Sherlock Holmes and Star Trek

“I went boldly up to the house …”

– A Study In Scarlet (STUD)

“To boldly go where no man has gone before …”

  – Star Trek

For nearly 50 years, there has been a strong connection between Sherlock Holmes and the various incarnations of Star Trek. Many Sherlockians are also members of the Star Trek fandom, and vice versa. There have been fleeting references to the Sherlock Holmes Canon in several of the newer movies and Professor Moriarty was endangering the crews aboard the USS Enterprise in two episodes of the syndicated Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG) television series. Let’s take a look at some of the actors who have had roles in both fandoms and then take a look at the many coin issues that feature them.

 

In the original series from the late 1960’s, William Shatner plays Captain James T. Kirk, with Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock. Shatner would later portray Stapleton in the 1972 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles that starred Stewart Granger as Holmes. You can see a clip of Shatner’s performance as Stapleton HERE. Nimoy would portray Holmes in a stage production and in a short educational video. We discuss more about Nimoy in a separate post HERE.

Brent Spiner’s android character of Lt. Commander Data is introduced to the Sherlock Holmes stories in the season 1 episode of The Big Goodbye of ST:TNG. During the second season episode of Elementary, My Dear Data, the character of Professor Moriarty was created in the holodeck while Data and Lieutenant Geordi LaForge (played by LeVar Burton) were role playing as Holmes and Watson. The Moriarty character, played by Daniel Davis, would return in the 6th season episode Ship in A Bottle.

Nicholas Meyer, who authored the the 1970’s novel of The Seven Percent Solution, which was made into a film of the same name, also has a Star Trek connection.

Meyer directed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which many deem to be the best movie of the film series. He went on to co-write the screenplays for Star Trek IV: The Journey Home and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Last year, it was announced that Meyer was joining the writing team for the new CBS television series Star Trek: Discovery. That series is scheduled to debut in May 2017.

The role of the Klingon General, Chang, would be played by Christopher Plummer in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The above clip has a short quote from the Canon. Plummer had previously played Holmes in the 1977 film version of Silver Blaze and in 1979’s Murder By Decree.

In the 2009 reboot of Star Trek, actor Benjamin Quinto’s version of Spock paraphrases a quote from the Canon.

The modern Sherlock Holmes, Benedict Cumberbatch of BBC’s Sherlock, would appear in the next film Star Trek Into Darkness as former Starfleet member-turned-terrorist John Harrison. The Harrison character is a homage to the character of Khan from the original television series and the second film.

There are many more connections between Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes. We have only skimmed the top of the subject. If you are interested in learning more, click HERE and HERE.

Not surprisingly, many countries around the world have issued coins fetauring the various character of Star Trek. For our purposes, we will only discuss the coins that feature actors with a connection to Sherlock Holmes.

The Republic of Liberia issued coins in 1995 and 1996 honoring the film Star Trek Generations. In 1995, the character of Captains Kirk and Picard were featured on $1, $10 and $100 coins. Lieutenant Commander LaForge and Commander Data were combined, as were Commander Spock and Lieutenant Uhura, for $1, $10 and $100 coins in 1996. The $1 coins were cupro-nickel, the $10 coins were .999 silver and the $100 coins were .999 gold. The Liberia national seal is considered the obverse of these coins. The obverse would only change for the date and the denominations.

The South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu would issue two $1 coins featuring Captain Kirk and Commander Spock in 2015. Both coins were one ounce of .999 silver.

   

Tuvalu would issue another .999 silver $1 in 2016 featuring both Kirk and Spock, and a 2 ounce silver $2 coin featuring the entire crew of the Enterprise.

     

 

 

For the fiftieth anniversary of the original series (which, by the way, will be April 6, 2017), in 2016 the Royal Canadian Mint came out with a large number of issues to commemorate the occasion. The $10 coins featuring Kirk and Spock are a half ounce of .999 silver and 12,500 of each were struck. The $20 coins were one ounce of .999 silver and 11,500 of each were minted. The three designs (clockwise, from top) represent the episodes of The City on the Edge of Forever, The Trouble with Tribbles and Mirror, Mirror.

You also might be interested in checking out two of our other posts. Faces of Holmes: Leonard Nimoy and The Star Trek: Next Generation Sherlockian Phone Card.