10 Shocking Moments Star Trek Used Profanity

To quote our editor Kris, "Growing up [in the UK], [saying that word] would still get you a clip round the ear," despite "You really p**s me off, Jim" gaining the British Board of Film Classification's approval for a PG rating for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

It is Dr McCoy who is riled up enough to swear at his off-duty Captain's "crazy stunt," and cavalier attitude to life, in Star Trek V (with perhaps a touch of the bourbon and beans playing a part). The profanity seems almost pedestrian to contemporary ears, but it, and the expletives in the TOS-era movies more generally, did loosen up the language for what we would see later down the line. Sensibilities have changed, amongst the public and film classification boards alike; today, it is the PG-13 rating that draws the biggest crowds in the US.

'P**s' is used in the franchise in another sense in the Star Trek: Picard season one episode Broken Pieces. Cristóbal Rios, not much in the mood to be a social butterfly, tells a worried Raffi, who offers some company, to "p**s off". "P**sing off" is Raffi's understanding reply. Only an episode later, in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part I, Picard warns the La Sirena crew that if they treat him like a dying man they "run the risk of p**sing [him] off".