An Ode to Star Trek’s Undershirt Moments

This week, Star Trek: Prodigy dropped the primary trailer for its second season, and it’s filled with all of the kind of good Star Trek motion you’d need—much more so if, like me, you’re a Voyager fan. However as a Voyager fan, there was one shot particularly that known as to me: Admiral Janeway, her uniform jacket eliminated, right down to her high-waisted pants and a gray, Starfleet-issue tank prime.

This can be a ludicrous factor to have your consideration drawn to, however being a Star Trek fan typically includes having reactions and feelings about ludicrous issues. And but, right here I used to be: tank prime Janeway? Oh man, shit’s about to go down. To me, that’s “Macrocosm” Janeway, Ripley-ing her approach via large virus bugs on the compromised Voyager. It’s “Year of Hell” Janeway, hobbling via Krenim area as her ship and crew are picked aside round her.

Generally the conditions surrounding stripped-down Star Trek moments aren’t dire in any respect; we’ve seen folks rocking the look casually, on scorching planets, whereas engaged on one thing notably strenuous. What, precisely, Starfleet officers wore beneath their black and division-color-accented uniforms from TNG onwards has all the time been in flux—there’s long-sleeved undershirts, vests like Janeway’s, t-shirts, all with varying design differences—however no matter what was beneath them, whatever the Trek present or the character, each time you noticed them, it felt such as you had been witnessing one thing susceptible, one thing revealing.

We’re so used to the best way the Starfleet uniforms look—and the conditions they’re nearly all the time worn in—that they grow to be this image of professionalism-under-pressure that encapsulates Star Trek’s love of competence porn. You’re carrying that uniform on the bridge, you’re carrying it beneath fireplace, you’re carrying it on the bar, you’re carrying it on away missions, you’re carrying it knee-deep in isolinear chips engaged on some panel within the ass finish of a Jeffries tube. Regardless of the state of affairs, arguably irrespective of how impractical, a Starfleet officer does their job in that uniform, trying like a Starfleet officer. So while you strip away layers of that uniform, out of necessity or out of informal circumstance, you’re stripping away the layers of that mythos round it and revealing one thing concerning the individual beneath.

Take into consideration the dishevelled look Sisko has by the tip of “In the Pale Moonlight”, the place, within the interstitial scenes set within the current, he more and more undresses layers of his uniform till he’s in an unbuttoned vest and his command undershirt is zipped right down to reveal his chest, embodying his reflection of the ethical sacrifices he’s revamped the course of the episode. Or how Picard in First Contact, the direr the state of affairs will get, strips down additional till he’s in nothing in his vest and trousers by the point he’s squaring off with the Borg Queen. The uncommon instances we really noticed certainly one of our heroes both in a state of affairs informal sufficient to not warrant their full uniform, or demanding sufficient that they felt like they had to strip away elements of it, are someway burned into your minds as vital—like they’re for me after I see Janeway in that tank prime, prefer it’s a unique mode or type of her.

It’s such a small, however intelligent little bit of visible storytelling in Star Trek that doesn’t typically come up all that a lot—however when it does, it hits one thing primal in your Trek-loving mind to attract consideration to its significance.

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