Who Was Star Trek's First 'Redshirt' - And How Did They Die?
As long as "Star Trek" is around, redshirts will abound. Whether fans find it hilarious or macabre, it can't be denied that the iconic sci-fi franchise has a penchant for dooming its extra crew members — those who traditionally wore red Starfleet uniforms — to horrible deaths on a near-episodic basis. The trend is so apparent that the term "redshirt" has entered the greater pop culture lexicon as a catch-all phrase used to refer to any character whose ostensible purpose in a narrative is to die and raise the stakes. Suffice it to say, there have been a lot of redshirts in "Star Trek" history — but who was first in line?
Technically speaking, the core concept behind redshirts dates all the way back to the pilot episode of "Star Trek: The Original Series." The episode, titled "Where No Man Has Gone Before," introduces the classic Enterprise crew with a few extra members in tow, including Paul Carr's Lieutenant Lee Kelso and Gary Lockwood's Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell. After Mitchell is exposed to a bizarre energy field, he begins to develop telekinetic powers and quickly sheds his morality. Kelso is the first to face Mitchell's wrath, as he is telepathically strangled to death by his former friend — knighting him as arguably the first redshirt in the franchise.
There are other 'first' redshirts besides Kelso
While most accounts point to Paul Carr's Lee Kelso being the very first redshirt to ever appear in "Star Trek," a number of caveats have allowed others to make valid arguments for other characters being more deserving of the distinction. For one thing, Kelso doesn't even wear a red shirt at any point during his singular appearance, instead donning a tannish-brown Starfleet uniform. The first character to actually die in a red shirt is Vince Deadrick's Mathews from Season 1, Episode 9, titled "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Mere minutes into the episode, Mathews is pushed down a pit to his death by a rogue android named Ruk (Ted Cassidy).
Then, there's the matter of production order compared to release order. While "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is the official pilot of "The Original Series" and was intended to be viewed as the first episode of the series, it was not the first episode to actually air on television. That distinction instead goes to Season 1, Episode 5, titled "The Man Trap." By this metric, Michael Zaslow's Darnell is the first on-screen crew member to fit the redshirt mold, getting killed early in the episode by an iconic "Star Trek" alien: the salt vampire. Of course, he's not technically wearing a red shirt at the time of his death either.
Suffice it to say, opinions on the identity of the actual first redshirt in "Star Trek" history vary slightly among fans. Nonetheless, it's easy to see that redshirts have been around for essentially as long as the franchise itself.