It’s a well-known fact that you can’t do laundry in space. It’s much easier to just design a whole new wardrobe every time Picard soils his pants when the Borg show up or when Kirk accidentally rips his in front of seven different scantily clad women who come from different species yet all have the same body parts somehow.
Let’s take a walk down memory lane, ranking Starfleet uniform designs from Leonard Nimoy Great to Picard Facepalm Fail. For the sake of carpal tunnel syndrome, I won’t include dress uniforms, but I may make that a feature in the future.
Star Trek: Enterprise
Starting us off we have Scott Bakula, who can found the Federation and blunder through time with Dean Stockwell all in a single bound (for you nonsci-fi people, google Quantum Leap). Their uniforms, while not flashy, are quite fitting as they resemble the jumpsuits current astronauts use today. They are possibly the most down to Earth uniforms I’ve ever seen in a Star Trek series. If they are good enough for Porthos, Archer’s prized beagle, they are good enough for me.
Star Trek: The Original Series
Kirk is a mixed bag of nuts, ranging from alpha male womanizing jerk to Priceline commercial corny depending on his level of duress. The original series didn’t do bad in the way of uniforms seeing as how the show was aired forty plus years ago. The color scheme was clearly defined allowing any passing alien or disease to pick off anyone wearing red that wasn’t Scotty. I’m sorry to say that the men’s uniforms are less fleet appropriate and more “the old lady kicked me out” pajama party appropriate. The miniskirts and boots however…
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Sweet mother of pearl where to begin? It’s almost as if everyone has a different uniform, designed by feces hurling primates at a special needs zoo. Captain Kirk’s uniform looks like someone dumped a bucket of white out on a gray canvas. It’s like I just cracked opened a bag of skittles that held all the rejected flavors no one wanted. Also, why is everyone wearing a fanny pack? No…Just…No.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of *Shakes Uncontrollably* Khaaaaannnn!!!!!
Finally! A uniform that says, we’re gonna kick your little green behind back to Alpha Centauri. Everything from the elegant lines to the insignia on the belt, this is how it’s done. They lasted all the way up to Star Trek Generations (the seventh movie), Kirk’s last hoorah after teaming up with Picard to save the Veridian star from Soran.
Star Trek: The Next Generation (The Early Seasons)
And we’re back to pajamas. The actors complained about this uniform to no end, claiming it was hard to move in them because they were so tight, hence the “Picard Maneuver” was born. The color schemes were anyone’s guess, red being dominant but not specific to any one department. The attempt to “alien up” Troi as a telepathic Betazoid made it worse, but if you actually watched the show, you would have more likely noticed Wesley whining about something every five minutes. They tried the skirts again on the women in the earlier episodes but they lacked the appeal of those from the original series.
Star Trek: The Next Generation (The Later Seasons)
A little better. It was worth mentioning the change as there were subtle differences in the design toward the later seasons. For one, the addition of a collar makes the uniform slightly less pajama-like. They gave Troi dresses to wear, taking her away from the “intergalactic cheerleader” as she once claimed she felt like during the earlier seasons.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (The Early Seasons)
Deep Space Nine ran along side of Next Gen for two years during 1993 and 1994. Picard did wear something similar once in a blue moon during the series, but it was more evening wear than formal attire. I liked this reverse color scheme design much better than those seen in the Next Gen series.
Star Trek: Generations (Seventh Movie)
Great movie, worth noting because the “Next Gen” cast started off with the uniforms they wore in the series, yet some of them migrated over to the newer uniform as seen in Deep Space Nine later in the movie. Kirk sports what he usually does when not wearing the above mentioned uniform from movies two through seven and Picard switches it up toward the end. As simple as the new uniform is, it is surprisingly good and made way for the uniforms worn in the following movies. For those keeping track, this movie was released in 1994, during Deep Space Nine’s second season.
Star Trek: Voyager
Voyager had a successful airing from 1994-2001 and kept the same design throughout the series. Perhaps it had something to do with them being lost 70,000 light years from home, I suppose a wardrobe change would have been the last thing to be concerned about. It adopts the same design from the early seasons of Deep Space Nine.
Star Trek: First Contact (Eigth Movie)
First Contact, probably my favorite Trek movie and darker than previous movies have ever been. It was released in 1996. The uniforms kept the same design but the colors migrated a bit. I must admit, this is probably my favorite. Sharp, elegant, and badass. This design was also adopted by Deep Space Nine in its later seasons as well as in Star Trek: Nemesis, the Ninth and final movie.
Star Trek (J J Abrams, 2009)
It’s good to see that J J Abrams decided to keep things similar to that of the Original Series. The colors and uniforms were made a bit sharper for the big screen and it turned out pretty well.
Star Trek Enterprise: Mirror Universe
Star Trek Original Series: Mirror Universe
Ah, the mirror universe. For those of you not sci-fi savvy, the mirror universe is a parallel universe. Does that help? No? Thought not. The theory of parallel universes is the idea that for every action you COULD take, but DON’T take, a separate reality you can’t see is created where the alternate yous live out there lives. This would put the number of possible alternate realities / universes into the trillions or possibly more. The mirror universe as seen in Star Trek has a strong tie to our own due to an ion storm over the planet Halkan, where transporter beams cross at the same time in both universes and cross the away teams into the wrong reality. This particular universe is known for its corruption where assassination is used as a means to advance in rank.
Which uniform would YOU take into the final frontier?