10 MORE Star Trek Moments You Never Knew Were Improvised
Like Tom Paris with Tuvok's holoprogram, sometimes you've just got to make it up as you go along.
Improvisation of any kind is either daringly delicious, or it leaves a funny taste in the mouth. Traditionally, Star Trek has spat at, and spat out, anything that so much as flirted with 'winging it'. As the performer, you'd be lucky to change an adverb, let alone ad lib a line. Even 'The Rock' was told "the [Tsunkatse] role doesn't allow for improvisation," in the Young Rock episode Know Your Role, anyway.
There have been exceptions over the years. The fact that this is the second list of its kind is testament enough to that. In the past, actors have gotten around the strictures mostly by suggesting dialogue in advance. They've also made up moves and gestures, now iconic, practically on the spot. Or if they were William Shatner in The Immunity Syndrome, they've repeated the same line from the opener at the end.
These days, improvisation is more and more accepted in the franchise, even encouraged. For a comedy like Lower Decks, a bit of verbal spontaneity in the room only adds value. For the other contemporary outings, 'off the cuff' has occasionally been a little more jarring, though never completely incongruous. After all, this is Star Trek, and it's all made up. Some bits are just more made up than others.
10. The F-Bomb Is Not A Cocktail
We've already discussed this particular piece of profanity in, well, our piece on profanity. But, as the crew of the Enterprise-D trapped in the Typhon Expanse would say, 'Here we f**king go again!' Like your dad stubbing his toe on the sofa, Discovery introduced Star Trek to the F-word. Picard followed suit, kicking off with Clancy. In season three, the titular then added a F-bomb of his own, via the actor, off the cusp of the cut glass.
If there is anywhere you can swear, the bar is the place. Already on the Jameson, neat, in the holographic recreation of Guinan's 10 Forward Avenue, Jean-Luc let slip his "ten f**king gruelling hours" in No Win Scenario. The four-letter word-ing wasn't in the script, however. As showrunner Terry Matalas told Collider in March 2023,
[Jonathan Frakes, Ed Speleers, and Patrick Stewart] were rehearsing and what they had crafted was so genuine and so intense, that came out in the moment. Patrick said it and felt it, and it was real, a couple of times.
Fan reaction was… varied. Matalas himself, having not been on set that day, admitted to being "taken aback by it" when he saw the first cut. "I was really torn because hearing that word come from your childhood hero, Captain Picard, it throws you," he added to Collider. Matalas apparently hesitated over removing the expletive entirely, but (evidently) decided "it had to stay in".