10 Weird Times Star Trek Characters Changed Divisions 

Hey Sean, you completely missed Uhura in the original series, there's a couple of episodes that showed Nichelle Nichols wearing a Gold Starfleet uniform

There were two characters who went years and never wore a Starfleet uniform who absolutely STUNNED in them when they dawned one, The first was Troi, she looked great in blue. But the crown jewel was Kira...no contest. She rocked it.

i like when they change ranks and colours cause it gives the crews more life as it shows there is a chance for change except harry kim

You missed Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), from ST:TOS. In both The Corbomite Maneuver and Mudds Women she wore Command Gold, before switching to Operation Red in all following episodes.

You mentioned Sulu’s color change from WNMHGB, but are we ignoring Spock’s gold tunic from the same episode?!?

I love the amount of time it took "Sean" to type No. I can't recall the number of times I have done that at work in Teams, where I write what I want to say, but think better of it and just say Sure or No.

My favorite part of the Rutherford story was how supportive and encouraging each set of new cow orkers was when he decided to change jobs. Star Fleet seems to be a great place to work.

Ahhh so Tom Paris changing division colors playing in the Holodeck doesn't count? He wore Gold in that Tuvok Maquis scenario, and wore Blue in one of The Doctors Holo-novels.

Sisko gets no love? In the same scene O'Brien is shown wearing red Bashir asks "aren't you wearing the wrong colors?" History expert O'Brien then confuses Lieutenant no-name as Captain Kirk, then gets an up close look at the REAL Captain Kirk tears him a new one.

Thought it would be worth mentioning regarding Geordi: he was shown in command red (as a Captain) in VOY: Timeless

I enjoyed this video very much, except for that "texted" sequence about Wesley's uniforms. PLEASE remember that not all of us can see such small text. I had no idea what was going on.

Star Trek Into Darkness, when Scotty left the Enterprise, Kirk made Chekov Chief Engineer and basically forced the red shirt on the horrified young man. RIP Anton Yelchin.

"Scarlet target" Great choice of words.

Troi changing to the Romulan division uniform definitely a favourite

Kirk's Green shirt looks way better. The Mustard/Yellow is fine, but Green Tunic is🔥🔥

7 of 9 donning the blue in the episode Relativity, I think, where she is sent back in time to stop a temporal bomb from blowing up Voyager.

Even though I noticed the color changes, the only one that really hit me was seeing Data in red. That just really jumped off the screen for some reason. Even Picard in the blue didn't seem all that out of place to me. Even though it's not a part of the list, but they did bring up Wesley Crusher... When Wesley walks onto the bridge the 1st time in his full uniform, kudos to Gates McFadden's reaction. She really looked like a proud Mom in that scene.

On Data, I once read he was originally intended to be in science blue, which would have fitting, though he is never called 'science officer' throughout most of TNG, but especially earlier on, he fills the same role as Spock in TOS. As I recall, the only reason he ended up in yellow was because the blue uniform didn't go with his pale skin-colour. This seemingly simple costume change ended up changing a lot about Star Trek going into TNG, and subsequent series. Gone, for most part, were the science officers on the bridge, and - outside of the CMO - the whole blue-shirt division faded into the background. And in came the Operations Officer, who - through the likes of Data, especially in later TNG episodes and Harry Kim - seemed to act as both an assistant to the Chief Engineer, and as pseudo-science officer.

You forgot Scotty, who, for inexplicable reasons, under his TOS-movie-era black vest started wearing command white instead of engineering gold. He wore gold under the monster maroon jacket in TWOK, TSFS, TUC and Generations. In TFF and TNG, he wore white under the black engineer's working vest. But it wasn't simply an undershirt for it was the same style shirt with the ribbed collar worn under the maroon jackets. WORSE, in TSFS he wears gold under his bomber-style maroon jacket, and has on the same outfit in TVH but the shirt is white!! He changes back to gold for the trial and the trip to the Enterprise-A, so he wears TWO different department colors in the same movie, and is wearing a commander's badge rank as well while in those finale scenes.

Uhura, as mentioned, is also an odd one. She wears a gold uniform with science insignia in Corbomite and Mudd's Women. Most folks note the gold uniform, but miss the science insignia on the delta.

O'Brien changed from red to gold because he tore his pants on the red one. Unless you watched Encounter at Farpoint (and to a lesser extent Future Imperfect), was there any other way of discerning Troi's division before she started wearing her blue uniform on a more regular basis following Chain of Command? I mean it couldn't have been helpful constantly switching from red to blue or to grey outfits and wondering if she was in command red or science blue (and in grey's case something else).

I always thought it funny Data’s career benefited during these alternate history episodes. Clearly, his crew mates held him back……haha

I'm desperate for Nicole deBoer to return to the franchise, where every bit of beta canon (including _What We Left Behind's_ "Season 8") indicate Ezri ended up in command.

Uhura wore gold/yellow in The Corbomite Maneuver instead of her normal red uniform.

How did they miss Nichelle Nichols?

I knew that Rutherford would be #1. And he definitely looked good in each division color.

Uhura also changed from gold to red, and Mariner changes to gold when she is promoted to lieutenant (the first time), both for no apparent reason.

Great text sequence about Wesley’s gold uniform.

In the TNG series and movies, there is a spiky-haired brunette who wore yellow, and would often relieve Worf and Data for years. She made it to all the movies, but inexplicably wore a different color in each movie. She donned a blue uniform in one of the latter films which seemed odd sense command staff rarely shifts to sciences.

i absolutely LOVED Tapestry -- then again (with the exception of his Voyager appearances) i LOVED Q

You forgot Uhura, who debuted in command Gold in The Corbomight Maneuver and Mudd’s Women, only to switch to Opperations Red for the remainder of the series.

There was also Tom Paris, who was mainly in Red, getting to wear Gold in “Worst Case Scenario” and then Blue in “Author, Author” (both times while playing on the holodeck). Lt. Ayala (the main Maquis guy from Voyager and who only had two lines in the entire show!), mainly wore Gold but was seen in Red in one of the final VOY episodes (part of me thinks he also may have worn Blue once!). Seska, mainly seen in Gold, but started off in Blue. Technically not the EMH but, Robert Picardo also donned the Gold uniform whenever he played Lewis Zimmerman. Brent Spiner also wore the Red uniform during costume tests of the new Season 3 uniforms (there are photos out there!). Geordi was also seen in Red in an old log entry in “Identity Crisis” and also wore Red in the alternate future of “Timeless” as Captain LaForge. Tuvok was mainly seen in Gold but was in Red in “Star Trek Picard Season 3”. Trip Tucker was mainly seen in Red but wore Gold in the alternate future of “Twilight”. T’Pol mainly wore Blue in later seasons of “Star Trek Enterprise” but was also seen wearing Gold in “Twilight”. Michael Burnham also switched divisions/colours in Seasons 1-3 of “Star Trek Discovery”.

Lt Jae was seen in all 3 division colors: yellow throughout the TNG series; red in Genreations; blue in First Contact

Lt. Uhura sported a gold command uniform in The Corbomite Manuever . According to David Gerrold's The World of Star Trek, Uhura was slated to be fourth in command after Scotty (makes sense as Communications is a key position on the Bridge), but NBC wouldn't have it. Shows what studio execs 'know'.

The original pilot, The Menagerie also had Scotty in a gold shirt. Also there was at least one early episode where Uhura wore gold.

Lt. Uhura appeared in Gold & Red. Dr. Crusher traded Blue for Red as Captain in alt future All Good Things

Sulu going from blue astrometrics to gold navigation makes sense from a job path. In reality, a lot of these fit and work as you see a person changing departments as they advance through the ranks or jobs. Someone might start as red... move to blue, in a quest to get gold for captain... other might start in say, science and move to engineering as it overlaps with their studies, say plasma physics, or warp field mechanics.

Some characters have worn different division colors in different episodes. Leslie, Jae, Tom Paris, Harry Kim, and Sylvia Tilly have each been shown wearing three colors at different points (including, for Paris and Kim, alternate timelines and Holodeck scenarios).

Chekov (in the JJ Abrams movies) went from Command gold to Engineering red when he was reassigned to Engineering....

I still stand by the thought that Janeway stole the idea for an Emergency Command Hologram and turned it into the Janeway hologram from Prodigy.

With the episode on Ferangniar it was made quite clear that Rutherford & Tendy both actually do have deep romantic feelings for each other... And that they both would rather live in denial about those feelings and "just be friends" because they are scared of losing each other's friendship. Those to are practically already married... they just don't' want to admit it to themselves or others.

Also, Michael Barrier as Lt DeSalle (TOS), who technically served in all three branches (command, science and support), although he never actually wore a blue shirt. He started as a navigator and ended up being the assistant chief engineer. The thought was that when Kirk and Spock were off the ship, Scotty was in command, and Scotty might have to have dialog with engineering, so it would be useful to have a series regular in this role. But since none of the writers knew about this, it never came up. There was also Barbara Baldovin, who was dressed in gold as Angela Martine. She returned to fill in for Nichelle Nichols as communications officer for the final ep of TOS, but since they called her "Lisa" in dialog, it's pretty clear she was supposed to be a different character altogether.

What about Lt. Jae?! She was in every color on the Ent D, E... all without a single line of dialog.

Holy moly! Your upload schedule is bonkers.

Seska was originally in Green when Voyager started, then wore the yellow she had for the rest of season 1.

While you're looking at Sulu, Scotty and Uhura also had weird color changes to their division colors.

An alternate Captain LaForge also wore Command Red when he captained a Galaxy Class ship in Voyager's Timeless.

Loved the wonderful humor in this video. Great job!

Technically O'Brien did not change divisions on the Tribble episode. He went from DS9 yellow to TOS red, which was the same back then.

Spock & Uhura in command gold are the obvious misses. There was the episode of Voyager where most of the cast wore blue as they played the EMH's holonovel. Then there is Ayala. He spent a majority of Voyager's run as an Ensign in security gold, but in his last performance was a Lt in command red piloting the ship. With dialogue!!

Imagine poor Harry Kim - seeing a computer program get promoted before him...

Not trying to be that guy There's that one episode of Lower Decks where Mariner is promoted to full lieutenant and goes from command red to ops gold There's the fringe changes (idk how else to call it, the copper v silver v gold v black accents on the blue uniforms) throughout all the costuming in many characters in Discovery, There is also the situation with Thomas Riker, while he may be a transporter clone, until he meets Will he is essentially Will Riker in Ops Gold However, Thomas Riker does wear Red in DS9s Defiant, however this is due to him trying to go as incognito Will. Dr Bev Crusher wears command Red in All Good Things, but this is a cross uniform situation You mention Miles wearing Red in Trials and Tribbilations, but you forgot Sisko went to gold, staying in division, but Dax went to Ops Red The EMH is seen wearing Gold in The Swarm Spock wore command Gold in both TOS pilots Q has donned Red usually, but also impersonated Data and wore Gold Also Tom Paris wore gold in Worst Case Scenario and Blue in the emh holonovel in Author, Author

Very interesting topic. That was quite enjoyable. 🖖

Diana Troi, i was so happy when she finally was allowed to wear a real uniform instead of her pyjamas

Great list, I forgot about some of these!

Yeah some of these are easy to remember, but nice job pointing these out. Some I was not aware of.

I realize it is not canon, but there is a scene in the novel Killing Time where Kirk and another lower decks officer have a brief discussion about tunic color.

The cell phone bit was priceless. Lol funny!

The Captain's Grey uniform is severely underutilized. It would be my primary uniform if I were captain.

Bahahahha the jazz music text typing literally mirroring my thoughts during that section were making me chuckle I was literally swiping to find a comment box when I realized you already called it out lol

It took some serious olympic level mental gymnastics to figure out what you meant by an inappropriate scene between Picard and Marta. It was so difficult because there was absolutely nothing inappropriate about it what so ever. Thats why it was so difficult to figure out. I had to ask "How could I be offended on someone elses behalf."? It all made sense when I added a healthy dose of absolutely pointless white knighting to the equation. Yes she was 17 at the time. Theres some MAJOR points you need to recognize. 1: Everyone involved with it was perfectly fine with a 17 year old kissing a 52 year old. That not only means the staff, Stewart was on board, JC brandy was on board. Her overseer (required on set with a minor) was fine with it. 2: She was over UKs age of consent. That means responsible adults agreed to it on her behalf. 3: Its not only common for there to be an age gap, large age gaps between men and women are abundant and always will be. 4: It made perfect sense to the plot how they constructed the episode. It would have made for a MUCH worse episode if they had Marcus Nash (or anyone for that matter) playing young Picard through the entire episode. Stewart is a critical component of the episode. It was critical to the plot for him to see "the road less taken" which a younger actor would not have pulled off. And for what? cause someones fee fees were ruffled ? It is utterly revolting that people will do this, As if the ACTUAL people involved are unable to make decisions for themselves. And this is why we now see 40 year olds playing teenagers as a default and it is FAR worse as its an instantaneous cognitive dissonance. All cause select groups of people want to act as if someone elses choices hurt them somehow. This is a MAJOR thing that is wrong with acting right now. People who do things like this are why we cannot have nice things any more. Like a halfway decent netflix adaptation of ANY existing property. But yeah, go talk to Thora Birch, Dominique Swain, Sue Lyon, Brooke Shields, Mila Jovonovich and countless other startlets who did far worse and had no problem with their participation in their roles and they certainly did not balk at the careers they made from them. But to show you how hypocritical this is... You notice how people making these kinds of arguments NEVER get upset that men dont have the capacity to utilize such an avenue to create a career for themselves. So could you not with this ridiculousness? Cause lets be real there are ACTUAL veins of sexism in legacy trek that are far worse than the acting equivalent of the kiss from even a high school level production of Romeo and Juilet. Even those are just relics of a bygone era and no where near as horrific as they are portrayed as. But yeah... I guess its time to attack the messenger delivering you a truth you NEED to hear. "If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor SS

Just as a note, red was not just command in TNG and later, we see far to much red on the ship for it to just be command. It always seems that it is both the command and "generic" color for early career officers

I don't know if this fits this list, but in the TOS episode, "Charlie X", Kirk is talking to Charlie about why it was wrong to slap Yeoman Rand's bottom, and Kirk is wearing his command gold when he enters the turbolift. Then when he arrives on the bridge Kirk's wearing his green v-neck tunic instead. More of a continuity problem, I guess.

Really great episode. Observations: 1. Uhura was always in red and yet the worst thing tht ever happened to her was being forced to kiss Kirk, who must have had funky breath. Other than that her memory was erased by Nomad, but she eventually got it back. Uhura looked slamming in that red micro mini. Fortunately Jellico was not around to force her into something "more formal." 2. Wesley...what is it with the alleged "Mozart" of time and space? He's a field ensign, then he's a washed out cadet. Then he's trapped in an unmarked white van with no windows being sexually assaulted by "the traveler." Then he's back in Star Fleet as some sort of middle tier science officer of no great importance. Then he's his own traveler where one assumes he is molesting someone else, hopefully Jellico. 3. Then there's Riker. The dude saves the ENTIRE FEDERATION from the Borg. He should have been given the Enterprise itself on a permanent basis, with Picard being at very least promoted to Commodore and given an entire fleet or booted upstairs to a desk admiral post for his many years of service prior to Wolf 359. I see the sinister hand of Jellico here as well. Betcha he was nailing Admiral Nachyev and talked the skank into screwing over Picard by sending him on a misson best handled by a much younger man with tactical experience so that he, Jellico, a mediocre captain of an unimportant ship who was nowhere to be found when the Borg came to destory humanity, could take command of the flagship. OF COURSE he doesn't like Riker. He wanted that post whether he deserved it or not. By Star Trek Picard, if Worf, who was insubordinate as hell, made it to Catpain, and Geordi made it to Commodore, Riker should have made it to fleet admiral, as he did in "All Good Things." Jellico must have relatives in Star Fleet Command. 4. Data should have been at vert least been made someone's first officer long before Nemesis. Jellico does it briefly until he learns that Riker, a man he despises, is the only guy in Star Fleet with the piloting chops to carry out his very risky plan to get the Cardassians, one that doesn't really include saving Picard at all, hint hint. If Data was smart enough to aim a phaser and fire at Fajo one would assume that he would have done th same to Jellico saying in his wisdom "This cannot be allowed to continue". 5. Finally, there is one girl in a blue micro mini dres, quite a sexy one, from TOS who proves the color to not be all that safe. She beams down to interview Scotty when the soul of Jack the Ripper has invaded his body and she ends up being stabbed many, many, man,y many, many times. So mcuh for the dangers of red. Betcha Jellico was behind that one too.

We never saw Janeway in blue but the Admiral who welcomes her aboard Voyager, when she came aboard for the first time mentions about her being a scientist so we can assume she previously or at some point dawned a blue uniform.

They had Seska in blue at one point but then settled into gold.

I keep a lieutenant Picard action figure on my desk to remind me to take risks.

Lots of others mentioned in comments but haven't seen anyone mention Beverley Crusher in red in All Good Things

Apologies if this example hasn't been mentioned already here, but wasn't there a TNG background character (was her name Tracee or was that the performers name?) that for the longest time wore security gold, and then in Generations was in command red then in First Contact wearing sciences blue? Perhaps being blasted out of the Conn position during the Duras sisters attack made her re-evaluate her career goals...?

Mr Leslie also wore a green medical jumpsuit in "Mudd's Women." McCoy calls him by a different name, but of course it's just like Bones to use a wrong name with confidence.

The delayed "no" after much typing got me.

Red helps to hide the blood at least... :P

Scotty was captain of engineering promoted by the Starfleet commander

6:38 I guess they could not re-record that. 😂

Lt. Leslie: The explanation that comes to mind is that he is a lieutenant that is designated (and trained) in multiple duties. He's a fill-in guy. Say, for when someone is sick, on leave, etc. So, his duty uniform changes based on his daily assignment. This is true for certain military and civilian careers fields. Of course, who really knows the true reason.

Scotty also wore gold in "Where no man has gone before."

If you pay attention to who's wearing what and their jobs, you'd realise Sulu was an astrophysicist in WNMHGB, hence the blue shirt, he then became a helmsman in the series proper and switched to gold. Worf changes from red to gold because he switched to Security. He then switched to red on DS9 because he was Strategic Operations officer, a command division posting. Data switching to red as the first officer is not surprising when Jellico was a stickler for rules, which is why Troi wears her blue science/medical uniform as well. O'Brien changed to gold because transporters are engineering/ops. It's not bleeping weird a lot of the time!

I was today years old when I realized that Data imitates Riker's posture while sitting in the 1st officer's seat

Data looked so weird in a red uniform, it bugged the heck out of me cause it was so distracting

You need to bare in mind, Command division at the top end is captains and division heads who wish to wear it. But on the lower end, Command is a General Dogsbody assignment, a great position for new officers to allow them to work in different places (covering sick days too etc) and learning and developing and later finding the division they belong in.

I just loved that WhatsApp conversation cutaway! 😂

5:18 Started to correct you about the wedding in Nemesis, then saw the edit, lol. I will add that the division is much easier to see on the cuff (wristband) of the jacket than on the collar.

I hear that with the case of Sulu, Gene Roddenberry originally planned for there to be an actual explanation for the uniform and position change. Originally, Sulu was supposed to start off as the Enterprise's astrophysics officer before there was to be an emergency where the regular helmsman became incapacitated, forcing Sulu to take over the position in order to save the ship. Kirk was supposed to then have been so impressed with Sulu's quick thinking and abilities he then promoted Sulu to helmsman full-time.

I always thought the departmental colours were a good idea, as for Captain Worf wearing Gold, why not? He may of at one point been a Captain, but he wasn't in command of a ship but instead worked with Starfleet Intelligence (Gold). It's similar to people like Commodore Oh (Nedar), she was a Commodore but wore gold cos she commanded Starfleet Intelligence, yes it may have been command but, overall it was still part of the security division. Change department, change colours... but damn it must've been annoying when going to the costume department.

lutenit uhura was in gold for a few episodes of the original series.

You missed Spock in TOS from "The Cage" to "Where No Man Has Gone Before" to the rest of the series.

4:00 yea he wore every colour while he wore grey.

Odd times sometimes requires a change!

I'd have to exclude the first few episodes of TOS as the first big uniform change in general (notice the absense of the redshirts in the earliest episodes) with the behind-the-scenes reason of the uniforms they made for the pilot that they had and not yet having the budget to update them

Don't forget Uhura in season one of TOS wore gold in an episode!

5:31 - LOL, there was a TNG episode about some people being abducted, the typing noise sounds like the clicks of the alien language...

I always found it weird that security was lumped together with both operations and engineering. To me, the colours were meant for an easy way to see what an officer's official role was. Look to blue for pure and social sciences, look to gold for applied sciences, and look to red for strategic leadership and personnel management (i.e. command). Security and tactical dont fall into any of these cleanly. I would place them in their own division (like the MACOs) or, in a pinch, Id place them in the command division. The latter choice is because the command division is more the tactical/strategic division then the rest. As for uniform switching, I think it depends more on the officer's current official role. When Worf was chief of security, he wore yellow. On DS9, he became the strategic operations officer, which deals more with commanding and making strategic decisions. Odo dealt with the station security. As for lower rank officers, maybe like Rutherford, they get shifted around to get hands-on experience in multiple divisions. As for Data, as Operations Officer, his primary role is the overall functioning of ship system; his primary role isnt command, even if he is second in command (even though Beverely outranks him and is apparently a certified bridge officer as she has commanded the Enterprise on occassion). Likewise, Deanna doesnt done red adter she becomes certified as a bridge officer because her primary role is still pychological healthcare. Why Geordi and Word wore red as helmsmen still stumps me. The definitely seems more like an ops thing.

I loved Tapestry, also one of my favorite episodes even though they never talked about Picards destroyed mechanical heart or his miraculous return to the living!

6:35, I love this channel lol

That text sequence is why I watch vids on my desktop; so i an jam the 'right' button to quickly and accurately get past what I know will be a drawn-out and painful sequence.

Robert Duncan McNeil and Robert Picardo are two of he few actor to wear the three colors!

I still can't believe Picard would be a old lieutenant, even if he changed his destiny. He wasn't Harry Kim.

Uhura in the very first episodes of TOS wore gold a few times. (I’m watching the series again)

By the time Nemesis comes along Wesley Crusher has no official standing in the federation, since the producers were clearly taking the piss by including him in the wedding scene I am surprised they didn't dress him as a Borg.

You forgot the time Data changed to red when taking command of a ship of his own in the 2 part Klingon Civil War episodes.