Star Trek

Star Trek was a popular American television series of the 1960s that became a cultural icon of the late 20th century; it later spawned a long-running entertainment franchise that included movies and spin-off TV series into the 21st century.


 * The first time Bernice Summerfield watched Star Trek, she thought it was a documentary. (NA: The Left-Handed Hummingbird; a similar misunderstanding was a major plot point of the motion picture Galaxy Quest)


 * Star Trek had many avid followers, who felt thrilled at the debut of movies based on the series. (NA: Return of the Living Dad)


 * The Doctor explained the chameleon circuit to Grace Holloway in terms of a "cloaking device", using a term closely associated with Star Trek (although in the context of Star Trek a cloaking device was used to turn space vehicles invisible, not change their appearance as was the theoretical function of the TARDIS' chameleon circuit). (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie)


 * As a young science fiction fan, Izzy Sinclair, watched Star Trek to vicariously escape her unhappy home life. (DWM: Oblivion)


 * Rose Tyler compared the Doctor to the Star Trek character Spock, a name Rose later gave as the Doctor's own when she introduced him to Jack Harkness; Harkness subsequently began calling him Mr. Spock until he was corrected. (DW: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances)


 * A Time Lord, Marnal, going by the Human alias Marnal Gate, sold a script to Star Trek. Unhappy with the changes made to the script, however, he saw to it that he did not get credited for it. (EDA: The Gallifrey Chronicles)


 * When the Gorgon's followers trapped Sarah Jane Smith, Luke Smith, Maria Jackson, and Clyde Langer and Sarah's sonic lipstick was taken from her Clyde commented that they didn't need a "Star Trek gadget" to get out. (SJA: Eye of the Gorgon)


 * When Clyde and Luke Smith were on Kudlak's ship Luke asked Clyde if he could use his mobile phone. One of the other captives told him that it would be useless in space unless he knew Captain Kirk's phone number. (SJA: Warriors of Kudlak)


 * The Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble once compared the sonic screwdriver to Star Trek's tricorder, and soon after briefly adopted the aliases Dr. McCoy (the Doctor) and Captain Kirk (Donna). (BBC Audio: Pest Control)

Other information

 * Destrii watched a spacecraft design closely resembling that of the fictional Enterprise (DWM: Oblivion)

Behind the scenes

 * The unofficial novella The Doctor and the Enterprise by Jean Airey, initially published privately and then in a professional edition in 1989 by Pioneer Books, features an apocryphal adventure featuring Captain Kirk's crew and the Fourth Doctor. The Pioneer edition excises most references to character names from Star Trek, referring to Kirk as "The Captain", McCoy as "The Physician", etc., however the editing is not perfect and a few references to "Kirk", etc. remain in the book. In addition, the book includes many illustrations clearly showing recognizable characters, aliens and spaceships from Star Trek (including one image of the USS Enterprise with its name clearly visible), as well as images of the TARDIS and of Tom Baker as the Doctor. Many amateur "fanfic" crossovers have been written over the years combining the two franchises, but Doctor and the Enterprise remains the only one published on a professional level.
 * A line cut from the script of The Empty Child would have had the Doctor reply to Rose saddling him with the "Mr. Spock" nickname, "I'd rather be Doctor Who than Star Trek".
 * An early episode of the series was titled "The Enemy Within". Doctor Who: The TV Movie would later be given this title unofficially by fans.
 * There are several instances of the Star Trek franchise referencing Doctor Who. The most explicit of these is the novel Ishmael by Barbara Hambley which references the constellation of Kasterborous being home to a race of time-travellers. An episode of Star Trek: Enterprise entitled "Future Tense" has the Enterprise encounter a spaceship from the future; the interior design is an homage to the TARDIS, complete with roundel-wall design, and -- most notably -- the vessel is shown to be bigger on the inside than on the outside.
 * The distinctive sliding circular door at the entrance of Torchwood 3 is remarkably similar to several seen in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
 * Several storylines from the 1970s to the present day have included references to various types of warp engines used for faster-than-light travel; this is a possible reference to the Star Trek franchise which popularized the term.
 * Both Doctor Who and Star Trek have featured a race of cybernetic humanoids as major villains. In Doctor Who it was the Cybermen and in Star Trek the Borg. The two races are very similar although the Borg only partially augment their victims rather than total conversion and has been reversed on several occasions.