| "The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise" | |
|---|---|
| Saturday Night Live episode | |
 John Belushi parodying William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk giving the Vulcan salute in the sketch. | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 22 |
| Written by | Michael O'Donoghue |
| Original air date | May 29, 1976 |
| Running time | 12 minutes |
| Guest appearance | |
| Elliott Gould | |
"The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise" is a comedy sketch that first aired on May 29, 1976, during episode 22 of the first season of the NBC variety show, Saturday Night Live. The twelve-minute sketch was written by Michael O'Donoghue during a month-long process consulting with actor John Belushi. The sketch is a satire of the 1969 cancellation of Star Trek. The set design featured an effective replica of the bridge of the USS Enterprise. Dress rehearsal was difficult, with the writer doubting whether Belushi was able to pull off an effective parody of William Shatner's performance as Captain James Kirk. However, the result was a success, and O'Donoghue immediately congratulated Belushi after his performance and reflected that he had perfectly parodied Shatner as Kirk.
The sketch became a cult classic hit among Star Trek and science fiction fans. The 1977 book Saturday Night Live, edited by Anne Beatts and John Head, included a copy of a note from Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry praising the comedic bit. The sketch was released on a 1985 Saturday Night Live compilation VHS that featured The Best of John Belushi and re-released with the same title in DVD format in 2011. In his book Metapop, author Michael Dunne called the comedic bit among the most well-known of all Saturday Night Live routines. The Chicago Sun-Times referred to it as an intelligent satire of Star Trek. The Los Angeles Times placed the parody among the program's top ten sketches of all-time. On the series' 40th anniversary, Tulsa World listed the sketch as one of the television show's most iconic.
The New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane wrote that Belushi was flawless and captured Shatner's essence while adding simultaneously his own layer of weariness to the character. The Hollywood Reporter interviewed Tom Hanks and Elliott Gould in 2015; Gould called the sketch a favorite, while Hanks placed it among the best five of all time. In ranking every single Saturday Night Live cast member by talent in 2015, Rolling Stone called the Captain Kirk parody one of Belushi's most memorable and wrote that it was evidence of the actor's youthful innocence.