10 MORE Star Trek Moments You Never Knew Were Improvised

If you've got Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid on set, you should probably let them add some of their own material. The former started her career at the illustrious Second City, as have some of the most famous comedians the likes of Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Mike Myers, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler. The latter has been part of a sketch comedy group — Sasquatch Comedy — since 2013. It's safe to say we're in safe hands.

Improvise is precisely what both actors were permitted to do during filming of Those Old Scientists, much to the delight (and relief) of the episode's director Jonathan Frakes, who told Variety in July 2023,

[Improvisation] doesn't happen a lot on Star Trek, as you probably heard. […] Especially in our f**king show [The Next Generation]. They were so strict. It was like we were doing Shakespeare or Chekhov.

In the same Variety piece, Frakes revealed that it was, in fact, Newsome who came up with the "hot young Spock" line. That ad lib "had an infectious effect" on the rest of the cast. As we learnt on The Ready Room with Wil Wheaton, Boimler's "Riiiiker" over Pike's saddle horse in the ready room was also a bit of improv on the part of Quaid.