The most awkward moments in Star Trek history may have happened off camera.
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00:00The storylines of Star Trek episodes aren't always wrapped up perfectly.
00:03Sometimes, things are only implied to happen after the events of an episode,
00:07but never actually shown. In this video, we're going over the examples that stand out as
00:11particularly awkward. We're looking at creepy situations, embarrassing mistakes,
00:14ridiculous mission reports, and more things that would have been super uncomfortable for
00:18characters after the fact. When you look into the details, you'll realise that these things
00:22must have happened, which is unfortunate because some of our examples nearly ruin
00:26the episode they come from. With that being said, I'm long-term editor, first-time presenter,
00:30Tom Roberts-Finn, and this is 10 Awkward Things That Must Have Happened After Star Trek Episodes.
00:36Number 10. Barclay's Soiled Reputation
00:39The holodeck is a brilliant invention, but, as we've learned many times before,
00:43it can be easily abused in some truly disturbing ways. In the Next Generation episode,
00:47Hollow Pursuits, which you knew we'd have to talk about at some point, we got introduced to
00:51hollow addiction. Lieutenant Reginald Barclay became so obsessed with holographic fantasies
00:55that he started completely avoiding real-world interaction and showing up late for work.
00:59Eventually, La Forge went looking for Barclay and walked in on him playing a holodeck program
01:03where he fought and demeaned holograms of his superior officers in a 17th century setting.
01:08La Forge tried to explain that it was weird to recreate real people on the holodeck and try to
01:13help him out of his addiction, but it persisted and he was soon caught in the act once again.
01:17This time, Riker, La Forge, and Troy all barged in to find the same program running and encountered
01:22the Goddess of Empathy, a sexualised recreation of councillor Deanna Troy, who was madly in love
01:27with Barclay. They responded incredibly calmly, given how weird and invasive this program was.
01:32Regardless, it must have been hard for the three of them, especially Deanna,
01:35to walk past Barclay in the corridors after seeing all of that. Like Riker said,
01:39there should have really been some rules in the books against recreating real people on the
01:42holodeck. Maybe these rules were created later because of Barclay's creepy programs.
01:479. Archer's Cold Front Report
01:50Cold Front was one of the most embarrassing moments in Captain Archer's career. This Enterprise
01:54episode revealed that Crewman Daniels was actually a fighter in the Temporal Cold War,
01:58originating from the 31st century. After the episode, Archer would have had to explain to
02:03Starfleet Command that not only was Daniels able to hide his identity and his futuristic technology,
02:08but he also claimed to be from the future, something that the Vulcans firmly believed
02:11was impossible at the time. Then, Daniels' future tech, the Temporal Observatory,
02:15and his phasing device were both destroyed and Daniels was thought to have been killed,
02:19leaving no evidence for the story he gave. The Vulcan scientists and authorities were
02:24probably even more shocked than Starfleet to hear Archer's report. Their skepticism of time travel
02:28came up again later in the series, but the fact that Daniels was presumed killed before he could
02:33even face questioning must have made some Vulcans suspect foul play, or some sort of cover-up on
02:38Archer's behalf to hide the mistakes of Earth's most famous crew. Basically, it would have been
02:43pretty hard to convince anyone who wasn't there that the Temporal War was real and the events of
02:47Cold Front actually happened. Number 8. The Problem with the Doctor's Daydreams
02:52In the Voyager episode, Tinker Tenor, Doctor Spy, Seven and B'Elanna discovered a part of
02:57the Doctor's program that probably made life aboard the ship much more awkward. In the episode,
03:02the Doctor added a sub-routine to his program that allowed him to daydream. Unfortunately,
03:06a hierarchy vessel tapped into his daydreams, causing them to become unpredictable and
03:11uncontrollable. In an effort to repair him, Torres routed his daydreams through the holodeck
03:15projectors, allowing herself, Janeway, Seven and Kim to observe them for themselves. They got to
03:21see the Doctor playing out his fantasy of taking command of Voyager and saving the ship, but also
03:26some more personal desires. His other daydreams were of painting a nude, erotically posed Seven
03:30of Nine and breaking up with B'Elanna, who cried that Tom Paris wasn't half the man the Doctor was.
03:35Seven of Nine seemed fairly unfazed by the Doctor's fantasies. She even gave him a small
03:39kiss at the end of the episode, explaining that it was purely platonic, but it was likely that
03:43things were pretty awkward between him and B'Elanna after she learnt his feelings for her
03:47and his jealousy for Paris. She may have even told Tom, which would really make for a weird
03:51dynamic whenever he assisted in sickbay. It also must have been a bit uncomfortable for
03:55B'Elanna to know that her physician had romantic feelings for her.
03:59Number 7. Picard readjusting to life on the Enterprise
04:03Picard's been through a lot of awful shit in his life. His mother died when he was young,
04:07he was stabbed by a Norsican, tortured by the Cardassians and assimilated by the Borg to name
04:12but a few. Yet, the most traumatic moment in his life was probably the events of The Inner Light.
04:16In this episode, he lived an entire decade of a life that wasn't his, inside of an alien simulation.
04:21The ordeal only lasted a few minutes in reality, but for him it was a whole other life,
04:25and the show barely expanded on what this meant for him. Maybe the writers just figured Picard
04:29got enough therapy in the episode family, after the best of both worlds. Still, some time must
04:34have needed to pass before Picard was ready to captain the ship again. He probably spent a lot of
04:38time off duty to process what happened to him. He spent so long in the simulation that he likely
04:42forgot command codes, regulations and maybe even some of his crew and friends. The very next episode
04:47is the dramatic two-parter time travel story, Time's Arrow, so we can only hope that Picard had
04:51at least a few weeks to sit around and mentally recover before immediately going on to save all
04:56of humanity. Number 6. The Hyde and Q report
05:00After Hyde and Q, it's doubtful that Starfleet Command would have approved of Riker giving up
05:05his Q powers so quickly. He could have done a lot of good for the Federation with those abilities.
05:09He could have cured any disease, invented new technology to defend the Federation or practically
05:13anything else. Instead, he briefly played around with giving his friends their greatest desires
05:18and then gave up on his powers when he realised they didn't actually want his help. Picard and
05:21Riker would have had to explain to Command that they gave up this huge opportunity simply because
05:26they thought that it was too much power for a human and probably because Riker didn't want
05:30to risk changing his identity. Number 5. The Trouble with Tribble Disposal
05:35At the end of The Trouble with Tribbles, Scotty removed the Tribbles from the Enterprise by
05:38beaming them directly onto the Klingon ship. This was a bit messed up on a few levels. Besides the
05:43fact that this could have been enough to start a war, Scotty also condemned thousands of innocent
05:47creatures to gruesome, painful deaths. We know that the Klingons despise Tribbles and an infestation
05:52of them would almost certainly lead to a bloodbath. The creatures would continue to multiply as they
05:56were hunted and the Klingons would soon need to start taking them out faster and faster. Honestly,
06:01it would have been more humane to just beam the Tribbles right into space. Their deaths would
06:04have probably been quicker than at the hands of the Klingons, who aren't exactly known for their mercy.
06:09Number 4. Spock Getting Teased Spock's friends on the Enterprise responded
06:14pretty maturely when they learned about Spock's pon far in the TOS episode, A Mock Time. They
06:18wouldn't mock him for something out of his control, no matter how strange the Vulcan mating rituals
06:23may seem to humans. However, at the end of the episode, when Spock realised that he didn't
06:27actually kill Captain Kirk, he let his emotions show for a moment, shouting Jim and smiling from
06:32pointed ear to pointed ear. He tried to play it off, but Kirk, McCoy and Nurse Chapel all saw what
06:37happened. Spock revealed in this moment that he cared deeply for his friend, Kirk, something that
06:41he rarely made clear with his words. It's not hard to imagine the Three Witnesses teasing Spock about
06:46his secret feelings. I know I would. Loser. Number 3. Interstellar Traffic Cops
06:52We've talked a lot about the Next Gen episode, Force of Nature, which showed that warp travel
06:56was slowly damaging space. At the end of the episode, a speed limit of warp fire was put in
07:01place throughout Federation space, except in extreme emergencies. As we've gone over before,
07:06Starfleet never really followed this limit and we never got any solution to the problem in canon.
07:11One thing we haven't really discussed was the fact that the Federation authorities would likely have
07:15to patrol their space to catch any civilian ships exceeding the speed limit, sort of like
07:19Interstellar Traffic Cops. We can only imagine the outrage of civilian freighter captains who
07:24would almost certainly have their profits cut down because of the warp 5 limit. Who knows,
07:28the damage could have been minimised with new technology sometime shortly after the episode,
07:33or Federation authorities may have continued to impose this speed limit on the civilians in their
07:37space, while allowing Starfleet to continually and blatantly ignore it. Number 2. The crew realising
07:43Captain Freeman's mistake. We learned a lot about the Federation news network in the Lower Decks
07:48episode Trusted Sources. An FNN reporter came aboard the Cerritos to do a story on its mission
07:53and crew during Project Swimby, a mission to return and offer assistance to planets visited
07:57by Starfleet in the past. Captain Freeman was worried about her daughter Beckett making the
08:01Cerritos look bad, so she ordered her not to speak to FNN under any circumstances. Beckett
08:06then did an interview behind her mother's back and the captain was so mad that she transferred
08:10off the ship onto the dreaded Starbase 18. Once the FNN story aired, Freeman realised that Beckett
08:15had actually given a very charitable interview, which she probably would have known if she just
08:19bothered to ask. Of course, Beckett wasn't eager to accept her apology after the fact, choosing
08:23instead to run off with Picard's contracted archaeologist friend Petra Aberdeen. The rest
08:27of the crew were taken out of context and the FNN expose nearly led to the entire California
08:32class being decommissioned. Beckett and her mother made amends at the end of the next episode,
08:36but kicking her daughter off the ship was definitely one of Captain Freeman's most
08:39embarrassing moments. The whole crew had to say goodbye to their friend because Freeman
08:43was just too stubborn to hear her daughter out. Number 1. Janeway's Reunion with Mark
08:49Voyager's early return home to Earth led to celebrations all across the Federation. It was
08:53a wonderful time for the entire crew, but Captain Janeway may have had a bit of an awkward reunion
08:58with her ex-fiance Mark. About four years after Voyager was lost, they were able to use the
09:02Hirogen subspace relay network to contact Starfleet in the episode Hunters, and the crew
09:07were finally able to contact their loved ones. Janeway was excited at first to speak to Mark
09:11once again, but her mood quickly changed when she learned what he had been up to while she was gone.
09:15Mark held out hope for longer than most, but eventually came to the conclusion that Janeway
09:19had died and decided to move on with his life. He was devastated to lose his fiancee, yet he
09:23went on to marry his co-worker only six months after Voyager was lost. Janeway was heartbroken,
09:28but understood that Mark needed to move on eventually, although getting married to another
09:31woman only six months later was a tad surprising. We can imagine that Janeway and Mark's reunion
09:35after Endgame was far less romantic than she hoped. This is especially sad when you re-watch
09:39the episode Elogium, when Janeway told Chakotay she intended to get home before Mark gave her up
09:44for dead. That was 10 Awkward Things That Must Have Happened After Star Trek Episodes.
09:48If you can think of anything else that we missed and you really can't keep it to yourself,
09:51let us know down in the comments. You can find us on Twitter at Trek Culture and on Instagram
09:56at Trek Culture YT. You can find myself on Twitter at TomCFinn and on various other socials
10:01as well. I've even talked to some of the Trek Culture gang on my podcast Creative Roots with
10:04TC Roberts Finn, so be sure to check that out too. Thanks all for watching and until next time,
10:10buh-bye.