The worst fight scene in television history occurred in Season 1, Episode 18 of the original Star Trek series. It first aired on January 19, 1967.
As happens inevitably on the original Star Trek, a party of Kirk, Bones, and Spock, accompanied by some security guys, beam down from the USS Enterprise to an obscure planet. The security team is directed to go check behind a large rock, and are killed. Everyone on the planet but one was killed.
Suddenly the Enterprise and the ship of the attacking enemy force, called the Gorn, are disabled. Then super powerful super aliens, called the Metrons, determine that the captains each ship should fight each other, to the death.
First prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is your ship is destroyed with everyone on it.
The Gorn are strong but slow, but size and cunning win out. Even Kirk’s double clasp hammerfist doesn’t work. As an aside, I tried this once in my early teens; it really hurts your fingers.
Kirk is injured by a Filipino Man Trap. Then the Gorn offers Kirk an easy death. Kirk calls the Gorn names for killing everyone on the outpost, but it turns out that it was all a misunderstanding! The Gorn considered the planet part of their territory, and thought the outpost was a prelude to invasion.
Kirk responds to this new understanding by finding diamonds, bamboo, sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter lying around, fashioning a cannon, and blasting a hole in the Gorn captain with it. Kirk is about to finish the Gorn off when he has second thoughts. It was, after all, a misunderstanding.
Suddenly a Metron appears and the Gorn disappears. Kirk passes too on killing every Gorn on the ship. This makes the Metrons happy in their way.
“you are still half savage,” says the Metron. “But there is hope.” They also invite the Federation to come back. In 1,000 years.
MythBusters tested the plausibility of making a weapon out of bamboo and black powder. It isn’t.
In a nearly surreal moment, there is also a Turkish version of Star Trek. They remade the worst fight scene in television history.
And it’s worse
