20 Most Cringeworthy Classic Star Trek Moments

If ever you should rewatch the entire run of the original Star Trek series, you may notice a few things: 1) William Shatner is often a far more subtle actor than most people give him credit for (sometimes); 2) Uhura is seven shades of awesome (usually); and 3) you'll be wanting to fast-forward through a lot of scenes - and we mean a lot of scenes (always). Often, what makes a scene cringeworthy in Classic Trek has a lot to do with the time period in which the show was made. For a show that has credited with promoting tolerance, peace, and good will towards all for decades, it can be a very racist, sexist, and downright bad show at times, and it's those moments that we'll be focusing on in this article. These are the scenes that make fans cringe, make non-fans scratch their heads, and make just about everybody ask that eternal question, 'What in the hell was that about?' As usual, your mileage may vary, and if we've missed any, we'd love to hear your comments. And if you find yourself getting annoyed or offended, just remember those immortal words from the MST3K theme: Just repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'

20. Spock Smiles From The Cage (1965) And The Menagerie (1966)

We've been accused of nitpicking in these articles, and on this occasion, perhaps we are. After all, this scene occurs in the very first pilot of Star Trek - another one was produced, with another two scripts considered for pilots - and very little of the Star Trek lore we now know so well had yet been established. One such piece of lore was the idea that Vulcans display no emotions, as Leonard Nimoy's grinning mug above proves. When viewed with this in mind, it's a bit easier to give this moment a pass. The Vulcans smiling in Star Trek IV, however, must never be excused. What does make this moment cringeworthy for some fans, though, is that this scene eventually aired as part of Classic Trek's sole two-part episode The Menagerie - by which point Vulcans not displaying emotions had been established. Oops. Granted, Gene Roddenberry was trying to recoup the cost of the pilot by using as much of the pilot footage as he could, but they had no problem cutting other non-vital scenes, and this one also could've gone. That way, we would've been spared the sight of Spock obviously having the Vulcan equivalent of a petit mal seizure during an away mission. Good thing he got that treated.