Every Star Trek Episode Title That Is Actually A Shakespeare Reference

A recent episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" — called "The Serene Squall" — opened with a conversation between T'Pring (Gia Sandhu) and Spock (Ethan Peck) on the lack of sexual passion in their long-distance relationship. T'Pring reveals that, since Spock has been living among humans, she has been reading several human authors said to be experts in sexuality. She namedrops Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer," Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying," as well as "The Argonauts" by Maggie Nelson, an extended essay on gender, sexuality, and pregnancy that won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2015. The writers of "The Serene Squall," Beau DeMayo and Sarah Tarkoff, clearly knew enough about the literature of sexuality to include appropriate references in their episode. These casual mentions of real-world books are a bold and old tradition in "Star Trek," and hearing them, however casually, are enough to make every literary nerd in the audience intellectually salivate.

"Star Trek" has always had something of a literary bent, featuring well-read characters (Picard, for instance, is quite familiar with Shakespeare), and often drawing episode titles from canonized classics; An early Trek episode called "Who Mourns for Adonais?" is, for instance, a line from a Percy Shelley poem memorializing John Keats. But it's the Bard of Stratford that appears to be most heavily leaned upon in the "Star Trek" writer's room, and lines of Shakespeare's plays are frequently used as "Star Trek" episode titles. 

So many in fact, a list could be filled. Henceforth, let such a list be compiled. With the prologue done, we, your humble patience pray, gently to hear, kindly to judge our play.

The Title Comes From: "Hamlet"

The Shakespearean Context: When Hamlet is asked to enact blood revenge by the ghost of his dead father — a common sight in revenge dramas in Shakespeare's time — he balks. Rather than play the role of a revenge hero, Hamlet turns into a meta-commentator, foolishly bringing ethics and self-awareness into a recognizable action plot. Hamlet, in order to prove that his kingly father was killed by his usurping uncle as the ghost claimed, elects to stage the details of the murder as a play, hoping to witness his watching uncle's guilt first hand. "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

The Episode: "The Conscience of the King" (December 8, 1966) is a dark one. Kirk discovers that an aging Shakespearean actor named Anton Karidian (Arnold Moss) was in fact a former mass murderer nicknamed Kodos the Executioner, who once cruelly had 4,000 colonists killed during a food shortage. This was a slaughter that Kirk witnessed as a youth. Kodos might have faked his death and gone into hiding as Karidian, and it will be up to Kirk to investigate and to bring the man to justice. The Shakespearean scenes enacted throughout the episode cement the story parallels, and Karidian's conscience does indeed become a plot point.

The Title Comes From: "The Winter's Tale"

The Shakespearean Context: "The Winter's Tale" may be one of Shakespeare's weirdest plays. The first part of the play is a grim revenge tragedy about the bitter king Leontes who suspects his wife of infidelity, and who dies. He banishes his daughter Perdita. Fast-forward 16 years, and Leontes rediscovers Perdita living among shepherds in, essentially, a bright, cheerful comedy play. Also the wife has been a statue this whole time? The quote comes from a character named merely "First Gentleman," and reads "Who would be thence that has the benefit of access? Every wink of an eye some new grace will be born: our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge."

The Episode: Nothing to do with "The Winter's Tale," "Wink of an Eye" (November 29, 1968) is about Kirk encountering a species who lives at a hyperaccelerated time rate compared to humans, making them imperceptible. One of them (Kathie Browne) is able to change Kirk's time rate so they can communicate, and she explains that her species needs Earth men to procreate. Yes, it's a pretty blunt sex fantasy, a common Trek notion in the early Gene Roddenberry days. Perhaps Shakespeare, when at his bawdiest, would appreciate that. 

The Title Comes From: "King Lear" 

The Shakespearean Context: The elderly King Lear has, rather than name an heir to take his throne after death, attempted to remain diplomatic and divide his kingdom into three parts to be shared among his three daughters Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. The latter of the three understands this is a horrible idea as the former two have been raised to be conniving and ambitious and will most assuredly use their land shares to muscle the other out of theirs. When Lear learns of a long string of deceptions, he laments his fate. "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!"

The Episode: "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" (Ocotber 6, 1974) is an episode of the "Star Trek" animated series that finds Kirk and co. on the home planet of a powerful, intelligent serpent monster claiming to be Kukulkan, a god worshiped by the Aztec and Mayan people on Earth. Kukulkan awakens and demands to be worshiped, just like in the good old days. In a move daring for an animated program from the 1970s, Kirk explains, essentially, that humans are pretty much all atheists now, and have outgrown the need for "parenting" once provided by gods. Kirk turns to God and says "you're no longer needed." Kukulkan, sad but understanding, departs. It is the god who shares Lear's sentiment.

The Title Comes From: "Hamlet"

The Shakespearean Context: The character of Polonius, father of Laertes and Ophelia, has agreed to let his rascally son return to France to continue his studies abroad. Before he lets Laertes go, though, Polonius lays down a long litany of axioms and advice — "Neither a borrower nor a lender be," etc. — for his son to follow closely. He ends it with "This above all: to thine own self be true, And is must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." The advice is sage, but ironic. Listen to everything I say, but to thine own self be true. 

The Episode: "Thine Own Self" (February 14, 1994) sees the android Data (Brent Spiner) severely damaged while he is cleaning up nuclear materials on a distant planet alone. The damage erases his memory and sees him wandering over to the planet's locals, currently living through their equivalent of Earth's 16th century. Data is suspected to be an Ice Man (hence his pale skin and golden eyes). The radioactive materials he was cleaning up become used in local jewelry, however, and the whole village becomes poisoned. Data, being scientifically minded despite the memory loss, must find a way to cure the radiation poisoning. He is true to himself. Fitting title.

The Title Comes From: "Hamlet" 

The Shakespearean Context: Another quote from the famous "To be or not to be speech," wherein Hamlet talks about shedding his mortal body, finally sleeping. But then — the rub — you might dream in death. "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause: there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life." 

The Episode: "Star Trek," as seen above, is a pretty explicitly atheist show wherein godlike beings appear only to be defied, rejected, slapped across the face, told to go away, or blasted away by Spock. What is rarely dramatized, then, is a struggle with losing faith in God. That story is told in the "Voyager" episode "Mortal Coil" (December 17, 1997) wherein Neelix (Ethan Phillips) is killed on an away mission. After many minutes, he is brought back to life by Borg technology, upset that he did not face the afterlife. He saw nothing at all. The episode is about Neelix finding meaning after losing faith. Pretty hard-hitting stuff. And in keeping, at least partly, with Hamlet's speech. 

The Title Comes From: "Julius Casear"

The Shakespearean Context: After Caesar is assassinated (spoilers!), Marc Antony is briefly left alone with his body. He gets his dander up by swearing revenge against the assassins, making a war-tinged speech about his next move. "And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, with Ate by his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a monarch's voice Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial."

The Episode: "The Dogs of War" (May 24, 1999) was the penultimate episode of "Deep Space Nine," and a time when a dozen plot threads and 30 characters were all gathering to determine the fate of a years-long, multi-pronged war. A two-hour finale is coming, so much of "The Dogs of War" was mere stage-setting, pointing out that a lot may soon be lost. The dogs or war, soldiers, are to be slipped, and many may die. Oh yes, and Rom (Max Grodénchik) may become Grand Nagus. It's all so busy! The Shakespearean phrase only denotes the fierceness of ongoing conflict.