goes here, from last month:

"He's Dead, Jim."



Star Trek’s Lt. Leslie, Eddie Paskey, dead at 81


Eddie Paskey as a "redshirt" on the original "Star Trek" TV series. / ViacomCBS

In the original "Star Trek" series, "redshirts" referred to the security personnel and other, often nameless Enterprise crewmembers who seemingly always turn up dead from an alien encounter. (You do not want to wear a red uniform when going boldly where no one has gone before!) But Eddie Paskey (August 20, 1939-August 17, 2021) survived the redshirt jinx. With barely any acting experience, Paskey was hired to portray Lt. Leslie on the second "Star Trek" pilot, and eventually appeared (as Leslie, other anonymous redshirts, a sick bay assistant, or just a stand-in) in 62 episodes of the series – more than George Takei or Walter Koenig.

Curiously, in a season two episode, "Obsession," Lt. Leslie actually DID die, thanks to a red corpuscle-eating cloud, but Paskey turned up again later in that same episode, and in 20 more, with no real explanation as to why. (It was, after all, a science fiction show.) Paskey would later claim, in a 2004 online post, that the original script had a scene of Leslie being brought back to life, but it was never filmed.

As the 1960s series ended its run, Paskey dropped out of acting, but he maintained a "Star Trek" presence with appearances at conventions, and a turn as "Admiral Leslie" in a fan series, "Star Trek: New Voyages." Meanwhile, the term "redshirt" as a trope of expendables has lived on, called out in parodies, video games, and even the 2009 "Star Trek" feature film reboot.