The luckiest guy in TOS

[Pauln6]

Lol - if it's good enough to appear in Scary Movie, it's good enough to appear on these boards. I do think that the scene was very, very deliberate. They wanted to toy with the expectations of the time and they succeeded. If Grace Lee Whitney had still been playing Rand, what a fabulous and shocking end that would have given her character.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

So said Cronan Thompson, a Usenet poster who used to do tongue-in-cheek reviews of sf and horror shows and movies

I remember him! He was a regular on alt.tv.star-trek.voyager way back when. That was a time. (I was 'Keeper of the Purple Twilight' on that group)

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

"The Black Guy Dies First"

 

[CorporalCaptain]

"The Black Guy Dies First"

Yeah, TV Tropes always has me in stitches!

In the Star Trek section of that article, once again, they nail it:

A Star Trek: The Next Generation example - in "Where Silence Has Lease" an alien face on the viewscreen says that he wants to understand death by way of killing about half the crew and starts by killing the pilot, the spot normally manned by Wesley Crusher. But he's away from the post at the time, the only time in the whole episode, replaced by a Red Shirt black guy.

OMFG, yeah! This was so embarrassing when that episode aired.

In an alternate timeline of Star Trek: Enterprise wherein the Xindi are successful in their genocidal bid to eradicate humanity, Travis Mayweather is the first of the main characters to die.

Poor Travis!

An aversion: Early in the Star Trek episode “By Any Other Name”, the alien Kelvans reduce two Red Shirts to blocks: Lieutenant Shea, a black guy, and Yeoman Thompson, a woman. The Kelvan leader crushes one block, killing that crewmember, and restores the other block; Thompson’s the dead one, and Shea is restored to normal.

And wouldn't you know it? The article discusses By Any Other Name, basically as if it rubs up against the trope.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

The scene was going for emotional impact. If you want emotional impact when the bad guy kills someone, have him kill a beautiful young woman or a cute child. Not some random smuck. That's why he lived and she died, color had nothing to do with it.

 

[sbk1234]

My surprise at this scene had nothing to do with race, but that instead of the man, the cute girl with the shapely legs bit the dust.

 

[AtoZ]

It might be interesting for someone to come up with a statistic like for baseball. Number of screen deaths per x number of appearances and compare black and white actors with otherwise similar demographics.

Why should "someone" come up with these stats? Because you have some particular axe to grind? We're supposedly living in an enlightened world were sex and race don't matter. Yet I repeatedly see proclamations of "first woman this", "first black that", "first latino whatever." Now tell me who is racist and sexist here? Give people more credit for their personal achievements than some arbitrary and politically correct pigeonhole.

Outstanding!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It might be interesting for someone to come up with a statistic like for baseball. Number of screen deaths per x number of appearances and compare black and white actors with otherwise similar demographics.

Why should "someone" come up with these stats? Because you have some particular axe to grind? We're supposedly living in an enlightened world were sex and race don't matter. Yet I repeatedly see proclamations of "first woman this", "first black that", "first latino whatever." Now tell me who is racist and sexist here? Give people more credit for their personal achievements than some arbitrary and politically correct pigeonhole.

Outstanding!

Merely collecting historical data of television programs isn't "racist" or "sexist". There's no implication of approval in studying the way things were.

Historians collect all kinds of data. Would you accuse people who study the progress of civil rights of being either racist or sexist? That's absurd.

On the other hand, people who distort or suppress history would seem to have axes to grind.

 

[Metryq]

On the other hand, people who distort or suppress history would seem to have axes to grind.

The original poster was making an a priori statement, only later asking someone else to come up with stats to back it up. Yet I am being accused of distorting and suppressing history.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yet I am being accused of distorting and suppressing history.

I read you as trying to tar anybody who would collect stats on ethnicity and sex in television as having an ax to grind. The purpose of my remarks was to refute that notion. Perhaps your beef is just with the OP?

 

[Robert Comsol]

Though I hope I'm not being off-topic trying to get back on-topic, I'd say Lt. Garrovick in "Obsession"

• He's a redshirt
• Four other redshirt characters die (i.e. including Lt. Leslie's twin brother)
• He survives several encounters with the vampire cloud (thanks to Spock's and Kirk's assistance)

My other candidate would be Scotty in "The Changeling"

• He get's killed
• But he is resurrected

Bob

 

[Metryq]

^^ Excellent redshirt candidates for "luckiest guy in TOS!"

 

[E-DUB]

Killed and brought back to life, no big deal. Just ask Spock, and McCoy.

 

[Metryq]

Killed and brought back to life, no big deal. Just ask Spock, and McCoy.

But they did not bear the onus of wearing red shirts, a known "target on one's back" in the TOS universe.

 

[Robert Comsol]

Killed and brought back to life, no big deal. Just ask Spock, and McCoy.

The question was about the luckiest guy in TOS (not Star Trek in general).
Right now I neither do remember an established death of Spock or McCoy in TOS.

Bob

 

[Sigokat]

Killed and brought back to life, no big deal. Just ask Spock, and McCoy.

The question was about the luckiest guy in TOS (not Star Trek in general).
Right now I neither do remember an established death of Spock or McCoy in TOS.

Bob

Not sure about Spock but didn't McCoy "die" in Shore Leave?

Nevermind...I see what you mean by "established"...its been a long day today and still at least 3 hours to go before I'm done LOL

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Scotty died in The Changeling, but got better.

 

[E-DUB]

I was counting Spock's death in TWOK as he is an original series character even though said demise did not occur during the series run.

 

[Metryq]

Scotty died in The Changeling, but got better.

"She turned you into a newt?" Hmm, sounds like a scene in "Charlie X."