10 Awkward Things That Must Have Happened After Star Trek Episodes
The most awkward moments in Star Trek history may have happened off camera.
Transcript
00:00 The storylines of Star Trek episodes aren't always wrapped up perfectly.
00:03 Sometimes things are only implied to happen after the events of an episode,
00:06 but never actually shown. In this video we're going over the examples that stand out as
00:10 particularly awkward. We're looking at creepy situations, embarrassing mistakes,
00:14 ridiculous mission reports, and more things that would have been super uncomfortable for
00:18 characters after the fact. When you look into the details you'll realise that these things
00:22 must have happened, which is unfortunate because some of our examples nearly ruin
00:26 the episode they come from. With that being said, I'm long-term editor, first-time presenter,
00:30 Tom Roberts Finn, and this is 10 awkward things that must have happened after Star Trek episodes.
00:36 Number 10 - Barclay's soiled reputation
00:38 The holodeck is a brilliant invention, but as we've learned many times before,
00:43 it can be easily abused in some truly disturbing ways. In the Next Generation episode "Hollow
00:48 Pursuits", which you knew we'd have to talk about at some point, we got introduced to
00:51 hollow addiction. Lieutenant Reginald Barclay became so obsessed with holographic fantasies
00:55 that he started completely avoiding real-world interaction and showing up late for work.
00:59 Eventually, La Forge went looking for Barclay and walked in on him playing a holodeck program
01:03 where he fought and demeaned holograms of his superior officers in a 17th century setting.
01:08 La Forge tried to explain that it was weird to recreate real people on the holodeck and
01:12 tried to help him out of his addiction, but it persisted and he was soon caught in the act once
01:17 again. This time, Riker, La Forge, and Troy all barged in to find the same program running and
01:21 encountered the Goddess of Empathy, a sexualized recreation of Counsellor Deanna Troy, who was
01:26 madly in love with Barclay. They responded incredibly calmly, given how weird and invasive
01:31 this program was. Regardless, it must have been hard for the three of them, especially Deanna,
01:35 to walk past Barclay in the corridors after seeing all of that. Like Riker said, there should have
01:39 really been some rules on the books against recreating real people on the holodeck. Maybe
01:43 these rules were created later because of Barclay's creepy programs.
01:47 Number 9. Archer's Cold Front Report
01:49 Cold Front was one of the most embarrassing moments in Captain Archer's career. This
01:53 Enterprise episode revealed that Crewman Daniels was actually a fighter in the Temporal Cold War,
01:58 originating from the 31st century. After the episode, Archer would have had to explain to
02:03 Starfleet Command that not only was Daniels able to hide his identity and his futuristic technology,
02:08 but he also claimed to be from the future, something that the Vulcans firmly believed
02:11 was impossible at the time. Then, Daniels' future tech, the Temporal Observatory,
02:15 and his phasing device were both destroyed and Daniels was thought to have been killed,
02:19 leaving no evidence for the story he gave. The Vulcan scientists and authorities were
02:24 probably even more shocked than Starfleet to hear Archer's report. Their scepticism of time travel
02:28 came up again later in the series, but the fact that Daniels was presumed killed before he could
02:33 even face questioning must have made some Vulcans suspect foul play, or some sort of cover up on
02:38 Archer's behalf to hide the mistakes of Earth's most famous crew. Basically, it would have been
02:42 pretty hard to convince anyone who wasn't there that the Temporal War was real and the events of
02:47 Cold Front actually happened. Number 8. The Problem with the Doctor's Daydreams
02:51 In the Voyager episode, "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy," Seven and B'Elanna discovered a part of
02:57 the Doctor's program that probably made life aboard the ship much more awkward. In the episode,
03:02 the Doctor added a sub-routine to his program that allowed him to daydream. Unfortunately,
03:06 a hierarchy vessel tapped into his daydreams, causing them to become unpredictable and
03:11 uncontrollable. In an effort to repair him, Torres routed his daydreams through the holodeck
03:15 projectors, allowing herself, Janeway, Seven and Kim to observe them for themselves. They got to
03:21 see the Doctor playing out his fantasy of taking command of Voyager and saving the ship, but also
03:26 some more personal desires. His other daydreams were of painting a nude, erotically posed Seven
03:30 of Nine and breaking up with B'Elanna, who cried that Tom Paris wasn't half the man the Doctor was.
03:35 Seven of Nine seemed fairly unfazed by the Doctor's fantasies. She even gave him a small
03:39 kiss at the end of the episode, explaining that it was purely platonic. But it was likely that
03:43 things were pretty awkward between him and B'Elanna after she learned his feelings for her,
03:47 and his jealousy for Paris. She may have even told Tom, which would really make for a weird
03:51 dynamic whenever he assisted in sickbay. It also must have been a bit uncomfortable for B'Elanna
03:56 to know that her physician had romantic feelings for her. Number Seven, Picard readjusting to life
04:02 on the Enterprise. Picard's been through a lot of awful sh*t in his life. His mother died when
04:07 he was young, he was stabbed by a Nausicaan, tortured by the Cardassians and assimilated by
04:11 the Borg to name but a few. Yet the most traumatic moment in his life was probably the events of the
04:15 Inner Light. In this episode, he lived an entire decade of a life that wasn't his, inside of an
04:20 alien simulation. The ordeal only lasted a few minutes in reality, but for him it was a whole
04:24 other life, and the show barely expanded on what this meant for him. Maybe the writers just figured
04:29 Picard got enough therapy in the episode family, after the best of both worlds. Still, some time
04:34 must have needed to pass before Picard was ready to captain the ship again. He probably spent a lot
04:37 of time off duty to process what happened to him. He spent so long in the simulation that he likely
04:42 forgot command codes, regulations and maybe even some of his crew and friends. The very next episode
04:47 is the dramatic two-parter time travel story, Time's Arrow, so we can only hope that Picard
04:51 had at least a few weeks to sit around and mentally recover before immediately going on
04:55 to save all of humanity. Number Six, The Hyde and Q report. After Hyde and Q, it's doubtful that
05:02 Starfleet Command would have approved of Riker giving up his Q powers so quickly. He could have
05:06 done a lot of good for the Federation with those abilities. He could have cured any disease,
05:10 invented new technology to defend the Federation or practically anything else. Instead, he briefly
05:15 played around with giving his friends their greatest desires and then gave up on his powers
05:19 when he realised they didn't actually want his help. Picard and Riker would have had to explain
05:22 to Command that they gave up this huge opportunity simply because they thought that it was too much
05:27 power for a human and probably because Riker didn't want to risk changing his identity.
05:32 Number Five, The Trouble with Tribble Disposal. At the end of The Trouble with Tribbles,
05:36 Scotty removed the Tribbles from the Enterprise by beaming them directly onto the Klingon ship.
05:40 This was a bit messed up on a few levels. Besides the fact that this could have been enough to start
05:44 a war, Scotty also condemned thousands of innocent creatures to gruesome, painful deaths. We know
05:49 that the Klingons despised Tribbles and an infestation of them would almost certainly
05:53 lead to a bloodbath. The creatures would continue to multiply as they were hunted and the Klingons
05:58 would soon need to start taking them out faster and faster. Honestly, it would have been more
06:01 humane to just beam the Tribbles right into space. Their deaths would have probably been quicker than
06:05 at the hands of the Klingons, who aren't exactly known for their mercy.
06:09 Number Four, Spock Getting Teased. Spock's friends on the Enterprise responded pretty
06:14 maturely when they learned about Spock's pon far in the TOS episode 'A Mock Time'. They wouldn't
06:19 mock him for something out of his control, no matter how strange the Vulcan mating rituals may
06:23 seem to humans. However, at the end of the episode when Spock realised that he didn't actually kill
06:27 Captain Kirk, he let his emotions show for a moment, shouting 'Jim' and smiling from pointed
06:32 ear to pointed ear. He tried to play it off, but Kirk, McCoy and Nurse Chapel all saw what happened.
06:37 Spock revealed in this moment that he cared deeply for his friend, Kirk, something that he
06:41 rarely made clear with his words. It's not hard to imagine the three witnesses teasing Spock about
06:46 his secret feelings. I know I would. Loser. Number Three, Interstellar Traffic Cops.
06:52 We've talked a lot about the Next Gen episode 'Force of Nature', which showed that warp travel
06:56 was slowly damaging space. At the end of the episode, a speed limit of warp fire was put in
07:01 place throughout Federation space, except in extreme emergencies. As we've gone over before,
07:06 Starfleet never really followed this limit and we never got any solution to the problem in canon.
07:11 One thing we haven't really discussed was the fact that the Federation authorities would likely
07:15 have to patrol their space to catch any civilian ships exceeding the speed limit, sort of like
07:19 Interstellar Traffic Cops. We can only imagine the outrage of civilian freighter captains,
07:24 who would almost certainly have their profits cut down because of the warp 5 limit. Who knows,
07:28 the damage could have been minimised with new technology sometime shortly after the episode,
07:33 or Federation authorities may have continued to impose this speed limit on the civilians in their
07:37 space, while allowing Starfleet to continually and blatantly ignore it. Number Two, The Crew
07:42 Realising Captain Freeman's Mistake. We learned a lot about the Federation news network in the
07:47 Lower Decks episode 'Trusted Sources'. An FNN reporter came aboard the Cerritos to do a story
07:52 on its mission and crew during Project Swimby, the mission to return and offer assistance to
07:56 planets visited by Starfleet in the past. Captain Freeman was worried about her daughter Beckett,
08:01 making the Cerritos look bad, so she ordered her not to speak to FNN under any circumstances.
08:05 Beckett then did an interview behind her mother's back and the captain was so mad that she transferred
08:10 her off the ship onto the dreaded Starbase 18. Once the FNN story aired, Freeman realised that
08:15 Beckett had actually given a very charitable interview, which she probably would have known
08:18 if she just bothered to ask. Of course, Beckett wasn't eager to accept her apology after the fact,
08:23 choosing instead to run off with Picard's contracted archaeologist friend Petra Aberdeen.
08:27 The rest of the crew were taken out of context and the FNN expose nearly led to the entire
08:31 California class being decommissioned. Beckett and her mother made amends at the end of the next
08:36 episode, but kicking her daughter off the ship was definitely one of Captain Freeman's most
08:39 embarrassing moments. The whole crew had to say goodbye to their friend because Freeman was just
08:43 too stubborn to hear her daughter out. Number 1. Janeway's Reunion With Mark
08:48 Voyager's early return home to Earth led to celebrations all across the Federation. It was
08:53 a wonderful time for the entire crew, but Captain Janeway may have had a bit of an awkward reunion
08:58 with her ex-fiancé, Mark. About four years after Voyager was lost, they were able to use the
09:02 Hirogen subspace relay network to contact Starfleet in the episode "Hunters", and the crew were finally
09:07 able to contact their loved ones. Janeway was excited at first to speak to Mark once again,
09:12 but her mood quickly changed when she learned what he had been up to while she was gone. Mark held
09:15 out hope for longer than most, but eventually came to the conclusion that Janeway had died and decided
09:20 to move on with his life. He was devastated to lose his fiancé, yet he went on to marry his
09:24 co-worker only six months after Voyager was lost. Janeway was heartbroken, but understood that Mark
09:29 needed to move on eventually, although getting married to another woman only six months later
09:32 was a tad surprising. We can imagine that Janeway and Mark's reunion after Endgame was far less
09:36 romantic than she hoped. This is especially sad when you re-watch the episode "Elogium" when
09:40 Janeway told Chakotay she intended to get home before Mark gave her up for dead.
09:45 That was 10 Awkward Things That Must Have Happened After Star Trek Episodes.
09:48 If you can think of anything else that we missed and you really can't keep it to yourself,
09:51 let us know down in the comments. You can find us on Twitter @TrekCulture and on Instagram @TrekCultureYT.
09:57 You can find myself on Twitter @TomCFinn and on various other socials as well. I've even talked
10:02 to some of the Trek Culture gang on my podcast Creative Roots with TC Roberts Finn, so be sure
10:06 to check that out too. Thanks all for watching and until next time, bye bye.