109 Fun Facts About Star Trek: the Original Series

Star Trek's final new episode aired just weeks before which real space first?

The first Moon landing mission lifted off in July 1969, six weeks after the last episode went out. NBC had dropped its space adventure just as real astronauts were about to walk on another world.

In Star Trek's opening narration, the Enterprise is on a mission meant to last how long?

Five years was the plan, but NBC cancelled the show after three seasons and 79 episodes. It found its real audience later, replayed on local stations through the 1970s.

Which television studio, run by Lucille Ball, made Star Trek when it launched in 1966?

Desilu Productions was the studio Lucille Ball had founded with her husband Desi Arnaz. When members of her own board balked at the cost of Star Trek, she backed the show anyway.

What was the title of Star Trek's rejected first pilot, filmed in late 1964?

The Cage struck NBC as 'too cerebral', but the network took the rare step of paying for a second try. Of the crew in that first version, only Mr. Spock kept his post.

Which actor played Captain Christopher Pike in Star Trek's first pilot?

Jeffrey Hunter turned down the second pilot, preferring to stay in films, so the lead went to William Shatner. His scenes as Pike were later reused inside a two-part episode of the series.

Which actress played Number One in the rejected pilot and later voiced the ship's computer?

Majel Barrett went blonde to slip back past NBC as Nurse Christine Chapel, and in 1969 she married the show's creator.

Lloyd Bridges turned down which Star Trek role in 1964, saying he didn't want to do science fiction?

The captain was the part Lloyd Bridges refused in 1964. He later played a space commander anyway, guest-starring in Battlestar Galactica in 1978 as Commander Cain.

CBS passed on Star Trek in 1964 because it already had which similar show in development?

Lost in Space, Irwin Allen's family adventure, reached CBS in 1965. Star Trek went to NBC instead and arrived a year later.

Which Star Trek episode opened the series on NBC on September 8, 1966?

The Man Trap was only the sixth episode filmed. It went first because it had a monster to thrill viewers and a simple action plot.

The creature in the first broadcast episode drains what from its victims' bodies?

Salt is all it craves, so fans call it the salt vampire. To stop it, McCoy has to shoot a creature wearing the face of his former love, Nancy.

Who plays Dr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy?

DeForest Kelley, a veteran of Westerns such as Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, was offered the part of Spock in 1964 and turned it down.

Why did Star Trek's makers invent the transporter?

Landing the ship cost too much to film every week, so the crew simply faded from one set to the next. The shortcut also saved screen time, putting them on a planet within minutes.

Which series, filmed at the same studio, did Leonard Nimoy join after Star Trek was cancelled?

Mission: Impossible hired Nimoy in 1969 as the disguise expert Paris. He replaced Martin Landau, who had once been considered for Spock.

Which character was added in season two, partly to appeal to teenage girls, and played by Walter Koenig?

Pavel Chekov was announced as the answer to a Pravda complaint that the crew had no Russians. Koenig doubts the article ever existed, since the show never aired in the USSR.

George Takei missed half of season two because he was filming which John Wayne movie?

The Green Berets ran over schedule, so many of Sulu's lines went to Walter Koenig. When Takei came back, the two had to share a dressing room.

Which Monkee was the visual model for the young ensign Walter Koenig played on Star Trek?

Davy Jones was the teen idol the producers wanted to echo. Koenig, already 30, wore a Jones-style mop-top wig until his own hair grew long enough.

Nichelle Nichols' Lieutenant Uhura held which post aboard the Enterprise?

Communications officer was a job Nichols nearly gave up after one season. Martin Luther King Jr., a fan of the show, persuaded her to stay.

Which Star Trek crew member, played by Grace Lee Whitney, left partway through the first season?

Yeoman Janice Rand was written out, Whitney was told, to leave Kirk free for romances with each week's guest stars. She came back years later in the films.

Which Star Trek art director designed the Enterprise bridge and gave his name to its maintenance tubes?

Matt Jefferies, who flew in B-17 bombers in the war, laid out the bridge. He later complained that The Next Generation had turned it into the lobby of the Hilton.

Which of these did sculptor Wah Chang design and build for Star Trek?

The communicator was Wah Chang's design, and so was the tricorder. He built the hand phasers too, but those were drawn up by the show's art director.

Which costume designer created the Starfleet uniforms and the Klingon and Vulcan looks?

Bill Theiss first dressed the women of the crew in trousers. The famous miniskirt came at the request of actress Grace Lee Whitney, who disliked the early uniform.

Which fan organised the 1967-68 letter-writing campaign that won Star Trek a third season?

Bjo Trimble ran the drive with her husband John. In the 1970s she helped lead another letter campaign, which got NASA's first space shuttle named Enterprise.

Students from which university led the January 1968 march on NBC's Burbank studios to save Star Trek?

Caltech students led the march through the streets of Burbank on a Saturday night, their protest signs lit up in the dark. Their campus paper called it the first organised student demonstration about television programming.

NBC moved Star Trek to which time slot for its third and final season?

10 pm Friday was what remained after NBC withdrew its promise of an early Monday evening. The show's creator kept his title but walked away from the daily work.

Which hit comedy's producer refused to reschedule his show to make room for Star Trek in 1968?

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In was one of NBC's biggest hits, and producer George Schlatter would not let it be rescheduled to make room. NBC gave way, and Star Trek was left with the slot nobody wanted.

Which famous Star Trek catchphrase was never actually spoken in those exact words on screen?

'Beam me up, Scotty' is a misquote: the nearest Kirk came on the show was 'Scotty, beam us up'. The actor who played the engineer still made it the title of his 1996 memoir.

Which season three premiere is often called the worst episode of the original Star Trek series?

Spock's Brain has an alien woman steal the first officer's brain to run her underground city. William Shatner later joked that the plot was a 'tribute' to the NBC executives who had slashed the budget.

Which Star Trek episode, the last of the original series to air, has a woman swap bodies with Kirk?

Turnabout Intruder was due to air in March 1969 but was bumped by news coverage of Dwight Eisenhower's death. It finally went out in June, long after the rest of the season.

In The Trouble with Tribbles, which interstellar trader brings the furry creatures aboard station K7?

Cyrano Jones gives the first tribble to Uhura, and its offspring overrun the ship. His punishment is to clear every last one off the station, a job Spock reckons will take 17.9 years.

Who wrote the Star Trek episode The Trouble with Tribbles?

David Gerrold made it his first professional sale. The producers then learned how closely tribbles resembled the flat cats in a Robert Heinlein novel, and Heinlein agreed to let it pass.

Which Star Trek spin-off digitally placed its cast inside The Trouble with Tribbles for a 1996 anniversary episode?

Deep Space Nine marked the franchise's 30th anniversary by sending its crew back into the 1967 footage. Charlie Brill, the Klingon spy of the original, returned to play the same character as an old man.

Which Star Trek season two premiere introduced the Vulcan salute and the mating cycle known as pon farr?

Amok Time ends with Spock sure he has killed his captain in a Vulcan wedding duel. McCoy's injection had only faked the death, and the relieved first officer breaks into a rare open grin.

Leonard Nimoy based the Vulcan salute on a priestly hand gesture from which religion?

Judaism's priestly blessing uses the same split-fingered hands, which Nimoy first saw as a boy at his grandfather's synagogue. He proposed the gesture himself when Spock needed a Vulcan greeting.

Which Star Trek episode, written by Harlan Ellison, sends Kirk and Spock to Depression-era America?

The City on the Edge of Forever turns on a cruel choice: if Kirk saves the woman he loves, her peace movement keeps America out of the war long enough for Hitler to win. He lets her die.

In Star Trek, which actress plays Edith Keeler, the Depression-era soup-kitchen worker Kirk falls in love with?

Joan Collins says she had never heard of Star Trek when the offer came. She took the part because her young daughter jumped up and down and told her it was a great show.

What Star Trek staple did Leonard Nimoy invent because he felt a blow to the head was too brutal for Spock?

The nerve pinch replaced a scripted knockout of Kirk's evil double. By Nimoy's account the director couldn't follow the idea, but William Shatner grasped it at once, and his reaction on camera sold it.

In the Star Trek episode Arena, which alien captain must Kirk fight one-on-one on a barren world?

A Gorn, a hulking lizard-like captain, is far stronger than Kirk, who builds a cannon from bamboo, home-made gunpowder and diamonds. He then spares his wounded foe, which impresses the aliens who staged the duel.

Ricardo Montalbán first played Khan Noonien Singh in which first-season Star Trek episode?

Space Seed ends with Kirk exiling Khan to a harsh, empty planet rather than jailing him. Spock wonders aloud what that seed will have grown into in a hundred years, and a later film gave the answer.

In the original Star Trek series, Khan and his followers were the product of what?

Selective breeding was meant to perfect humanity, but it produced ambitious tyrants instead. Khan ruled more than a quarter of Earth in the 1990s before fleeing with his followers in a sleeper ship.

Which alien species did the Star Trek episode Balance of Terror introduce, along with the cloaking device?

Romulans turn out to look just like Vulcans, which sets a bigoted crewman against Spock. Mark Lenard played their commander and returned the next season as Spock's father.

In the Star Trek episode Mirror, Mirror, how can viewers instantly tell the alternate-universe Spock apart?

He has a goatee, but the bearded Spock is still ruled by logic. Kirk argues that a brutal empire cannot last, and the first officer promises to consider overthrowing it.

Which Star Trek episode has McCoy first protest 'I'm a doctor, not a...', when told to heal a wounded rock creature?

The Devil in the Dark has him finish the line with 'bricklayer', then patch the silicon-based Horta with building cement. The monster turns out to be a mother guarding her eggs from the miners.

Which Star Trek episode features the Kirk and Uhura kiss often miscalled American television's first interracial kiss?

Plato's Stepchildren has telekinetic aliens force the pair together. Nichelle Nichols recalled that she and William Shatner spoiled every take of a kiss-free version on purpose, so the real one stayed in.

Who composed the famous theme tune for the original Star Trek series?

Alexander Courage lost half his royalties when the show's creator wrote lyrics to the wordless theme purely to claim a co-writer's share. The words were never meant to be sung.

The original Star Trek series earned 13 nominations for which award without ever winning?

An Emmy Award eluded the show all 13 times, including three straight supporting-actor nominations for Leonard Nimoy. The Television Academy finally honoured the whole franchise with a Governors Award in 2018.

Which science-fiction honour did the original Star Trek series win in 1967 and 1968?

The Hugo Award is voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention, and in 1968 they filled all five dramatic-presentation slots with Star Trek episodes. The show could only lose to itself.

What term, from the fate of Star Trek's anonymous security crewmen, means a character who exists only to die?

Redshirt comes from the red uniforms worn by Star Trek's security guards and engineers. Nameless ones joined the leads on risky missions and died quickly, a cheap way to show that the danger was real.

Which toy company made the 8-inch Star Trek action figures of the 1970s, then missed out on the Star Wars licence?

Mego missed the Star Wars licence, which went to rival Kenner, whose figures sold in vast numbers. Mego filed for bankruptcy in 1982.

Which Star Trek actor stormed Juno Beach on D-Day and lost a finger to machine-gun fire that night?

James Doohan, who played the ship's chief engineer, also took a bullet to the chest, which was stopped by a cigarette case. On screen he usually kept his damaged right hand out of shot.

Which city hosted the first major Star Trek convention in 1972, when thousands came and only hundreds were expected?

New York drew about 3,000 fans that January, when the organisers had pictured a few hundred. The series had been cancelled nearly three years earlier, and the show's creator came to speak.

Star Trek easily won its time slot on its 1966 NBC debut, when it faced mostly what on the rival networks?

Repeats made up most of the competition that night, and Star Trek took more than 40 percent of the audience. A week later, against new programming, it fell behind CBS.

In which country did Star Trek have its world premiere, two days before its American debut?

Canada's CTV network aired the first episode on September 6, 1966, two days ahead of NBC. Canadian stations often ran American shows early, so that viewers near the border watched them on a local channel first.

Which Star Trek film was reworked from the pilot script of the abandoned Phase II television series?

The Motion Picture grew out of 'In Thy Image', the opener written for Phase II. Its effects ran so late that it was never test-screened, and director Robert Wise carried the first print to the premiere himself.

Star Trek's creator pitched the series to studios and networks as what?

'Wagon Train to the stars' borrowed a hit Western so that executives could picture the format: a self-contained adventure each week inside one long journey. The show's creator had written for Westerns himself.

Which Star Trek episode, with an amnesiac Kirk living among a tribe, was the third season's only one shot largely outdoors?

The Paradise Syndrome spent three days at a reservoir above Los Angeles, the same water seen as the fishing hole in The Andy Griffith Show's credits. Budget cuts kept almost all the rest of the season on sound stages.

In 1974, Paramount gave the 11-foot Enterprise model used to film Star Trek to which institution?

The Smithsonian took it for the National Air and Space Museum. After a multi-year restoration the fictional starship was unveiled in 2016 in the museum's Milestones of Flight hall.

Which star, inspired as a girl by seeing Uhura on Star Trek, asked for a part in The Next Generation?

Whoopi Goldberg recalls running to her mother shouting that there was a Black lady on television 'and she ain't no maid'. Years later she played Guinan in The Next Generation and two of its films.

In Star Trek's first season, an infected Sulu strips to the waist and stalks the corridors waving what?

A fencing sword fits his fantasy: the infection removes inhibitions, and the helmsman sees himself as a dashing musketeer. George Takei took it seriously and practised his swordplay on set between scenes.

Which 1999 comedy, about actors from a cancelled space show whom aliens mistake for real heroes, spoofs Star Trek?

Galaxy Quest teases the show and its fans so fondly that they adopted it. At a Las Vegas convention in 2013, Star Trek fans voted it the seventh-best Star Trek film, ahead of several real ones.

A 1976 letter campaign by Star Trek fans got which NASA craft named Enterprise?

The first Space Shuttle was due to be called Constitution until fans' letters reached President Gerald Ford. Most of the Star Trek cast attended its rollout.

On screen, Star Trek command officers such as Kirk wear shirts of which colour?

Gold is only how they photographed. Most command shirts were really chartreuse green, turning golden-yellow under the studio lights and on film.

Which Star Trek cast member had already fought a gremlin on an airliner's wing in The Twilight Zone?

William Shatner played the terrified passenger in Nightmare at 20,000 Feet in 1963, three years before Star Trek. Nobody else on the plane believes what he sees.

Which country kept Star Trek's Nazi-themed Patterns of Force off television until the 1990s?

Germany skipped it in both original runs of the series because the planet's rulers wear swastikas, and no dubbed version was made until 1995.

After rejecting Star Trek's pilot episode as too cerebral, NBC took which unusual step?

NBC commissioned another one, a rare second chance in television. Of the first pilot's characters, only Spock was kept.

Which former Los Angeles police officer and Pan Am pilot created Star Trek?

Gene Roddenberry sold his first television scripts while still serving on the force, then resigned in 1956 to write full time.

Which Star Trek rule forbids Starfleet from interfering in the development of alien civilizations?

The Prime Directive is first cited in The Return of the Archons, where Spock raises it just as Kirk proposes destroying a computer that controls a whole civilization.

Which rare Star Trek crystals regulate the matter-antimatter reaction in the Enterprise's engines?

Dilithium could not be manufactured in the original series, so the hunt for fresh crystals became a recurring plot.

What registry number is painted on the saucer of Star Trek's original starship Enterprise?

NCC-1701 borrows from real aviation: NC was one of the registration codes assigned to aircraft from the United States.

Which Star Trek sidearm, carried by Kirk's crew, can be set either to stun or to kill?

The phaser replaced the laser pistols carried in the rejected first pilot. NASA has described it as a fictional extrapolation of the real laser.

In the original Star Trek, what do the letters USS stand for in USS Enterprise?

United Space Ship is the meaning given in The Making of Star Trek, the behind-the-scenes book that also files the Enterprise under the Starship Class.

Which invented calendar unit opens the log entries Kirk narrates in the original Star Trek?

The stardate was invented so the scripts never had to say which century Star Trek takes place in, heading off arguments about what would exist by then.

Which Star Trek device, carried on a shoulder strap, does Spock use to scan unfamiliar planets?

The tricorder is named for its three jobs of sensing, recording and computing. When closed, the original prop resembles a portable tape recorder.

Riverside bills itself as the future birthplace of Star Trek's James T. Kirk in which US state?

Iowa was named as Kirk's home state in a book about the making of Star Trek. Riverside claimed the title in 1985 when it needed a theme for its town festival.

Which of Spock's features did nervous NBC executives airbrush out of early Star Trek publicity?

His pointed ears were smoothed off in the network's promotional material once the show went to series. After eight episodes the same executives complained there was not enough Spock.

What name is given to the telepathic link Spock makes by touching another being's face in Star Trek?

The mind meld first appears in Dagger of the Mind. Spock later uses it on a rock creature, a space probe and a humpback whale.

Which board game appears in the original Star Trek as a futuristic prop with three stacked levels?

Chess got its three-level look from a prop assembled out of shop-bought 3D checkers and 3D tic-tac-toe boards. Nobody ever wrote rules for it on the show.

The starship Enterprise in Star Trek was named in honour of which kind of real US Navy warship?

An aircraft carrier named Enterprise was the most decorated American ship of the Second World War, a record the show's creator said had particularly fascinated him.

Which California park played so many Star Trek planets that its outcrop is nicknamed after Kirk?

Vasquez Rocks stood in for alien worlds in four episodes of the original series. Decades later Star Trek: Picard finally filmed the place as itself.

Which child actor, later seen in Apollo 13, played the alien Balok in Star Trek at age seven?

Clint Howard appears only at the end of The Corbomite Maneuver, his voice dubbed by an adult actor, and went on to guest in several later Star Trek series.

Which Star Trek con man, played by Roger C. Carmel, returns ruling a planet of androids?

Harry Mudd keeps an android copy of his nagging wife Stella on that planet, because this version can be silenced with a single order.

Which two-part Star Trek story puts Spock on trial for abducting his disabled former commander?

The Menagerie was built around footage from the unaired first pilot, so both parts together needed only a week of new filming.

In which Star Trek episode must Kirk kill his friend Gary Mitchell, who has gained godlike powers?

Where No Man Has Gone Before guest-stars Sally Kellerman, later of M*A*S*H, as the ship's psychiatrist, who gains the same powers and turns them on Mitchell.

Which Star Trek episode has a transporter fault split Kirk into gentle and vicious halves?

The Enemy Within gives the same treatment to a dog-like alien animal, which beams up as one docile copy and one savage one.

Which Star Trek episode visits a planet that modelled its culture on a book about Chicago gangsters?

A Piece of the Action has Kirk escape his guards by teaching them Fizzbin, a card game he invents as he goes along.

In which Star Trek episode does the shattered Commodore Matt Decker seize command of the Enterprise?

The Doomsday Machine is a miles-long robot weapon that tears planets apart for fuel. It has already wiped out Decker's crew when he pulls rank to attack it.

Which Star Trek episode introduced the Klingons, with John Colicos as the occupying governor Kor?

Errand of Mercy ends with the planet's placid villagers revealing themselves as highly advanced beings without bodies, who never needed protecting.

Which blue-skinned species with antennae makes its Star Trek debut in Journey to Babel?

Andorians share their debut with the Tellarites, and it is a member of the Andorian party who stabs Kirk on the way to the conference.

Which Star Trek ambassador, played by Mark Lenard, turns out to be Spock's estranged father?

Sarek had not spoken to his son for 18 years, disapproving of his choice of Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy. A transfusion of Spock's blood then saves his life.

What does Star Trek call the faster-than-light engines whose speed is counted in numbered factors?

Warp drive, unlike the jump drives of other fiction, is not instantaneous: every journey still takes a measurable stretch of time.

Which Star Trek story editor, writer of Journey to Babel, began as the creator's secretary?

D. C. Fontana wrote under initials so her pitches would not be prejudged as a woman's, and was promoted from secretary to story editor during the first season.

Why did Star Trek's creator secretly write lyrics, never meant to be sung, for its theme tune?

To claim half the royalties, he registered himself as the theme's lyricist without telling its composer, who later called the move unethical.

Which astronomer's name is on the Star Trek shuttlecraft Spock crash-lands on a planet of giants?

Galileo comes down on Taurus II, where Spock's decision to frighten the spear-throwing natives instead of killing them splits his stranded team.

Which future star of Tootsie played secretary Roberta Lincoln in a 1968 Star Trek episode?

Teri Garr got her first significant television role in Assignment: Earth, a backdoor pilot for a spin-off that no network ever ordered.

Which Star Trek episode visits a planet that makes thoughts real, starting with a white rabbit?

Shore Leave reveals the planet as an alien amusement park, though not before Kirk enjoys a fistfight with Finnegan, his tormentor from Academy days.

Which faster-than-light pioneer does a lovestruck alien keep young in Star Trek's Metamorphosis?

Zefram Cochrane had flown off as an old man intending to die in space. The entity that rescued him restored his youth and then refused to let him go.

Which actor, The Addams Family's butler Lurch, played the android Ruk in Star Trek?

Ted Cassidy also lent his deep voice to two other Star Trek aliens, among them the menacing dummy on the viewscreen in The Corbomite Maneuver.

Which author of the novel Psycho also wrote Star Trek's Jack the Ripper story, Wolf in the Fold?

Robert Bloch reused his old idea of the Ripper as an immortal being: the killer is a bodiless entity that frames Scotty and then takes over the ship's computer.

In Star Trek's early development, which name did the starship carry before it became the Enterprise?

Yorktown was dropped because the show's creator had always been proud of the wartime Enterprise and wanted to use her name.

Which starship does the M-5 leave adrift with all hands dead in Star Trek's The Ultimate Computer?

Excalibur was the worst hit of the four ships sent for the war game. The same barrage killed 53 people aboard another of them.

In Star Trek's The Ultimate Computer, which slang for a useless part does Wesley pin on Kirk?

Dunsel is Starfleet Academy slang, and it stings: the M-5 has just won its first war game without any help from Kirk, and the joke leaves him troubled.

William Marshall, Daystrom in Star Trek's The Ultimate Computer, later played which screen vampire?

Blacula made William Marshall a horror star in 1972, though he was a Shakespearean first, playing Othello in at least six stage productions.

In Star Trek's The Ultimate Computer, whose memory engrams has Daystrom imprinted on the M-5?

His own engrams gave the M-5 a human mind working at machine speed. When Daystrom tries to reason with it, the talk collapses into a lament over his career.

How does Kirk finally get the M-5 to shut itself down in Star Trek's The Ultimate Computer?

Convincing it it is a murderer works because the M-5 says its purpose is to protect lives. It decides it must die, and the shutdown cripples the Enterprise too.

What is the Woden, which the M-5 destroys unprovoked in Star Trek's The Ultimate Computer?

An unmanned freighter posed no threat at all. When Kirk orders the M-5 switched off after the attack, he finds it protected by a force field.

Which famous author passed a fan's story for The Ultimate Computer on to Star Trek's creator?

Ray Bradbury was handed the draft by Laurence Wolfe, a mathematician, to pass along. Forbes later named the episode among the franchise's ten best on advanced technology.

Which gamble by Kirk stops Wesley destroying the Enterprise in Star Trek's The Ultimate Computer?

Drifting with shields down was the only signal Kirk could send with communications dead, and the commodore called off the attack at the last moment.

Which poet wrote Sea-Fever, the seafaring verse Kirk quotes in Star Trek's The Ultimate Computer?

John Masefield's sea poem plainly stayed with Kirk, who quotes it again two decades later in the film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

In Star Trek's The Ultimate Computer, the M-5 is introduced as which revolutionary kind of system?

Multitronic control was meant to run every ship function without human help. The M-5's first odd move is cutting power and life support to unoccupied decks.

Which Star Trek episode sends the Enterprise back to 1960s Earth, where an Air Force jet meets it?

Tomorrow Is Yesterday has the crew beam the jet's pilot aboard to save his life, then undo the whole encounter by returning him to the instant it began.