WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode 9
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds brilliantly subverts the franchise's classic red-shirt trope in "All Those Who Wander." Star Trek's suspiciously high red-shirt death toll is among the most famous tropes in TV history. During Captain Kirk's 1960s Enterprise adventures, the main cast would often be accompanied on missions by a security officer wearing a red shirt, and this one-off makeweight regularly became fodder for whichever alien enemy Kirk's team encountered. "Red-shirts" quickly developed a reputation for their lack of longevity, and the term became enshrined into cultural vernacular, used to describe any supporting character whose sole purpose is to die during the same episode they're introduced.
Modern Star Trek doesn't typically go in for red-shirts, largely because 60 years of re-runs means the audience knows exactly what to expect. Strange New Worlds episode 9 revives the trope wholeheartedly, but flips those worn, predictable narrative clues. Viewers have no idea what's coming until blood has already been spilled.
"All Those Who Wander" introduces two brand new faces to the Enterprise crew - Duke and Chia. The former a clumsy ensign recently promoted to lieutenant, the latter a cadet medical officer completing her Enterprise rotation alongside Uhura. Both are positively screaming "red-shirt." Neither has featured previously in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and each follows the tried-and-tested red-shirt formula. They receive a few lines early on - a tiny sliver of character development to make audiences mildly invested - then they're unceremoniously killed off while the main cast watch aghast. Despite honoring Star Trek's time-honored red-shirt tradition, however, Duke wears yellow while Chia sports blue. Later in the episode, Bruce Horak's Aenarian engineer, Hemmer, gets infected by Gorn eggs. As an integral cog in Strange New Worlds' main cast, most would've expected Hem to survive, but "All Those Who Wander" boldly ends with Hemmer making a tragic sacrifice. And the shirt he's wearing? The same crimson red as all those deceased security officers from The Original Series...
The genius of Strange New Worlds episode 9's twist lies in how the two real red-shirts (Duke & Chia) wear completely different colors, whereas the red-shirted Enterprise officer who does perish is someone audiences would never have anticipated. Even without the traditional colors befitting their Star Trek role, Duke and Chia's deaths can be seen all the way from Vulcan. Those familiar with Star Trek custom would've lowered their guard, understandably believing the episode had finished killing off expendable characters, and quietly satisfied they'd seen through the blue/yellow shirt ruse. Thanks to this misdirection, Hemmer's death hits twice as hard once it becomes clear he won't be able to solve his Gorn egg problem with a quick bathroom visit. The red-shirts were a ruse all along, distracting from Strange New Worlds' very first major character death.
Now a vacancy has opened up in engineering, thoughts inevitably turn toward a certain Scottish miracle-worker. Star Trek canon would allow Montgomery Scott to serve under Christopher Pike aboard the USS Enterprise. The legendary The Original Series character could even be aboard already, albeit at a lower rank. Hemmer's death feels like the perfect opportunity to add yet another familiar face to the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds cast. Until then, however, Star Trek has finally dropped a red-shirt death that nobody saw coming.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues Thursday on Paramount+.