#environmental suits

[Images © CBS/Paramount, Star Trek Timelines, probably others]

The Original Series

In “The Tholian Web” we are treated to an amazingly 60s take on a futuristic spacesuit, and it is a thing to behold. Looking back on this from today’s standards, the TOS EV suit is definitely retro looking, and like the uniforms of the era, they are very conscious of using color every chance they get. The vibrant gel-tone tubes and contraptions that stripe their way up and down the body and arms are definitely “doing science,” and the big pen cap of a helmet may obstruct your view in most directions but still looks sharp as nails!

The Animated Series

When Star Trek went animated in the 70s, literally every decision about the quaint, often dopey cartoon show was made to save money. We’ve railed on this before in our coverage of the short-lived series (full playlist on SoundCloud!), but the animation just looked so cheap. So cheap, in fact, that they couldn’t even be bothered to design and animate EV suits and instead concocted the effortless solution of using a belt that would outline the character in yellow highlighter. It’s actually a brilliant move in-world, but we will never hear of it again.

TOS Films

The films had more budget than the show. Waaaay more budget. So the EV suits that we see in The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan are actually professional looking. These are spacesuits that we could actually envision astronauts wearing and functioning entirely. The colors are… very 70s. Drab browns and burnt siennas like the paneling on a Winnebago. And the knitting on the arms and pants are… also very 70s. But these costumes are definitely worth the extra cost, which was literally any cost at all compared to what we just saw above.

Generations and Voyager

Orbital skydiving suit

Okay, I’m including the orbital skydiving suits from the scene cut from Generations and that we finally get to see Torres wear in “Extreme Risk” because I think they’re snazzy as hell. Unlike other EV suits, these ones are specifically made to be able to tolerate breaking atmosphere without baking you like a cake. All the little mirrored squares accomplish so much and yet are so simple – it’s easy just looking at them to understand they do something to combat that whole cake problem. How? Who cares, they’re shiny!

First Contact, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager

We probably see these uniforms the most since they got reused considerably after their debut in First Contact, and you know what? They’re pretty solid. Unlike the gloriously campy TOS EV suits, these suits allow for more field of view from their very traditional helmets. They have adequate heft to them to make us understand that they are doing something to keep you alive. And the colorful glowing buttons kinda harken back to all the candylike panels of the original Enterprise bridge!

Enterprise

Let’s go back to an even earlier Enterprise though! One thing we discussed in both our uniforms discussion and our starships discussion is that Enterprise as a series does a really great job of bridging the aesthetics gap between the known tech of today and all the Trek designs of the show. And their EV suits are no different. The big helmets and general shape of the suits just scream “I am a normal astronaut.” The brown color on the other hand… it’s kinda a chin scratcher why they did that.

“First Flight”

We do also get a quick look at an even earlier suit from the episode “First Flight” when we see some Archer flashbacks. These are more flight suits than EV suits, but I’m going to make you look at them anyway. If you thought the Enterprise suits above did a good job looking like they could be what NASA designs in the future, as I just told you to think, then these flight suits could probably be taken off the rack at NASA headquarters today. They’re orange. They’re unpressurized so they just look like normal cloth. They’re super practical. Check, check, and check.

Star Trek (2009)

Color me surprised to find out that the first time we see EV suits in department colors is in the Kelvin movies. These suits are actually pretty sleek, with slimming color blocking on the torso that would have these things selling off the shelves at any fashion outlet. The straps that cross the chest are assumably for the parachute pack and of course feature probably the most tasteful delta insignia we’ve seen, especially compared to the Kelvin duty uniforms that go overboard with the things.

Into Darkness

Thermal protection suit

Well, if I included the orbital skydiving suit already, then I might as well include the volcano suit from Into Darkness. It accomplishes a similar goal: to withstand a truly inhospitable environment full of lava and extreme heat. Even the look is similar to the tons of little glass squares of Torres’s skydiving costume, but these squares are a fiery orange to make the scene look even hotter. Speaking of hot, I would be remiss if I neglected to mention the biggest selling point: that absolutely majestic cod piece we see on Spock which Caitlin dubbed the “loins flare.” Oh my.

Thruster suit

Okay, here’s where my suspension of belief crashes down in the artificial gravity. These skintight suits look more like apparel for skiing or speedskating than they do for surviving even for a couple of seconds in space. The helmets look like what you’d wear bobsledding, luging, or skeletoning. So basically what we’re determining is that the thruster suits in Into Darkness look more like they belong in nearly any sport in the winter Olympics than in Star Trek. Someone please put these on an ice dancer and maybe I’ll be happy.

Discovery

Season 1

The aesthetic of Discovery tends to be over designed because we see time and again just way too much flair and nothing looking particularly practical. We saw it in the random deltas in the paneling of the uniforms. We see it in their visually overwhelming mirror universe designs. And we see it in this bubble-domed EV suit with the football shoulder pads. Seriously, those protrusions from the bulky-as-hell shoulders would make using your arms entirely impossible and we’re too distracted by them to care about any of the rest of it.

Season 2

By season 2, we have a slightly more sane-looking EV suit that actually marries style and function pretty well! More than anything, we actually appreciate the reference to the EV suits from “The Tholian Web” in those evolved shapes on the chest that align pretty nicely with all the pretty colored tubes and junk from TOS. The rest of the suit looks sleek without looking just way too sleek like the Into Darkness costumes did, and bringing the department colors into the mix is always a nice factor to see!

Season 3-4

When we jump to the future in Discovery, things get more futuristic but somehow not any prettier. The helmets, especially with the little protrusion on the forehead and the cartoonish color blocking, look like they belong on Power Rangers more than they belong on Star Trek. And how on earth do they have V-neck chest plates? What a strange cut! The light-up Vs look even more strange since the shape they create just befuddles the eye. If light-up boobs is what the future holds, count me out.

Red Angel Suit

While we did poopoo the whole Red Angel plot in our time travel blogpost, the Red Angel suit certainly is pretty. Sure, it’s in that Ant Man and the Wasp (totally appropriate right now!) kind of pretty, but can we all just admit the wings are very visually striking whenever we see them? This thing seems to me to be even more futurey than the future suits we just looked at, and maybe that’s because it’s more of a time machine than a plain EV suit. This thing can go anywhere!

Lower Decks

While The Animated Series was all about keeping the budget low by not drawing anything too complicated, Lower Decks… well, also doesn’t draw much that’s too complicated in their rendition of the EV suit. The smooth white surface of the costume could easily be what we got if Apple had tried to design the EV suits from First Contact. Overall, they’re not terribly interesting but they do what they need to do, and the sort of turquoise glow and light up boot soles are kinda cute.

Prodigy

The CGI costumes in Prodigy are pretty standard EV suits in a very dark grey, but one thing we greatly appreciate when seeing them is how well they fit unconventional body shapes like a Brikar and a Tellarite without question. These helmets also have some of the best field of view of any of the ones we’ve seen so far, which is important in an action-packed show like this. Everything else looks pretty standard, but you don’t need to reinvent the wheel with every show (someone tell Discovery that).

Strange New Worlds

Finally, we get to the last of the currently running series of Trek with Strange New Worlds. Like Pike’s crew did with their duty uniforms in season 2 of Discovery, this crew is basically taking the other crew’s design and just changing the colors around. In this case, the division colors are now moved to that chest plate shape and the rest of the body and limbs are a nicely patterned dark grey. Does it improve on the original design that we liked in the Discovery suits? Well, our hosts are a bit split on that opinion, as you’ll see below.

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So which EV suits have us lining up to go for a space walk and which ones would we turn down and go out in our underwear instead? Get into gear to see our favorite and least favorite environmental suits here:

Favorites

Ames: Strange New Worlds

Caitlin: Discovery, season one, ~or~ Star Trek (2009)

Chris: Strange New Worlds

Jake: Discovery, season two

Least Favorites

Ames: Into Darkness, thruster suit

Caitlin: The Motion Picture

Chris: Intro Darkness, thermal protection suit

Jake: Discovery, season one

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