Star Trek: Every Redshirt Death Ranked From Worst To Best

Redshirt. One word, not two. Because while a red shirt is merely a warmly colored garment a member of Starfleet may wear on their trunk, a Redshirt (purposefully capitalized) describes a very specific person. An instantly forgettable, often nameless, doomed person. They die, so that our main characters may live.

Now I’m sure at this point all you fellow Trekkers out there are thinking “They don't all die.” or “Plenty of other crewmen wearing gold or blue have perished in service to Starfleet.”

Well, you’re not wrong. Regarding the latter, it just seems more special when a Redshirt dies, because red pops. Regarding the former, sure, there’s main characters like Uhura and Scotty who wear the color red, and they’re obviously safe. But even when an actual Redshirt crewman escapes with his life, you have to admit, you feared for them. And that’s what separates them from the other members of the crew: Inherent peril.

And so, in celebration of Star Trek’s forgotten heroes, let's take a moment to take a look back at the Enterprise’s fallen heroes, relieving their pain through a definitive ranking of their deaths.

Episode: What Are Little Girls Made Of? (S1E7)

Cause Of Death: Shoved off a cliff by Ruk, the big bald android.

Despite being the first Redshirt to perish on screen, Crewman Matthews earns the lowest ranking on this list because he unfortunately dies offscreen.

We don’t even get to see the surprised look on his face as he plummets to a bottomless chasm, after being shoved off of said cliff by a giant android in a muumuu. More on him later.

And judging by the long duration of his “AHHHHHHHHHHH” we can pretty safely assume that the chasm in question is indeed bottomless.