Fans of the original Star Trek series know all too well that “redshirts” typically had a very short life expectancy on that show, especially when they beamed down to a planet with Captain Kirk, Spock, and the other senior officers. But do you know which episode from the original series had the highest casualty rate among the redshirts?
For those few sci fi fans not familiar with the term “redshirt”, it refers to the crew members (usually from the original series) whose uniform consisted of a red shirt and black pants (or a red mini-skirt dress for the women!). This indicated that these crew members were part of the operations division and the Memory Alpha wiki describes them as the ones who “normally performed security, engineering or support services (such as communications officers, administrators and yeomen) aboard starships and starbases.” (Blue shirts represented the medical and science divisions and yellow indicated command positions. And then this all changed in the sequel series, but no need to get into all of that.)
Security officers wore the red shirts and they were the ones that generally tagged along on landing parties or were hanging around in the background aboard the ship. And in the original series, they were usually the ones who bit the dust when the script called for a death because in those days main characters never died off. So if a redshirt beamed down to the planet with the rest of the main characters, their odds of returning to the ship were not particularly great. Or if some alien presence was running amok onboard the Enterprise, chances are one of the redshirts would end up in the ship’s morgue soon enough. The short lifespan of redshirts has since become a well-recognized genre meme and author John Scalzi even wrote a book dedicated to their hapless cause titled appropriately enough Redshirts. (It’s not actually set in the Star Trek universe, but it offers a pretty good meta-parody on the franchise. Watch for an upcoming post on that one.)
So of the 79 Star Trek: TOS episodes, which one you ask had the highest casualty rate for redshirts? Well there were actually two episodes that tied for the honor with both killing off four of the unfortunate scarlet-clad crew members. Chronologically, the first of these episodes was “The Changeling” where the robotic menace Nomad zaps one security officer after the next on board the Enterprise. The second was “The Apple” when redshirts were dropping left and right on the planet Gamma Trianguli VI. The next highest episode in redshirt casualties was “Obsession” when three were cut down. Of course you also have to take into account the episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (which was the second pilot for the show), where twelve crew members were killed off. But they hadn’t changed to the style of uniforms we would see throughout most of the series, so there weren’t any redshirts just yet. But once the crew members did start donning that color, they definitely had to watch their step (and avoid landing parties) lest they could face a shortened lifespan!
And for those who remember the Dos Equis beer commercials with “The Most Interesting Man in the World”, he was a redshirt at one point ant he survived the episode! Actor Jonathan Goldsmith had an early bit role in his career where he played a crew member on the first season Star Trek: TOS episode “The Corbomite Maneuver”. He only appeared briefly in the background, which was probably a good thing for his character seeing as he was wearing that red shirt. Because any more prominent of a role and he would have greatly increased his chances of biting the dust! So maybe Dos Equis should come up with a new version of the commercial: “He has won the lifetime achievement award, twice. He is fluent in all languages, including three that he only speaks. He is the redshirt who survived. He is the most interesting man in the world.”
Source: Memory Alpha
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