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Some shows were certainly subtler than others with their references, but each surely left a huge smile plastered across the face of any fan watching...
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00:00There is absolutely no denying that Star Trek is a pop culture juggernaut. It has been around
00:05for over 50 years and managed to imprint itself upon nearly every corner of sci-fi, not to
00:12mention having been lovingly homaged, referenced and parodies in all types of TV, movies, video
00:19games, books and music. But outside of its own canonical universe, Trek has been showing
00:24up on other TV shows for literally decades at this point. Some shows were certainly
00:29subtler than others with their references, but each surely left a huge smile on the face
00:35of any fan watching. So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Trek Culture and here are 10
00:40times Star Trek appeared in other TV shows. Number 10, The Simpsons. It is no secret that
00:48The Simpsons creator Matt Groening and his writer's room are big fans of Star Trek, which has been
00:54continually referenced in more than 50 episodes of the animated sitcom. But the most memorable
01:00of them all was a more involved parody of the original series in 1992's season 4 episode
01:06Itchy and Scratchy the Movie. The episode begins with a mocking faux trailer for a new Star Trek
01:12film entitled Star Trek 12 So Very Tired, with an over the hill Captain Kirk monologuing,
01:18Captain's Log, Stargate 6051. Had trouble sleeping last night. My hiatal hernia is acting up. The ship
01:26is drafty and damp. I complain, but nobody listens. The trailer narrator assures audiences the film
01:32will be the crew's latest, greatest adventure, all while Sulu is seen sporting a cane and Scotty
01:38is too overweight to reach the control panel. This was quite clearly a lampooning of the later Trek
01:44film starring the original series cast, particularly 1991's Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country,
01:51where William Shatner and co. were clearly starting to show their age. Fittingly, The Undiscovered Country
01:57was the final film to feature all of the original Enterprise crew, likely enlarged due to sentiments
02:04like this being made by fans and critics alike. Number 9, Black Mirror. Black Mirror may be best
02:11known for its blackly comedic social satire, though writer Charlie Brooker managed to roll this into
02:17a pin-sharp Trek parody in the Emmy-winning season 4 episode USS Callister. The episode follows video
02:24game programmer Robert Daly, who, in order to take out his frustrations against his unappreciative
02:30co-workers, creates a modded version of the game and inserts digital clones of his co-workers into it
02:37by surreptitiously obtaining their DNA. The modded game, modelled off Daly's favourite sci-fi TV show
02:43Space Fleet, bears a blinding resemblance to Trek's original series, right down to the costumes,
02:50hairstyles and design of the USS Callister. The scenes set within this modded game also adopt the
02:55stylistic tropes of classic Trek, the 4x3 aspect ratio, use of Dutch angles and by the episode's end,
03:02a shift towards the sleeker, widescreen style of the J.J. Abrams reboot series. Jesse Plemons even
03:09worked with a vocal coach to approximate the delivery style of William Shatner. In addition
03:14to winning four Emmys, this episode was widely acclaimed by critics and Trek fans alike, praising
03:20its clear admiration for the franchise and its impressive attempts to recreate its style and tone.
03:26Number 8, Family Guy. The Family Guy team are clearly also huge Trek fans, as evidenced by the
03:34dozens of episodes which have even a mere passing crack about the show. Though there are lots of good
03:41ones, such as the entire cast of The Next Generation playing themselves in season 7's Not All Dogs Go to
03:47Heaven. Easily the single most iconic Trek reference in Seth MacFarlane's irreverent animation has to be
03:53its outrageous portrayal of William Shatner. Season 1's I Never Met the Dead Man features a number of
04:00cutaways depicting a hilariously exaggerated version of Shatner's performance as Kirk,
04:05characterised here by idiosyncratic, nonsensical line delivery and excessive gesticulations.
04:12As luck would have it, Shatner then knocks on Peter's door after getting a flat tyre,
04:16and the two go to an Oktoberfest-style event together. At episode's end, however, Meg accidentally hits
04:22Shatner with the car and kills him. Shatner's physically implausible movements and disjointed
04:28line delivery, as impersonated by Seth MacFarlane, just might be the single greatest pop culture
04:34reference in all of Family Guy. Number 7, Mad Men. Though most of the TV shows on this list are
04:41unsurprisingly animations and sitcoms, there is a little room for some solid gold prestige TV drama,
04:49too. Mad Men, of all shows, managed to pull off one of the most memorable nods to Trek's original
04:56series in the Season 5 episode Christmas Waltz. With Mad Men being a 60-set period show, this episode
05:03takes place in Christmas 1966, while the original series was midway through its first season.
05:10One of the episode's subplots involves the re-emergence of ex-copywriter Paul Kinsey,
05:15who meets with former colleague Harry Crane at a coffee shop to catch up. Among other developments,
05:21Paul hands Harry a script that he wrote on spec for Star Trek, hoping that Harry would pass it to
05:26the right people and get it seen. The episode was called The Necron Complex, and focused on a race
05:31of white people who were subservient to a race of colour. The script was, by Harry and Peggy's
05:36declaration, quite terrible, prompting Harry to try and gently let Paul know that he didn't have a
05:42future in screenwriting. There is some additional amusing context, though. The Necron Complex bears
05:48a similar resemblance to an episode that did get made, Season 3's Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.
05:55As a result, though Harry did manage to persuade Paul not to sell his script, this suggests that he
06:01did indeed persevere and get his script bought, which was then heavily rewritten into Let That Be Your
06:07Last Battlefield. Who knows?
06:10Number 6, Futurama. Back to Matt Groening now, who aunts up the Star Trek references considerably
06:17in his glorious sci-fi comedy Futurama. All in all, there are close to 100 separate Star Trek
06:25references across Futurama, but arguably the piece de resistance is Season 4's episode where no fan has
06:32gone before. This widely acclaimed Nebula Award nominated episode reveals that Star Trek is banned
06:38on Earth after it became a global religion in the 2200s. And in the wake of the bloody Star Trek Wars,
06:46the remaining tapes of the show and movies were jettisoned into space. And so, with the help of
06:52Leonard Nimoy's head, Bender, Fry and company set off on a mission to recover the tapes, bringing them
06:58into contact with almost every major cast member from the original series. The exceptions are James
07:04Doohan, whose agent flatly refused, and DeForest Kelly, who had passed away a few years prior and so
07:10only appeared in likeness form. With his loving array of homages to Trek, while also making lighthearted
07:17fun at the fans' obsessiveness, there is arguably no single better sustained parody of Trek than this.
07:25Certainly not in animated form, that is.
07:28Number 5. The Orville
07:31Further proof of Seth MacFarlane's love for Star Trek can be found in his live-action parody homage
07:37series The Orville. When it first launched, Star Trek fans were enormously sceptical, feeling that
07:42McFarlane would just relentlessly be making fun of Star Trek without much affection. And though the
07:48first season was certainly more of a parody than a dew-eyed homage, season 2 received considerably more
07:54acclaim from critics and fans for its more earnest, sincere storytelling that veered away from outright
08:00parody. But the single most interesting thing about The Orville? Star Trek actually exists within its
08:07universe. Well, sort of. The first season's fifth episode shows the crew watching a clip of Seinfeld.
08:14And considering that there was a number of Star Trek jokes made in Seinfeld, we're left to conclude that
08:20Star Trek actually exists as a TV show within the world of The Orville. Genius.
08:26Number 4. South Park
08:28This one's both subtle and really, really weird. To be fair, Star Trek has been referenced in more than
08:3630 episodes of South Park, but there's one that stands tall above all the others for its hilariously
08:43deranged specificity. In the season 4 episode Something You Can Do With Your Finger, the boys plan
08:49to form a boy band. But when Randy finds out what his son Stan is up to, he throws a fit of rage,
08:55screaming, NO! NO! and headbutting the glass doors of the nearby living room cabinet, smashing the china
09:01plates inside. You could easily miss it, but the sound effects are actually sampled from Star Trek
09:07First Contact, namely the scene where Picard smashes his own glass cabinet with a gun during an intense
09:13argument with Lily Sloan. It's such a bizarre way to reference such a memorable moment from the film,
09:19and yet, the sound effects are just vague and brief enough that the more casual Trek fans might just
09:25miss it. Number 3. The Big Bang Theory
09:29Love or hate the Big Bang Theory, there is no denying the love it's writer's harbour for Star Trek,
09:35given that the four central characters are all shown to be major fans of the franchise and are even
09:40fluent in Klingon. Trek is by far the most commonly referenced franchise in the series, and it has even
09:47enjoyed cameos from the likes of Will Wheaton, Brent Spiner, George Takei and William Shatner. But the
09:53single greatest invocation of Trek occurred in the season 6 episode, The Bakersfield Expedition,
09:59where the guys dress up as the next generation characters Worf, Data, Picard and a Borg drone,
10:04respectively, to visit a comic book convention in Bakersfield. The boys end up stopping off at the
10:10iconic Vasquez Rocks, where numerous Trek episodes have been filmed, including Kirk's infamous encounter
10:16with Gorn. But their car and clothes are stolen in the process, and so they never end up making it to
10:22the convention, and are instead forced to walk to a nearby diner to call the cops. Incidentally,
10:28this was the first episode of the series to cross the 20 million viewer mark, seemingly confirming how
10:35much everyone loved the Trek homage. Number 2. Robot Chicken
10:40Believe it or not, Robot Chicken is still on the air today, and even celebrated its 200th episode
10:46last year, proving the unexpected viability of a stop-motion animated series made with toys,
10:53action figures and plaster scene. While it's fair to say that it has parodied Star Wars far more
10:58extensively, even releasing three Star Wars specials, Robot Chicken has delivered more than 15 skits,
11:05making fun of Star Trek, too. There are a ton of hilarious ones to choose from, though the easy
11:11winner is the Season 7 skit, Star Trek The Sex Generation. Patrick Stewart lends his voice to
11:17portray Captain Picard, who exits the bridge to be relieved by the Enterprise's night crew,
11:22led by Captain Jake, who just so happens to be voiced by Chris Pine of all people. As it turns out,
11:28Captain Jake is a beer-swigging meth head without any real leadership capabilities,
11:32as becomes a major problem when the Borg attack. Jake tries to defuse the situation with a keg party,
11:38but the Borg simply tell him, partying is futile. Yet, when they attempt to assimilate him,
11:44his beer-filled blood sends the Borg into a beer-chugging frenzy. Back on the Enterprise,
11:49a seemingly angry Picard arrives to relieve Jake from his shift, only for Picard to then ask for a beer
11:54and start partying with the crew himself. The fact that Patrick Stewart agrees to play the part
12:00himself makes this a truly legendary parody. 1. Boston Legal
12:06William Shatner spent five seasons playing the legendary attorney Denny Crane on the legal comedy
12:13series Boston Legal, and it goes without saying that the writers simply couldn't resist making
12:18Star Trek references every now and then, but then simply went past mere wink-nudge nods and damn near
12:24implied that, somehow, Denny and Kirk were the same person. In the Season 2 episode Finding Nemo,
12:31Denny and Alan take a fishing trip to British Columbia, where Alan reads a book that describes
12:36a type of sea lice as cling-ons, hilariously prompting Denny to pause and ask, did you say
12:41cling-ons? Later in Season 2, the episode The Cancer Man Can has Denny open up his new flip phone,
12:48which makes the exact same sound as the personal communicators on the original series.
12:53In other episodes, Denny talks about beaming himself to Boston every morning, refers to himself as the
12:58captain of the ship, and even flat out tells reporters that he was once the captain of his
13:03own spaceship. There comes a point where the Metanus is stretched beyond snapping point,
13:08and Boston Legal pretty much got there. You love to see it.
13:12And that concludes our list. If you can think of any other examples, then do let us know in the
13:16comments below, and while you're there, don't forget to like, and subscribe, and tap that
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13:30Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias
13:34just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with Trek Culture. I hope you have
13:38a wonderful day, and remember to boldly go where no one has gone before.
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