10 Most Inappropriate Moments In Star Trek: The Original Series

3. Spock Charms A Romulan Commander Into Submission - The Enterprise Incident

Vina Susan Oliver Star Trek
CBS

The Enterprise Incident presents an entire hour of highly inappropriate behaviour from the Starfleet gang, starting with the premise of the episode: the crew decided to steal a cloaking device from a rival starcraft after illegally entering Romulan space. Sure, heists are always fun, but they are almost always entirely unethical.

The commander of the Romulan squadron is the first woman in a position of power that we ever meet in Star Trek. It's such a shame then, that not only is she outwitted and beaten so incredibly easily, but she never even gets to have a name. Unnamed Romulan Commander 2 was an ambitious leader, and could have become a powerful officer if she hadn't let her naturally-occurring womanly emotions cloud her judgement.

After she shares some orange juice and has a hand-holding session with Spock, she has already fallen head over heels in love with the famously charismatic Vulcan. He goes along with it, pretending that he's murdered his Captain and is going to give up the Enterprise to her. Obviously she believes this, and comes aboard the ship with nothing but the cloaking device and a lovely evening gown. She's captured, but gets to live in quarters rather than in the brig, simply because Kirk doesn't see a woman as a genuine security threat.

The Enterprise Incident sees Kirk and Spock risk their lives out of belief in outdated, sexist stereotypes, and the episode does nothing to prove them wrong.

Contributor
Contributor

Jimmy Kavanagh is an Irish writer and co-founder of Club Valentine Comedy, a Dublin-based comedy collective. You can hear him talk to his favourite comedians about their favourite comics on his podcast, Comics Swapping Comics.