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60 free Star Trek: the Original Series trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Looking for Star Trek: The Original Series trivia? Our full 60-question TOS quiz lives at Star Trek: The Original Series Trivia. This page keeps a shorter set of the same era of questions.
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Q 01On which US network did Star Trek originally air from 1966 to 1969?
NBC
The network cancelled it after three seasons and 79 episodes; TV Guide Network later ranked the decision the fourth-biggest TV blunder ever.
Q 02How many episodes of the original Star Trek were made?
79
That total, including the three-season run, was barely enough for daily syndication, where the show finally found its audience.
Q 03Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek to the networks as what?
Wagon Train to the stars
He also called Kirk "Horatio Hornblower in space", after C.S. Forester's sea captain.
Q 04Which company, headed by Lucille Ball, produced Star Trek's pilots and first season?
Desilu
Ball was instrumental in getting the pilot made and, in early 1966, was persuaded not to drop the show along with Mission: Impossible.
Q 05What was the title of the first Star Trek pilot, rejected by NBC as "too cerebral"?
The Cage
NBC took the unusual step of paying for a second pilot; the first one's footage was later recycled into a two-part episode.
Q 06Which actor played Captain Christopher Pike in the first pilot?
Jeffrey Hunter
Lloyd Bridges had turned the role down; when Hunter's contract was not renewed, William Shatner took command as Kirk.
Q 07What was the title of the second pilot, the one NBC accepted?
Where No Man Has Gone Before
It introduced Kirk, Scotty and Sulu, who was a physicist in the pilot before becoming helmsman.
Q 08Which episode was the first to be broadcast, on September 8, 1966?
The Man Trap
The studio chose it to lead off because of its horror plot about a shape-shifting creature that drains salt from its victims.
Q 09Fans nicknamed the shape-shifter of the first broadcast episode what, after its craving?
The salt vampire
It posed as Nancy Crater on planet M-113; the creature was redesigned for the 2009 film but did not make the cut.
Q 10Which cast member joined in season two as Ensign Pavel Chekov?
Walter Koenig
He was cast largely for his resemblance to Davy Jones of the Monkees, filling in while George Takei was away making a war film.
Q 11George Takei missed half of season two because he was filming which John Wayne movie?
The Green Berets
Roddenberry later called it a "major error" not to have had a Russian aboard from the beginning.
Q 12NBC's publicity department airbrushed which feature of Spock out of early photos sent to affiliates?
His pointed ears and eyebrows
Executives feared his "demonic" look would offend the religiously conservative South and kept urging Roddenberry to "drop the Martian".
Q 13Which fan led the 1967-68 letter-writing campaign, secretly funded by Roddenberry, that won a third season?
Bjo Trimble
Q 21Which studio executive added the "stardate" concept to Star Trek?
Herbert Solow
As the studio's director of production, he had signed Roddenberry to a three-year development deal in 1964.
Q 22Composer Alexander Courage lost half of his theme royalties because Roddenberry did what?
Wrote lyrics that were never used
The move let Roddenberry claim co-composer credit; Courage called it legal but unethical and scored no second-season episodes.
Q 23How many Emmy Awards did the original Star Trek win during its run?
0
It was nominated for Outstanding Dramatic Series, and Nimoy earned three supporting-actor nominations, but the show never won.
NBC admitted to almost 116,000 letters, though one executive said more than a million pieces of mail arrived.
Q 14Students from which university marched on NBC in January 1968 with 'Draft Spock' signs?
Caltech
More than 200 of them turned out; NBC then took the unusual step of announcing the renewal on air after "The Omega Glory".
Q 15For its third season NBC moved Star Trek to what notoriously bad time slot?
10 pm Friday
The move avoided a clash with Laugh-In on Mondays; Roddenberry said if the network wanted to kill the show "it couldn't make a better move".
Q 16Who replaced Roddenberry as producer for the troubled third season?
Fred Freiberger
The per-episode budget was cut to $175,000, and only "The Paradise Syndrome" was shot largely outdoors that year.
Q 17Which art director designed the Enterprise and is honoured by the name of its equipment shafts?
Matt Jefferies
The "Jefferies tube" appears in every later Star Trek series; Wah Chang built the props and Bill Theiss designed the costumes.
Q 18Which prop, designed by Wah Chang, is often credited with inspiring the flip phone?
The communicator
Chang, a former Disney artist, also created several of the show's memorable aliens.
Q 19Before Roddenberry settled on Enterprise, what name had he intended for the starship?
Yorktown
He was fascinated by the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise; the NCC registry nods to the NC aircraft code assigned to the United States.
Q 20The 11-foot filming model of the Enterprise has long been on display at which Smithsonian institution?
National Air and Space Museum
The Smithsonian also asked for a print of the show for its archives during the original run, the only series so honoured at the time.
Q 24Which science-fiction prize did Star Trek win in a special 1968 presentation?
Hugo
Two individual episodes also won the Best Dramatic Presentation category outright.
Q 25Which science-fiction author wrote "The City on the Edge of Forever"?
Harlan Ellison
He won the Writers Guild award for his original script and the Hugo for the aired version, and complained about the rewrites for decades.
Q 26In "The City on the Edge of Forever", which actress played Edith Keeler, the soup-kitchen worker Kirk loves?
Joan Collins
Kirk and Spock travel through the Guardian of Forever to Depression-era New York to undo the damage done by a drugged McCoy.
Q 27"The Trouble with Tribbles" was the first professional script by which writer?
David Gerrold
The Klingons had poisoned a shipment of quadrotriticale grain, and Scotty beams the tribbles onto their ship: "no tribble at all".
Q 28Which Star Trek series digitally inserted its cast into 'The Trouble with Tribbles' for the 30th anniversary?
Deep Space Nine
"Trials and Tribble-ations" aired in 1996 and even explained why Klingons looked different in the 1960s.
Q 29What was the name of the derelict ship carrying Khan and his followers in "Space Seed"?
SS Botany Bay
Ricardo Montalbán was the casting director's first choice; the 1982 film The Wrath of Khan is a direct sequel.
Q 30"Amok Time", the only episode with scenes on Spock's home planet, introduced which concept?
Pon farr, the mating cycle
Theodore Sturgeon's script also gave the world the Vulcan salute and "live long and prosper".