Star Trek: Red Shirts
A gold shirt means you’re part of Command. A blue shirt means you’re part of Science/Medical. A red shirt means you’re part of Operations, and we all know what happens to anyone in a red shirt in a “Star Trek” series. Which is probably not a good thing for anyone in this miniseries’ cast as they’re all part of Operations and have been tasked with finding out who has hacked a random listening post on the edge of Federation space. They’ll find themselves up against unconventional planetary entry, hostile wildlife, falling debris, transporter malfunctions, and two alien races who would rather see them dead than consider the color of their shirts. It’s all just another day in Starfleet, even if this does make you question why you joined up with them in the first place.
“Red Shirts” is written by Christopher Cantwell, who did great work on “Defiant” and will hopefully do so again on the upcoming adjectiveless “Star Trek” series. Here, he tries to wrangle a proper story out of one of the franchise’s biggest in-jokes and manages to succeed. That’s because while he knows that we’re all here to see who’s going to die (and how they’re going to bite it), he also knows that none of these deaths are going to matter if you don’t give a damn about these characters in the first place. So it’s impressive that, in the limited space given to him, Cantwell manages to give each of the cast a little bit of personality to distinguish them before they kick the bucket.
Even better is how he manages to actually twist the joke into a serious commentary on Starfleet’s actions at the end. I’m not sure if the finale is going to land for everyone, as it’s not only a big shock but also deeply cynical in a way that does feel at odds with “Star Trek,” but delivering it took guts and wound up delivering a real surprise which is what made it work for me. It’s also helped by Megan Levens’ solid art as while she’s not big on flash, her storytelling and character work are what’s really needed here and they’re both rock solid. It’s all good enough to make this an easy recommend to fans of the franchise, and to make me curious enough to see what Gerry Duggan does with the next “Red Shirts” miniseries.