Weirdest Star Trek watch party I ever went to was in a British prison a few years back.

This place was an old Victorian jail from the 1850s, still in use. Medium security, few hundred prisoners finishing out their sentences. Pretty relaxed - just the usual issues you get when you cram a few hundred guys together.

They keep order with an "earned privileges" scheme. Good behaviour means you can buy stuff, bad behaviour means they take it away. One of the most popular items? Cheap DVD players for the crappy little TVs bolted in the corner of each cell. The prison only broadcasts a handful of channels, so having a DVD player gives you actual choices.

DVDs are allowed too, as long as they're family-friendly - no 18+ or R-rated stuff. Since prisoners are broke, TV series are huge. Way more bang for your buck.

Turns out this prison was full of Trek fans. One guy bought DS9, another got TNG, someone else grabbed Voyager, and pretty soon every series was scattered across the wings. Then the bartering started. Prisoners borrowed discs to watch everything in order, queues formed, arguments broke out over people hogging episodes. One time there was almost a riot when disc 2 of TNG season 5 went missing - accusations flew until someone found it stuffed down the side of a bunk.

Few weeks before Christmas, the chaplain's orderly had an idea: the prison chapel had a big screen and projector that played DVDs. Why not throw a Star Trekmas party and watch some episodes properly?

But this is prison - everything needs permission. Formal request to the governor, chaplain had to sponsor it, risk assessment, the works. The governor wasn't keen but figured it'd keep people occupied during the holidays when they're locked down most of the time anyway. They approved two episodes and a Trek quiz.

Boxing Day afternoon, two dozen prisoners shuffled into the chapel. Everyone was excited to be out of their cells but also tense - we all knew this could get shut down instantly if anyone caused trouble. They put on TOS "Arena" first and the whole room relaxed watching Kirk chuck styrofoam rocks at a guy in a rubber Gorn suit. The remastered version looked brilliant on the big screen.

The trivia quiz was put together by this hardcore TNG fan. He tried to include questions from all the series but it was heavily Picard-weighted. Things got heated - there was a prize on offer (a computer-printed photo of Tasha Yar that someone nicked from the education office). Nearly came to blows when two guys argued over how to interpret one of the questions. Looked like there might actually be a fight in the prison chapel over Star Trek trivia, but thankfully cooler heads prevailed.

Wrapped up with Voyager's "Timeless" - the one where Kim and Chakotay try to stop Voyager from crashing into an ice planet. Hit different in there, knowing everyone wished they could go back and change what landed them inside.

Right at the end, the prison bells went off - incident on one of the wings. That's the lockdown signal. You literally drop everything and sprint back to your cell or you're in deep shit and they'll take away your privileges (bye-bye DVD player).

So that's how Star Trekmas ended. With two dozen prisoners bolting out of a chapel during the final scene of a Voyager episode.