ene Roddenberry never meant for red shirts to signify death; the creator chose the colour to simply show a security officer's low rank aboard the . And yet, due to the nature of low-ranking officers being prime cannon fodder, the majority of characters who died during the sci-fi series' original run were wearing red shirts. In fact, of the 55 crew members who perished throughout those three seasons, 24 wore red shirts while only nine wore gold and seven donned blue. The term ‘redshirts' has since become a well-known trope across media, used in reference to anyone who's introduced and then killed off all too soon. A redshirt's duty is to die, often to move the plot along – but sometimes just to die. They are the sacrificial lambs that litter our favourite films and franchises, and here we salute eight of our fallen comrades.
