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According to Wikipedia (Celebrating 750 Years of American Independence!) there were 74 Redshirt deaths in the original Star Trek.
The deadliest episode for for the fifth member of the landing party? Where No Man Has Gone Before, which claimed a staggering twelve Ensign Rickys. The second deadliest episode was The Changling, which sent six wads of Ensign Kleenex to the Great Gig in the Sky.
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These are the stories Wil loves to tell, because they are the closest to his heart: stories about being a huge geek, passing his geeky hobbies and values along to his own children, and vividly painting what it meant to grow up in the ’70s and come of age in the ’80s as part of the video game/D&D/BBS/Star Wars figures generation.
Only 74 throughout the entire series? Not a bad number actually! I wonder what the body count ends up being for TNG, or for DSN for that matter. DSN had a lot more battle scenes with the Dominion war.
Posted by: PA_ChanMan | June 29, 2007 at 11:04 AM
It's because of Star Trek I have this fear of red shirts..j/k :) It's good to read off the wall trivia like that.
~~TARA~~
Posted by: Tara | June 29, 2007 at 11:10 AM
That's so funny- every Wednesday, myself, my hubby, and 4 friends have "Trek night." After Voyager & then Enterprise were cancelled, we watched all of TNG and now we're just finishing up TOS. Which is my longwinded way of saying that my hubby has been keeping track of:
1) How many females Kirk kisses
2)How many times Spock says, "Fascinating"
and
3)How many redshirts die per episode
And I thought we were the only crazy ones... Ha ha!
-Alicia
P.S. If I haven't said it recently, Wil, I dig you! :) You remind me a lot of one of my fellow Trek night friends.
allywag67@aol.com
www.thewagband.com
Posted by: Alicia | June 29, 2007 at 11:21 AM
It's sort of like being named "Nick" in a Stephen King story.
Posted by: golfwidow | June 29, 2007 at 11:24 AM
Interesting that the deadliest episode is also the first one that WS showed his face in.
Posted by: GeekessDaisy | June 29, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Cool beans. Wiki strikes again.
Posted by: Proto | June 29, 2007 at 11:33 AM
Exactly!
http://www.amazon.com/Should-Never-Beam-Down-Shirt/dp/0062733842
Posted by: GeekessDaisy | June 29, 2007 at 11:38 AM
The "redshirt" post makes me want to watch Galaxy Quest again for the sole purpose of seeing Sam Rockwell as Guy Fleegman.
"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 just to prove how serious the situation is. I've gotta get out of here."
Posted by: 1BigBank | June 29, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Wow, that's about an average of 1.0541 redshirts per episode. Not much of a body count at all when you think about it. Go fig.
Posted by: Psistriker | June 29, 2007 at 12:29 PM
Ouch, that's 17% of the crew.
I remember watching the original series as a child and wondering, geez, when are they going to run out of these guys...
Posted by: Giladani | June 29, 2007 at 03:00 PM
Creepy that you mention redshirts Wil, 'cause while I was watching the Space Network yesterday(Canadian version of Sc-Fi) there was a little mini-program thing on redshirts and how it was guaranteed that a redshirt or redshirts would die.
Posted by: KathrynHawke | June 29, 2007 at 04:36 PM
"The second deadliest episode was The Changling, which sent six wads of Ensign Kleenex to the Great Gig in the Sky."
That's what I call it when I masturbate! What odds.
Posted by: Seth | June 29, 2007 at 06:10 PM
One of the things I always notice when watching Star Trek and other action TV/movies is the body count among the "Red Shirts" and other unamed characters. There's a lot of unsung bravery there. Someday I'd like to see a tribute on sci fi or some other show about them.
Posted by: Seth Owen | June 30, 2007 at 10:45 PM
This might be considered a lame way to promote my rarely-read personal blog, but an entry from a few weeks back:
http://www.mitchcohen.com/2007/06/10/one-more-mitch-cohen-that-im-not/
had an potentially amusing reference to red-shirts, including a link to the same Wikipedia entry.
Posted by: mitchcohen | July 01, 2007 at 07:25 AM
Speaking of redshirts, redshirt humor:
http://www.tvscifi.com/content/view/30/28/
Posted by: stevehops | July 01, 2007 at 08:40 AM
I work for the Canadian military-industrial complex, and one of the support-the-troops events we have at work is "Red Shirt Fridays." I think it's hilarious, but I've learned not to make Star Trek jokes to my co-workers, because they totally won't get it.
SP
Posted by: Neil M. | July 02, 2007 at 11:27 AM
That is interesting, not to mention an unintentional 47 reference!
Posted by: David July | July 02, 2007 at 04:32 PM
I'm sure I missed the meaning in an earlier post (or the answer is really obvious and I'm going to feel like an idiot), but what is the history to the term "Ensign Ricky". I know what they are, but why ricky?
My husband and I have always called them "Ensign Toast"
Posted by: Britt | July 02, 2007 at 10:15 PM
Ah, the "Disposable Ensigns"...
Posted by: kristinalead | July 04, 2007 at 09:37 PM