10 Shocking Moments Star Trek Used Profanity

10. Hell — The City On The Edge Of Forever

Whilst a fairly innocuous word these days, getting 'hell' into Star Trek took, well… a hell of an effort!

For the season one episode of The Original Series, The City on the Edge of Forever, which had already gone through more rewrites than a Tuvok holodeck program, the studio strongly objected to the last line as spoken by Captain Kirk: "Let's get the hell out of here." With NBC wanting the line removed, both Gene Roddenberry and William Shatner had to convince executives that nothing but 'hell' could close the episode, and they relented. For what is almost certainly one of the greatest Star Trek episodes, one heck of an ending would not have cut it.

The word 'hell' had been said in TOS before The City on the Edge of Forever, but not as an expletive. In Space Seed, Kirk uses the word when he quotes a line from Milton's Paradise Lost: "It is better to rule in Hell than serve in heaven." In another season one episode, The Alternative Factor, Lazarus cries out to Kirk: "I'll chase you to the very fires of hell!" If the alternative is having to rewatch The Alternative Factor, I'll see you down there soon, Lazarus!

Since then, there have been so many 'hells' in Star Trek, Hades himself has had to move. For those, we'd need another list.