The 14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

7. He's A Ruskie, But They're Idiots

Star Trek IV The Voyage Home Chekov
Paramount
FBI AGENT: Commander Pavel Chekov, Starfleet, United Federation of Planets... Right, Commander, is there anything you wanna tell us?
CHEKOV: Like what?
FBI AGENT: Like who you really are and what you're doing here and what these things here are.
CHEKOV: I am Pavel Chekov. Commander in Starfleet, United Federation of Planets, service number six five six, five eight two seven, D.

Kirk told everyone to remove insignia before they left the ship, so just why did Chekov bring his ID with him? And why does he bother telling his interrogators his serial number? Sure, they’re meaningless in 1986, but anything he tells them is going to be meaningless. He might as well claim he’s Anton Chekhov the playwright.

Speaking of dumb, the agents here are beyond stupid. They have no idea what the devices Chekov carries are and they just keep them on the table where he can reach them, and the interrogator fiddles around with the phaser. What if one was a bomb?

And why is Chekov being interrogated by apparently-non-Navy while still aboard the ship? They’re at the Alameda Naval base. Surely they’d take him to a base facility.

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Maurice is one of the founders of FACT TREK (www.facttrek.com), a project dedicated to untangling 50+ years of mythology about the original Star Trek and its place in TV history. He's also a screenwriter, writer, and videogame industry vet with scars to show for it. In that latter capacity he game designer/writer on the Sega Genesis/SNES "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — Crossroads of Time" game, as well as Dreamcast "Ecco the Dolphin, Defender of the Future" where Tom Baker performed words he wrote.