10 Unintentionally Funny Moments In Star Trek

You knew it was coming, right?

Poor Gorn may be the most infamous victim of Star Trek’s unintentional comedy, with the lumbering reptilian alien’s first appearance in the original series episode “Arena” giving rise to a fight scene with William Shatner’s Captain Kirk which leaves viewers giggling to this day decades after its initial appearance.

The episode was the first broadcast in colour on the BBC, which must have left a lot of viewers wishing the series would return to black and white to mask its, er, limited effects. The episode is also noteworthy for being the subject of a plagiarism debacle, with the writer eventually retroactively crediting an Astounding Science Fiction short story for inspiring its premise.

Though why anyone would want to claim credit for creating Gorn, the wobbly and slow-paced antagonist of this infamous episode, is beyond us.