10 Shocking Moments Star Trek Used Profanity

Star Trek has quite the shocking and rich history when it comes to cursing. From the strictures of network television and the (fellas at the…) FCC, to the freedom of streaming services, a good swear has never been completely off the books, but mostly a matter of degree.

The Original Series had to fight fairly hard to include the most basic 'bad language,' and even by the end of Enterprise and ALL the films (Kelvin included), Star Trek had never known a word in the biblical sense. The most recent Trek outings, however, have frequently turned the air bluer than a Bolian barber on an Andorian battlecruiser, with more effin' 'n' jeffin' than Pon Farr night at the Vulcan nightclub.

For fans, Star Trek borders on the sacred, so reactions are reliably strong when it tackles the profane. Whether you think the latest evolution in the use of 'lively' language is "[redacted] cool," or that it's the worst thing to happen to Trek since Shatner set out to Sha Ka Ree, swearing, stronger and stronger at that, is part of the franchise and warrants a discussion.

This article will be "laced with colourful metaphors". You mean the profanity? Well, when in Rome, or 1980s San Francisco… So, set phasers to expurgation as we bleep and bowdlerise our way through 10 shocking sweary moments in Star Trek.

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.