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 parodied 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 subtler
00:30than others with their references, but each surely left a huge smile on the face of any
00:35fan watching. So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Trek Culture and here are 10 times
00:41Star Trek appeared in other TV shows.
00:44Number 10, The Simpsons. It is no secret that The Simpsons creator Matt Groening and his
00:50writer's room are big fans of Star Trek, which has been continually referenced in more
00:56than 50 episodes of the animated sitcom. But the most memorable of them all was a more
01:01involved parody of the original series in 1992's season 4 episode, Itchy and Scratchy
01:07the Movie. The episode begins with a mocking foe trailer for a new Star Trek film entitled
01:13Star Trek 12 So Very Tired, with an over-the-hill Captain Kirk monologuing Captain's Log, Stargate
01:206051. Had trouble sleeping last night. My hiatal hernia is acting up. The ship is drafty
01:26and damp. I complain, but nobody listens.
01:29The trailer narrator assures audiences the film will be the crew's latest greatest adventure,
01:35all while Sulu is seen sporting a cane and Scotty is too overweight to reach the control
01:40panel. This was quite clearly a lampooning of the later Trek films starring the original
01:45series cast, particularly 1991's Star Trek 6 The Undiscovered Country, where William
01:52Shatner and co were clearly starting to show their age.
01:55Fittingly, The Undiscovered Country was the final film to feature all of the original
02:00Enterprise crew, likely in large due to sentiments like this being made by fans and critics alike.
02:07Number 9. Black Mirror. Black Mirror may be best known for its blackly
02:12comedic social satire, though writer Charlie Brooker managed to roll this into a pin-sharp
02:18Trek parody in the Emmy-winning season 4 episode USS Callister.
02:23The episode follows video game programmer Robert Daly, who, in order to take out his
02:28frustrations against his unappreciative co-workers, creates a modded version of the game and inserts
02:34digital clones of his co-workers into it by surreptitiously obtaining their DNA. The modded
02:40game, modelled off Daly's favourite sci-fi TV show Space Fleet, bears a blinding resemblance
02:46to Trek's original series, right down to the costumes, hairstyles and design of the
02:51USS Callister. The scenes set within this modded game also adopt the stylistic tropes
02:56of classic Trek, the 4 by 3 aspect ratio, use of Dutch angles, and by the episode's
03:02end a shift towards the sleeker widescreen style of the J.J. Abrams reboot series.
03:08Jesse Plemons even worked with a vocal coach to approximate the delivery style of William
03:12Shatner.
03:13In addition to winning four Emmys, this episode was widely acclaimed by critics and Trek fans
03:19alike, praising its clear admiration for the franchise and its impressive attempts to recreate
03:25its style and tone.
03:27Number 8. Family Guy.
03:30The Family Guy team are clearly also huge Trek fans, as evidenced by the dozens of episodes
03:35which have even a mere passing crack about the show. Though there are lots of good ones,
03:41such as the entire cast of The Next Generation playing themselves in Season 7's Not All
03:46Dogs Go To Heaven. Easily the single most iconic Trek reference in Seth MacFarlane's
03:51irreverent animation has to be its outrageous portrayal of William Shatner.
03:57Season 1's I Never Met The Dead Man features a number of cutaways depicting a hilariously
04:02exaggerated version of Shatner's performance as Kirk, characterised here by idiosyncratic,
04:08nonsensical 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
04:21accidentally hits Shatner with the car and kills him.
04:25Shatner's physically implausible movement and disjointed line delivery, as impersonated
04:30by Seth MacFarlane, just might be the single greatest pop culture reference in all of
04:35Family Guy.
04:37Number 7. Mad Men. Though most of the TV shows on this list
04:41are unsurprisingly animations and sitcoms, there is a little room for some solid gold
04:47prestige TV drama too. Mad Men, of all shows, managed to pull off one of the most memorable
04:54nods to Trek's original series in the season 5 episode Christmas Waltz.
05:00With Mad Men being a 60-set period show, this episode takes place in Christmas 1966, while
05:06the original series was midway through its first season.
05:11One 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.
05:20Among other developments, Paul hands Harry a script that he wrote on spec for Star Trek,
05:25hoping that Harry would pass it to the right people and get it seen.
05:28The episode was called The Negron Complex and focused on a race of white people who
05:32were subservient to a race of colour. The script was, by Harry and Peggy's declaration,
05:37quite terrible, prompting Harry to try and gently let Paul know that he didn't have
05:42a future in screenwriting.
05:43There is some additional amusing context though. The Negron Complex bears a similar resemblance
05:49to 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
06:00that he did indeed persevere and get his script bought, which was then heavily re-written
06:06into Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. Who knows?
06:106. Futurama
06:13Back to Matt Groening now, who amps up the Star Trek references considerably in his glorious
06:19sci-fi comedy Futurama. All in all, there are close to 100 separate Star Trek references
06:25across Futurama, but arguably the piece de resistance is season 4's episode where no
06:31fan has gone before.
06:33This widely acclaimed Nebula Award nominated episode reveals that Star Trek is banned on
06:39Earth after it became a global religion in the 2200s, and in the wake of the bloody Star
06:45Trek wars, the remaining tapes of the show and movies were jettisoned into space.
06:51And so, with the help of Leonard Nimoy's head, Ben DeVry and company set off on a mission
06:56to recover the tapes, bringing them into contact with almost every major cast member from the
07:01original series. The exceptions are James Doohan, whose agent flatly refused, and Davoris
07:07Kelly, who had passed away a few years prior and so only appeared in likeness form.
07:12With his loving array of homages to Trek, while also making light-hearted fun at the
07:18fans' obsessiveness, there is arguably no single better sustained parody of Trek than
07:24this. Certainly not in animated form, that is.
07:29Number 5, The Orville. Further proof of Seth MacFarlane's love for Star Trek can be found
07:35in his live-action parody homage series, The Orville. When it first launched, Star Trek
07:40fans were enormously sceptical, feeling that MacFarlane would just relentlessly be making
07:45fun of Star Trek without much affection. And though the first season was certainly more
07:50of a parody than a dew-eyed homage, season two received considerably more acclaim from
07:55critics and fans for its more earnest, sincere storytelling that veered away from outright
08:00parody. But the single most interesting thing about
08:04The Orville? Star Trek actually exists within its universe. Well, sort of. The first season's
08:11fifth episode shows the crew watching a clip of Seinfeld, and considering that there was
08:16a number of Star Trek jokes made in Seinfeld, we're left to conclude that Star Trek actually
08:21exists as a TV show within the world of The Orville. Genius.
08:26Number 4, South Park. This one's both subtle and really, really weird. To be fair, Star
08:33Trek has been referenced in more than 30 episodes of South Park, but there's one that stands
08:40tall above all the others for its hilariously deranged specificity. In the season four episode
08:46Something You Can Do With Your Finger, the boys plan to form a boy band, but when Randy
08:51finds out what his son Stan is up to, he throws a fit of rage, screaming, No! No! and headbutting
08:58the glass doors of the nearby living room cabinet, smashing the china plates inside.
09:03You could easily miss it, but the sound effects are actually sampled from Star Trek First
09:07Contact, namely the scene where Picard smashes his own glass cabinet with a gun during an
09:12intense argument with Lily Sloane. It's such a bizarre way to reference such a memorable
09:18moment from the film, and yet the sound effects are just vague and brief enough that the more
09:23casual Trek fans might just miss it.
09:27Number 3, The Big Bang Theory. Love or hate The Big Bang Theory, there is no denying the
09:32love it's right as harbour for Star Trek, given that the four central characters are
09:37all shown to be major fans of the franchise and are even fluent in Klingon. Trek is by
09:42far the most commonly referenced franchise in the series, and it has even enjoyed cameos
09:48from the likes of Will Wheaton, Brent Spiner, George Takei and William Shatner. But the
09:53single greatest invocation of Trek occurred in the season six episode The Bakersfield
09:58Expedition, where the guys dress up as the next generation characters Worf, Data, Picard
10:03and a Borg drone respectively, to visit a comic book convention in Bakersfield. The
10:09boys end up stopping off at the iconic Vasquez Rocks, where numerous Trek episodes have been
10:14filmed, including Kirk's infamous encounter with Gorn. But their car and clothes are stolen
10:19in the process, and so they never end up making it to the convention, and are instead forced
10:24to walk to a nearby diner to call the cops. Incidentally, this was the first episode of
10:30the series to cross the 20 million viewer mark, seemingly confirming how much everyone
10:36loved the Trek homage.
10:38Number two, Robot Chicken. Believe it or not, Robot Chicken is still on the air today and
10:44even celebrated its 200th episode last year, proving the unexpected viability of a stop
10:50motion animated series made with toys, action figures and plaster scene. While it's fair
10:56to say that it has parodied Star Wars far more extensively, even releasing three Star
11:01Wars specials, Robot Chicken has delivered more than 15 skits making fun of Star Trek
11:07too. There are a ton of hilarious ones to choose from, though the easy winner is the
11:12season seven skit Star Trek The Sixth Generation. Patrick Stewart lends his voice to portray
11:17Captain Picard, who exits the bridge to be relieved by the Enterprise's night crew, led
11:22by Captain Jake, who just so happens to be voiced by Chris Pine of all people. As it
11:28turns out, Captain Jake is a beer-swigging meth-head without any real leadership capabilities,
11:33as becomes a major problem when the Borg attack. Jake tries to defuse the situation with a
11:37keg party, but the Borg simply tell him partying is futile. Yet when they attempt to assimilate
11:43him, his 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
11:54ask for a beer and start partying with the crew himself. The fact that Patrick Stewart
11:59agreed to play the part himself makes this a truly legendary parody.
12:041. Boston Legal William Shatner spent five seasons playing
12:09the legendary attorney Denny Crane on the legal comedy series Boston Legal, and it goes
12:15without saying that the writers simply couldn't resist making Star Trek references every now
12:20and then. But then simply went past mere wink-nudge nods and damn near implied that somehow Denny
12:26and Kirk were the same person. In the season two episode Finding Nemo, Denny and Alan take
12:32a fishing trip to British Columbia, where Alan reads a book that describes a type of
12:36sea lice as Klingons, hilariously prompting Denny to pause and ask, did you say Klingons?
12:42Later in season two, 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. In other
12:53episodes, 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 metaness 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
13:16the comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap
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13:34just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with Trek Culture. I hope you have a
13:38wonderful day, and remember to boldly go where no one has gone before.