redshirt (character)

A redshirt is a stock character, used frequently in science fiction but also in other genres, whose sole purpose is to die, often violently, soon after being introduced. Redshirts are a plot device used to indicate the dangerous circumstances faced by the main characters at the start of a narrative without having to kill any of the vital main characters. The term comes from the popular American science fiction television series Star Trek, in which security officers wore red shirts, and were often killed on missions under the aforementioned circumstances.

Star Trek origins

In the original 1966 Star Trek series, characters wore tunic colors designating their stations and/or areas of expertise. A person wearing a red shirt was a member of the Engineering or Security department. Security officers had a habit of meeting tragic ends in many episodes.

Typically, a landing party would consist of several main characters — often Kirk, Spock, McCoy — and one or two never-before-seen red-shirted ensigns, who would be dead by the end of the mission, more usually within minutes. It is notable, however, that the first person to be killed in such a manner (in the order in which the episodes were originally broadcast) was Crewman Darnell (in "The Man Trap") who wore a blue shirt. The redshirt distinction was made more prominent by the fact that the only main characters who wore red were Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott and Communications Officer Lt. Uhura; since there were no regular characters in the security department, the appearance of any such character in an episode was strongly suggestive of impending death.

Fans often dub redshirt characters with humorous, generic nicknames, such as "Ensign Expendable", "Ensign Anonymous", "Ensign Extra" or "Ensign Ricky". They're also known as the "fifth member of the away team" due to the other members often being recognizable characters. Often also referred to as "Lieutenant Kleenex" in reference to their disposable nature.

In the Pocket Books Star Trek novel Killing Time, a time-tampering plot twist turns Captain Kirk into an ensign. While he is dressing for duty, a fellow crew member says, "Let's just say that on this ship — or probably any other —you don't want to wear a red shirt on landing-party duty."

A commonly accepted opposite of a redshirt is a Wedge-type character, referring to Wedge Antilles of the Star Wars universe, who was the only extra to appear and survive all three movies. Also referred to as a "token survivor".

Occurrences

Below is a list of occurrences from the original Star Trek series.

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Article below this line is likely to contain spoilers.

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First season

The Man Trap (4)

Darnell, Sturgeon, Green and Barnhart have the salt sucked from their bodies. None of the four wore red. Darnell and Sturgeon wore blue, Green wore yellow, and Barnhart wore a silvery white environmental suit.

Where No Man Has Gone Before (12)

Spock reports that nine crewmen die when the Enterprise crosses the galactic barrier. Gary Mitchell kills Lt. Lee Kelso by strangling him via telekinesis. Capt. Kirk kills Mitchell by entombing him under a giant rock. Dr. Elizabeth Dehner dies after exhausting herself trying to destroy Mitchell. In this second pilot, Dehner wears a blue shirt; Kelso and Mitchell wear tan shirts that may be the predecessor to the regular series red.

The Naked Time (1)

Lt. (j.g.) Joe Tormolen dies on McCoy's operating table after impaling himself on a knife. He wore a blue shirt.

What Are Little Girls Made Of? (2)

Security guards Matthews and Rayburn are killed by Ruk.

Balance of Terror (1)

Lt. Tomlinson dies when he suffocates on escaped phaser coolant. He wears a yellow shirt.

Arena (2)

Lt. O'Herlihy sees something and is zapped by Gorns on planet Cestus III. When Kelowitz returns from scouting the area, he tells Capt. Kirk that "They got Lang," who wore a yellow shirt.

The Devil in the Dark (1)

An unnamed security guard gets cooked by the Horta.

The Galileo Seven (3)

Lt. Latimer is impaled by a giant spear on Taurus II. One of the giant creatures murders Lt. Gaetano with its bare hands. Both wore yellow shirts. In a landing party report to Capt. Kirk, Lt. Kelowitz reports that Ensign O'Neill was also killed by a spear. (As this occurs offscreen, his shirt color is unknown.)

Second season

Catspaw (1)

Lt. Jackson is killed in the teaser by Korob and Sylvia and beamed aboard the Enterprise as a warning. He wears a yellow shirt.

The Apple (4)

Lt. Mallory steps on an exploding rock; Lt. Kaplan is hit by a lightning bolt; security guard Marple is clubbed over the head; ensign Hendorf meets a poisonous plant.

The Changeling (6)

Four unnamed security guards are zapped by Nomad. When Kirk and Spock enter Engineering in Act IV to destroy Nomad, Kirk discovers a technician in a red jumpsuit slumped dead at the control console. Technically, Scotty also counts as a red shirt death as well, as Nomad kills him while he is trying to save Lt. Uhura. But Nomad repairs him after Kirk orders him to do so.

Obsession (5)

Ensign Rizzo and three unnamed security guards have blood sucked out of them (note: Mr. Leslie (Eddie Paskey) was one of the three security guards in the first attack, but he's shown recovering in sickbay after the second attack and was never pronounced dead). Later, when the cloud creature invades the ship, McCoy reports that of the two crewmen it attacked, one has a chance for survival and the other is dead.

Wolf in the Fold (1)

Lt Karen Tracey is stabbed to death in a manner which suggests Scotty was the killer. She was a medical officer in blue uniform.

Mirror, Mirror (5)

One of Chekov's henchmen switches sides and dematerializes two of Kirk's would-be assassins with his phaser. Both are in green command jumpsuits. All three of Sulu's unnamed security guard accomplices are killed by Marlena via the Tantalus field.

By Any Other Name (1)

After being reduced to her basic elements, Yeoman Thompson is crushed into dust. Notably, the red shirt security guard with the team is also reduced to his basic elements, but is later restructured and survives the episode.

Friday's Child (1)

Security guard Grant threatens a Klingon and gets a Capellan kligat in the chest for his trouble.

The Deadly Years (1)

Lt. Galway dies of extreme old age. She wears a blue uniform.

The Omega Glory (1)

Capt. Ron Tracey kills Lt. Galloway, a recurring character. Oddly, Lt. Galloway returns to life and appears in the last episode of the series.

The Ultimate Computer (1)

Ensign Harper simply gets in the way of M-5's new power source.

Third season

And the Children Shall Lead (2+2{?})

A pair of security guards are beamed into open space. {in addition a security team is apparently left behind on a planet}

Elaan of Troyius (1)

Engineer Watson wonders what Kryton is doing, and is killed for his trouble.

That Which Survives (3)

Transporter operator ensign Wyatt and Engineer Watkins are killed from a touch by Losira. She also kills Lt. D'Amato, a blue-shirted science officer, on the planet's surface.

Wink of an Eye (1)

Crewman Compton, accelerated, is killed when he takes cell damage from a Scalosian, causing rapid aging.

Requiem for Methuselah (3)

Three unnamed crewmen die from an outbreak of Rigelian fever aboard the ship.

Total: 74

Subsequent uses

Fans of the original Star Trek have come to use the term redshirt to describe any nameless and expendable character. Usually these appear to satirize how unrealistically repetitive, formulaic and expectable this cliché has been.

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Article below this line is likely to contain spoilers.

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Appearances of redshirt characters

• In Star Trek II, while investigating Ceti Alpha V, Captain Terrel is wearing a reddish space suit while Chekhov is wearing a white space suit. Captain Terrel subsequently kills himself while under the influence of a ceti eel.

• In Futurama episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before", on an occasion when the actual Star Trek cast were trapped on a planet with "Welshie," a redshirt replacement for Scotty (in real life, James Doohan declined to participate in the episode), he was quickly killed—and then the corpse was repeatedly blasted each time they angered their captor. On a further note all of Zapp Brannigan's subordinates wear red (as does Brannigan himself) and he considers them all expendable.

• Family Guy featured a parody of Star Trek in which "Ensign Ricky" (a redshirt) is selected to go on a dangerous mission with the three most important characters from the Enterprise. Kirk says "This is a very dangerous mission and it is certain that one of us will be killed. The away team will consist of myself, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Ensign Ricky." Ricky responds with "Aw, crap." Later that episode, William Shatner (the actor who played Kirk), is struck and killed by a car, followed by a camera pan to Ensign Ricky, who declares "I did not see that coming."

• In the South Park episode "City on the Edge of Forever", a child on a stranded schoolbus wore a redshirt uniform with the Star Trek symbol. He tries to flee the safety of the bus and is promptly eaten by a monster while Star Trek background music is played. Kenny's parka seems to have a similar effect as when Jimmy once wore one in "Cripple Fight" he almost died several times.

• In the Sev Trek movie and the Star Wreck series, many short-lived crew members bear names like "Ensign Anonymous," "Ensign Insignificant," and "Ensign Cannonfodder." The latter pits them against similar expendable extras from the Babylon 5 security team. The carnage is horrible.

• In the Stargate: Atlantis episode "The Siege: Part 2", all three characters doing repairs on an Ancient satellite are wearing red shirts. On the audio commentary for this episode, the director, Martin Wood, said this was an in-joke since they were planning to kill one of these characters later in the episode.

• In an episode of Robot Chicken, one skit involves a parody of Star Trek: The Original Series. In the skit, a problem with the ships leaves enough power for five people to beam away before it explodes. One redshirt security officer argues that every team needs a redshirt and beams down with four of the main characters. Since there's no food, the main characters suggest eating the redshirt. In an ironic twist, the redshirt distinguishes himself from "all the redshirts that fell before [him]" (as he puts it) by being a security officer, and thus the only one carrying a weapon. He then kills and eats all four main characters.

• In Christopher Moore's novel The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror, a character wearing a red star trek shirt gets attacked by zombies.

References to the redshirt character

• In the video game Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire that takes place in an alternative Ancient Greece (Silmaria), a non-player character called Kokeeno Pookameeso is the first to be killed. Kokkino poukamiso is Greek for red shirt.
• The volunteer security services at Polaris, a Canadian sci-fi convention, have worn red shirts with a bullseye on the back. Some people working security have utilized the humor potential in this and have posed for photos depicting their demise, [1]

• In the episode of Stargate SG-1, "The Other Guys", two scientists are aboard an enemy vessel with the main characters when they come under attack. One turns to the other and says, "We're dead! We might as well be wearing red shirts!" Coincidentally, this character was played by John Billingsley, who portrayed Dr. Phlox on Star Trek: Enterprise. His character in this episode was a particularly avid Star Trek fan.

• In his book Ranting Again, comedian Dennis Miller comments that his status in movies mirrors the Redshirts ("Every movie I'm in, I get killed halfway through. I'm like the guy on Star Trek in the red shirt.")

• In the original Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force (a popular computer game), the default multiplayer name for the player is "RedShirt." In multi-player matches, the player who dies the most is given the "Red Shirt Award." In the single player campaign, if the player dies in a firefight, the message "What color shirt were you wearing?" appears. The player's character is always wearing a red shirt.

• The Xbox 360 version of the computer game Star Trek: Legacy has the "Anonymous Red-Shirt Award" achievement awarded when you are the first to die in a 4 player multi-player game. A paltry 5 gamerscore points are given when this is achieved and the unlocked description notes: "You have no name. You wear red. You're expendable."

• During Comedy Central's roast of William Shatner, Shatner calls Greg Giraldo a faceless drone, and says that: "If this were an episode of Star Trek, you'd be wearing a red shirt, and would have been killed by now."

• In an episode of Lost entitled "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues", Boone and Locke briefly discuss the Star Trek redshirt characters. Boone says "The crew guys that would go down to the planet with the main guys -- the captain and the guy with the pointy ears? They always wore red shirts and they always got killed." To which Locke replies, "Sounds like a piss-poor captain." Whether intended by the writers or not, it should also be noted that Boone is tying rags of a red shirt to trees to mark the path he and Locke had been taking. Boone, later in the season, is the first major cast member to die proving the situation is serious.

• In Kim Possible episode "Dimension Twist", when Kim is temporarily sent to a Star Trek-esque tv show and given a red uniform, captain tells her she's expendable and sends her on an away mission.

• In the tabletop game Warhammer 40,000, in the variant rules "Kill-team" a redshirt (a weak extra team member who gives the player a surprisingly good bonus in the unlikely chance he survives) is available as an upgrade.

• In the computer game Space Quest V: The Next Mutation, when Roger Wilco and Droole beam down to a sinister decimated settlement, Droole insists on splitting up because Roger is wearing a red shirt.

• In Galaxy Quest, Sam Rockwell's character Guy Fleegman is an extra from a Star Trek-type show who played a redshirt. When one of the crewmembers/actors tries to reassure him that he will not die, Guy counters: "I'm not even supposed to be here. I'm just "Crewman Number Six." I'm expendable. I'm the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is. I've gotta get outta here."

See also

• Cannon fodder, an expression used to denote the treatment of armed forces as a worthless commodity that can easily be expended.
• Character shield, the metaphorical shield that protects "important" characters
• Greenshirts (G.I. Joe)
• MacGuffin, a plot device in a work of fiction that motivates the characters and advances the story, but has little other relevance to the story.
• Sacrificial lamb, a metaphorical reference for a person who has no chance of surviving the challenge ahead, but is placed there for the common good.
• Stormtrooper effect

References

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