- 4 days ago
The most awkward moments in Star Trek history may have happened off camera.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00The storylines of Star Trek episodes aren't always wrapped up perfectly. Sometimes things
00:04are only implied to happen after the events of an episode, but never actually shown. In
00:08this video we're going over the examples that stand out as particularly awkward. We're
00:12looking at creepy situations, embarrassing mistakes, ridiculous mission reports, and
00:16more things that would have been super uncomfortable for characters after the fact. When you look
00:20into the details, you'll realise that these things must have happened, which is unfortunate
00:24because some of our examples nearly ruin the episode they come from.
00:27With that being said, I am long-term editor and first-time presenter Tom Roberts-Finn,
00:31and this is 10 Awkward Things That Must Have Happened After Star Trek Episodes.
00:3610. Barclay's Soiled Reputation The holodeck is a brilliant invention, but
00:41as we've learned many times before, it can be easily abused in some truly disturbing
00:46ways. In the next generation episode, Hollow Pursuits, which you knew we'd have to talk
00:49about at some point, we got introduced to hollow addiction. Lieutenant Reginald Barclay became
00:53so obsessed with holographic fantasies that he started completely avoiding real-world
00:57interaction and showing up late for work. Eventually, LaForge went looking for Barclay
01:01and walked in on him playing a holodeck program where he fought and demeaned holograms of his
01:05superior officers in a 17th century setting. LaForge tried to explain that it was weird
01:10to recreate real people on the holodeck and try to help him out of his addiction, but
01:14it persisted and he was soon caught in the act once again. This time, Riker, LaForge and
01:19Troy all barged in to find the same program running and encountered the Goddess of Empathy,
01:23a sexualized recreation of counsellor Deanna Troy, who was madly in love with Barclay.
01:28They responded incredibly calmly, given how weird and invasive this program was. Regardless,
01:33it must have been hard for the three of them, especially Deanna, to walk past Barclay in
01:36the corridors after seeing all of that. Like Riker said, there should have really been some
01:40rules in the books against recreating real people on the holodeck. Maybe these rules were
01:44created later because of Barclay's creepy programs.
01:47Number 9, Archer's Cold Front Report. Cold Front was one of the most embarrassing moments
01:52in Captain Archer's career. This Enterprise episode revealed that Crewman Daniels was
01:56actually a fighter in the Temporal Cold War, originating from the 31st century. After
02:00the episode, Archer would have had to explain to Starfleet Command that not only was Daniels
02:05able to hide his identity and his futuristic technology, but he also claimed to be from the
02:09future, something that the Vulcans firmly believed was impossible at the time. Then, Daniels' future
02:14attack, the Temporal Observatory, and his phasing device were both destroyed and Daniels was
02:18thought to have been killed, leaving no evidence for the story he gave.
02:21The Vulcan scientists and authorities were probably even more shocked than Starfleet to hear Archer's
02:26report. Their scepticism of time travel came up again later in the series, but the fact
02:31that Daniels was presumed killed before he could even face questioning must have made some
02:35Vulcans suspect foul play, or some sort of cover-up on Archer's behalf to hide the mistakes
02:40of Earth's most famous crew. Basically, it would have been pretty hard to convince
02:43anyone who wasn't there that the Temporal War was real and the events of Cold Front
02:47actually happened.
02:498. The Problem with the Doctor's Daydreams
02:52In the Voyager episode Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy, Seven and Bellana discovered a part of
02:57the Doctor's program that probably made life aboard the ship much more awkward. In the episode,
03:02the Doctor added a subroutine to his program that allowed him to daydream. Unfortunately,
03:07a hierarchy vessel tapped into his daydreams, causing them to become unpredictable and uncontrollable.
03:12In an effort to repair him, Torres routed his daydreams through the holodeck projectors,
03:16allowing herself, Janeway, Seven and Kim to observe them for themselves. They got to see
03:21the Doctor playing out his fantasy of taking command of Voyager and saving the ship, but
03:25also some more personal desires. His other daydreams were of painting a nude erotically posed Seven
03:30of Nine and breaking up with Bellana, who cried that Tom Paris wasn't half the man the
03:34Doctor was. Seven of Nine seemed fairly unfazed by the Doctor's fantasies. She even gave him
03:39a small kiss at the end of the episode, explaining that it was purely platonic. But it was likely
03:43that things were pretty awkward between him and Bellana after she learned his feelings for
03:47her, and his jealousy for Paris. She may have even told Tom, which would really make for
03:51a weird dynamic whenever he assisted in sickbay. It also must have been a bit uncomfortable
03:55for Bellana to know that her physician had romantic feelings for her.
03:59Number Seven, Picard readjusting to life on the Enterprise. Picard's been through a lot of awful
04:05shit in his life. His mother died when he was young, he was stabbed by a Norsekin, tortured
04:09by the Cardassians, and assimilated by the Borg, to name but a few.
04:13Yet the most traumatic moment in his life was probably the events of the inner light. In
04:16this episode, he lived an entire decade of a life that wasn't his, inside of an alien
04:20simulation. The ordeal only lasted a few minutes in reality, but for him it was a whole other
04:25life, and the show barely expanded on what this meant for him. Maybe the writers just figured
04:29Picard had got enough therapy in the episode Family after the best of both worlds. Still, some time
04:34must have needed to pass before Picard was ready to captain the ship again. He probably
04:37spent a lot of time off duty to process what happened to him. He spent so long in the simulation
04:41that he likely forgot command codes, regulations, and maybe even some of his crew and friends.
04:46The very next episode is the dramatic two-parter time travel story, Time's Arrow, so we can
04:50only hope that Picard had at least a few weeks to sit around and mentally recover before immediately
04:55going on to save all of humanity.
04:57Number Six, The Hide and Queue Report. After Hide and Queue, it's doubtful that Starfleet
05:03Command would have approved of Riker giving up his Q power so quickly. He could have done
05:06a lot of good for the Federation with those abilities. He could have cured any disease,
05:10invented new technology to defend the Federation, or practically anything else. Instead, he briefly
05:15played around with giving his friends their greatest desires, and then gave up on his powers
05:19when he realised they didn't actually want his help. Picard and Riker would have had to
05:22explain to Command that they gave up this huge opportunity simply because they thought
05:26that it was too much power for a human and probably because Riker didn't want to risk
05:30change his identity.
05:32Number Five, The Trouble with Tribble Disposal. At the end of The Trouble with Tribbles, Scotty
05:37removed the Tribbles from the Enterprise by beaming them directly onto the Klingon ship.
05:40This was a bit messed up on a few levels. Besides the fact that this could have been enough
05:44to start a war, Scotty also condemned thousands of innocent creatures to gruesome, painful deaths.
05:49We know that the Klingons despised Tribbles, and an infestation of them would almost certainly
05:53lead to a bloodbath. The creatures would continue to multiply as they were hunted, and the Klingons
05:58would soon need to start taking them out faster and faster. Honestly, it would have been more
06:01humane to just beam the Tribbles right into space. Their deaths would have probably been
06:05quicker than at the hands of the Klingons, who aren't exactly known for their mercy.
06:09Number Four, Spock getting teased. Spock's friends on the Enterprise responded pretty
06:14maturely when they learned about Spock's Ponfar in the TOS episode A Mock Time. They wouldn't
06:19mock him for something out of his control, no matter how strange the Vulcan mating rituals
06:23may seem to humans. However, at the end of the episode, when Spock realised that he didn't
06:27actually kill Captain Kirk, he let his emotions show for a moment, shouting Jim and smiling
06:31from pointed ear to pointed ear. He tried to play it off, but Kirk, McCoy and Nurse
06:36Chappell all saw what happened. Spock revealed in this moment that he cared deeply for his
06:40friend, Kirk, something that he rarely made clear with his words. It's not hard to imagine
06:44the three witnesses teasing Spock about his secret feelings. I know I would. Loser.
06:49Number Three, Interstellar Traffic Cops. We've talked a lot about the next gen episode
06:54Force of Nature, which showed that warp travel was slowly damaging space. At the end of the
06:58episode, a speed limit of warp fire was put in place throughout Federation space except
07:03in extreme emergencies. As we've gone over before, Starfleet never really followed this
07:07limit and we never got any solution to the problem in canon. One thing we haven't really
07:12discussed was the fact that the Federation authorities would likely have to patrol their space to
07:16catch any civilian ships exceeding the speed limit. Sort of like Interstellar Traffic Cops.
07:21We can only imagine the outrage of civilian freighter captains who would almost certainly
07:25have their profits cut down because of the warp 5 limit. Who knows, the damage could have
07:29been minimised with new technology sometime shortly after the episode, or Federation authorities
07:34may have continued to impose this speed limit on the civilians in their space, while allowing
07:38Starfleet to continually and blatantly ignore it.
07:412. The crew realising Captain Freeman's mistake We learned a lot about the Federation
07:46news network in the Lower Decks episode Trusted Sources. An FNN reporter came aboard the Cerritos
07:51to do a story on its mission and crew during Project Swingby, a mission to return and offer
07:56assistance to planets visited by Starfleet in the past. Captain Freeman was worried about
08:00her daughter Beckett making the Cerritos look bad, so she ordered her not to speak to FNN
08:04under any circumstances. Beckett then did an interview behind her mother's back and the Captain
08:08was so mad that she transferred her off the ship onto the dreaded Starbase 80.
08:12Once the FNN story aired, Freeman realised that Beckett had actually given a very charitable
08:17interview, which she probably would have known if she just bothered to ask. Of course Beckett
08:20wasn't eager to accept her apology after the fact, choosing instead to run off with
08:24Picard's contracted archaeologist friend Petra Aberdeen. The rest of the crew were taken
08:28out of context and the FNN expose nearly led to the entire California class being decommissioned.
08:33Beckett and her mother made amends at the end of the next episode, but kicking her daughter
08:37off the ship was definitely one of Captain Freeman's most embarrassing moments. The whole crew had
08:41to say goodbye to their friend because Freeman was just too stubborn to hear her daughter out.
08:46Number 1. Janeway's Reunion with Mark
08:49Voyager's early return home to Earth led to celebrations all across the Federation. It was
08:53a wonderful time for the entire crew, but Captain Janeway may have had a bit of an awkward
08:57reunion with her ex-fiancee Mark. About four years after Voyager was lost, they were able to use
09:02the Hirogen subspace relay network to contact Starfleet in the episode Hunters, and the crew
09:07were finally able to contact their loved ones. Janeway was excited at first to speak to Mark
09:11once again, but her mood quickly changed when she learned what he had been up to while she was gone.
09:15Mark held out hope for longer than most, but eventually came to the conclusion that Janeway
09:19had died and decided to move on with his life. He was devastated to lose his fiancee, yet he went on to
09:24marry his co-worker only six months after Voyager was lost. Janeway was heartbroken, but understood that Mark
09:29needed to move on eventually, although getting married to another woman only six months later was a tad surprising.
09:33We can imagine that Janeway and Mark's reunion after Endgame was far less romantic than she hoped.
09:38This is especially sad when you re-watch the episode Elogeum, when Janeway told Chakotay
09:42she intended to get home before Mark gave her up for dead.
09:44That was 10 Awkward Things That Must Have Happened After Star Trek Episodes.
09:48If you can think of anything else that we missed and you really can't keep it to yourself,
09:51let us know down in the comments. You can find us on Twitter at
09:54TrekCulture and on Instagram at TrekCultureYT. You can find myself on Twitter at
09:58TomCFinn and on various other socials as well. I've even talked to some of the TrekCulture
10:03gang on my podcast Creative Roots with T.C. Roberts Finn, so be sure to check that out too.
10:07Thanks all for watching and until next time, buh-bye.
Be the first to comment