Star Trek: The Original Series Trivia
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109 free Star Trek: the Original Series trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Before the films, the spin-offs and the reboots there were 79 episodes of Star Trek on NBC between 1966 and 1969, cancelled after three seasons and then turned into a phenomenon by syndication. This Star Trek original series trivia quiz stays inside those episodes and their making: the rejected pilot with Captain Pike, how Spock survived the network's objections, why Chekov arrived in season two, the tribbles, Khan, the Gorn, the salt vampire, the interracial kiss in Plato's Stepchildren, the fan letter campaign that saved season three, and the composers, designers and guest stars behind the show. The 109 questions run from easy (who plays Dr. McCoy?) to expert (which prop artist designed the communicator?), so it works for casual fans and for people who can quote stardates. Every answer has been checked against documented production and broadcast records rather than fan wikis, so the answer key is one you can trust at a pub quiz.
30 of 109 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Star Trek's final new episode aired just weeks before which real space first?
The first Moon landing
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.
Q 02In Star Trek's opening narration, the Enterprise is on a mission meant to last how long?
Five years
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.
Q 03Which television studio, run by Lucille Ball, made Star Trek when it launched in 1966?
Desilu Productions
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.
Q 04What was the title of Star Trek's rejected first pilot, filmed in late 1964?
The Cage
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.
Q 05Which actor played Captain Christopher Pike in Star Trek's first pilot?
Jeffrey Hunter
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.
Q 06Which actress played Number One in the rejected pilot and later voiced the ship's computer?
Majel Barrett
Majel Barrett went blonde to slip back past NBC as Nurse Christine Chapel, and in 1969 she married the show's creator.
Q 07Lloyd Bridges turned down which Star Trek role in 1964, saying he didn't want to do science fiction?
The captain
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.
Q 08CBS passed on Star Trek in 1964 because it already had which similar show in development?
Lost in Space
Lost in Space, Irwin Allen's family adventure, reached CBS in 1965. Star Trek went to NBC instead and arrived a year later.
Q 09Which Star Trek episode opened the series on NBC on September 8, 1966?
The Man Trap
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.
Q 10The creature in the first broadcast episode drains what from its victims' bodies?
Salt
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.
Q 11Who plays Dr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy?
DeForest Kelley
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.
Q 12Why did Star Trek's makers invent the transporter?
Landing the ship cost too much
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.
Q 13Which series, filmed at the same studio, did Leonard Nimoy join after Star Trek was cancelled?
Mission: Impossible
Q 21Which costume designer created the Starfleet uniforms and the Klingon and Vulcan looks?
Bill Theiss
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.
Q 22Which fan organised the 1967-68 letter-writing campaign that won Star Trek a third season?
Bjo Trimble
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.
Q 23Students from which university led the January 1968 march on NBC's Burbank studios to save Star Trek?
Caltech
Mission: Impossible hired Nimoy in 1969 as the disguise expert Paris. He replaced Martin Landau, who had once been considered for Spock.
Q 14Which character was added in season two, partly to appeal to teenage girls, and played by Walter Koenig?
Pavel Chekov
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.
Q 15George Takei missed half of season two because he was filming which John Wayne movie?
The Green Berets
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.
Q 16Which Monkee was the visual model for the young ensign Walter Koenig played on Star Trek?
Davy Jones
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.
Q 17Nichelle Nichols' Lieutenant Uhura held which post aboard the Enterprise?
Communications officer
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.
Q 18Which Star Trek crew member, played by Grace Lee Whitney, left partway through the first season?
Yeoman Janice Rand
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.
Q 19Which Star Trek art director designed the Enterprise bridge and gave his name to its maintenance tubes?
Matt Jefferies
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.
Q 20Which of these did sculptor Wah Chang design and build for Star Trek?
The communicator
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.
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.
Q 24NBC moved Star Trek to which time slot for its third and final season?
10 pm Friday
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.
Q 25Which hit comedy's producer refused to reschedule his show to make room for Star Trek in 1968?
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
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.
Q 26Which famous Star Trek catchphrase was never actually spoken in those exact words on screen?
Beam me up, Scotty
'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.
Q 27Which season three premiere is often called the worst episode of the original Star Trek series?
Spock's Brain
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.
Q 28Which Star Trek episode, the last of the original series to air, has a woman swap bodies with Kirk?
Turnabout Intruder
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.
Q 29In The Trouble with Tribbles, which interstellar trader brings the furry creatures aboard station K7?
Cyrano Jones
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.
Q 30Who wrote the Star Trek episode The Trouble with Tribbles?
David Gerrold
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.