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What happened to Number One? Women, Star Trek, and the problem of command

By Sarah Crocker

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Why you should care about the latest Star Trek: Discovery announcement, the history of women in Star Trek, and the character of Number One

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If you know any Star Trek fans, you may have noticed their excitement over a recent bit of news. Bryan Fuller, showrunner of the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery, announced that the show’s lead would be a woman. He went on to explain that she would be called “Number One”, a reference to an early Star Trek character so obscure that she had appeared in only a single episode.

This news is enough to elicit a bored shrug from non-Trekkies. For those in the know, however, this is a potentially big deal. Number One was a groundbreaking character that was axed before she could make a difference. The prospect of her rebirth or reimagining gives hope for the women of Star Trek.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of Star Trek knows that female representation has not consistently been on par with that of men. From the beginning of the series proper in 1966, men were represented by the bold, brash Kirk, the intelligent and complex Spock, or the resourceful Scotty, who could seemingly bend the laws of physics to his will. Women, however, were rarely more than set dressing or incidental characters. They assisted men and were often the objects of their plans and affections, but rarely were they protagonists.

Number One was a groundbreaking character that was axed before she could make a difference.

As the franchise progressed and new shows aired, representation got better. We got female captains, female admirals, female engineers, female resistance fighters, and more. Yet, there was always that absence from the very beginning. What had happened to Number One?

On screen, Number One appeared only once. She was seen in “The Cage”, the first pilot shot in 1965. It was not broadcast in its complete form until 1988, by which time viewers had already become used to Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and the rest of the crew. For them, “The Cage” must have been a strange experience. Gone is the brash, confident Captain Kirk. In his place is tired, sad Captain Pike, who spends much of the episode yearning for a life off the USS Enterprise. Spock is there, but his makeup isn’t quite right and he actually smiles.

Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock (Mr. Spock) and Majel Barrett as Number One (M. Leigh Hudec) in the STAR TREK: The Original Series episode, ‘The Cage.’ (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)

Perhaps more notably, Spock is not the second-in-command of the Enterprise. Instead, that role is filled by the enigmatic Number One.

She had no given name, at least not officially. She did not cry or wilt under pressure, as other characters in the original series sometimes did. Indeed, Number One betrayed little emotion. Faced with captivity on Talos IV, she was willing to do whatever it took to escape, even to the point of annihilating herself and her fellow crew members. When Captain Pike expressed discomfort with a female yeoman on the bridge, he quickly backtracked, assuring Number One that she was “different, of course”.

NBC executives who screened the episode complained that it was too “intellectual” and “slow” for television audiences. They thought viewers would not be able to handle both a woman in power and the alien Spock (though showrunner Gene Roddenberry managed to keep Spock for the revamped series). It is also worth noting that Majel Barrett, who played Number One, was having an affair with Roddenberry. NBC brass was reportedly furious that an unknown actress was cast in a major role simply because she was the showrunner’s girlfriend. As a result, they asked that Number One be cut. 

When Captain Pike expressed discomfort with a female yeoman on the bridge, he quickly backtracked, assuring Number One that she was “different, of course”.

In a rare move, the executives asked for a second pilot, thanks in part to studio head Lucille Ball. Consequently, Roddenberry delivered “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, which became the third aired episode of the Star Trek series. The new pilot had no trace of Number One.

Screenwriter Samuel A. Peeples, who wrote “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, sent a memo to Roddenberry that included an attempt to save Number One. He suggested keeping her as the ship’s computer, which would have a “personality circuit” that allowed it to interact with the crew. The ship’s computer would be intelligent and personable, though it was also “vain”, “jealous”, and “capable of pouting like any female when things don’t work out her way”. At least we managed to avoid a romantically-minded HAL 9000.

So, Number One was out. Barrett was recast as Nurse Christine Chapel, who was more apt to assist Doctor McCoy or nurture her crush on Mr. Spock. In one episode, “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”, she briefly considers leaving her assignment to live with her long-lost fiancé (who – spoiler alert – turns out to have been a robot all along. It’s a strange episode). 

Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel in the STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES episode, ‘What Are Little Girls Made Of?’ (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)

Executives assumed Chapel would be far more appealing to audiences than the cold Number One. Beyond the innocuous Chapel, however, there were few role models for young girls watching Star Trek. For every episode with a competent Nurse Chapel or Lieutenant Uhura, it seemed as if there were three with a helpless ingenue or, worse yet, a villain or madwoman.

Too often, original series women who wished for something beyond their station were rewarded with tragic results. In the final episode of the original series, “Turnabout Intruder”, Kirk switches bodies with scientist Janice Lester. Lester had come up against barrier after barrier to women in command, while Kirk seemingly coasted into the captain’s chair. She takes over his body as a way to finally gain power, though she’s discovered by the end of the episode. She is returned to her body, trapped, breaking down and on her way to a conviction and a mental institution.

Other women were little more than pawns or pretty pieces of set dressing. There was Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas, who essentially acted as bait during an interaction with an alien god. Marla McGivers betrayed her colleagues and exiled herself for the sake of Khan, a superhuman villain. In the second pilot, Elizabeth Dehner nearly attained godhood but sacrificed herself to save Captain Kirk. A Romulan commander in “The Enterprise Incident” showed promise as an independent woman, but was undone by her love for Mr. Spock. 

Things got better, though slowly. Star Trek: The Next Generation boasted Dr. Beverly Crusher as Chief Medical Officer and even briefly had a female security chief, Tasha Yar. However, the ship’s counselor, Deanna Troi, wore skintight catsuits until the end of Season 6. It created a strange contrast to the other women, who wore the standard Starfleet uniform. Later, Deep Space Nine had Jadzia Dax and Kira Nerys, both prominent female characters who often got substantial storylines and even wore proper uniforms like their male counterparts.

Finally, in 1995, Star Trek: Voyager gave us Captain Kathryn Janeway. Thirty years after the failed pilot, she seemed to fulfill the promise of Number One. The chief engineer, B’Elanna Torres, was also a woman. However, Seven of Nine, played by Jeri Ryan, was another victim of the catsuit plague. Ryan has said that her costumes made it difficult to breathe or move naturally, and certainly were not visually or physically forgiving. Bathroom breaks meant a twenty-minute production shutdown while Ryan’s dresser maneuvered her out of the suit.

Kate Mulgrew (as Captain Kathryn Janeway) in a scene from an episode of the television series ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ (Photo by CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)

Voyager was canceled in 2001 and replaced by the throwback Enterprise series. Though it clearly didn’t wish to return to the sexism of the late 1960s, Enterprise still aired a tone-deaf narrative surrounding the notorious green-skinned Orion slave girls. The logical Vulcan T’Pol, a high-ranking science officer, was crammed into another one of those damned catsuits.

By the time Star Trek: Discovery airs, it will have been more than a decade since an ongoing Star Trek series has been broadcast. Yet, at the very beginning, there was the seed of something truly revolutionary. There’s no telling what Gene Roddenberry or the other showrunners might have done with Number One. Perhaps she, too, would have tottered onto the bridge in heels and a miniskirt, or cried over a romantic failure. Or maybe, just maybe, she would have stayed as she was: a complex female character unlike anything seen on television at the time.

She raised the possibility that women, even women on television in the 1960s, might be more than damsels in distress.

Number One was the promise of something better. She raised the possibility that women, even women on television in the 1960s, might be more than damsels in distress. They might even be able to star in their own stories.

Maybe the Number One of Star Trek: Discovery will deliver on that promise. She doesn’t need to be a carbon copy of Majel Barrett’s character. She doesn’t need to be perfect. Hell, she can even wear a short skirt if she wants.

Next: Ad Free Plan for CBS All Access, Home of Star Trek: Discovery

She only needs to be a thinking, feeling being, more than a two-dimensional shadow of a woman. Something like the real thing. Something like us.

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