About This Quiz
Space: the final frontier. An even though the original "Star Trek" series aired over 50 years ago, space still remains the final frontier. Maybe that's what makes all the "Star Trek" episodes so relevant and popular even today. But can you remember all the details about your favorite "Star Trek" episodes, the crew of the Enterprise or those aliens who threatened the safety of others? Time to test yourself. Check out this stellar quiz and enjoy the ride.
Gene Roddenberry created the hugely popular "Star Trek" concept. He would take moral dilemmas and put them against a space background for an added twist. The drama and conflicts were relatable, yet otherworldly. The success of the original series spawned countless other space TV series and several "Star Trek" movies. The public's imagination and enchantment with space can only be measured in light years.
But how about you? Do you remember "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode or the episode when Spock is betrothed? How about Lieutenant Uhura's first name (Nyota)? What was Bones always saying to Jim? If these are easy to answer, you'll love this quiz. It's for you and the Trekkie in all of us. Take the quiz now. The future is waiting.
Tribbles are small, furry, ball-like creatures that make a high-pitched purring noise. According to Spock, tribbles “do have one redeeming characteristic … They do not talk too much.”
This character returned to threaten the galaxy’s safety in both "Star Trek II" (1982) and "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013). Khan Noonien Singh was the genetic “superman” who fled Earth in a “sleeper ship,” only to be awakened in the 23rd century. Ricardo Montalban played Khan in the original series episode “Space Seed.” Benedict Cumberbatch played him in "Star Trek Into Darkness."
The Romulans were a Vulcanoid species that rejected peace and logic in favor of aggression and conquest. They only appeared in two episodes of the original series (“Balance of Terror” and “The Enterprise Incident”) but became a major Federation adversary in "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
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As Kirk tells Dr. Gillian Taylor in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" (1984), “I’m from Iowa — I only work in outer space.” In "Star Trek" (2009), the Enterprise is seen being built in Iowa, closely linking the captain and his vessel.
Joan Collins made her mark playing the scheming, self-centered Alexis Carrington on the 1980s primetime soap opera "Dynasty." Scriptwriter Harlan Ellison modeled Edith Keeler after 1930s evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.
Chekov debuted in “Catspaw,” complete with a (quickly discarded) Monkees-style wig. Gene Roddenberry claimed he also created Chekov as a tribute to Russia’s pioneering space achievements.
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The Galileo figured in several episodes, as did a Galileo II. The animated "Star Trek" showed viewers a shuttle named after another famous astronomer, the Copernicus.
His inhibitions erased by a virus, Sulu runs amok in the Enterprise’s corridors with a fencing foil, shouting “Richelieu, beware!” — a reference to "The Three Musketeers" (as is Spock’s reference to Sulu as “d’Artagnan”).
The whales were named after legendary husband-and-wife comedy team of George Burns and Gracie Allen.
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Sulu commanded the Excelsior. His promotion was mentioned in a scene filmed for but cut from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982). The Excelsior was first seen, under a different captain, in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" (1984).
Uhura’s first name was officially established as Nyota in the 2009 movie, but many fans had long accepted it as a fact. The name means “star” in Swahili.
Veteran character actor Roger C. Carmel played cosmic con man Harry Mudd in two live-action epsiodes — “Mudd’s Women,” in which he ran a “mail order bride” business and “I, Mudd,” in which he ruled a planet of robots — and the animated "Star Trek" episode “Mudd’s Passion.”
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Jeffrey Hunter played Captain Christopher Pike in “The Cage,” the first of Star Trek’s eventual two pilot episodes. NBC thought “The Cage” was too intellectual for a mass audience, but thought the series showed enough potential to give it a second chance.
T’Pring was Spock’s betrothed. They were telepathically bound to each other as children, per Vulcan custom. She broke their “engagement” by challenging Spock to fight Kirk to the death for her.
When the Iotians disassemble the communicator, they will discover the transtator, which Spock says is “the basis for every important piece of equipment that we have.”
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The first-season episode “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” (written by legendary horror writer Robert Bloch, author of "Psycho"), established Chapel’s engagement to Roger Korby — who had transferred his consciousness to an android body by the time the Enterprise found him.
David takes the knife a Klingon soldier intended for Saavik. William Shatner created the emotional moment when Kirk, hearing the news, stumbles and falls to the bridge floor, shouting, “You Klingon bastards, you killed my son!”
Zefram Cochrane is one of the few "Star Trek" characters played by multiple actors: Glenn Corbett in “Metamorphosis” and James Cromwell in "Star Trek: First Contact" (1996).
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Gary Mitchell mutated into a supremely powerful and malevolent being when exposed to strange energies at the galaxy’s edge. He was played by Gary Lockwood, who also played ill-fated astronaut Frank Poole in "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968).
Although they never met Mozart, the Enterprise crew did (in “Requiem for Methuselah”) meet a long-lived alien who claimed he had been classical composer Johannes Brahms, among other notables.
While all these games appear in various "Star Trek" series, only three-dimensional chess was a mainstay aboard the original Enterprise. In 1994, the Franklin Mint produced a wildly popular replica of the chess set.
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NBC told series creator Gene Roddenberry to drop either Spock or Number One, the Enterprise’s female second-in-command, from Star Trek’s format. Convinced that a regular alien character was critical to the show’s integrity, Roddenberry kept Spock.
Things look bad when Scotty is found standing over a dead woman’s body with a bloody knife, but he is exonerated: He was possessed by the “Redjac,” the same alien consciousness responsible for the “Jack the Ripper” murders in Victorian England.
Officers in the Mirror Universe rise through the ranks by murdering their superiors. In “Mirror, Mirror,” Spock said the evil counterparts of the Enterprise crew were “brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous — in every way, splendid examples of homo sapiens, the very flower of humanity.”
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“Assignment: Earth” would have followed Gary Seven (Robert Lansing), Roberta Lincoln (Terri Garr) and the shape-shifting black cat Isis as they worked to guide humanity out of its nuclear age into a better future. “Assignment: Earth” is the only episode of the original series set entirely in Star Trek’s past (the year 1968).
George Kirk served, and perished, aboard the Kelvin. Abrams has included “Kelvin” (his maternal grandfather’s last name) in many projects, including a reference to “Kelvin Ridge” in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015).
Starfleet General Order Seven prohibits all contact with Talos IV. The Talosians’ extreme powers of telepathy and illusion are a danger to human life.
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Uhura sang “Beyond Antares.” The episode marked the second time Nichelle Nichols sang as Uhura — and the last, until “The Moon’s a Window to Heaven” in "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" (1989).
Dr. M’Benga, played by Booker Bradshaw, was a human doctor who specialized in Vulcan medicine. He appears in “A Private Little War” and “That Which Survives.”
Although his character was only called “The Admiral” onscreen, DeForest Kelley appeared in “Encounter at Farpoint,” The Next Generation’s pilot episode, as an elderly Leonard McCoy, telling Data the new starship Enterprise “had the right name… Treat her like a lady, and she’ll always bring you home.”
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Xon was a character created to replace Spock, and David Gautreaux was cast in the part. When Phase II became "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (1979) instead, Gautreaux played the smaller role of Commander Branch aboard the ill-fated Epsilon IX space station.
Lost in the past, Spock began to act like Vulcans of the past. Mariette Hartley played his love interest, Zarabeth. In two of her "Star Trek" novels, A.C. Crispin posited that Spock and Zarabeth had a son.
The fal-tor-pan, the “refusion,” returns Spock’s consciousness to Spock’s body. Director Leonard Nimoy cast veteran British actress Dame Judith Anderson as the Vulcan priestess who performs the ritual in order to evoke the dignity of Celia Lovsky, who played Vulcan matriarch T’Pau in the episode “Amok Time.”
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McCoy never claimed to be a rancher. He uttered his more famous catchphrase — “He’s dead, Jim,” or some variation — about 20 times during the original series.
The original series featured Saurian brandy in several episodes, "Star Trek II" (1982) introduced Romulan ale, and "Star Trek: The Next Generation" established that raktajino was Klingon coffee, but Balok served tranya to his guests.
Spock first joined minds with Dr. Van Gelder (“Dagger of the Mind”). Leonard Nimoy and the writers created the technique as an interesting way to deliver otherwise dry but necessary exposition.
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