10 Cringiest Star Trek Scenes Of All Time

"Star Trek" has no shortage of powerful moments, evocative speeches from starship captains, nuanced storytelling, and thought-provoking allegories for complex sociopolitical issues of our time. But to get to those compelling, emotional monologues and well-written storylines, we sometimes have to choke down content that's a little less lofty and high-minded — and that goes far beyond the good-natured tomfoolery of a little holodeck LARPing adventure or a wacky Ten Forward singalong. Occasionally, a scene comes up that has even the most devoted Trekkies wishing they could skip to the end of the holo-novel.

From heavy-handed cheesecake scenes where crewmen booties (and booty calls) get way too much screentime to hammy acting choices and ham-fisted writing, "Star Trek" isn't always perfect — even if we still love it at its most cringey. Because even "Star Trek" has to have its Barclay moments, here's a breakdown of the most cringeworthy scenes in the franchise.

"Plato's Stepchildren" is a "Star Trek: The Original Series" episode most famous for featuring a moment that's generally cited as one of the first interracial kisses to air on U.S. television. For that reason, the episode is often touted as a series highlight and one of actor Nichelle Nichols' best "Star Trek" moments. One thing that's rarely talked about is the in-world context of that magical kiss between Uhura (Nichols) and Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), much less how completely bizarre — not to mention utterly cringey — most of that episode is overall. And the pièce de résistance in this cringefest is a scene that finds Kirk giving an alien played by an actor with dwarfism a piggyback ride.

The episode brings the Enterprise crew into the company of the Platonians, an apparently telekinetic race of humanoids who fled a supernova thousands of years ago, landing on Earth just in time for Athens' Classical period — and they were really digging the vibe. After Plato's death, the 38 remaining survivors headed off to found their own Platonic-inspired colony.

It's this colony, dripping in Athenscore aesthetic togas, laurels, and columns, that the Enterprise crew stumbles across in "Plato's Stepchildren" while responding to a medical distress call. In the "Star Trek" world, though, telekinesis tends to make people malicious monsters, and the Platonians' leader repays the Enterprise crew's benevolence by tormenting them for amusement in a parade of horrors involving nonconsensual makeout sessions, a hot poker, a bullwhip, and a painful barrage of scenery-chewing from Shatner. When Kirk is forced to give a piggyback ride to Platonian servant Alexander (Michael Dunn), an adult male with dwarfism, it's almost too much to bear — and it certainly wouldn't pass the sniff test today.

There's plenty to feel uncomfortable about in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Sub Rosa," which finds Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) thrown into a full-blown fever dream of a steamy situationship with a noncorporeal being who also happens to be her late grandma's booty call buddy. The episode is full of deeply cringe-inducing moments, most notably the scenes that find the copper-haired doc making sweet love to a green cloud of space ghost guy in "Bridgerton" carriage scene-level detail.

The script as a whole is straight out of feminist hell. Crusher travels to the Little Scotland-style planet her grandma called home to pay her final respects to the recently departed centenarian, dragging the full Enterprise and its crew along for the ride. Since they've got a little time to spare before the ship is due at Starbase 621, Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) agrees to lend a hand with maintenance on the planet's aging weather system. That leaves Beverly with a little time on her hands to snoop through Grandma Howard's cabin, where she immediately takes a deep dive into Grandma's smutty diary pages detailing a torrid affair with a thirtysomething-year-old lover.

Through scene after cringe-inducing scene, an entirely too titillated Crusher begins obsessively fantasizing about Grandma Howard's boy toy, even gushing to Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) about her grandma's lover sex dreams at one point. But there's one unintentionally hilarious "Star Trek" moment in the episode that's almost painful to watch, gracing the screen when Beverly hooks up with what appears to be neon green ectoplasm in the erotic equivalent of playing air guitar.

The "Star Trek: Voyager" episode "Threshold" is yet another reminder that, with all of the weird space stuff that happens onboard a Starfleet starship, maintaining any semblance of personal and professional boundaries must truly be a constant challenge. This is certainly the case for Voyager helmsman Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) when he breaks the transwarp barrier, finds his DNA altered in a "The Fly"-level body horror storyline, kidnaps Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), and they transform into giant salamanders and move into a puddle to make salamander babies together. Truly, it's hard to imagine how they could ever look each other in the eye again after such an experience.

As a whole, the storyline is pretty unsettling, with McNeill calling the episode a "bizarre show" in The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 11. The actor also told Cinefantastique, "When you try to tell the story — he breaks warp 10, starts shedding skin, he kidnaps the captain, and then he becomes one with the universe, [he and Janeway] are salamanders, and have a baby — it sounds ridiculous." (via Memory Alpha) And while it's easy enough to overlook all the surreal and absurd elements in this baffling episode, it's hard not to cringe when the crew discovers Salamander Janeway and Salamander Tom Paris have engaged in some spicy swamp sexing. The only thing that's worse is the creeping realization that they brushed the whole thing off after leaving those salamander babies to fend for themselves — that is, if their presence in the local food chain doesn't ecologically nuke the native ecosystem of the planet Voyager left those babies on.

One thing that 1980s and 1990s network television did beautifully was perfect the art of the Very Special Episode. Pious, preachy, and often contrived, these episodes generally served as a warning about some hot zeitgeist-haunting topic parents and teachers had been wringing their hands over of late. And the family-friendly "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was not about to get left out of the action, with the show getting its own after-school special moment in "Symbiosis" through Tasha Yar's (Denise Crosby) uncomfortable anti-drug sermon.

The episode, which falls late in the poorly ranked first season of "Star Trek: TNG" follows the Enterprise-D crew's frustrated efforts to negotiate between the populations of two planets in the Delos system. What first appears as one planet aiding the other with a life-threatening illness evolves into a more complex situation when it becomes clear that their vaccine is actually an addictive pharmaceutical, and the two races have a user-dealer relationship.

Exactly how preachy the episode feels may resonate deeper with Gen-Xers and Xennials who were right in the target demographic for 1980s anti-drug propaganda — "Symbiosis" aired in 1988, smack dab in the middle of the Reagan-era "War on Drugs" reforms of the 1980s. The episode careens from a frankly unsubtle sci-fi analogy into comically on-the-nose D.A.R.E. propaganda territory when Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) asks Data (Brent Spiner) why anyone would willingly become addicted to a substance. Tasha butts in to explain that drugs don't start off feeling bad, telling the boy, "Wesley, no one wants to become dependent. That happens later." It starts off promising as she gives a couple of fairly nuanced insights about the socioeconomics of addiction, but the conversation quickly becomes cringingly heavy-handed as Yar tells Crusher she hopes he never understands.

From "Lost" to "Battlestar Galactica," the aughts were a good time for fresh sci-fi. But one thing the early 2000s television era was not always great about was handling topics like consent and assault, to the extent that watching TV shows from this era can feel like something of a minefield in terms of cringe bombs. 

Such is the case with the "Star Trek: Enterprise" episode "Unexpected," which imagines Enterprise NX-01 Chief Engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker III (Connor Trinneer) unwittingly becoming impregnated by a sketchy Xyrillian woman he was just starting to vibe with while aboard her ship. She literally tricks Trip into participating in her mating ritual, telling him it's a "game" — a language choice that starts to feel pretty uncomfortable once you realize what she's been up to. Although she later tells Trip she didn't know pregnancy was possible between humans and Xyrillians, that doesn't change the fact that she left out the central purpose of the "game" they were engaged in, making her actions that much creepier.

But instead of addressing the trauma, distress, and humiliation that a sexual assault victim like Trip might feel, "Enterprise" plays the whole thing for laughs as the engineer starts to grow nipples on his arm. Any possibility of addressing the anxiety of carrying an unwanted pregnancy is blithely hand-waved away, reduced to a pregnant guy gag when Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley) casually identifies that Trip's arm rash is actually a nipple.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

When you're dealing with a time-honored franchise like "Star Trek," a little fan service every now and then can make for a fun little wink and nod to the most dedicated fans. But these moments tend to work best when they don't call attention to themselves or feel awkward and shoehorned. Many fans feel that this is the problem with the "Next Generation" movie "Star Trek: First Contact" when one character works the name of the franchise into his dialogue.

The controversial line gets uttered by Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell), a legacy character from "Star Trek: The Original Series" known for inventing the warp drive, leading to the Vulcans' initiation of first contact protocols and ultimately paving the way for the United Federation of Planets. After Picard's crew arrives in 21st-century Montana, and they end up crossing paths with Cochrane, Deanna Troi, William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), and Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), they have to convince him they've come from the future, a future they'd really like to save from the Borg's shenanigans.

In response to their story, Cochrane replies, "And you people, you're all astronauts on ... some kind of star trek." It's the kind of line that, in the right theater, might have prompted simultaneous applause and cheers. Still, many fans felt the moment seemed forced and gratuitous, largely because the words "star trek" take viewers out of the scene. As one Reddit user put it, "The phrase 'star trek' is not something that comes naturally in a conversation. That's just not the way people talk. It only sounds like the title of a TV show."

There are plenty of storylines from earlier "Star Trek" eras that aged terribly by today's standards. But for the most part, later-era writers managed to smooth out the canonical impact of these awkward choices either by sweeping them aside or engaging in a little retcon airbrushing, even if a few of those "Star Trek" episodes would never air today. One moment that's impossible to memory-wipe occurs in the unfortunate series finale of "Star Trek: The Original Series."

The episode, titled "Turnabout Intruder," revolves around one of Captain Kirk's old girlfriends Freaky Fridaying herself into his body out of spite for Starfleet's refusal to let women serve as captains. Even before climbing into her Kirk meatsuit and acting completely conspicuous all over the ship, Dr. Janice Lester (Sandra Smith) makes her motivations clear, bitterly telling her ex, "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women. It isn't fair."

While it's true that sexism was pretty par for the era, it's hard to believe that "Star Trek" writers imagining a post-scarcity space utopia in the smack dab middle of the civil rights era would envision a world of such progress where women still can't be the boss. In light of the fact that this doesn't hold up through the series and is eventually retconned as many female captains take the chair, the line serves as an embarrassing reminder of a time when women's demands for equal treatment could be played as grounds for one hysterical woman's villainous overreach.

Two things can be true at the same time — like how a "Star Trek" scene can be both cringey and smokin' hot all at once. From the ripped-ab-revealing uniforms and unisex "skant" minidress in early episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" to Seven of Nine's body-hugging "Voyager" onesie and an NSFW undies scene in "Star Trek: Into Darkness," "Star Trek" just wouldn't be "Star Trek" without a little unnecessary sex appeal thrown into the mix. But when it comes to gratuitous Starfleet thirst traps, the most egregious offender in "Star Trek" is "Star Trek: Enterprise." Even more cringeworthy than the "Star Trek: Enterprise" nude scenes creators would come to regret are the notorious decontamination scenes, which feature underwear-clad crewmen slathering oil all over each other's bodies.

As one fan reflected on a GameFAQs bulletin board, recalling the first of these scenes in the "Enterprise" pilot, the episode starts off as "Good old Trek fun" until oops! They've come into contact with some alien microbe, which means it's time to retire to the decon chamber for an uncomfortably lengthy period of time. "And then for about [three] minutes, Trek becomes soft-core porn. They rub oil on each other very slowly, it even has mood lighting." There are no bathrobes, no privacy screens — just hot young crewmen rubbing each other's taut skin in good, old-fashioned comfy Starfleet-issued cotton undies that leave little to the imagination as they drop little exposition nuggets. "I don't know if [that's] sleazy or genius," the user concluded.

High on the list of most unbearable "Star Trek: The Original Series" episodes is "The Way to Eden," the Season 3 episode that finds the Enterprise infested by a gaggle of bratty, cultish space hippies demanding the captain take them to the mythical planet Eden. Shortly after getting rescued by Scotty (James Doohan) from a damaged space cruiser, the anti-establishment, anti-tech young adults repay the Enterprise crew by staging a transporter room sit-in.

It's embarrassing enough to witness this absurd, clownish caricature of what no doubt many old folks of the era imagined the 1960s counterculture to be like. But when they all break out in a meaningless, accusatory chant of "Herbert!" when they don't get their way on account of Eden being a fictional place, it's beyond cringey.

Unfortunately, this uncomfortable scene is just the beginning of the weird vibes in a deeply bizarre episode — by the end of the episode, we're also forced to suffer through multiple ear-gouging musical numbers. As one Reddit user put it, "Spock jamming with the space hippies, that dated '60s space music blasting over the ship's intercom, and that one red-shirted moron gyrating and snapping his fingers on the bridge! I'd just be so embarrassed watching this with anyone, hell I'm embarrassed watching it by myself!"

Yet another reminder that the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" writers' vision of the future was kind of a thirst trap is the infamous leotard scene from "The Price." Set in an exercise room, the scene begins with Crusher stretching alone in a bust-popping gold space-Jazzercise leotard layered over a fern green body stocking. Suddenly, Troi rushes into the room, dressed in an equally sassy, bust-hugging little pink leotard, apologizing for her lateness as she drops in next to the doctor and starts stretching as well. This prompts Crusher to utter a line that kicks off one of the most goosebump-inducingly cringeworthy conversations in "Star Trek" as she tells Troi, "You're unusually limber this morning," to which Troi responds by implying it's because she's been hooking up with Devinoni Ral (Matt McCoy).

But this isn't even the worst moment in the scene — that honor goes to the next line, when Crusher tells Troi, "Who needs rational when your toes curl up?" They spend the rest of the brief scene dishing about men and love, all while stretching together in the most booty-accentuating ways possible. "Star Trek: Lower Decks" would later parody the scene in "I Have No Bones, But I Must Flee" by pairing a sexy leotard-clad Lieutenant Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore) and Jack Ransom (Jerry O'Connell) in their own exercise room heart-to-heart.