. Kirk didn't spare a thought to Khan until he saw him on the USS Reliant .
• The Mirror Universe. For Kirk, it was a slightly weirder than usual day at the office and he gave Mirror!Spock some advice to try and make the Terran Empire a better place. Mirror!Spock took Kirk's words to heart and proceeded to reform the Terran Empire into a more peaceful and democratic regime. This left it vulnerable to the Klingon/Cardassian alliance and the resulting military loss consigned the Terrans to a century of servitude and hard living.
• The Captain : The Trope Maker .
• Companion Cube : Kirk's strongest love in the TV series is for the Enterprise herself; this may vary between Happily Married and The Masochism Tango . The movies have this become overshadowed by loyalty to his Nakama , culminating with his painful decision to self-destruct the original 1701 in Star Trek III the Search For Spock .
• The Chains of Commanding
• The Charmer
• Chivalrous Pervert : May very well be the anti- Bond . Except for a very few times where he used his charm to further a greater purpose, Kirk almost always developed sincere feelings for the Girl of the Week , and was just as often badly hurt when they were separated or she met with an unfortunate end .
• Determinator
• Dropped a Bridge on Him : His death in Star Trek: Generations is the Trope Namer .
• Embarrassing Middle Name : Tiberius
• Ethical Slut
• Former Teen Rebel : Inverted . Unlike his alternate counterpart , Cadet Kirk was something of a humorless swot as an underclassman, only later developing into the Military Maverick we see in the series.
• Until he gets demoted at the end of Star Trek IV the Voyage Home .
• Four-Temperament Ensemble : The Choleric.
• Gunboat Diplomacy : One of his favorite diplomatic techniques seems to be threatening to blow up a planet that doesn't do what he wants. Somehow he gets away with this. He's Kirk.
• Heroic Willpower
• Heterosexual Life Partners : With Spock.
• Hidden Depths : Kirk is a maverick no doubt, but every so often he shows a great tactical mind and that he's very well read on a multitude of subjects.
• I Can Still Fight
• Improbable Age : Minor example in-universe. Background material states that, at 30-ish, he is the youngest man yet to command a first-rate Starfleet ship.
• The Kirk : The Trope Namer .
• Kirk Summation : Trope Namer . He's toppled gods, tyrants and empires with nothing more than a few carefully chosen words.
• Large Ham : He's played by William Shatner , after all.
• Mr. Fanservice
• The Not Love Interest : For Spock.
• Not So Different : From the Romulan Commander in " Balance of Terror ".
• Officer and a Gentleman : In addition to judo-throwing aliens and romancing Green Skinned Space Babes , he finds time to be well-versed in classical literature and offer aid to space-borne refugees.
• Papa Wolf : Hurting his people causes him much Angst . And more anger.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right : Kirk does this quite a bit. Hell, if he were anyone else other than James T. Kirk , he'd have been toast long ago.
• Shirtless Scene : It's not quite to the level of Walking Shirtless Scene , but Kirk appears shirtless a lot in the original TV show. Mostly famously, it's caused by Clothing Damage during action sequences, but he also tends to just lounge around his quarters without a shirt and such.
• Smart People Play Chess : Spock's opponent of choice in chess games.

Commander Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ) [ ]

• Always Save Jim Kirk
• Arranged Marriage : Betrothed by his family as a child. His intended bride has other ideas, and doesn't mind sacrificing Kirk for them...
• Back From the Dead : In the third movie .
• Badass Bookworm
• Badass Grandpa
• Beam Me Up, Scotty : He never said "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it"; that's from Star Trekkin' . The closest he ever came in canon was the episode "The Devil in the Dark":

Spock: Within range of our sensors, there is no life , other than the accountable human residents of this colony beneath the surface. At least, no life as we know it .

• Berserk Button : Leonard Nimoy is of the opinion that if any crewmates were harmed in front of Spock, he'd go out of his way to inflict horrible pain on the one responsible.
• Bizarre Alien Biology : Principally his green blood and the fact that his heart is where a human's liver would be. The latter enables him to survive being shot in the back with a flintlock rifle in "Friday's Child".
• Blue-Green Blood : Not explicitly stated, but his father is a prestigious Federation Ambassador, and T'Pau , one of the most powerful people on Vulcan, officiates at (what should have been) his marriage. He also notes that the large estate where the ceremony takes place has been in his family for over two thousand years.
• Blunt Metaphors Trauma
• Boomerang Bigot : Is half-human, but most of the time solely embraces his Vulcan heritage and is scornful of human ways. This was later explained in Backstory due to his relationship with his father and growing up on Vulcan, and he mellowed in his later years.
• Fascinating Eyebrow
• Character Aged with the Actor : Like his fellow crewmembers but he, like Leonard Nimoy, dies of natural causes . Yes, he loved long and prospered .
• Character Development : Spock began the series as completely emotionless and ended the films as being far more willing to listen to his human side. He's fully aware of it as his last message to his younger alternate self is to embrace this and stay within Starfleet.
• Surprisingly, Spock's mirror-universe counterpart is exactly the same on this - and even explicitly states his reasons (in "Mirror Mirror").
• Deadpan Snarker
• Deuteragonist : A natural result of his popularity with fans ; originally, the show was intended as having plots about "Kirk and X", where "X" would be a different character each week; many of the early first season episodes follow this formula, but gradually "X" and "Spock" became interchangeable.
• Early Installment Weirdness : In the earliest episodes he more frequently emoted and only made mention of having some human ancestry as though it was some ancient introduction of genes rather than his mother.
• Fantastic Racism : A victim of this Trope , as well as a mild subscriber (towards humans).
• Forgets to Eat : Occasionally. While never shown, in "Amok Time", McCoy uses the fact that Spock hasn't eaten for three days in an attempt to convince Kirk that something is wrong, and Kirk dismisses it as simply being Spock in one of his contemplative phases. Another example is "The Paradise Syndrome", where Spock hardly eats for weeks while studying the obelisk.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble : The Melancholic.
• Good Is Not Nice : He's rude, tactless and completely cold hearted but he always has the best interests of the ship and crew in mind.
• Half-Identifying Hybrid : The quintessential example. For all that mention is made of human heritage, he looks and acts Vulcan in every respect.
• Heterosexual Life Partners : With Kirk.
• Hidden Heart of Gold
• Insult Backfire :

McCoy: Spock, you are the most cold-blooded man I've ever known. Spock: Why, thank you, Doctor.

• Ludicrous Precision
• Minored in Asskicking
• My Greatest Failure : He first failed to save Romulus from its sun going supernova then his own red matter was used to destroy the alternate Vulcan.
• The Not Love Interest : To Kirk.
• The Obi-Wan : In the Kelvin timeline, he becomes this to Kirk and his younger self.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni : The blue to McCoy's red.
• Rubber Ear Alien
• Sarcastic Devotee
• Smart People Play Chess : Three-dimensional chess.
• The Spock : The Trope Namer .
• Not So Stoic
• Straw Vulcan : At times.
• Sugar and Ice Personality
• Token Non-Human
• Troll : He doesn't do it much, but when he does it's done wonderfully and usually at McCoy's expense.
• Verbal Tic : His endless permutations of the word "logic", and his unfailing ability to fit them into sentences, border on this.

Doctor (Lieutenant Commander) Leonard "Bones" McCoy ( DeForest Kelley ) [ ]

• Actor Shared Background : Both DeForest Kelley and Bones are natives of Georgia and have Irish sounding names.
• Badass Pacifist : He's a doctor and takes that very seriously. However, that doesn't stop him from doing extremely dangerous things to save lives.
• " He's dead, Jim. "
• " I'm a doctor, not an X !"
• Chivalrous Pervert : Is notable for being more open about his skirt-chasing than Kirk... and less successful at it .
• Cool Old Guy : Kind of; Cool Middle-Aged Guy doesn't sound as good.
• Deadpan Snarker : This Side of Paradise has a couple gems.

(After Kirk informs a man that he will be taken from his planet with or without his cooperation) "Should I get the butterfly net?"

• Determinator : Where Scotty wouldn't roll over and die on keeping the ship together, this man refuses to just let his patients die if he has any means to save them.
• Fake American : In the reboot.
• Fantastic Racism : Makes a few anti-Vulcan comments now and then.
• First-Name Basis : With Kirk.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble : The Sanguine.
• Good Is Not Nice : He's not hesitant about expressing his dislike for people or his refusal to suffer fools but he is most often the one who suggests doing the right thing.
• Good Old Ways : He's very, very, very slow to trust new technology and isn't too fond of transporters, shuttles or space travel in general. The reboot has Kirk outright ask Bones why he's in Starfleet if this is case. After a bad divorce, it's the only route open to him.
• Grumpy Bear
• He's Dead, Jim : Trope Namer .
• Honor Before Reason : And proud of it.
• Hospital Hottie
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder : Trope Namer .
• The reboot gives the explanation that in his divorce, Bones lost everything except "his bones".
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold
• Knight in Sour Armor : He's grumpy, sarcastic and has little respect for authority (With the exception of Kirk). But when the chips are down, You can always count on him to do the right thing.
• The McCoy : The Trope Namer .
• More Hero Than Thou : In "The Empath" when aliens offer Kirk the choice of sacrificing McCoy or Spock, McCoy takes out Kirk with drugs. Spock is glad; since this leaves him in command, he can make the sacrifice himself. McCoy proceeds to drug him as well and sacrifice himself.
• Promotion to Opening Titles
• Red Oni, Blue Oni : The red to Spock's blue.
• Resignations Not Accepted : At the beginning of the first movie , has retired to private practice, and is called back into service against his protests on Kirk's request.
• Renaissance Man
• Sarcastic Devotee / Sour Supporter : He will follow Kirk into the pits of Hell and back, but he'll grumble about it first.
• Southern-Fried Genius : One of the most respected doctors in The Federation — straight out of Georgia.
• Southern Gentleman
• Strawman Emotional : At times.
• Vitriolic Best Buds : With Kirk.
• What Could Have Been : An episode exploring his Backstory was planned and shelved at least twice. One of the main points (that he joined Starfleet as an established MD after a nasty divorce) finally saw the light of day in the 2009 movie .

Lieutenant Commander Montgomery "Scotty" Scott ( James Doohan ) [ ]

• He also said " Ah cannae change the laws of physics", and not " Ye cannae". That's from Star Trekkin' .
• Berserk Button : If you insult the Enterprise , you better take his hint (said through gritted teeth) of "Don't you want to rephrase that..."
• Bonnie Scotland
• Companion Cube : If Kirk saw the Enterprise as a demanding wife, Scotty saw the ship — particularly her engines — as no less than a child ("My bairns! My poor bairns!").
• "Aye, sir. Queen to Queen's level 3. "
• A Day in the Limelight : "Wolf In The Fold", "The Trouble With Tribbles", and "By Any Other Name".
• The Engineer
• Fake Nationality
• Father Neptune : Though as he is Recycled in Space perhaps he would be Father Jove or Father Apollo but you get the idea.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble : The Phlegmatic.
• Gadgeteer Genius : Can MacGyver just about anything on his own, but particularly shines teamed with Spock. The two of them could turn the most obscure theory into a way to save the day.
• Grease Monkey
• Scotty Time : Trope Namer .

Lieutenant Nyota Uhura ( Nichelle Nichols ) [ ]

• Action Girl : In "Mirror, Mirror."
• Bridge Bunny
• Canon Immigrant : Her first name "Nyota" was used in the non-canon novels for decades before finally being made official. Very early Trek guides suggest that "Penda" was considered a possibility by the fans.
• The Cast Showoff : Nichelle Nichols got to show off her singing ability a couple times.
• Catch Phrase : "Hailing frequencies open."
• Communications Officer : One of the most famous examples.
• A Day in the Limelight : "Mirror, Mirror" and "The Trouble With Tribbles".
• Fake Nationality : Uhura is from the "United States of Africa", but Nichelle Nichols is American (as is Zoe Saldana in the reboot).
• Meaningful Name : "Uhura" is derived from "Uhuru," which means "freedom" (which carried a strong Reality Subtext in the 1960s), while "Nyota" means "star".
• Ms. Fanservice
• Also appears to show an interest in Spock in a few episodes. Yes, long before the prequel .
• Twofer Token Minority

Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu ( George Takei ) [ ]

• Absentee Actor : Missing for much of the second season because George Takei was filming The Green Berets .
• Cultured Badass : Capable of handing much bigger opponents their asses.
• Took a Level In Badass
• Beam Me Up, Scotty : Don't expect to ever hear Sulu say " Oh, my ." That's George Takei 's personal Catch Phrase . Sulu himself was the only regular who lacked a memorable Catch Phrase or Verbal Tic , one of the reasons he didn't show up in too many parodies (and when he did, he was usually the Straight Man ). More recently, given Takei's predilection for Adam Westing , parodies of Sulu are basically parodies of Takei (including the Camp Gay antics - see below).
• Brainwashed and Crazy : Again, "The Naked Time".
• Canon Immigrant : His now-canon first name "Hikaru" was given to him in the non-canon novels by Vonda Mc Intyre . Very early Star Trek guides suggest that "Walter" was considered as a possible first name during the show itself, but never officially used.
• A Day in the Limelight : "The Naked Time" and "Mirror, Mirror".
• Evil Is Hammy : Every Mirror Universe character was hammy, but Takei was a particularly rich, dripping slice.
• In some of the non-canon novels, Sulu explains that his background is mixed, but primarily Filipino and Japanese.
• Fan of the Past
• Fleeting Passionate Hobbies : Including fencing ("The Naked Time") and botany ("The Man Trap").
• Generation Xerox : In Generations , we meet his daughter Demora, who is (where else?) at the helm of the Enterprise -B.
• Genius Bruiser : Just happens to be an expert in botany, swordsmanship, French history, flying ancient aircraft.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars : His Mirror Universe counterpart has a big nasty scar on his face.
• Sadly played straight in the reboot movie - it's not exactly a normal katana, but it seems clearly intended to invoke this trope.
• Shirtless Scene : In "The Naked Time".
• Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs? : Initially the show's creators couldn't make up their mind what to do with Sulu and he featured prominently as a botanist of all things before becoming the helmsman.
• As an interesting coincidence, Sulu is the only one of the six male regulars who never had an on-screen love interest, so there's no "proof" either way ( Mirror Sulu, on the other hand, is obviously attracted to women, as Uhura can attest).
• Sulu has a daughter named Demora Sulu in Star Trek Generations , which would seem to confirm it, unless...
• Star Trek: Beyond eventually confirms that Sulu (or at least his Kelvin timeline counterpart) is Straight Gay (with a wonderful side dish of Badass Gay ) and very Happily Married to his husband.

Ensign Pavel Chekov ( Walter Koenig ) [ ]

• Ambiguous Disorder : Does Chekov actually think Russia invented all those many things or is he just messing around and a proud patriot?
• Ambiguously Jewish : An idea with some popularity in the Fandom , partially since Koenig (and Anton Yelchin , who played him in the 2009 reboot ) are Jewish.
• Chekov's Gun : Often seen with Chekov, especially on landing-party duty. Like Chekhov's Gun , if it makes an appearance, it will most likely be used by the end of the episode or movie.
• Cultural Posturing : What didn't Mother Russia invent?
• Cloudcuckoolander : Chekov's constant references to Mother Russia appear to only make sense in his mind.
• A Day in the Limelight : " Mirror, Mirror ", "The Trouble With Tribbles", and "The Deadly Years".
• Mr. Fanservice : Really. Brought in specifically to appeal to younger FanGirls , complete with hair straight out of The Monkees .
• The Intern : Much is made of his relative inexperience and impulsiveness.
• Lzherusskie
• Plucky Comic Relief : Particularly as the films progressed.
• Running Gag : "It vas inwented in Russia."
• Russian Guy Suffers Most : Oh, yeah.
• The Scream : Walter Koenig had a good one, which is why it's Chekov who always gets stuffed in the agony booth .
• This is further compounded by the fact that he expended all the toilet paper.
• What Could Have Been : Was originally planned to be a British character. Apparently Roddenberry changed it after having a letter from the Soviet Union which praised the show's message but criticized the lack of a prominent Russian character .

Head Nurse Christine Chapel (Majel Barrett) [ ]

• A Day in the Limelight : "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
• Mad Love : Most of her personality ( well, all of it, really ) centers around her unreciprocated crush on Spock. Think of her as an in-universe Spock Fan Girl . Unlike many of her real-life counterparts, she doesn't seem to be a Yaoi Fangirl .
• No Rank Given : In the series, Chapel was always addressed by her position rather than her rank. She is formally promoted to Lieutenant later on in the five-year mission , and by the time of the first movie , has an MD under her belt, and is prepared to assume the role of Chief Medical Officer. We can therefore assume that, especially given her position as Head Nurse, she was a junior officer (probably a mustanged Ensign, given her backstory).
• Real Life Writes the Plot : Majel Barrett was the girlfriend and eventual wife of Gene Roddenberry, which may explain why we saw Nurse Chapel so much.

Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) [ ]

• Beehive Hairdo
• Bridge Bunny : The Trope Codifier .
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome : Vanished halfway through the first season due to off-screen issues .
• The Bus Came Back : She became the Transporter Chief in the first film.
• Distressed Damsel
• Hello, Nurse!
• Hypercompetent Sidekick : Implied--there are several references to her ability to keep Kirk from being swamped in paperwork, and one to improvising with a phaser when the food systems won't provide hot coffee.
• Ms. Fanservice : The original media package described her as having "a strip queen's figure that a uniform can't hide." Not that those uniforms hide much, but whatever.
• Satellite Character : Has no significant interaction with any character other than Kirk. In an early episode, she even shows up just so Kirk can hold her as the ship is rocked.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension : With Kirk.

Lieutenant Kyle (John Winston) [ ]

• The Cameo : He's a bridge officer on the Reliant in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan .
• Mauve Shirt : Because he was the only recurring Red Shirt not played by an extra, he usually had much more dialogue than other redshirts , a consistent name and position on the ship, and was allowed to play an active role in the Plot (see "The Doomsday Machine" or "Mirror, Mirror" for examples).
• Only One Name
• Teleporters and Transporters : Contrary to popular belief , he was the Transporter Chief, not Scotty. Like other Red Shirts , he was occasionally seen on the bridge, though usually he was explicitly pinch-hitting for someone else (as in "Who Mourns For Adonais?" when Spock has taken command and Chekov is in the landing party, and Kyle mans the science station).

Kevin Thomas Riley (Bruce Hyde) [ ]

• Ascended Extra : Actor Bruce Hyde was cast as a crewman with a significant part in "The Conscience of the King" without anyone realizing he had also played uber - Irishman Riley in "The Naked Time". When the producers finally realized this , the script was hastily re-written so that Hyde played the same character in both episodes.
• Dreadful Musician : " Iiiiii'll taaaaake you hooome again, Kathleeeeeen.... "
• Oireland : Got his "Irish" up when under the influence of the mind virus in "The Naked Time."
• Real Life Writes the Plot : The reason Riley never returned after "The Conscience of the King", despite being very popular with fans, was that the actor left to become a hippie. Yes, really. Remember, this was 1967.

The Enterprise [ ]

• Awesome but Impractical : Her design though, while visually quite pleasing, is incredibly stupid. Star Trek: Beyond demonstrates that the Constitution -class's nacelles and neck section are particularly vulnerable to attack if the foe is fast enough to avoid her weapons.
• Companion Cube : All who knew her heavily mourned her when she was blown up.
• Cool Starship
• Though it's made clear her wartime systems are still there and fully functional. She's repeatedly said to be able to render the surface of whole planets lifeless on her own.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism : Standard to prevent the powerful Constitution -class vessels from falling into enemy hands.
• Sole Survivor : Of the original twelve Constitution -class ships.
• Super Prototype : So close. She's the second of Constitution -class line but her service record trumps any of her sister ships.

Villains [ ]

Harcourt fenton "harry" mudd (roger c. carmel) [ ].

• Affably Evil
• The Aggressive Drug Dealer : "Mudd's Women".
• Carpet of Virility
• Full Name Ultimatum :

Stella : Harcourt! Harcourt Fenton Mudd!... Mudd: : Shut UP, Stella!

• Henpecked Husband
• Hoist by His Own Petard : By the Stella androids at the end of "I, Mudd".
• Honest John's Dealership
• Loveable Rogue
• Recurrer : He holds the distinction of being the only non-Starfleet character in the entire series to appear in more than one episode.
• ↑ They were leery of casting an actor of non-Japanese descent until Takei himself assured them that it would be all right, claiming that the character represents all of Asia (note that Sulu is not a Japanese name). This paved the way for Korean-American John Cho to assume the role.

• The Original Series
• All Subpages

You may be looking for Star Trek: The Original Series .

When starting a new show, TV producers rarely can anticipate how successful it will be with the audience. But let's assume the show got popular, The Firefly Effect didn't hit it, and a row of sequels is inbound. Now, some producers play it simple and stick with season numbering. But the more creative types go for Oddly Named Sequels and thus, confront the fans with a difficult question: how do you refer to the first show, if its title is already used to refer to the entire franchise? Solution: " The Original Series ".

A subtrope of Retronym .

• Mobile Suit Gundam , though more often referred to as Gundam 0079 or sometimes First Gundam .
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha .
• While the following theme are referred to by name, the first one is simply called "The Pokemon Theme."
• The first installment is Futari wa Pretty Cure , and the Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo was Futari wa Pretty Cure plus a suffix... and so was the first cast reboot. However, later seasons dropped the "Futari wa", making the franchise Pretty Cure and freeing the first season from having to be called The Original Series.
• However, the English, German, Italian and Spanish dubs of Futari wa Pretty Cure are simply called Pretty Cure , which makes it The Original Series all over again.
• Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki , the OAV episodes.
• The first Star Wars movie (i.e., Episode IV) was originally titled simply "Star Wars." The title "A New Hope" wasn't added until 1981. It's caught on among the fanbase by now, but didn't catch on immediately.
• The original novel about Artemis Fowl was titled simply Artemis Fowl , whereas the rest had Mad Lib Thriller Subtitles .
• The first Warrior Cats series was simply called Warriors (or Warrior Cats , depending on where you live). Fans now refer to it as "the original series" or "the first arc", while all the other series and spinoffs have subtitles such as "The New Prophecy" and "Omen of the Stars".
• The Protomen 's first album is simply called The Protomen. After Act II: The Father of Death came out, it retroactively became Act I: Hope Rides Alone.

Live Action TV

• Star Trek: The Original Series is probably the most famous example. In fact this very wikiword redirected to it before this page came about.
• Doctor Who ' s classic series refers to the original run from 1963-1989 (and sometimes its TV movie in 1996), to differentiate it from the revival and continuation from 2005.
• The second show with the name, originally intended as a Continuity Reboot but later brought into the existing universe (during the show's run, as part of a Retool ), is officially called Kamen Rider (New) in Japan and known as New Kamen Rider among English-speaking fans, though The Other Wiki in both languages calls it Kamen Rider (Skyrider) after a name given to the protagonist during the Retool .
• In the media, the first Law and Order is commonly called the original or the flagship series.

Video Games

• In Kingdom Hearts , the original game is usually referred to as Kingdom Hearts 1 or KH1 by the fans.
• The first game originally had the subtitle "The Hyrule Fantasy", but this never made it out of Japan. The corresponding text on the title screen was turned into "The Legend of".
• Happens often where the title of the first is homonymous to the series: Metroid , Castlevania , Final Fantasy ...
• A weird case is the Metal Gear series: since the original game is called Metal Gear , the second Metal Gear 2 ... but the third is Metal Gear Solid , and the series is more referred by that name since practically all later games followed that name ( MGS 2\3\4 , MGS: Portable Ops , MGS: The Twin Snakes ).
• Since Mega Man received lots of spin-offs, the original series are referred to as "Mega Man Classic".
• The Core Design-produced Tomb Raider games are usually referred to the "Classic" series. Some don't count Angel of Darkness as one of these, and die-hard purists only count the original trilogy.
• After Unreal Tournament 2003 (UT2k3) and Unreal Tournament 2004 (UT2k4) came out, the original Unreal Tournament was called UT99 for its release year.
• Each expansion for World of Warcraft has its own name: "World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade", "World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King", and "World of Warcraft: Cataclysm." Which leaves players with a conundrum: If someone asks "In which expansion did they add thus-and-such class/race/game-mechanic?", how do you answer when it was added back during the original game run, before the first expansion? Blizzard Entertainment sometimes refers to this time period as "World of Warcraft Classic", but the de facto consensus among the players is to refer to it as "Vanilla World of Warcraft".

Video Game Systems

• The original PlayStation officially became the " PS One " and its games " PS One games" some time after the Playstation2 came out. Previously, it was colloquially called the "PSX", after the abbreviation for it's developmental code name, "Playstation-Experimental".
• While game series typically get a 1 tacked on for the first one as the second emerges, it's more complicated with Expansion Packs: the expansion is still part of the first game. Another convention to the rescue: base games that have expansions but don't have a subtitle of their own are referred to as vanilla to differentiate from the flavored expansions.

Western Animation

• Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (the first two seasons) are the original series. The 1978 episodes, which are part of the " The Scooby-Doo Show ", are mistakenly labeled as part of the "Where Are You!" series for unknown reasons.
• Transformers , referred to as " Generation 1 " by most fans (after the Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo Transformers Generation 2 came out). Hasbro has since started using it themselves.

10 Best Sci-Fi Tropes Star Trek Popularized

Star Trek changed the face of science fiction, and opened up previously obscure genre tropes to a wider audience. Here are ten of the most memorable.

Star Trek changed the face of science fiction forever. Even before its popularity took off during the reruns and conventions of the 1970s, Star Trek: The Original Series endeavored to talk about more than just rocket ships and ray guns. It posited something extraordinary -- a viable vision of human utopia -- and slowly built it into a pop-culture bedrock.

In the process, it embraced a number of sci-fi tropes that other movies and TV shows came to emulate. Star Trek’s popularity elevated the profile of such notions, which had previously been limited to a few novels and short stories. Below is a list of ten classic sci-fi tropes that Star Trek helped make popular, presented in subjective order.

10 Controversial Star Trek: TOS Episodes That Wouldn't Fly Today

Ray guns were certainly nothing new when Star Trek came along, having served as a sci-fi staple since the days of H.G. Wells. The Original Series draws on the likes of Fantastic Planet and the Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon serials for inspiration, which invariably made copious use of the weapons. It's only natural that Star Trek would deliver its own version, with the slightly more innovative title of phasers.

What really sets the weapon apart from other ray guns, however, is the stun setting, allowing targets to be neutralized without permanent harm. The phrase “set phasers to stun” has become one of Star Trek’s signature lines . More importantly, the weapon’s nonlethal qualities speaks to the franchise’s values: envisioning a future in which violence has been tempered.

9 The Alien Non-Interference Clause

Better known as The Prime Directive, the alien non-interference clause states that no member of Starfleet can interfere with a planet’s natural development. That includes anything from providing advanced technology to revealing the existence of off-world life. It makes for a strong moral dilemma, as figures like Jean Luc-Picard must stand by while terrible things happen to innocent people.

Not surprisingly, the Prime Directive is noted more in its breach than its keeping. James T. Kirk, in particular, is quite cavalier about it, but it remains an easy fulcrum for good storytelling. The Prime Directive is also a way to talk about more down-to-earth issues like colonialism and environmental devastation.

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8 human/alien hybrids.

The existence of humanoid aliens precludes the ability to cross-breed, producing children with the genetics of both parents. With Star Trek , the notion goes all the way back to Mr. Spock: the product of a human mother and a Vulcan father. The other prominent canon examples include Star Trek: Voyager’s B’Elanna Torres, the child of a Klingon mother and a human father, and Worf’s son Alexander on Star Trek: The Next Generation , who also has human blood.

Such characters help science fiction explore the exchanges between different societies, as well as the unique challenges faced by the children of two or more cultures. That can lead to simplification or dismissal of complex issues. The trope is only as strong as the TV show using it, but it also gives creators a safe space to discuss those issues before a wider audience.

7 Fantastic Racism

Racism is a weighty issue and addressing it head-on won’t always fly on a series intended primarily as entertainment. Instead, Star Trek talks about racism in a more general way, using alien cultures as a stand-in for various kinds of prejudicial oppression. In the simplest terms, it helps point out the fundamental absurdity of racist beliefs, most notably in The Original Series Season 3, Episode 15, “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” which features Frank Gorshin’s black-and-white alien at war with this white-and-black cohort.

Fantastic racism isn’t a perfect trope, and can often whitewash real problems by casting them in the realm of fiction. But it also allows shows like Star Trek to address those issues while still retaining a vision of a more mature humanity who has set such petty hatefulness aside. For good or ill, it certainly allowed other science fiction projects to follow its example.

6 Alien Empires

Humanoid aliens necessitate an essentially human political process, which Star Trek uses as one of its narrative bedrocks. Other entities such as the Klingons and the Romulans don’t necessarily embrace democracy, and have their own agendas that often conflict with the Federation’s. This leads to various schemes, conflicts and outright wars: generating easy storylines and culminating in epic clashes like Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War.

Alien empires predate science fiction movies, going back at least to H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds and the John Carter novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Original Series uses them as thinly veiled stand-ins for contemporary geopolitical foes like the Soviet Union or China under Chairman Mao. Star Trek: The Next Generation and subsequent series have developed their aliens more fully, while providing new narrative material in concepts like the Klingons’ Great Houses and The Romulans’ Qowat Milat.

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5 alternate history.

Star Trek originally used the Stardate notion to get around the question of exactly when the story was taking place. It took 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to pinpoint its 23rd century setting. Even before then, however, it built its own future history without the slightest inkling of the franchise it was helping to create in the process.

Star Trek's alternate history comes complete with developments like the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s (swapped around to account for the passing of real time) and Zephram Cochrane breaking the warp barrier. The timeline allows new projects to develop their own stories at different points on the timeline. Subsequent franchises like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe have done much the same thing.

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4 parallel realities.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has made the notion of a Multiverse widespread, and written works such as Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle form the foundation of the idea. But Star Trek brought parallel realities to popular attention long before more modern projects, most notably with Season 2, Episode 4, "Mirror, Mirror." That episode introduced the notion of the sinister Mirror Universe, which the franchise has used in other projects as well.

Star Trek continues to play with parallel realities, and indeed the concept has created some of its finest moments such as Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, Episode 15, "Yesterday's Enterprise." The Kelvinverse series of movies similarly exist in a parallel reality, allowing them to tell their own stories without risking undue continuity errors.

3 Rogue AI/Robots

Rogue AIs go back to the foundation of science fiction, as Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein creates a being he can’t control. Star Trek’s utopian setting makes fertile ground for stories of science to run amuck, with each new era adding its own distinctive touch. The Original Series has the berserk robot Nomad and the M-5 "ultimate computer." Star Trek: Discovery uses the AI Control as its primary antagonist during Season 2, while The Next Generation may have topped them all with the Borg Collective. Even Star Trek: Lower Decks has gotten into the act with the likes of Badgey and Peanut Hamper.

The trend certainly didn't begin with Star Trek , but it made the public increasingly familiar with the notion, while removing it from the more literal image of a Boris Karloff-style monster. As technology has advanced, it's allowed the franchise to continue using it: making pointed comments on contemporary issues behind the veneer of science fiction.

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2 cool starships.

Before The Original Series , sci-fi spaceships tended to come in two types: rockets and flying saucers. The original USS Enterprise manages to look like both at the same time, while giving Star Trek a singular visual image that sums up its entire zeitgeist. It becomes a character in and of itself during the first crew’s adventures, to the point where its destruction in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock initially elicited cries of grief among the faithful.

Subsequent series have made distinctive ship design a priority: giving them a brand identity distinctive from the rest of the franchise while still being resolutely Star Trek . Other creators took note, as 2001: A Space Odyssey's Discovery and Star Wars's Millennium Falcon emphasize visual distinctiveness to sell their worlds. The flying saucer is well and truly dead, and The Original Series' Enterprise may have killed it.

Star Trek’s best known piece of future technology arose out of a logistical necessity. Having created an iconic spaceship in the USS Enterprise , series creator Gene Roddenberry realized he had no way of landing it on the surface of the different planets the show was supposed to visit. Teleporting down via the ship’s transporters made an elegant solution, avoiding the clumsy logistics of a shuttle and providing a nifty effects shot to boot. It also allowed for easy drama, as Scotty invariably pulled the away team up from the planet's surface in the nick of time.

While it never caught on with other science fiction projects, that kept it a singular part of the franchise itself: never duplicated lest the presented be accused of imitating Star Trek . The rest of the public need not act with such care, of course, and "beam me up" has become a short-hand term for the desire to escape any unpleasant situation.

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The 10 best Star Trek: The Original Series episodes, ranked

It’s hard to imagine today, but back in the late 1960s, the original Star Trek was not considered a hit. The ambitious science fiction series was constantly on the brink of cancellation and was cut short only three years into its planned five-season run.

10. Mirror, Mirror (season 2, episode 4)

9. a taste of armageddon (season 1, episode 24), 8. the menagerie, parts i and ii (season 1, episodes 12 and 13), 7. the doomsday machine (season 2, episode 6), 6. the corbomite maneuver (season 1, episode 11), 5. the devil in the dark (season 1, episode 26), 4. the trouble with tribbles (season 2, episode 15), 3. where no man has gone before (season 1, episode 4), 2. the city on the edge of forever (season 1, episode 29), 1. balance of terror (season 1, episode 15).

However, it’s important to put Trek ’s apparent failure into historical context as, given that most markets in the U.S. had only three television channels to choose from, even a low-rated show like Star Trek was being watched by about 20% of everyone watching television on a Thursday night, or roughly 10 million households. This year’s season of HBO’s Succession was viewed by roughly 8 million households a week , which makes it a hit by today’s standards. Star Trek ’s audience only grew once it went into reruns in the early 1970s, and by the time Star Trek: The Motion Picture hit theaters in 1979, it was a genuine cultural phenomenon. Today, the Star Trek franchise is considered one of the crown jewels of the Paramount library.

Though arguably outshined by its most prosperous spinoff, Star Trek: The Next Generation , Star Trek: The Original Series holds up remarkably well for a vision of our future imagined nearly 60 years in our past. It’s a space adventure series that tackles social or political issues from what was, at the time, a daring and progressive perspective informed by the contemporary civil rights movement, sexual revolution, and backlash against the Vietnam War. Conveying these values through fanciful science fiction didn’t only allow its writers to get away with a lot of subversive messages, it also delivered them in a way that remains fun to watch decades later — fun enough that fans are willing to forgive when its ideas, or its special effects, crumble under modern scrutiny.

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These 10 episodes, however, unquestionably stand the test of time, and thanks to the continuity-light nature of mid-20th century television, any one of them could be your first Star Trek episode. (Be aware, however, that the order in which classic Trek episodes are listed varies depending on the source. For our purposes, we’re using the numbering from streaming service Paramount+ .)

Even if you’ve never seen an episode of Star Trek , you’re bound to be at least a little familiar with Mirror, Mirror through cultural osmosis. In this 1967 classic, Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Lt. Commander Scott (James Doohan), and Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) are accidentally transported to an alternate universe, where they encounter dastardly evil versions of their beloved shipmates. Instead of the benevolent United Federation of Planets, this ship serves the fascist Terran Empire, which threatens to annihilate a peaceful planet for refusing to submit to itsrule. Our heroes are forced to pose as their evil counterparts while they search for a way home and try to avert the genocide they’ve been ordered to perform.

This all sounds heavier than it is — like much of classic Trek , Mirror Mirror is very camp, with brightly colored costumes, over-the-top performances, and a general sense of fun. The cast is clearly having a ball playing the wicked versions of their characters (or playing the good versions of their characters playing the wicked versions), and it’s no wonder why multiple future incarnations of Trek would return to the Mirror Universe, usually for wacky adventure episodes. (For a more grim and brutal take on this same concept, visit the back half of Star Trek: Discovery ’s first season.) However, Mirror, Mirror still comes complete with Trek ’s famous humanist optimism, as Kirk tries to convince this universe’s menacing, bearded Spock (Leonard Nimoy) that regimes ruled by fear are unsustainable and, therefore, illogical. Given enough time, peace and cooperation will always win out over hate and violence.

A Taste of Armageddon may not appear on many “Best Of” lists, but it’s 100% pure, uncut Star Trek . In this episode, Kirk and company visit Eminiar VII, a seemingly peaceful planet that is, in fact, embroiled in a centuries-long war with a neighboring world. Rather than fire actual bombs at each other, the combatants conduct simulated attacks, determine the hypothetical death toll, and then order the “dead” citizens to report to disintegration chambers. When Kirk and his landing party are recorded as casualties, they decide to put an end to Eminiar VII’s supposedly “civilized” method of warfare.

While Kirk arguably has no right to interfere with how this sovereign planet conducts its affairs, the point of A Taste of Armageddon is to reflect on America’s attempt to make constant military conflict more palatable, or even invisible to the average American. Or, in a larger sense, it’s a commentary on the ease with which a culture can become accustomed to death and violence, so long as it’s part of an established routine. Because these simulated bombings leave homes, industry, and even the military infrastructure itself totally unharmed, it’s easy to forget that Eminiar VII is even at war — that is, until it claims your life or the life of someone you love.

When even these losses are framed as necessary sacrifices to maintain normalcy, it minimizes the incentive to make peace. Kirk (and, by extension, writers Robert Hamner and Gene L. Coon) argues that war is revolting no matter how much you dress it up, and that it must be brutal, terrifying, and omnipresent for all involved, or else it will never stop. The past half-century of perpetual U.S. military intervention abroad has proven this thesis to be chillingly accurate.

If you’re watching Star Trek on Paramount+, you’ll notice that the episode it has listed as “season 1, episode 1,” The Cage , isn’t exactly the show you were expecting. Instead of the famous Captain James T. Kirk, the USS Enterprise is under the command of Captain Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter), and apart from Mr. Spock — who smiles?! — the rest of the crew is also unfamiliar. That’s because The Cage is Star Trek ’s original pilot episode, which was rejected by NBC, leading to a second pilot being commissioned with a new cast and modified tone. The Cage wouldn’t air as its own episode until 1988, but during production of Star Trek ’s first season in 1966, a budget crunch led to writer/creator Gene Roddenberry repurposing footage from the already-completed pilot into a new script in the form of flashbacks.

This fiscally minded decision endowed Star Trek and its characters with a history, instantly making the universe a bigger and more interesting place. The two-part Menagerie sees Spock, the only remaining character from the original cast, commandeer the Enterprise for the sake of its previous captain, Christopher Pike. On the way to a forbidden planet, Spock uses mysterious footage from an adventure 13 years in the past to explain his rash actions.

If you’ve already watched The Cage , then The Menagerie will seem like a glorified clip show, in which Kirk and company spend half the runtime watching a previous episode. However, before the streaming era, The Cage was usually the last episode of The Original Series that a fan would see, rather than the first. In recent years, however, The Cage and The Menagerie have taken on a new role, as bookends to the adventures of Christopher Pike, as portrayed by Anson Mount on modern spinoff Star Trek: Strange New Worlds . Strange New Worlds (as well as the second season of Star Trek: Discovery ) take place after The Cage , but before The Menagerie , allowing us to get to know Kirk’s predecessor in his own context, as well as developing the bond between Pike and Spock that will eventually drive the Vulcan to mutiny. Even without any of this context, however, The Menagerie is an exciting two-hour event, an eras-spanning mystery that will make you wonder why NBC passed on the Star Trek pilot in the first place.

Due to the production constraints of 1960s television, the original Star Trek didn’t often aim for large-scale, awe-inspiring space action. The Doomsday Machine is the closest that classic Trek ever came to “epic,” and as compelling a story as it is, it’s also Exhibit A as to why such a thing was impractical with the resources available. Though its original effects required no small amount of ingenuity (they couldn’t afford to give their Enterprise model battle damage, so they bought one off the rack from a toy store and distressed it), the results look mighty corny on a modern high-definition television.

Still, the episode gained fame as boasting the largest-scale action of the series, as the Enterprise teams up with her badly damaged sister ship, the USS Constellation, to take on a huge planet-eating weapon. It also presages a theme that would become common in Star Trek feature films , as the Constellation’s grief-stricken Commodore Matt Decker (guest star William Windom) embarks on a foolhardy quest for revenge against the monster that bested him. (Trek would revisit Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek: First Contact .)

The episode still works in a cheesy B-movie sort of way, which some fans would argue is the way it should still be enjoyed. However, when the series was remastered for high definition in the mid-2000s, the decision was made to recreate most of the special effects shots for the series using modern technology, since the originals were never expected to hold up to modern standards. Most of these recreations are very faithful, to the extent that uninitiated viewers might not even realize they’d been replaced. In the case of The Doomsday Machine , however, the producers and effects artists returned to the episode’s original script and attempted to realize writer Norman Spinrad’s initial vision for the space battle sequences. The team at CBS Digital doesn’t sacrifice the overall aesthetic of the series, but they do give us a peek at what The Doomsday Machine — and by extension, the entire Original Series — might have looked like with a feature film budget.  

There may be no better introduction to the character of James T. Kirk than The Corbomite Maneuver . The first episode produced after the series was picked up (though it didn’t air until later in the season), The Corbomite Maneuver finds the Enterprise at the mercy of a massive alien vessel and accused of trespassing in its territory. Unable to outrun or outgun his mysterious adversary, Kirk does what he will later become famous for doing — he cheats. Or, rather, he changes the conditions of the contest from one of technological superiority to one of cunning and guile. In the process, we get to learn a bit about how each of the main characters handles the intense stress of a seemingly hopeless scenario, contrasted against the more relatable Everyman Lt. Bailey (guest star Anthony Call). Though the action rarely leaves the bridge of the Enterprise, it is, in its own way, one of the most thrilling episodes of the series.

Moreover, The Corbomite Maneuver sets the tone for Star Trek as a series. It’s an hour of adventure that is punctuated by moments of thoughtful introspection, warm friendship, and corny jokes. Its depiction of Starfleet and the Enterprise are clearly inspired by military tradition, but the message of the episode is one of compassion and patience rather than conquest. These are scientists, not soldiers, and while they experience fear and doubt, none of their human frailties are a match for their curiosity. If this is what the future of humanity looks like, we want to be a part of it.

When Star Trek is running on full thrusters, it is equal parts silly and profound. In The Devil in the Dark , the Enterprise is sent to the aid of a mining colony where workers are being hunted and killed by an unstoppable monster made of rock. We know that the monster is made of rock because the characters say so; It looks a lot more like it’s made of spray-painted Styrofoam and a shag rug. But as the tension rises and the mystery deepens, the goofiness of the rock monster becomes irrelevant, or even a boon to the story.

Though it begins as a hunt for a merciless alien creature, The Devil in the Dark becomes a story about prejudice and the universality of what we (in our limited earthly experience) would call “basic human rights.” This message is conveyed through cheesy 1960s TV production values and some very hammy acting, but the results are pure and unpretentious, the sort of storytelling that is equally impactful on a jaded adult and a wide-eyed child.

Here in the post-post-postmodern 2020s, we’re all total pros at deconstructing genre tropes. The practice of subverting the audience’s expectations as to what kind of story they’re watching or who the good guys and bad guys are wasn’t new in 1967, either, but in the sci-fi film and television of the era, the big scary monster is usually just a big scary monster. The Devil in the Dark  exemplifies one of Star Trek ’s most enduring themes: that the unknown might seem terrifying, but if you take the time to understand it, it’s actually beautiful.

Star Trek is always science fiction, but its format offers a lot of flexibility in terms of how to interpret that genre. Even within the course of a single series or season, most Star Trek shows alternate between a variety of tones and secondary genres, from grim political drama to steamy romance, or in the case of this episode, kooky workplace comedy. The Trouble with Tribbles pits Captain Kirk and his gallant crew against their most stubborn foe yet — bureaucratic red tape. Assigned to look after a container of grain that Federation administrators insist is gravely important, the Enterprise becomes entangled in a very silly misadventure involving an invasive species of adorable, self-replicating furballs. For a captain accustomed to dealing with high-stakes diplomacy and galactic defense, this is his worst workweek ever.

As lousy a time as Kirk is having, The Trouble with Tribbles is tremendous fun. It is neither the first, nor the last broadly comedic episode of Star Trek , but it is the gold standard by which all Trek comedies are measured. Like any good Trek, it has stakes, a fun science fiction premise, and charming moments of character, but everything is set just a little bit askew, and the characters have noticed. It isn’t parody, it’s situation comedy, only a situation that you’re unlikely to find yourself in unless you’re the crew of a Federation starship. Almost every subsequent Trek series would chase that Trouble with Tribbles heat at least once ( Star Trek: Lower Decks  is basically The Trouble with Tribbles: The Series ), with varying levels of success, but the original remains an untouchable classic.

After The Cage was rejected by NBC, Desilu Studios (under the leadership of comedy queen Lucille Ball herself) took a second swing at the series, with a new cast and a faster paced action-adventure story. This second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before , introduces William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, as well as George Takei as Lt. Sulu, James Doohan as Scotty, and Leonard Nimoy’s new, more stoic interpretation of science officer Spock.

The episode sees Kirk’s friend and mentee, helmsman Gary Mitchell (guest star Gary Lockwood), bombarded with cosmic radiation that grants him increasingly godlike powers. As Gary grows more dangerous and cruel, Kirk must weigh his love for his friend against his duty to his crew. The scenario immediately establishes the dynamic between Kirk and Spock (compassionate leader versus his coldly practical advisor), though Spock’s regular debate partner, the emotionally driven Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), would not appear until Trek was ordered to series.

Where No Man Has Gone Before  is a little less fun and colorful than the episodes that followed, with a tone more closely resembling heady 1950s sci-fi films like Forbidden Planet or The Day the Earth Stood Still . In a way, it’s the classic Trek episode that feels the most like Star Trek: The Next Generation ; It’s talky, deliberately paced, just a little bit sterile. In Where No Man Has Gone Before , the galaxy is not only wondrous, but also eerie and unsettling. Had this been the tone the series stuck with, it might not have become a global sensation, but as a single episode, it stands out as one of the very best.

To some Trekkies, ranking The City on the Edge of Forever anywhere but at No. 1 is unthinkable. This time travel tale – written by sci-fi author Harlan Ellison and then heavily revised by Trek story editor D.C. Fontana — won Star Trek its first Hugo Award, and is widely considered to be the finest hour in the history of the series, if not the franchise as a whole. The episode’s legendary status is well-deserved, but we don’t quite have the heart to declare it the ultimate Star Trek episode, on account of how little of it takes place in the 23rd century or aboard the Starship Enterprise. The City on the Edge of Forever  is an outlier, and as such, naturally stands apart from the pack, giving it an edge in any conversation about Star Trek . Its placement here at No. 2 is sort of a counter to that advantage.

Make no mistake, however — despite mostly being set in New York in the year 1930, City on the Edge is Star Trek to its core. Sent back in time to correct an accidental alteration of Earth’s history, Kirk and Spock take up residence in a homeless shelter run by idealistic philanthropist Edith Keeler (guest star Joan Collins). Keeler turns out to be the key historical figure whose destiny must be fulfilled, but there’s a problem — Kirk has fallen in love with her. This romance complicates the mission, as Kirk and Spock are confronted with a grave moral dilemma with their entire reality hanging in the balance. Keeler is a visionary who believes in the beautiful future that Kirk calls home. But, in order for that future to exist, must something terrible be allowed to happen in her present? It’s an emotionally gripping tale that, if it had been told on a modern television show, would have changed its characters forever.

Star Trek is built on a central contradiction. It’s an adventure series about officers in a fleet that we are told, unconvincingly, is not a military organization, aboard a vessel that carries enough firepower to demolish a continent. It’s a show about peace in which things have a habit of blowing up. To reconcile this cognitive dissonance, one need only look to this key episode of The Original Series , Balance of Terror . In this early chapter, the Enterprise witnesses an Earth base being destroyed by an old enemy, the Romulan Empire. The Romulan ship has the ability to become invisible both to scanners and the naked eye, and attempts to escape to its own side of the neutral zone between their two territories before it can be apprehended.

The Enterprise is ordered to capture or destroy the Romulans before they make it home. Whether or not they succeed, there may be war. Kirk has his orders, and as we soon discover, so does the Romulan commander (guest star Mark Lenard), who is no happier about this turn of events than Kirk is. Throughout the episode, we cut back and forth between the action on the Enterprise and aboard the Romulan vessel, as two keen military strategists attempt to outmaneuver each other and stay alive, both locked in a struggle they’d rather had never begun.

Balance of Terror is a sci-fi twist on a submarine battle, but more than that, it’s a commentary on war, the rivalries between nations, and the wounds and prejudices they create. The Enterprise isn’t loaded with photon torpedoes because Starfleet is itching for a fight — it’s armed because sometimes it has to be, and when Kirk and his crew ride into battle, there’s nothing glorious about it. On the other side of any conflict is a person or people who have their own mission, their own values, and perhaps even their own reservations about fighting. It is not possible to avoid every fight, to preempt every war with diplomacy. But when blood is shed, there is no victory and there are no winners. There is tragedy, and there are survivors. And, finally, there’s the hope that the next time these two nations clash, they’ll be a little more willing to talk to one another.

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It's been a long hiatus for Doctor Who fans, but the series is back with a new 60th anniversary special called Doctor Who: The Star Beast. This is the first of three specials that will feature the Tenth Doctor performer David Tennant appearing as a new Fourteenth Doctor. Tennant's Doctor is also joined by Catherine Tate's Donna Noble, his former companion from the fourth season.

The Doctor has had numerous companions for his time travel adventures over the last six decades. But when compiling this list of the seven best Doctor Who companions, we decided to stick with the companions from the modern revival series that started in 2005. There is only one exception to that rule, and that's because the character in question had the unique chance to play a major role in both classic Doctor Who and in the modern era. But if you want to know who landed the top spot, you'll have to keep on reading. 7. Captain Jack Harkness

In the Futurama episode Where No Fan Has Gone Before, the wisecracking robot Bender describes Star Trek as having “79 episodes — about 30 good ones.” And, if we're being honest, Bender's not wrong. Across the franchise, there are now roughly 900 canonical installments, and out of a field that large, there are naturally dozens, even hundreds of entries that you can simply disregard. Of course, like any fanbase, Trekkies contain multitudes, and we don’t all agree on which episodes deserve the scrap heap. One fan’s space junk is another fan’s latinum, and there’s no accounting for taste. We’ve selected ten episodes from across the history of the franchise that some fans might tell you to skip, but that we think deserve your attention. Is one of your dark horse faves on our list? Have we gone to bat for an episode you wish would be erased from the space-time continuum? Follow us to the salvage yard and find out…

10. The Time Trap (TAS season 1, episode 12)

This year marks the 30th anniversary of The X-Files, one of the most popular genre shows in the history of network TV. Over the course of nine seasons, from 1993 to 2002, series creator Chris Carter and his team of writers took viewers inside some of the strangest and the most horrifying cases of the paranormal that they could imagine. Anything from aliens to demons and monsters was in play, while the show developed its own mythology and an overarching story.

In honor of the show's 30th anniversary, we're looking back at the 10 best episodes of The X-Files and ranking them from worst to best. Unlike some of the previous best-of lists for this show, we're not focusing only on the standalone episodes or the monsters-of-the-week installments. It's become fashionable to bash the show's mythology episodes because Carter and Company couldn't bring the story to a satisfying resolution. But those episodes were a large part of the reason why this show was so fantastic in its prime, and it would be a disservice to the series itself if we didn't give those stories their due. 10. Requiem (Season 7, Episode 22)

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The Best Sci-Fi TV Shows and Movies Inspired by Star Trek

From classic space adventures to parodies to stories about loving Star Trek, these are the best TV series and movies inspired by the Final Frontier.

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Star Trek is one of best and most well-known science fiction franchises of all time, so it’s no surprise that it’s had a huge influence on the rest of the genre. From other space-faring adventures to distant worlds to straight up parodies of the Enterprise and its crew, there are plenty of shows and movies that owe a bit to Gene Roddenberry ‘s creation.

This is not a list of every single show or film that has been inspired by Star Trek because that list would cover a pretty good proportion of sci-fi on screen since 1966. But if you want to watch something Star Trek -adjacent, we’ve picked out 10 of our favorite shows and movies that were, to a greater or lesser degree, inspired by Star Trek .

Back in 1998, BBC 2 ran a Red Dwarf Night featuring interviews with celebrity fans, one of whom was Patrick Stewart. Stewart talked about how he was channel hopping (remember that, fellow oldies?) one night around 1993 or 1994 and came across something that, to his own “horror and outrage”, appeared to be a “rip-off” of Star Trek: The Next Generation . He was reaching for the phone to call his lawyer, “when something happened that made me laugh – and it was something that certainly would not have happened on The Next Generation .” Stewart realized the show was a comedy, not a cheap rip-off, started laughing, and became a fan.

Red Dwarf actually started around the same time as Next Gen , both being developed from 1986, though Red Dwarf was delayed in getting to air until 1988 due to an electricians’ strike. Following the misadventures of the last human being alive as he embarks on a 3 million year journey to get back to Earth, the series combines elements of a few different space-set shows and films, including Silent Running and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , but there is clearly a hefty dose of Star Trek: The Original Series in there. As time went on, more and more Next Generation crept in as well, especially with the addition of android crewmember Kryten as a full time cast member in Series 3.

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Stargate SG-1

Stargate SG-1 was spun off from the 1994 Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich film Stargate , and the basic premise comes directly from that film: a US Air Force team go through a mysterious gate found in Egypt to another planet – or, in the case of the TV show, lots of other planets. When the show was adapted for television, although it did not feature many spaceships until later seasons, it did start to draw on the well-established tropes of Planet of the Week style space opera that Star Trek helped to popularize. The tortured military hero gained a wise-cracking style to suit star Richard Dean Anderson that aligned him more with “always a joke at the end of the episode” Kirk, the typical 1990s-nerdy Egyptologist slowly became more of a respected expert who sneezed less often, and more importantly the team gained a woman who was not sold to the Egyptology nerd in marriage (yes that is really the plot of the movie and yes, she calls him out on it) and a stoic alien.

The addition of Teal’c is where we can really see the influence of Star Trek creeping in because Teal’c is basically the love child of Spock and Worf, in the best way. He is extremely calm and composed – he has very deep emotions, but he keeps them under the surface and meditates frequently. He is also quite fond of a raised eyebrow. The “scientist” position on the team was already taken by Carter, so Teal’c fulfills the “warrior” role. Standing out as a warrior in a military setting is quite the task, but like Worf, Teal’c’s “honorable warrior” approach and fondess for his own culture’s weapons marks him out as a warrior among warriors.

Futurama follows Philip J Fry, who accidentally falls into a cryogenic freezer on New Year’s Day in 2000 and wakes up on December 31, 2999 (and leaves his dog behind, in quite possibly the most traumatic episode of television ever made). Fry finds work with his distant nephew (an elderly man) at a delivery company called Planet Express. Being a science fiction comedy set in a future full of spaceships, there are of course references to Star Trek scattered throughout, and the short-skirted, egotistical, womanizing recurring character Captain Zapp Brannigan clearly has more than a bit of Kirk in him.

Futurama also incorporated Star Trek into its stories more directly on occasion. The show’s very first guest star was Leonard Nimoy as his own cryogenically preserved head, welcoming Fry to the Head Museum (a regular feature on the series). And later there was a whole episode dedicated to Star Trek itself, “Where No Fan Has Gone Before.” In this episode, Fry discovers that Star Trek inspired a whole religion, which led to the Star Trek Wars, which led to the show and everything associated with it being banned. But a powerful alien being has watched the whole show, and has given the preserved heads of most of the original actors new bodies so they can participate in an eternal Star Trek convention. It’s a loving, joyous send-up of the show and features all but one of the then-surviving original cast members plus, inevitably, Jonathan Frakes, because every spin-off of Star Trek in any form must feature Jonathan Frakes in some role. This is the Rule.

Battlestar Galactica (reboot)

Battlestar Galactica 2003/4 – 2009 is a reimagining of the original 1979 series Battlestar Galactica , so needless to say its main point of reference is that show (though the original has some connections with Star Trek as well, as we covered here ). But it was also developed, executive produced, and had many episodes written by Ronald D. Moore, who first earned his stripes as a writer on The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine , and briefly on Voyager before his working relationship with his writing partner Brannon Braga broke down and he left.

While in many ways Battlestar Galactica was deliberately the anti- Star Trek – featuring a somewhat grimmer world view and an even higher body count – it also had many similarities, inevitably, since they are both set on space ships and led by a ship’s Captain or Commander. But Moore also emphasized some of the most interesting themes of 1990s Star Trek in his noughties version of BSG . Having left Voyager after only a couple of episodes, he obviously felt he had more to say about a spaceship on a long journey to get to Earth. And he had done a lot of work on Deep Space Nine , at the time the grittiest Star Trek series (possibly overtaken by Discovery or Picard since then– argue that out in the comments!). DS9 ’s penchant for morally gray characters and storylines and for stories based around a mysterious alien religion is clearly reflected in the themes emphasized by Moore’s reimagining of Battlestar Galactica .

Firefly/Serenity

Firefly (and its follow-up movie Serenity ) is another show that, on the surface, seems to be deliberately doing something different to Star Trek . Set in the future and following the crew of a spaceship, it has a Western-inspired vibe. The ship has a courtesan and a mercenary on board, and the use of Chinese phrases scattered among the English seems to be a reaction against the perceived tendency of Star Trek and other series to make the future look very American (somewhat unfairly, and Uhura’s native language is very specifically established as Swahili in “The Changeling,” although she is admonished and told to speak English which is especially odd as they all have Universal Translators… but we digress).

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But actually, Firefly is very directly inspired by Star Trek , which was famously conceived by Gene Roddenberry as a “wagon train to the stars.” Its even more famous tag line describes space as “the final frontier,” clearly positioning the show as basically a Western in space. Firefly takes that basic idea but goes in a different direction with it. Instead of focusing on the exploration aspect of the movement of immigrants to America ever further west in the 19th century, Firefly picks up on other elements of Westerns and Western tropes – particularly the lawlessness in a frontier environment with minimal law enforcement. It is the yin to Star Trek ’s yang.

WALL-E ’s most obvious and immediate inspirations are the films Silent Running and 2001: A Space Odyssey , but if you look closely, there is a good bit of Star Trek in there as well. It is, of course, largely set on a spaceship and one of the main characters is the ship’s captain – so far, so superficial.

But there are deeper connections to Star Trek here. One of the things that is notable about WALL-E is just how good and well-intentioned all the future human characters are. The present-day human character played by Fred Willard, and by implication all the other present-day humans, are somewhat terrible, but all of the future humans we meet are good people who are open to new experiences when they are exposed to them. Their sedentary, passive lifestyles are simply what they have been taught and brought up with. The simplest and briefest exposure to the world around them, even just by being accidentally toppled out of their mobile chairs, sets them off on a journey of discovery, and the ship’s captain is thrilled and excited to learn more about Earth and about his own ship’s true mission. That attitude is pure Star Trek – a passion for discovery and exploration, even when it is one that ultimately leads back to Earth again.

The Orville

There was a point, around 2017-2019, when The Orville was famous for being more like Star Trek than Star Trek . This is not meant – by us anyway – as a criticism of Star Trek: Discovery , which is a great show. But in its first two seasons, Discovery deliberately leaned away from some of the Star Trek series that had come before, following a disgraced former mutineer instead of a Captain or Commander, featuring a morally dubious Captain who actually turned out to be “evil,” focusing on war and trauma, and using arc-based instead of episodic storytelling. It was pretty similar to Deep Space Nine in many ways, but for fans of the more upbeat, Planet of the Week, episodic storytelling of the Original Series , The Next Generation , or Voyager , it was a bit of a shock ( Star Trek: Enterprise , like Discovery , re-tooled itself somewhat halfway through).

The Orville , on the other hand, basically is Star Trek in the 1990s mold of Next Gen or Voyager . Seven episodes of the show were actually written by Brannon Braga with his new writing partner, former scientific consultant on Star Trek , André Bormanis. And yes, writers are of course capable of writing different things, but although The Orville started out as a Star Trek spoof, pretty much the only difference between the two by season 3 is that people on the Orville sometimes eat pot brownies.

The show also stars Deep Space Nine ’s Penny Johnson Jerald in a regular role as the ship’s doctor, and has guest-starred Next Gen ’s Marina Sirtis, Voyager’ s Robert Picardo and Tim Russ, and Enterprise ’s John Billingsley, and the show’s directors include Star Trek ’s Brannon Braga, Robert Duncan McNeill and, of course, Jonathan Frakes. So it must be Star Trek .

Avenue 5 is a sadly short-lived science fiction comedy that blends elements of Voyager , Red Dwarf , and WALL-E . It takes from Red Dwarf and Voyager the basic plot that a spaceship has ended up a long way from home, and an essential crew member has been killed and must somehow be replaced. It then adds a well-meaning Captain who was only ever intended to be a figurehead, and not to actually run the ship, from WALL-E . Hilarity – and some surprisingly shocking deaths – ensue.

Although the somewhat less than inspirational characters skew closer to Red Dwarf , Battlestar Galactica , or Firefly , Avenue 5 shows its Star Trek side pretty clearly in the hiring of Voyager ’s Ethan Phillips (Neelix) as former astronaut Spike Martin. It also features an entire plot line built around the ability to split the ship into two, a clear reference to one of the Enterprise -D’s most famous (and least used) features.

Avengers: Endgame

This one is probably the biggest surprise on this list. Granted, it does feature spaceships and space travel, but as a big budget superhero film, it does not obviously have much in common with space opera.

What connects the second-highest grossing film of all time with Star Trek is the importance of the ensemble and the relationship between a group and its leader. Kevin Feige has mentioned a couple of times (both times speaking to Entertainment Weekly ) that he loves The Next Generation and that he had its final episode “All Good Things” in mind when developing Avengers: Endgame . “All Good Things” (written by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore) has some time-hopping going on that is not dissimilar to Endgame , but Feige talked specifically about the very last scene, when Picard finally sits down to play poker with his senior officers. That relationship between the Captain and his crew and them all coming together, just like the shawarma-based post-credits in the first Avengers film, is what Feige really wanted to take from Star Trek and incorporate into the MCU.

The film also takes its title from the final episode of Voyager and directly lifts its closing images featuring the autographs of the actors playing the six main characters from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , the final film focusing on the original Star Trek crew played by their original actors, symbolizing its similar position as a grand ending to the earliest phase of a franchise.

Galaxy Quest

We’re finishing with a film and a show that are not just “inspired by” Star Trek – to all intents and purposes, they are Star Trek , or very nearly. The premise for 1999’s Galaxy Quest is that aliens have been watching a Star Trek -like show and mistaken it for “historical documents,” so when they find themselves facing an enemy they can’t defeat, they crash a convention to ask the “crew” of the NSEA Protector for help. With a cast led by Tim Allen (a perfect Shatner-a-like), Sigourney Weaver (of course), and Alan Rickman (whose sad passing is the reason a proposed TV show never got off the ground), the resulting story is hilarious, heart-warming, and heart-breaking in equal amounts.

Galaxy Quest is perfect. It just is. If you are a Star Trek fan and you haven’t seen it, why not? Go and watch it immediately! You will never be able to watch an episode of Star Trek without quoting a line from Galaxy Quest ever again (especially not the Original Series episode “Arena”). Hear yourself constantly saying, “I’m the guy that dies to show the situation is serious!” “Quick, let’s get out of here before one of those things kills Guy!” “Does the rolling help?” “I see you managed to get your shirt off,” “Whoever wrote this episode should die!” and of course, “That’s not right!” And I know I just spoiled several of the funniest lines, but go and watch it anyway, I promise it’s worth it.

Juliette Harrisson | @ClassicalJG

Juliette Harrisson is a writer and historian, and a lifelong Trekkie whose childhood heroes were JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. She runs a YouTube channel called…

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Star Trek: The Original Series/Analysis

• View history

The original Wagon Train to the Stars series created by Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s. Very dated now, but still fun (depending which episode you watch, at least) and its historical importance in the development of television science fiction cannot be overstated.

• 1 War and peace
• 2 The human condition
• 3 Diversity
• 4 Technology

War and peace [ ]

Arguably, the show's most commonly confronted theme was war. The show was largely an expression of Roddenberry's liberal humanist views and no issue was more prominent in the minds of the public at the time than the war in Vietnam.

Of course, the show advocated pacifism. Kirk insisted their weapons (which had a "stun" setting anyway) were purely for self-defense and Spock could easily subdue opponents without harming them thanks to his Vulcan nerve pinch. In practice, the crew didn't always live up to these lofty ideals and Kirk in particular had a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later, mainly in the name of drama. When they fell particuarly short, Sufficiently Advanced Aliens tended to come along and deliver An Aesop , sometimes by putting Humanity on Trial .

The show's pacifist morality was subverted (or at least deviated a bit) in the episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", which suggests that wars sometimes must be fought for the greater good. Nevertheless, the pacifist leader responsible for the trouble is presented as a moral paragon who, in Spock's words, is "right at the wrong time". It may be an open question whether "City" should be considered pro-war or anti-war.

The human condition [ ]

Another common theme was the nature of human existence. The nature of the series and especially the continued presence of Spock allowed the writers to examine Humans Through Alien Eyes . A touch of existentialism came into play whenever an alien would assume human (or at least humanoid) form with emphasis placed on the strange sensations and emotions said aliens were experiencing for the first time. In particular, these aliens would invariably be overcome and confused by the very human need for love. If female, Kirk often elected to help. Due to his half-human heritage, Spock was alluded to be dealing with these issues on a daily basis.

The show's attitude about the uniting force of humanity is perhaps best summed up in the episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?". Guest character Carolyn Palamas considers betraying the crew of the Enterprise to become the lover of the god-like being Apollo. Kirk tells her "We're human. We couldn't escape from each other even if we wanted to. That's how you do it, Lieutenant - by remembering who and what you are. A bit of flesh and blood afloat in a universe without end. And the only thing that's truly yours is the rest of humanity." On that note, the show held that the destruction of life was the ultimate evil, thus tying this into the theme of pacifism.

Diversity [ ]

The issue of diversity was rarely addressed, but the multiracial coed crew of the Enterprise spoke for itself and was taken for granted. By far the weakest link in this theme was the very dated portrayal of women, who all too often were depicted as simple-minded weaklings needing guidance from men. Female guest characters in particular tended to be objectified as objects of beauty with their role in the plot almost certainly centering around sex in some way, usually by being the love interest of a male regular.

As the most prominent female character in the series, Uhura was by far portrayed the most progressively (a relative term). Also notable is Edith Keeler, the aforementioned pacifist from "The City on the Edge of Forever", who Kirk becomes attracted to for her ideals rather than her physical appearance.

Technology [ ]

The original series often posited questions on the role of technology; and it's effect on society. This theme would be continued in all subsequent series/movies.

Interestingly, the series did not go the AI Is a Crapshoot route OR the Technology Solves All route. Star Trek overall seems to suggest that as with all things, it can be good or bad (just like Tropes!). Perhaps in keeping with the idealistic/pacifist nature of the series, whether or not technology was a blessing or curse seemed to hinge on whether or not it was tempered by actual moral judgement.

The series itself takes place in the 23rd century, by which time, humanity has achieved many technological advancements, like warp speed and the transporter. However, Starfleet has several rules in place to prevent the abuse of technology. This is most obviously seen in the use of its Prime Directive which forbids contact with a less advanced alien culture for fear of the more advanced society (the Federation) overwhelming the less advanced one.

In one episode, a supercomputer was developed whose purpose seemed to be to dispense with the need for a commanding officer to oversee the ship's operations. However, the machine almost immediately initiates a killing spree; an unfortunate side-effect of it's over-literal interpretation of its orders. In another episode, "I, Mudd" the crew outsmarts a group of androids using simple lack of logic to defeat them.

And of course, numerous times in the series, Kirk and co. defeat far more advanced enemies through use of old-fashioned means and even, in some cases, well applied Bamboo Technology (the makeshift cannon Kirk made when fighting the Gorn comes to mind).

Overall, Trek's stance seemed to be that technology as a tool was a great thing. Technology as a replacement for guts and instinct and human intelligence; not so much.

• 1 Low Tide in Twilight/Characters
• 2 Metamorphosis (manga)
• 3 Kuroinu Kedakaki Seijo wa Hakudaku ni Somaru/Characters

Screen Rant

James bond exists in star trek & discovery proved it.

James Bond's existence in Star Trek's universe is tacitly confirmed by Star Trek: Discovery as 007's signature cocktail is name-dropped.

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 4 - "Face The Strange"

• Star Trek Discovery season 5 confirms the long-held belief that James Bond exists in Star Trek.
• Commander Jett Reno name-drops the Vesper martini, which was introduced in James Bond's Casino Royale book and movie.
• Deep Space Nine's "Our Man Bashir" homage to James Bond precedes Discovery's nod in season 5, episode 4.

It has long been suspected that James Bond exists in Star Trek 's universe, and Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4, "Face the Strange" proved it. Written by Sean Cochran and directed by Lee Rose, Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4 , is an extraordinary time travel romp as Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie), and Commander Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) cycle through key events in the USS Discovery's past and potential dark future. Among the surprises is an unexpected shout-out to 007 by Commander Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) .

Star Trek is set in the future, but pop culture inevitably woven its way into the various Star Trek series and movies. For instance, Star Trek: Discovery season 2 saw then-Lieutenant Paul Stamets and Ensign Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) sing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" together. Alcohol consumption certainly has been a part of Star Trek since the saga's original pilot episode, "The Cage." Still, the signature cocktail of James Bond , the most famous secret agent in pop culture, being name-dropped in Star Trek: Discovery season 5 came out of nowhere, but it confirms the long-held belief that 007 exists in Star Trek' s universe .

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Returning Cast & New Character Guide

Discovery proves james bond exists in star trek, the vesper martini is jett reno's cocktail of choice.

In one of Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4's time jumps, Captain Burnham and Commander Rayner are sent back to the events of Star Trek: Discovery season 3's finale when Osyraa (Janet Kidder) and the Emerald Chain attacked the USS Discovery. Burnham and Rayner take out Osyraa's goons, but Michael makes herself scarce so as not to disrupt the timeline by being seen by Commander Jett Reno (Tig Notaro). After saving Rayner's life, Reno suggests he buy her a drink - "Vesper martini - ice cold". The Vesper martini is the signature cocktail invented by James Bond (Daniel Craig) in Casino Royale .

The Vesper martini is named for 007's tragic love, Vesper Lynd, played by Eva Green in Casino Royale .

James Bond's creator Ian Fleming introduced the Vesper martini in the first 007 novella, 1953's "Casino Royale." The exact recipe is "Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel." Until the 2006 Casino Royale movie which also introduced the Vesper Lynd character, the previous versions of James Bond only ordered vodka martinis "shaken, not stirred". Commander Jett Reno specifically requesting a Vesper martini makes her a James Bond fan , or at least a fan of his favorite drink, and verifies that 007 and Casino Royale exist in Star Trek 's universe.

Star Trek’s Greatest James Bond Homage Was On DS9

"our man bashir" is a classic ds9 episode..

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine homaged 007 in the classic season 4 episode, "Our Man Bashir." Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) unwinds in Quark's (Armin Shimerman) holosuite by play-acting as "Julian Bashir: Secret Agent," a spy who lives in the 1960s. Bashir's holosuite program is clearly based on James Bond as Julian takes on the kind of international crisis 007 would typically face. With Garak (Andrew Robinson) in tow, Julian Bashir saved the world from destruction at the hands of the evil Dr. Noah (Avery Brooks).

A transporter accident sent Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), Lt. Commander Worf (Michael Dorn), and Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) in the holosuite where they became characters in the Julian Bashir: Secret Agent program.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's "Our Man Bashir" premiered just two weeks after GoldenEye , Pierce Brosnan's first film as James Bond , in November 1995. Although James Bond was never name-dropped - and he still wasn't in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4 - "Our Man Bashir" is an obvious ode to 007 that played into the classic James Bond tropes even more than GoldenEye did. Because James Bond lives in an era vastly different from the space-faring universe of Star Trek, it makes sense that characters like Jett Reno on Star Trek: Discovery indulge in the old-school fantasy and luxurious trappings of James Bond, like his signature Vesper martini.

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 stream Thursdays on Paramount+

Star Trek: Discovery Just Brought Back Two Classic TV Tropes

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

For many Trekkies, "Star Trek: Discovery" has always felt a little like the younger brother clinging onto the franchise's back. The sky-high stakes that always seem to threaten the universe, the heavily serialized nature from episode to episode, and even the way these heart-on-their-sleeve characters carry themselves throughout their duties ("...like best buds at a slumber party," as /Film's Jacob Hall put it succinctly in his review for the season 5 premiere ) has all but screamed the fact that this show was meant for younger, more modern audiences.

So imagine our surprise when episode 4 of this final season suddenly dipped into its bag of tricks to unleash not one, but two classic examples of TV tropes that hearken back to the days of "The Original Series." The "time bug" kicks everything off, catching Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) in the most quintessential of Trekkian problems: a time loop. Although not unfamiliar territory for our heroes -- this isn't even the first time "Discovery" has gone back to this well, as season 1's "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" deals with similar temporal shenanigans -- what does  make this episode stand apart is the fact that this plot serves two important purposes.

For one thing, it allows the writers to reuse a handful of the exact same interior sets of the USS Discovery for practically the entire hour, making this  a bottle episode . Secondly, when Burnham travels back in time and re-experiences previous events in the show's history all over again, it's kind of like a Trekkian twist on the idea of a clip show . Together, "Face the Strange" becomes one of the show's quirkiest episodes yet.

Read more: Why Khan Noonien Singh Casts A Shadow Over The Entire Star Trek Universe

Starship In A Bottle

Is that a bottle in your episode, or are you just happy to see me? Okay, that wasn't the smoothest segue I've ever written but, much like the lesson learned by Burnham and Rayner by the end of this week's episode of "Discovery," a rough start doesn't necessarily have to be the final word. The pair discovers this the hard way in what essentially turns out to be an homage to a tried-and-true television trope.

Originally conceived as a measure to cut corners and save money when a season ran the risk of going over budget, bottle episodes have always been a win-win situation for everyone involved. The producers and studio bean counters, naturally, will be happy with anything that saves them a tough conversation with the bosses. And although fans these days typically look at constraints as an unequivocal disadvantage for artists, there's actually something freeing about the process where writers are forced to come up with unique scenarios and creative storylines by thinking outside the box -- simply to justify using only the same few sets, a handful of actors, and a less extravagant vision.

For instance, a typical episode of "Discovery" tends to involve away missions to far-flung locales, space battles with enemy ships firing lasers, and all sorts of VFX-dominated mayhem. This time around, however, all of the action (outside of the opening few minutes, that is) takes place entirely within the confines of the USS Discovery ... and constantly in the exact same rooms and hallways, too. The Captain's ready room gets a steady workout, as does Paul Stamets' (Anthony Rapp) place in Engineering. Otherwise, we really only ever return to generic hallways, the elevator, and the bridge. Yet despite the small scale, "Discovery" embarks on its most high-concept adventure yet.

Highlight Reel

Oh, we're taking things all the way back to the beginning. With the news that the fifth season of "Discovery" would also be its last , it stood to reason that showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Michelle Paradise would take a victory lap of sorts while also treating longtime viewers to a bit of a nostalgia tour. Episode 4 killed both birds with one stone by incorporating the other trick up its sleeve: putting its own sci-fi stamp on the clip-show episode.

Although a rarity in recent years, those of us who grew up on sitcoms know all too well the joys ( and, to be frank, the cringe ) of the clip show -- an even more extreme example of cutting costs by literally just re-airing old footage. Thankfully, "Discovery" adds a fresh wrinkle to this trope. Rather than hit pause on the ongoing plot and bring things to a screeching halt for a hackneyed trip down memory lane, the writing team instead makes this the entire point of Burnham's arc in the episode. First, the time loop forces her to relive several major events from seasons past, along with certain ones that she wasn't actually present to witness firsthand. She experiences the Discovery crew's perspective of traveling through the wormhole in the season 3 premiere and ending up far in the future, their desperate battle against the artificial intelligence Control in season 2, and even a fight against her own younger version from season 1.

"Discovery" could've easily settled for channeling its inner "Groundhog Day" or, more relevantly, the time-travel hijinks of "The Constant" episode from "Lost," but instead we receive a mini-highlight reel reminding us of everything this crew has survived together. It doesn't get much more "Trek" than that.

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

Read the original article on SlashFilm

• The Inventory

This Week's Star Trek: Discovery Is a Time-Hopping Marvel

In "face the strange," discovery returns to a trek trope it mastered in its first season to deliver a clever, thoughtful reflection on how far it's come..

Star Trek: Discovery is really good with time. We knew this almost immediately when one of its earliest episodes to really wow us was “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad,” a delightful time loop caper. We knew it again, when it flung caution to the wind and catapulted itself into a future no Star Trek show had visited yet at the climax of season two . And now, as it stares down its final end , Discovery once again turns to time—and twists it, to look back on its long, strange trip.

Related Content

“Face the Strange” is a deceptively simple episode on the surface, and a bold move for a show on its last lap: instead of accelerating the chase between Discovery and Moll and L’ak as they hunt for more clues to the Progenitor tech, it almost literally slams the brakes on everything to deliver a wonderful little character piece, not just for Michael Burnham, but to give time to explore Discovery ’s crew, and even its newcomer in Commander Rayner, who is still struggling to adapt to Discovery ’s more personable approach to hierarchy. After leaving Trill with Adira unknowingly tagged by Moll, the Discovery heads to coordinates where it expects to find the next piece of the puzzle, only to find... nothing. But what Adira was tagged with, it turns out, wasn’t a tracking device, but a “Time Bug,” a piece of Krenim technology held over from the Temporal Cold War (another great bit of using Discovery ’s handling of time, in this case the passage of it, for a fun Voyager / Enterprise nod!). The Time Bug infiltrates Discovery ’s systems, and locks them down—not by disabling the ship’s systems, but by trapping them in a spiraling series of time loops.

Burnham and Rayner—who were busy arguing in the ready room over Rayner’s abrasive mood—are partially unaffected by the bug’s looping, having attempted to beam back to the bridge at the precise moment it activated. While they’re caught in the same looping, being shunted backward and forward in Discovery ’s timeline, they remain aware between each loop that something is wrong—and that if they don’t put aside their differences and disable the bug, Discovery will be shut down while Moll and L’ak solve the clues to the Progenitor tech and doom the galaxy (to the Breen, of all people, we learn in one of the loops!).

This is already a really fun idea, because as we previously said— Discovery knows how to do a killer time loop story already, and has known how to do that for a very long time. But what crucially sets “Face the Strange” apart from “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” (god bless the show also toned down its love of long episode titles) is a context that the episode itself ultimately plays with: one of these episodes came just seven stories into the show’s existence. The other is the 59th , and in the time between them Discovery has done so much, changed so much, and developed in its own confidence, that it can use a similar structure and format like this again not to say “hey, look Star Trek fans, we can use the same tropes as the shows you loved,” but to instead say “hey, how do we use this trope to make a Discovery story?”

The answer is in both its characters—of course, particularly Michael—but also in the masterful way “Face the Strange” uses the concept of time looping to revisit a bunch of key moments from Discovery ’s metatextual past, giving Burnham, who went through it all, and Rayner, as the newcomer, (and eventually Stamets, who thanks to the spore drive tardigrade DNA, can’t be affected by time loops—a delightfully clever nod back to “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”!) a chance to see just how far this crew has come through and how much it’s changed them all along the way. Through Michael and Rayner’s eyes as they puzzle out the pattern of each loop, and what they need to do to stop the bug, we get to go through so much of Discovery ’s past—from it being built in drydock in San Francisco, to the moment it jumped to the 32nd century, to fighting off the Emerald Chain in season three, and, most crucially, climaxing back in the early days of season one when Michael was still just a downtrodden turncoat barely given a second chance by Starfleet after the start of the Federation-Klingon war. And with that perspective, and the carried awareness from loop to loop, both Michael and Rayner alike come to understand what Discovery has been through all the better.

It’s an episode that’s perfect for a final season—standalone enough that it is also simply just a great time loop scenario, but also vitally informed by Discovery ’s history over the last four seasons to deliver a really touching moment of acknowledgement for the series as it looks back on how far it’s come. It’s fun seeing the old blue metallic uniforms again, or seeing Stamets realizing that a) he’s a little worried he can quickly empty engineering of officers with a totally fake spore breach warning, or b) he used to be able to do that even quicker by being a massive asshole. It’s just as fun to see Rayner, who’s still resistant to connect to Discovery ’s crew, soften as he sees everything they went through to get to where they are now, and slowly but surely use the things he’s picked up about them to his advantage. It’s both extremely fun and extremely good that, in the last time loop set during Discovery season one, we not just get to see how cold and distant the bridge crew were back then, but that Discovery finally does justice to its former cyborg crewmate, Airiam (the returning Hannah Cheesman), making her belief in Michael key to saving the day—three seasons in the making, but a far more fitting farewell to the character after her clunkily unceremonious death in season two.

But above all, “Face the Strange” is Michael’s episode, and her journey is the one examined most of all. Because if you’re going to narratively go back in time to Discovery ’s first season, well, as much as she doesn’t want to, you’re going to have Present Michael face Past Michael. Sonequa Martin-Green plays the encounter to perfection: two determinedly stubborn women with things they still want to prove to both themselves and the world, pushed in each other’s faces. That it becomes a knock-down mirror match punch-up is deeply funny—fitting the aggression if Discovery ’s original wartime setting while also just making it the inevitable outcome of putting two unstoppable forces in each other’s way. But Martin-Green sells just how much of a difference there is between Michael’s past and her presence in these moments with incredible charm and subtlety. The show really hammers home that while there are still things about Michael that are still Michael, the young woman petrified that she had no place aboard a starship in season one and the undeniably heroic captain of season five represent a remarkable journey the character has been on.

Crucially, however, while Burnham vs Burnham ends with her current self Vulcan neck-pinching her past self, the actual moment the day is saved is done not by Michael, but Rayner, finally learning the keys to understanding what makes the Discovery crew tick. After Past-Michael wakes up and, being so eager to prove her worth, takes the Rayner and future-Stamets on at phaser-point in Engineering as they prepare to finally destroy the Time Bug, it’s Rayner who steps in to get her to back down, making a connection—by leaning on the things Michael had told him about herself in their argument at the start of the episode—and getting Michael to see that one day she’s going to prove herself on a long, painful, but rewarding path ahead of her... if only she stops being so stubborn for a damn second and let them save the future. Even if she doesn’t remember it, it’s the exact perfect advice season one Michael needs—advice she’ll learn the hard way through Lorca’s betrayal . And in having it passed onto her from Rayner, a man who Michael herself has begun to help grow and connect to others again after all his own frustrations and hurts, really hits home just how far she’s come.

“Face the Strange” is an episode Discovery could only pull off once, as its journey comes to an end—and it does so almost perfectly, an incredibly compelling use of a time-and-tested Trek format to examine the metatextual and textual journey it’s been on these last seven years. While there’s still more adventures to go on just yet—with the Time Bug stopped, the race between Discovery and Moll and L’ak is now tighter than ever—this was a great chance to take a moment and have its heroes and the show alike take stock of how much it’s grown: and how ready it is to bid farewell.

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