Best ‘Star Trek’ Parodies, Ranked

6 ‘Quark’

Coincidentally sharing its name with Deep Space Nine’s resident bartender/holo-pornographer, 1977’s Quark was a sci-fi sitcom starring Richard Benjamin as the commander of a “United Galaxy Sanitation Patrol Cruiser” — so basically, a space garbage truck. Created by late Get Smart co-creator Buck Henry, Quark lasted for just eight episodes. Yeah, it’s not great and is wildly dated today, but Quark is still worth watching as a pop-culture curiosity.

5 ‘Ömer the Tourist in Star Trek’

Ömer the Tourist in Star Trek randomly dropped Ömer, the popular Turkish “hobo” character, into Captain Kirk’s Enterprise, thanks to some magic gizmo — and also a ton of stolen footage and unauthorized music cues. An admirably scrappy early Trek comedy that may actually be the first Star Trek feature film, pre-dating Star Trek: The Motion Picture by six years.

4 ‘Black Mirror’s ‘USS Callister’

The original Star Trek vibe was faithfully recreated for the Black Mirror episode “USS Callister,” in which a Trek-like video game becomes an existential hell for the simulated characters who are stuck there for all eternity. Best of all, Jesse Plemons convincingly plays a menacing super-creep who also has the ability to bust out a killer William Shatner impression.

3 ‘The Orville’

Some might argue that The Orville is less of a parody and more of a personal Star Trek: The Next Generation fantasy camp for Seth MacFarlane that happens to be filmed and distributed to the public. But while it’s obviously more of a loving tribute than a cutting satire, we still get some comedic gems, such as the gelatinous alien blob voiced by Norm Macdonald.

2 ‘Futurama’

Futurama’s fourth season episode “Where No Fan Has Gone Before” reunited the original Star Trek cast (plus Welshy, of course) for a loving homage that isn’t afraid to poke fun at the show’s familiar conventions and its (often overly intense) fandom. They should just replace Star Trek V with this episode on every Star Trek DVD box set.

1 ‘Galaxy Quest’

Sure, it’s basically just Three Amigos in Space, but Galaxy Quest is still a near-perfect comedy and arguably the best-ever Star Trek spoof, one that not only sends up the tropes of Trek movies and shows, but also the decades of stories of behind-the-scenes turmoil and celebrity pettiness.

You (yes, you) should follow JM on Twitter (if it still exists by the time you’re reading this).