There's a lot of scenes to impress you with!
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00:00We all know what the first duty of every Starfleet officer is, we've had the lecture from Picard.
00:05Of course, we could always opt instead for Garrick's definition of the truth.
00:09However, with nearly six decades of success and a multitude of new adventures on the horizon,
00:14you certainly can't accuse Star Trek of a lack of imagination.
00:17And if TV and film is the art of trickery in the pursuit of believability,
00:21then it is, en contraire, all lies, especially the truth.
00:26With more scenes and scenarios than you can shake a Klingon painstake at,
00:29we certainly have plenty of these professional porkies to be impressed with.
00:33Think of Riker giving the order to fire at the end of The Best of Both Worlds,
00:37Kirk and Spock seeing the faces of the Romulans for the first time,
00:40Janeway's first and last set a course for home,
00:43Sisko and Defiant standing off against the Dominion fleet,
00:46or Archer fleeing the exploding Zindi weapon, to name but a few.
00:50Some Star Trek moments, however, as remarkable as they already are,
00:53only gain in stature when you learn of the effort, ingenuity, skill, sacrifice,
00:58and, occasionally, the arguments it took to make them.
01:01The real truth behind the following scenes will make you watch them with a newfound sense of awe.
01:06With that being said, I'm Brie from Trek Culture,
01:08and here are 10 Star Trek scenes even more impressive when you know the truth.
01:12Number 10, Shuttlepod 2.
01:14One of the best episodes of Star Trek Enterprise's mixed-bag first season is Shuttlepod 1.
01:19Intended as a money-saving bottle show, it featured no guest stars or background cast,
01:24and only six of the main characters, focusing principally on Lieutenant Reed and Commander Tucker,
01:29who are stranded in space.
01:31It had all the makings of a rather forgettable episode.
01:34Crucially, Dominic Keaton and Connor Trenere, the pair who play them, are also best friends.
01:39Thinking Enterprise has been destroyed and that there's no hope for rescue,
01:43the two begin to bicker over their fate.
01:45Finally, however, they choose to crack open the bourbon,
01:47drown their sorrows, and toast their deceased shipmates,
01:51all while freezing their butts off in an acting tour de force.
01:54The drunk scene, and indeed every scene in the Shuttlepod,
01:58is made all the more impressive when you know some behind-the-scenes details.
02:01As the two actors discuss in their appropriately named podcast Shuttlepod,
02:05Connor and Dominic received the script for this episode several days in advance.
02:09This, as well as their real-life camaraderie, allowed them to rehearse to the point where they were off-script,
02:14a rarity in television, making the whole thing more like a two-hander play.
02:18Furthermore, the Shuttlepod itself was cut in half during filming, allowing for more intimate shots.
02:24So that the actors' breath would be visible on screen,
02:26six air-conditioning units were used, and dry ice packs placed beneath the set
02:30such that filming was only possible in 20-second increments as it was so cold.
02:37Star Trek Picard has divided quite a few people.
02:40Season 1 started a bit too sweary for folks, and ended with someone nodding off while pressing Ctrl-V.
02:46Season 2 fared a little better in spite of a solid opener.
02:49Still, some of the stronger scenes that had fans thankful for the pause button
02:52included all the throwbacks to The Next Generation.
02:55Who wasn't brimming with glee when Picard visited his vault at the Starfleet Archives?
02:59For good nostalgia like this, you need a good prop master.
03:03On Picard, this fell to Jeff Lombardi.
03:05For one rather brief scene in the first episode of Season 1,
03:08he seemingly went to extraordinary lengths for his craft.
03:11In it, Picard is at the Daystrom Institute to find out more about Dahj.
03:15At one point, Dr. Agnes Jurati opens a drawer that contains the dismembered Soong-type android
03:20and Data-lookalike, B4.
03:22To achieve this, Lombardi decided he wanted to use as many of the old Data parts as possible.
03:27The problem with this was that a lot of the old Trek props had been auctioned off and scattered across the world.
03:32Rather than build a new model, Lombardi and CBS archivists
03:36managed to contact people who had bought these Data parts in the auction.
03:39Data's head had been sitting in a crate in Calgary, and his torso a crate in Hong Kong.
03:44These were then recovered and used with little to no alterations or touch-ups as B4 in the scene.
03:49Number 8, Tension on Deck.
03:51Alright, this entry will be a little more familiar to you by now,
03:54unless of course you've been hiding under a styrofoam rock.
03:57Star Trek Voyager changed quite a bit from the start of its fourth season onwards.
04:01Kes was out, and Seven was in.
04:03It was clear that the producers wanted to sex things up a bit,
04:06and this, understandably to a degree, ruffled a few feathers.
04:10It's fair to say that Kate Mulgrew, Captain Janeway, wasn't at all happy with the arrival of Seven of Nine.
04:15As the first female captain, she felt she had a responsibility to set the tone for the representation of women in power,
04:21and was hurt by the shift in attention to the newer character.
04:24Unfortunately, she took this out on Ryan to the point where the latter often felt nauseous before going into work,
04:30because it was that miserable.
04:32In a 2019 interview, Ryan notes that the scenes with Mulgrew in Astrometrics were particularly challenging for her to act.
04:39Yet, when watching, these are some of the most intimate, most emotional, and best-played scenes of any episode.
04:46Case in point, in the fourth season episode, Hope and Fear,
04:49Seven reveals to Janeway, in Astrometrics, her desire to remain in the Delta Quadrant
04:53instead of returning to Earth with the crew in the Dauntless.
04:56While the scene is wrought with tension, both give powerful and nuanced performances.
05:01All the more so, given the off-screen drama.
05:05Kate Mulgrew wasn't the first Catherine Janeway.
05:08Catherine Janeway wasn't even the first Catherine Janeway.
05:11This title goes to French-Canadian actress Genevieve Bourgeot as Nicole Janeway,
05:15for a grand total of two days filming on the pilot of Caretaker.
05:19Without some on-set problems, we would never have had any scenes with Kate Mulgrew as captain.
05:24Bourgeot was an Academy Award-winning film actor and was hired without screen testing.
05:28When filming began, however, the radically different mechanics of episodic television proved to be an issue.
05:34Multiple takes were required for each shot instead of the usual one or two,
05:38and the director was reportedly frustrated with Bourgeot's often strange and underwhelming delivery.
05:43Footage does exist of these scenes, and it's true that by comparison with Mulgrew,
05:47the performance is a bit lackluster.
05:49By lunchtime of her second day, Bourgeot was clearly upset.
05:52Held up in her trailer, she expressed regret about accepting the role and desired not to continue.
05:57Despite the huge costs involved, the decision was made to move forward without her.
06:01This meant they had no captain, and the entire production schedule was upended until they found one.
06:07Kate Mulgrew didn't arrive for nearly two weeks after production had originally begun.
06:11Long hours and a fast pace were required to make up for this lost time, but the mood changed for the better.
06:16There was no longer a need for long rehearsals or multiple takes.
06:19Bourgeot's bridge scenes were re-shot, and the cast began to bond.
06:25Wrath of Khan is the best of the Star Trek films.
06:28And no, I won't be taking any arguments about that.
06:30Our scholarly cast of characters quote from Dickens, Milton, Shakespeare, and Melville.
06:35Then, of course, we have the less literary, but nonetheless etched into cinema history books cry from Kirk to his nemesis.
06:42Whoever said in space no one can hear you scream?
06:45Even in Star Trek Into Darkness, the most masterful, most heart-wrenching scene is that of the two old friends saying one last goodbye.
06:52Well, at least as far as we know at that point.
06:54A few facts from behind the scenes make Spock's death even more impressive, however.
06:58Firstly, Leonard Nimoy was none too keen to return for a second film.
07:02But it was the thought of being able to play Spock's death that persuaded him.
07:06An early idea would have had the character killed off in the first scene until it was moved to later in the script.
07:12Spock was also meant to stay dead, but Nimoy had such a good experience that he wanted to return.
07:17On the set, the scene was filmed in front of a restricted number of people, and members of the crew reportedly burst into tears during the scene.
07:24Nimoy also commented that the reactor room was, in essence, airtight, so the crew had to pump air in for him to breathe.
07:31This also had to be turned off in order for Shatner to deliver a line.
07:37In the original series' first season episode, Arena, we meet the Gorn for the first time.
07:42By today's gut-busting Strange New World standards, the Gorn costume may look like it was bought on the cheap from a local Halloween store.
07:49And the fight scenes look like they got the work-experienced guy or girl in to choreograph it.
07:54But you know what? It's still a great episode, and it continues to rank among the most popular.
07:59Now, making more of an impression than pushing that boulder off the rock face or constructing that cannon is the truth behind certain scenes.
08:06During the shoot, Shatner was standing too close to one of the prop explosions when it went off.
08:11This left him with particularly bad tinnitus for the rest of his life.
08:14Leonard Nimoy was similarly affected, so one assumes this took place during the filming of the scenes on Cessna's 3 and Act 1.
08:22Shatner has spoken extensively on how this disease severely impacted his mental health,
08:26to the point where he didn't know if he could survive the agony until he received habituation therapy.
08:32He went on to be the spokesperson for the American Tinnitus Association, an organization he credits with literally saving his life.
08:39He has raised money towards research and even spoken to the United States Congress on the illness.
08:43Shatner certainly suffered greatly for his art to give us these few scenes.
08:47Fortunately, he now manages to live with the condition that it resulted in.
08:51Number 4. Life Support and Laryngitis.
08:54The immensely talented and multi-award winning actress Louise Fletcher, who we sadly lost in September of 2022,
09:00was iconic in Star Trek for her role as the devious Kai Wynn in Deep Space Nine.
09:06She will be deeply missed, and in this entry we'll discover another reason as to why.
09:10Wynn is forced to take over, but insists that she needs Burisle's counsel for the talks to be a success.
09:16She strong-arms Burisle and Dr. Bashir into more and more medical procedures to ensure this.
09:21Wynn appears in the vast majority of scenes, and it's Louise Fletcher, so they're already impressive.
09:26What you probably didn't know, however, is that Fletcher was suffering from a rather bad bout of laryngitis at the time of filming.
09:32The actors had to loop all of her lines post-production, which she recalled simply with humor.
09:37As producer Ira Stephen Behr noted,
09:39We would look at her and say,
09:41Jesus, she has no business being up. She should be in bed.
09:44But she was a real trooper.
09:45This is an absolute credit to Fletcher that her performance remained so nuanced when she was so ill.
09:51Her head-to-head scenes with Bashir in the wardroom, for example,
09:54is an acting masterclass on how to play duplicity with merely the tilt of a head.
10:01One of the most memorable and well-received episodes of the original series
10:05introduced us to everyone's favorite rapidly-reproducing, Klingon-detecting, pesky-purring furball.
10:10Concept names for which included
10:12The Fuzzies,
10:13The Pufflies,
10:14and even
10:14The Shaggies.
10:15Which, actually, you should try testing that last one out on a UK audience for the name of the asexual little proliferators.
10:22The episode makes an impression for its comedic timing and witty puns.
10:26The scene in which Kirk opens a hatch, only to be buried by a mountain of gorged tribbles, stands out in this scene.
10:32For this and the entire episode,
10:34hundreds of tribbles were made from sewn-together rolls of carpet and the odd mechanical toy to make some of them move.
10:40The Kirk inundation scene took an astounding eight takes,
10:43and the reason the tribbles kept tumbling is because the crew had no direct line of sight with the actor.
10:48So, they just continued to throw the creatures one by one to make sure there were enough.
10:53In the scene, Shatner can be seen looking somewhat befuddled and bemused as tribbles continue to rain down on him.
10:59The in-universe explanation for this was later revealed in DS9 to be the handiwork of Sisko and Jadzia,
11:05who were throwing tribbles down the hatch while looking for future Darwin's bomb.
11:11This season 5 episode of Star Trek The Next Generation was first broadcast on the 16th of March, 1992.
11:18In it, the Enterprise-D encounters a genderless race, the J'nai.
11:22Commander Riker must work with Soren, who is at first intrigued by human gender roles,
11:26and eventually admits that she identifies as female,
11:28a criminal perversion on her world subject to psychotactic treatment, i.e. conversion therapy or aversion therapy.
11:36The pair fall for each other and share a kiss on the planet, but Soren is arrested and brought before a tribunal.
11:42In spite of her impassionate plea that I am not sick because I feel this way, she is sentenced to undergo this treatment.
11:48While the episode now feels more like a reflection on gender identity and transgender rights,
11:53it was intended as a discussion of homosexuality and discrimination based on sexual orientation.
11:58By this point, producers had received numerous letters criticizing the non-inclusion of gay characters.
12:04It may equally seem tepid by today's standards,
12:06and Jonathan Frakes criticized the decision to not cast Soren as more obviously a male,
12:11if they were indeed trying to do what they called a gay episode.
12:15But the kiss and the allegory of a bigoted society punishing a supposed deviant
12:19is more impressive when you know the bitter reality of the context of that time.
12:24The first same-sex kiss on American network television was between two women on LA Law in 1991.
12:30It, of course, received numerous complaints and advertisers pulled their commercials.
12:34Big surprise!
12:35The first male same-sex kiss on a US network was only in 2000 on Dawson's Creek.
12:40As for the UK, the first gay kiss occurred on EastEnders in 1989.
12:45That brief peck caused an uproar.
12:47MPs at the time wanted the soap to be pulled from the air for promoting perverted practices.
12:52Now, please excuse me as I roll my eyes so hard they fall out of my head.
12:59In the opening scene of the Next Generation pilot, Encounter at Farpoint,
13:03we are introduced to the Galaxy-class starship for the very first time as it descends down into frame.
13:08The final draft of this script, co-authored by DC Fontana and Gene Roddenberry,
13:13makes a point to highlight the magnitude of the vessel,
13:15employing a plethora of adjectives of scale such as
13:19the gigantic new Enterprise,
13:21immensity,
13:22enormous,
13:23immense span of the outer surface.
13:25The enigmatic reveal of Captain Picard as he walks from the shadow into the light
13:29framed by the Enterprise viewport is not featured in this draft,
13:33aside from mentions of other introductory angles.
13:36The impressive quality of these opening scenes lies not simply in the magnificent special effects and dialogue
13:41or the majestic editing,
13:43but in the fact that it was a freaking miracle that they made it to air in the first place.
13:47If you've watched the documentary Chaos on the Bridge, you'll know the title is a euphemism.
13:52Reviving Star Trek for a new series 20 years after the original was a Herculean task.
13:58Writers and producers faced enormous expectations with a not-so-enormous budget,
14:02the whims and ego of Gene Roddenberry,
14:04and some dubious fans who weren't thrilled with the idea of no Kirk and no Spock.
14:09Even finding a network proved to be a challenge.
14:12Roddenberry also initially refused to write a two-hour script.
14:15Oh, and Patrick Stewart's toupee was flown halfway around the world
14:19before they finally decided to just cast him as Bald.
14:21And those were 10 Star Trek scenes even more impressive when you know the truth.
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14:50With all that being said, I hope you all have a great rest of your day,
14:54and don't forget to live long and prosper.