IT SUCKS TO BE ON THE CREW OF THE ENTERPRISE

We broached this subject two posts ago regarding being a 2^nd in command to the main antagonist and how their screen time should be valued, for it is limited.

 

Crew members on the Starship Enterprise understandably know the risk of their commitment to Starfleet and the ship they serve.  For the unlucky crew members that are profiled in brief, their fate is sealed.  They fare a little better than the SOSDF in Grease, but despite their character’s best intentions, they can’t escape their cinematic death.

The Family Guy does a good take on this, admittedly better than us editors.  But we’ll give it our best to expound upon this idea for you.

Exhibit A:  Midshipman 1^st Class Peter Preston (Ike Eisenmann) – Star Trek 2:  The Wrath of Khan (1982).  Scotty’s right-hand man for the training promptly answers to Admiral Kirk’s¹ questions of readiness.  But Preston was not ready for the attack from Khan, which left the ship damaged and crew members wounded or dead, including him.

 

A grief-stricken Scotty claims, “He stayed at his post.  When the trainees ran.”  For all intents and purposes, Preston fulfilled his duty of a Midshipman on the Enterprise and as the crew member chosen to die.

 

Exhibit B:  Fast forward to Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and Lt. Hawk (Neal McDonough) is ordered to accompany Picard and Worf to fix the Enterprise while magnetically grounded to its exterior and avoiding cyber-henchmen trying to... ²

 

The point is, Picard and Worf aren’t getting killed off.  As a result, one of the evil cyborgs lifts Hawk off the magnet and throws him into the vacuum of outer space.

Sorry Hawk and Preston, but that’s the breaks.  Read the fine print on your signed Entrance Waiver to Starfleet³.

¹ In Wrath of Khan, Kirk has now been promoted to Admiral.  He will be demoted in StarTrek 4:  The Voyage Home (the one about traveling back in time to save a whale), lest you forgot.

² Maybe a Trekkie can get up off their mom’s couch and let us know exactly what the heck Picard, Worf and Hawk were doing on the outside of the Enterprise?  Please and Thank You.

³ Does a Trekkie out there have a copy of the signed waivers by Hawk and Preston where it says that The USS Enterprise is always subject to the evils that roam the galaxy and prisoners are not taken?  They have to exist.