10 Awkward Things That Must Have Happened After Star Trek Episodes

The most awkward moments in Star Trek history may have happened off camera.

star trek voyager captain kathryn janeway and mark johnson
Paramount

The storylines of Star Trek episodes aren't always wrapped up perfectly. Sometimes, things are only implied to happen after the events of an episode, but never actually shown.

Most of the time, these implied follow-ups are nothing special. Maybe the Enterprise has to return to drydock for repairs off-camera, or perhaps a funeral is held for some minor character that was lost, but, in this list, we're going to go over the examples that stand out as particularly awkward. We're looking at creepy situations, embarrassing mistakes, ridiculous mission reports, and more things that would have been super uncomfortable for characters after the fact.

When you look into the details, you'll realise that these things must have happened. Which is unfortunate, because some of our examples nearly ruin the episodes they come from.

10. Barclay's Soiled Reputation

star trek voyager captain kathryn janeway and mark johnson
Paramount

The holodeck is a brilliant invention, but, as we've learned many times before, it can be easily abused in some truly disturbing ways.

In the Next Generation episode Hollow Pursuits (which you knew we had to talk about at some point), we got introduced to 'holo-addiction'. Lieutenant Reginald Barclay became so obsessed with holographic fantasies that he started completely avoiding real-world interaction and showing up late to work.

Eventually, La Forge went looking for Barclay and walked in on him playing a holodeck program where he fought and demeaned holograms of his superior officers in a 17th century setting. La Forge tried to explain that it was weird to recreate real people on the holodeck, and tried to help him out of his addiction, but it persisted, and he was soon caught in the act once again. This time, Riker, La Forge, and Troi all barged in to find the same program running, but this time encountered the 'Goddess of Empathy', a sexualised recreation of Counselor Deanna Troi, who was madly in love with Barclay.

They responded incredibly calmly, given how weird and invasive this program was. Regardless, it must have been hard for the three of them (especially Deanna) to walk past Barclay in the corridors after seeing all that. Like Riker said, there should really be some rules on the books against recreating real people on the holodeck. Maybe these rules were created later because of Barclay's creepy programs.

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Marcia Fry is a writer for WhatCulture and an amateur filmmaker.