10 Behind The Scenes Reasons For Star Trek Characters' Quirks

I like to think that Picard was speaking French the whole time and the universal translator was giving him an English accent.

"Jonathan Frakes asserts his dominance over ever chair he encounters" is a fantastic line kudos to whoever wrote that.

I seem to recall an episode where Data refers to “an obscure language known as French” and Picard glares at him for a moment before moving on to other things.

I am actually very glad Picard wasn't young, it just is far more realistic for someone to have some years under the belt once they reach the level of captain.

I had no idea that Frakes had a back injury. Once again we have a case of an actor who chose to "own" his limitation and use it. It looked so natural for him to swing his leg over chairs and lean on objects that way. Very dominating.

My dad, a man bald on top since his 20s,was quietly delighted when he watched the pilot of TNG and this fantastic new captain was bald. As time went on and Picard was proven every bit as "manly" as Kirk, but polished and sophisticated, he grew even happier with the new show vs the old. Picard did a lot for mainstreaming bald men as virile leads, VS as paunchy cowards, it was long overdue.

Also, the reason Riker has a beard in is because of a writer's strike. During the strike between season 1 and 2, Frakes let his beard grow. When Gene Rodenberry saw the beard, he loved it and thought it was very nautical, so the beard stayed.

I met Doohan around 1980 and he shook my hand with his left hand, which I thought was awkward and strange. I didn't know he was missing a finger until many years later. He didn't want his injury to frighten a ten year old boy. He was a very thoughtful man.

Saw Stewart on stage once and when he stood up, he automatically performed the "Picard maneuver". Audience gasped and then clapped.

Kate Mulgrew has explained that putting her hands on her hips was actually to help her appear less emotive with her hands on screen. The producers did a lot to try to lessen the fact that the first female captain in a series was in fact female. Including getting her to gesture less with her hands. So Kate simply put her hands on her hips so she wouldn't use them.

I'm 33 years old and have been watching Star Trek since I was 5.... I never caught that James Doohan was missing a finger.

It seems weird to add one of the Vulcan traditions Nimoy added and not the other: he's the one who came up with the Vulcan neck pinch. He was supposed to punch someone (Shatner, I think) to knock them out. But he thought it seemed to unnecessarily violent for Spock's character, so he suggested Vulcans knew enough about anatomy to hit a pressure point and knock people out. He was asked to demonstrate it, and did so on Shatner, who was an expert at fainting on cue so it would look good on camera.

I was sure the "Picard Maneuver" with the uniform pull down due to them being so tight would be on this list.

Here's a fun fact about a character quirk: The reason Picard is always pulling his top to straighten it is that the uniforms were a size too small so they wouldn't ever crease, but this meant sitting down would cause it to shift, and he was always adjusting his outfit as a result. I think it was after season 1 they got properly fitted uniforms because Patrick Stewart's doctor said if he kept wearing that outfit it was gonna damage his spine, which meant he no longer needed to pull his top to adjust it every time he stood up. However, by that point, it had become such an iconic quirk of his, he continued doing it for the rest of the show.

Dukat’s delivery was awesome and those eyes gave him the intelligent madman look that is so much scarier than a raging Klingon

In fact, Takei terrorised the entire set and cast with his rapier. It even led to the cast and crew banding together and insisting that he never be let anywhere near a sword again...

The pauses in Kirk's cadence came largely from William Shatner trying to remember his lines. He had a lot of dialogue to learn for every episode and was given very little time to rehearse. (notice that in the films, the long pauses are nearly absent) By his own admission, Shatner is not very good at adlibbing, unlike DeForrest Kelly who was excellent at filling in lines he would forget.

Rene Aubrjonois (Odo) and Armin Shimerman (Quark) talked a lot to each other because there makeup chairs used to be so close together that they became friends. They decided to add that to ds9 with having their characters Odo and Quark slowly become friends with each other too.

I always assumed Johnathon Frakes mounted the chairs like that because he's so tall and the chair backs were so short. It just made so much sense that I'd have never thought there'd be any other reason.

There is more to the Vulcan Salute. The phrases "live long and prosper" and "peace and long life" are both from the Abrahamic Blessing, which is the blessing recited by the Rabbi's when they use the hand gesture that inspired the Salute. So the whole thing is a shortened, interactive version of one of the biggest blessings in the Jewish faith. Which I find AWESOME. I actually had a teacher at a college I went to who was a Rabbi and he had also peaked during the service, so he is the one I first learned this tidbit from.