A prop connection between Star Trek: Nemesis and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 15: Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar visits the LinkedIn studios on December 15, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 15: Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar visits the LinkedIn studios on December 15, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

Star Trek: Nemesis and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have an odd connection.

Star Trek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have share quite a few actors over the years, especially Armin Shimerman who was the principal of Sunnydale High School before becoming Quark on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Star Trek: Nemesis, though, couldn’t possibly have anything in common with the lady slayer. Nemesis was the final installment (until 2009) of a science fiction phenomenon that involved the crew of the starship Enterprise. And the other was a teenage girl who had the abilities to kill vampires to protect the town where she lived, Sunnydale, and the family and friends she loved. They don’t sound even remotely familiar, but it turns out, they do share something that we probably wouldn’t know had Whatculture not shared it in a video.

Praetor Shinzon (Tom Hardy) carried a Jackal knife which he tried to kill Captain Picard with aboard the Scimitar. Turns out, that prior to the movie’s release, that same knife had made several appearances in Buffy the Vampire Slayer where it was utilized by both Buffy and another vampire slayer, Faith. Fans of Buffy will recognize the knife as Buffy wielded it with lethal familiarity.

Star Trek: Nemesis had one unique weapon that made a return in Star Trek: Picard.

Though it wasn’t a weapon you could actually see, Nemesis did have the dubious honor of using Thalaron radiation for the first time in a Star Trek series or movie. Shinzon used it to assassinate the entire Romulan senate and tried to use it to kill everyone aboard the Enterprise as well.

That radiation made a return in Star Trek: Picard when, after telling her she is an android, Narek locks Soji in a chamber with what looks like a cubed toy. Not long after he leaves, that box opens, and Thalaron radiation fills the room. Soji has to smash through the floor of the chamber to escape.

Props are often shared across television series and movies so it wasn’t a big surprise to see the return of a radiation from twenty years ago. And as far as the Jackal knife, well, its creator, Gil Hibben, does such amazing work with fantasy weapons that Paramount Pictures gave him the title Official Klingon Armorer for all the weapons he has made for the franchise’s villains.