| Woofhong |
| You know it makes sense |
How long is a Star Trek title?
I thought it would be interesting to compare the length of titles in different Star Trek episodes. I have treated the Pilot as a series by itself, and also included the movie titles (omitting the "Star Trek" part). As I expected, the TOS and TAS episode titles are the longest. One-word titles have become more common as time goes on.
All (except the pilot, of course) have multiple one-word titles. The "shortest" given here is the shortest word among these.
| Series | Average words | Average chars | Shortest | Longest | One-word titles | Percent one-word |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PILOT | 2.0 | 8.0 | The Cage | The Cage | 0 | 0.0 percent |
| TOS | 3.3 | 17.9 | Miri | For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky | 5 | 6.2 percent |
| TAS | 3.2 | 18.6 | Bem | How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth | 3 | 13.6 percent |
| TNG | 2.2 | 12.4 | Qpid | Where No One Has Gone Before | 53 | 29.8 percent |
| DS9 | 2.5 | 14.7 | Dax | Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places | 41 | 23.3 percent |
| VOY | 1.8 | 10.8 | Q2 | The Haunting of Deck Twelve | 83 | 48.3 percent |
| ENT | 1.7 | 10.8 | E2 | These Are the Voyages... | 42 | 42.9 percent |
| MOVIE | 2.5 | 15.5 | Nemesis | The Undiscovered Country | 3 | 30.0 percent |
The following shows how common episode titles are for each number of words, for each series.
| Series | Number of words | Number of episodes | Percentage of episodes |
|---|---|---|---|
| PILOT | 2 words | 1 | 100.0 percent |
| TOS | 1 words | 5 | 6.2 percent |
| TOS | 2 words | 20 | 24.7 percent |
| TOS | 3 words | 28 | 34.6 percent |
| TOS | 4 words | 16 | 19.8 percent |
| TOS | 5 words | 5 | 6.2 percent |
| TOS | 6 words | 5 | 6.2 percent |
| TOS | 7 words | 1 | 1.2 percent |
| TOS | 8 words | 0 | 0.0 percent |
| TOS | 9 words | 0 | 0.0 percent |
| TOS | 10 words | 0 | 0.0 percent |
| TOS | 11 words | 1 | 1.2 percent |
| TAS | 1 words | 3 | 13.6 percent |
| TAS | 2 words | 3 | 13.6 percent |
| TAS | 3 words | 8 | 36.4 percent |
| TAS | 4 words | 5 | 22.7 percent |
| TAS | 5 words | 1 | 4.5 percent |
| TAS | 6 words | 2 | 9.1 percent |
| TNG | 1 words | 53 | 29.8 percent |
| TNG | 2 words | 63 | 35.4 percent |
| TNG | 3 words | 39 | 21.9 percent |
| TNG | 4 words | 19 | 10.7 percent |
| TNG | 5 words | 3 | 1.7 percent |
| TNG | 6 words | 1 | 0.6 percent |
| DS9 | 1 words | 41 | 23.3 percent |
| DS9 | 2 words | 62 | 35.2 percent |
| DS9 | 3 words | 36 | 20.5 percent |
| DS9 | 4 words | 20 | 11.4 percent |
| DS9 | 5 words | 10 | 5.7 percent |
| DS9 | 6 words | 6 | 3.4 percent |
| DS9 | 7 words | 0 | 0.0 percent |
| DS9 | 8 words | 1 | 0.6 percent |
| VOY | 1 words | 83 | 48.3 percent |
| VOY | 2 words | 56 | 32.6 percent |
| VOY | 3 words | 23 | 13.4 percent |
| VOY | 4 words | 7 | 4.1 percent |
| VOY | 5 words | 3 | 1.7 percent |
| ENT | 1 words | 42 | 42.9 percent |
| ENT | 2 words | 45 | 45.9 percent |
| ENT | 3 words | 6 | 6.1 percent |
| ENT | 4 words | 4 | 4.1 percent |
| ENT | 5 words | 1 | 1.0 percent |
| MOVIE | 1 words | 3 | 30.0 percent |
| MOVIE | 2 words | 1 | 10.0 percent |
| MOVIE | 3 words | 4 | 40.0 percent |
| MOVIE | 4 words | 2 | 20.0 percent |
I have put these in graphs (below) by percentage.
| TOS |  |
| TAS |  |
| TNG |  |
| DS9 |  |
| VOY |  |
| ENT |  |