Star Trek is often family-friendly, but one early episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation was banned by the BBC for being too violent. Following the adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the USS Enterprise-D, TNG is not known for being particularly dark or gory. Captain Picard usually attacks problems with words and diplomacy rather than phaser fire, but he takes a different approach in TNG season 1, episode 25, "Conspiracy".
"Conspiracy" almost didn't air at all because even some of the producers worried it was too much. However, in the UK, the network hosting Star Trek: TNG was much stricter when it came to gore and violence. At that time, it was the BBC, the UK's taxpayer-funded network, that had broadcasting rights for Star Trek: The Next Generation. There was one scene in "Conspiracy" that the BBC took incredible chagrin with, and so in the UK it became a 'banned' Star Trek episode for a single reason — the moment Lt. Commander Dexter Remmick's head explodes. The episode was eventually aired by the BBC, though even then it was heavily censored.
What Happened In The Banned Star Trek TNG Episode
"Conspiracy" Mixed A Storyline That Was Part Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, Part Ridley Scott's Alien
The incredibly dark Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Conspiracy" had an intriguing plot, and one that was part of a multi-episode arc. However, it wasn't the premise of this dark Star Trek episode that led it to be banned by the BBC, but the visuals that came along with it. "Conspiracy" picks up on a plot thread first mentioned in TNG season 1, episode 19, "Coming of Age," which revealed a possible conspiracy within the highest levels of Starfleet.
With the help of Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) and Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Captain Picard discovers that several high-level Starfleet officers are being controlled by parasitic aliens. When Picard and Riker confront the leader of the parasites, Lt. Commander Dexter Remmick (Robert Schenkkan), they fire their phasers at him at point-blank range.
This is where the banned Star Trek episode became problematic. Remmick's head explodes in a surprisingly gory display, and then a large parasite creature pops out of Remmick's stomach, before being similarly dispatched. It's all much more violent than a typical episode of TNG, and the BBC banned the episode outright when it first aired.
TNG's "Conspiracy" Was Deemed Too Violent For The BBC
Remmick's Head Exploding Was Deemed Too Gory
According to Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Continuing Mission, A Tenth Anniversary Tribute, producers Rick Berman and Peter Lauritson were concerned about "Conspiracy" being too dark. To see how children would react to the episode, Berman and Lauritson showed "Conspiracy" to the six-year-old son of the special effects supervisor, Dan Curry. The child apparently responded:
"I really liked the part where the guy's head blew up! You know, you could make a Remmick action figure where if you pressed the button, his head blows up!"
So the episode aired as it was, and while this may have delighted many six-year-old Trek fans, the BBC felt differently about the head-exploding scene. "Conspiracy" first aired in the United States in May 1988, but the episode was banned in the United Kingdom at the time. The BBC did eventually air "Conspiracy" in 1991, but several minutes of footage were cut from the episode, including most of Remmick's death scene.
In Canada, a viewer discretion warning aired before the episode. Although the gore in "Conspiracy" may seem tame by today's standards, it was very atypical for Star Trek at the time. While the episode is certainly an entertaining one, it feels somewhat out of place among the other episodes of TNG season 1.
Despite ending with a hint that the parasites would return, they are never mentioned again in any Star Trek television show or movie. However, a series of tie-in novels did pick up the storyline, connecting the parasites to Trill symbiotes.
Several Other Star Trek Episodes Have Been Banned In The UK
TOS episodes "The Empath," "Whom Gods Destroy," "Plato's Stepchildren," and "Miri" were all banned.
Although TNG's "Conspiracy" may be the most well-known episode to have been banned, this kind of censoring wasn't new to Star Trek, especially in the UK. Several episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series were banned in the United Kingdom, much to the consternation of many Star Trek fans. The BBC network apparently received so many letters from Trek fans urging them to air the episodes, that they sent out their own letter in 1976. The letter stated:
"After very careful consideration a top-level decision was made not to screen the episodes entitled 'Empath,' 'Whom Gods Destroy,' 'Plato's Stepchildren,' and 'Miri,' because they all dealt most unpleasantly with the already unpleasant subjects of madness, torture, sadism, and disease."
Dedicated Star Trek fans eventually found other ways to watch the banned episodes, and they were shown at several conventions in the UK over the years. The four banned episodes of TOS did not air on the BBC until the early 1990s.
Another Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, season 3's "The High Ground," was also banned in the UK because of one line delivered by Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner). When discussing examples of terrorism that brought about political change, Data references "the Irish Unification of 2024." Because of the conflict in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles, the BBC did not air an unedited version of "The High Ground" until 2007.
What's The Darkest Star Trek Episode Ever?
There Are Almost Too Many Nightmare-Inducing Episodes Of Star Trek To Count
Star Trek has no shortage of incredibly dark episodes, even among those that weren't banned in regions like the UK. "Conspiracy" may have been a particularly gory moment in TNG, but it wasn't the darkest moment in the series or even Star Trek as a whole. Many of the darkest episodes of Star Trek don't rely on gore or violence at all, but instead simply have plot threads that become more harrowing or unsettling the more they're thought about.
While the show is culturally perceived as simply being (admittedly heavy) sci-fi, there are dozens of incredibly dark Star Trek episodes that cross the borders into various horror sub-genres. Whether it's existential dread or effects-laced body horror, almost every Star Trek fan has their own pick for the darkest episode, though there are a few that stand out for being particularly unnerving.
For example, in Star Trek: Deep Space 9, the season 3 episode "Visionary", Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) begins experiencing involuntary time-travel due to the effects of interstellar radiation. This allows him to travel into the future and witness a Romulan attack that destroys Deep Space 9. O'Brien voluntarily subjects himself to more radiation to warn his future self and prevent the attack, though this ends up killing him.
O'Brien wasn't written out of Star Trek: DS9, but the version of him that existed from then on was from an alternate timeline. Nobody else knew, and it was never referenced again. The fact that the original O'Brien, who had been with viewers since Star Trek: TNG simply died without fanfare and accepted this as just part of life in the Federation has ensured "Visionary" is touted by many fans as one of the darkest Star Trek moments.
Another example is the Star Trek: Voyager season 2 episode "The Thaw". In this episode, several Voyager crew members are connected to the ship's computer via stasis pods. However, when they awaken in the virtual reality, they are subjected to a twisted and torturous gameshow by a race of tech-integrated psychic aliens. The episode feels like a nightmare pulled directly from books like Stephen King's IT, especially since it's heavily implied that the crew members in question would have been subjected to their torment for the rest of their lives had they not managed to escape.
It's also fitting that "Conspiracy" was a Star Trek: TNG episode, as this particular iteration of Star Trek is also considered one of the darkest generally. The show went into much more nightmarish territory than Star Trek: The Original Series ever did, and while future Star Trek shows have delved equally deeper into horror as a genre, few did quite as frequently as TNG (though Deep Space 9 in particular often came incredibly close).
This is especially apparent with The Borg, who were introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Almost every Borg-centric episode is dark due to the nature of the race itself, and the idea of being assimilated into their ranks is far more chilling than the "Conspiracy" head-exploding scene — even though the process is never shown with anywhere near the same level of blood, gore, or violence.
