During roundtable interviews, I wasn’t able to ask each interviewee what their first Star Trek memory was and what their favorite episodes were, but here’s what I got. Happy Star Trek viewing!

Rod Roddenberry

• First Star Trek memory: “I remember being a little kid in my father’s home office bathroom. He had a 9 mm project that he would take to conventions and he had the blooper reel. He would play the blooper reel and I would just laugh and giggle because all the doors were closing on them and, you know, they trip and fall. ” When asked if there was a particular blooper, Roddenberry added, “I don’t know if this is appropriate. There is a blooper of my mother as Nurse Chapel and I think Deforest. They’re doing one of those rocking scenes, you know, look this way, that way. And she kind of falls into him and he kind of grabs her and then he has his hands on her breasts.”
• Favorite Episode: “The Devil in the Dark” (Season 1, Episode 25)  It made Star Trek “click” for him. He explained, “There’s a rock monster killing miners. We’re mining on the planet. The Enterprise is brought in to save the day. I think that first they might try to kill it, but then Spock realizes it’s intelligent, learns how to communicate with it. We find out it’s a mother protecting its young and its young are the crystals, the eggs that we are mining. So that’s the one where it twists on you and we end up being the devil in the dark. Having grown up watching ‘Nightrider’ and shows like that, those shows didn’t do that. And this was a holy sh*t moment…Any Star Trek that can make you think or see the other point of view, you don’t have to agree with it, but if it makes you see the other point of view and empathize with it, that’s the best Star Trek. That’s the best storytelling out there, in my opinion.

George Takei (TOS):

• “Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country“
• Takei said, “When Sulu got his own captain’s seat in Star Trek, that’s my favorite. At the beginning like every beginning of Star Trek, there’s a captain who drinks tea. Kirk comes in. Picard comes. He’s drinking tea, and suddenly the ship shakes. And there’s this wave of Klingons…and this big battle happens and Sulu rises to the occasion. Captain Kirk is about to be blasted out of the galaxy by Klingons, and who should come to the rescue? Captain Sulu out of the bottom of the galaxy.” Takei did regret that Star Trek never followed the further adventures of Captain Sulu, but hopes they will in the future.

Karim Diané (“Starfleet Academy”)

• Didn’t have time to answer the favorite Star Trek question.

Michael Dorn (Worf in “The Next Generation,” “Deep Space Nine” and “Picard”)

• First Star Trek memory: “I was a big fan of the original and we were blown away by the diversity of the crew. And the fine Nichelle. We’re good dues, you know? We’re like going, ‘Oh my god.’ ”
• Favorite Episode: “Bread and Circuses” (TOS, Season 2, Episode 25)  Dorn explained, “They are fighting against these people and they worship the sun….At the very end, they said, you know, this is ridiculous…and Nichelle Nichols says, ‘You don’t understand. You’re all wrong….They’re not worshiping the sun in the sky. They’re worshiping the son of God.”

Doug Jones (“Discovery”)

• First Star Trek memory:   “The Trouble with Tribbles” (Season 2, Episode 15)

  

  • When he was six years old, living in Indiana, he remembers watching it on TV, saying, “It was kind of cute and fun and I resonated with that more at that age.”  Jones later added, “I like cute fuzzy things.”

Dominic Keating (“Enterprise”)

• First Star Trek memory: “Operation: Annihilate!” (Season 1, Episode 29)
  • “The title of it, I’m not sure. With fried eggs on the ceiling of the planet they visited. It scared the living, my mum used to say, the  “s,” “h,” one “t” out of me. For me it was an adventure show back then. And obviously that appreciation has deepened.”
• Favorites:
  • “Similitude” (“Star Trek: Enterprise,” Season 3, Episode 10). Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) orders to making of a clone of Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer) to save Tucker’s life.

    

  • “Shuttlepod One” (“Star Trek: Enterprise,” Season  1, Episode 16). During a mission, Commander Tucker (Connor Trinneer) and Lieutenant Reed (Dominic Keating) are convinced the Enterprise has been destroyed and they have little chance of survival. Keating stated, “That really was a crowning moment for me.”

 

Cirroc Lofton (“Deep Space Nine”): Favorites

• “In the Pale Moonlight” (“Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” Season 5, Episode 19). Because he loves Avery Brooks (Captain Benjamin Sisko, the father of Lofton’s character) performance. Captain Sisko enlists the help of Garak to help persuade the Romulans to join the Federation/Klingon alliance to

  

  help win the Federation-Dominion war.

• “The Inner Light” (“Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Season 5, Episode 25): Captain Picard is knocked out by an alien probe’s energy beam. During the 25 minutes he’s unconscious, he lives an entire life as an iron weaver on a dying planet.

Robert Picardo (“Voyager,” “Deep Space Nine,” “Prodigy” and “Starfleet Academy”)

• “City on the Edge of Forever.” (TOS, Season 1, Episode 28). Doctor McCoy has accidentally overdosed himself on a drug and transports himself to a mysterious planet and travels back in time, changing history. The Federation of Planets no longer exists. In order to fix history, Captain Kirk and Spock follow McCoy through the time portal to Depression-era New York City.
• “Darmok” (“Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Season 5, Episode 2). Captain Picard attempts to establish diplomatic relations with the Children of Tama.
• “Real Life” (“Star Trek: Voyager,” Season 3, Episode 22). The Emergency Hologram programs his own holographic family to experience human life, but Torres later modified the program to add realism and that introduces everyday conflicts.

  

• “Far Beyond the Stars” (“Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” Season 6, Episode 13). Saddened by the death of his friend during the Dominion War, Captain Sisko has visions of being an African American science fiction writer facing racism in New York City in 1953.

Jerry O’Connell (“Lower Decks”)

• First Star Trek memory: “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”
  • “Remember at the end when he’s twisting (something), like when he’s going to blow everything up. It was like a cylinder thing that pops up. I’m from New York City. On the subways, on the floor they would have these chrome disk that had rings around them and I always thought it looks like the disc, the thing that Khan uses to blow everything up. That’s my earliest memories.”
  • Khan is on the USS Reliant and the last surviving member of his crew. He blows up his ship in the Mutara Nebula by triggering the Genesis Device. He quotes “Moby-Dick,” saying From hell’s heart, I stab at thee.” This results in Spock’s sacrifice to save the USS Enterprise.
  • O’Connell added, “You guys wanted to get weird.”