30 responses so far ↓

• 1 Rufus T. on Apr 16, 2008 at 8:14 am

  I….wow. The things one can accomplish when one does not have a job.

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• 2 Chris on Apr 16, 2008 at 8:22 am

  …and people called me Crazy, CRAZY when I sold all of my Red Shirts at a Garage Sale. (Granted it wasn’t MY Garage Sale, but I needed to get rid of them.)

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• 3 Bairman on Apr 16, 2008 at 8:23 am

  LMAO @ “When Captain Kirk meets an alien woman and “makes contact” the survival rate of the red-shirted crewmen increases by 84%.”

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• 4 MikeP on Apr 16, 2008 at 8:40 am

  I fear for Murray Wiggle.

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• 5 JoshWay on Apr 16, 2008 at 9:01 am

  If an ensign accidentally washes his red shirt in a white load, does that skew the data?

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• 6 Tim D on Apr 16, 2008 at 9:08 am

  However, as it was proven in “Galaxy Quest” if you were plucky comic relief, your surviveability rate soared.

  But Mike, I find the word “courage” somewhat troubling. I think the proper nomenclature here would be “unbelievable amount of time in his mother’s basement”

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• 7 Courtney on Apr 16, 2008 at 9:08 am

  Tide: We keep your red shirts red and your dead sci-fi extras dead!

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• 8 Yanni on Apr 16, 2008 at 9:37 am

  It’s important to remember that correlation does not equate to causation. Just because the numbers of dead red shirts decrease when Kirk scores, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s because of said scoring. And yes, ’scoring’ is an official statistical term.

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  Reply from Thud on April 16, 2008:

  Here’s a closer look at actual causation:

  http://www.newcitymedia.com/general/star-trek-analytics-and-the-value-of-observation/

  Reply from Yanni on April 16, 2008:

  I will now add this actual causation into my assertions that Picard is way better than Kirk.

  Reply from Amanda on April 17, 2008:

  Both reports though, gloss over the obvious fact. Unless these all female planets are doing some heavy cloning, they’re not going to remain “all female” planets. And let’s face it, there’s not going to be that many ships with guys like Captain Kirk visiting all the time to reseed the population. And even if there were, there’s still the chance of boys being born to that population. 25% according to genetics although that doesn’t ever seem to be true in actual society.

• 9 Elizabeth Young on Apr 16, 2008 at 10:24 am

  What is the statistical data on the mortality of a red-shirted sci-fi convention goer?

  I’m merely asking out of a personal desire to remain alive while on vacation.

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  Reply from MikeP on April 16, 2008:

  I’m just guessing here, but the mortality rate is probably quite low, while the getting-laid rate is even lower for said individuals. So choose your poison, I guess.

• 10 Rob T Firefly on Apr 16, 2008 at 11:29 am

  What nobody seems to realize is the fact that in the future, a combination of a red shirt and a slot on the away team will be actively known as a viable suicide method, as this deleted scene illustrates.

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• 11 Adversary on Apr 16, 2008 at 12:07 pm

  That’s some pretty good statistical breakdown, but I think they forgot a key element in their numbers.

  What is the distribution of red-shirts compared to the other colored uniforms? If 80% of the crew are red-shirts, then a 73% mortality rate for red-shirts is actually better odds than at least one of the other colors.

  That said though… I wouldn’t be very anxious to put on a red uniform and beam down on an away mission. Especially not if I were also a character of minority status.

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• 12 Kari_Ann on Apr 16, 2008 at 12:13 pm

  *blink*

  Wow… someone had time on his hands.

  But I don’t understand why no one realize the obvious… Security wears Red… so it makes sense that they’d have the most casualties…
  >.>
  <.<
  Oops… my geek is showing… sorry.

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  Reply from Onil on April 16, 2008:

  Does that mean more gold shirts died in Next Generation because the security color was switched from red?

  Me am geek also.

  Reply from Yanni on April 16, 2008:

  Actually Starfleet noticed this trend of red shirts dying and, wanting to test this theory, changed the uniform color. Riker wears red and goes on away missions all the time and hasn’t died; in fact he multiplied! And how many times have you seen the gold shirts die? Tasha, thats about it. It’s usually the navigators that die in TNG. That is how Starfleet realized that it was the incompetence of Kirk that caused the red shirt’s deaths and nothing else.

• 13 gammer on Apr 16, 2008 at 12:32 pm

  The great thing about the human brain is that its doing all of those analytical calculations in the background, so we can just sit back, relax and say: “Oh, another ‘Red Shirt’ just beamed down with Kirk…he’s gonna die”.

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• 14 Fortis on Apr 16, 2008 at 1:16 pm

  I’ll believe this when I see the coronary reports and medical information for each redshirt, and Enterprise related death in their five year mission!

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• 15 RemmieBarrow on Apr 16, 2008 at 2:00 pm

  I always felt that wearing a red shirt in a Star Trek episode was like painting a bullseye on yourself.

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• 16 Tv Miller on Apr 16, 2008 at 3:18 pm

  I don’t care much for red shirts anyhow. It’s just something my father taught me when I was growing up out West.

  I know this, I have to see The Tholian Web episode and it’s apparent counter part episodes from other series’…lots of red shirts down and I read rumor of an entire Enterprise.

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• 17 Natureboy (Ken) on Apr 16, 2008 at 5:37 pm

  That was just a photo of Anson Dead Meat. The away party was always predictable if it consists of Kirk, Spock, Bones and some guy you have never heard of before. If Anson Robinson joins the away team, who do you think is going to be turned into a sugar cube within 10 minutes of landing on the planet?

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• 18 Meredith on Apr 16, 2008 at 7:04 pm

  Didn’t Scotty wear a red shirt? Does having an amusing accent somehow affect a redshirt’s mortality risk?

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  Reply from ety3 on April 18, 2008:

  Not really. Scotty was killed in “The Changeling.”

  He was resurrected, too, but that’s beside the point.

• 19 QuackersnCheese on Apr 17, 2008 at 3:42 am

  And now all the nerds have one more thing to fear thanks Mike, thanks so much for reminding us of the red death. Although that running joke is what prompted all the important lead roles in sequential Star Trek related show’s and movies …. lost my train (choo choo) of thought…. anywho that’s why in the movie’s starting with Star Trek The Wrath of Khan onward all lead roles wore red. There who says only 4 hours of sleep in 3 days can be harmful to your mind? I go sleepy poo now bye bye …. ….. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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• 20 Amanda on Apr 17, 2008 at 6:15 am

  Analytics and analytics! What is analytics?!?

  I’m so glad my feeble little mind cannot begin to comprehend anything that guy said. It got to to part about the women and all the percentages and my brain went all gooey until it ended. All you really need to know is if you wear red you’ll die, unless you’re really, really important. Like important enough to be named. See? Wasn’t that simple? No numbers were crunched in the making of that statement. Ahh. Thank you math free world of mine!

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• 21 Kenny G on Apr 17, 2008 at 1:48 pm

  Why read about it when, you can see all the red shirts dying!

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• 22 ety3 on Apr 18, 2008 at 12:33 am

  I noticed the long, episode specific graph left out “The Ultimate Computer.” The M5 killed a red shirt in that one.

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  Reply from Amanda on April 18, 2008:

  And instantly, all his data is wrong! Ha ha ha! That’s the funniest thing yet.

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