To Baldly Go...Hair Loss in Star Trek

Any science fiction fans, whether or not they have hair loss, who are wondering when the new Star Trek film comes out will be pleased to know that production has now officially begun. The upcoming film, slated for a May 2013 release, is a sequel to 2009’s franchise reboot, Star Trek, which starred 31 year-old Christopher Pine as a young Captain James Kirk. The new film will reportedly feature Sherlock star Benedict Cumbernatch as its main villain.

Chris Pine will reprise his role as Captain Kirk, and though he shows no signs of hair loss at present, if he continues in the role for many years it will be interesting to see how producers of the long-running saga deal with the onset of Male Pattern Baldness, should it occur.

For many Trekkies who themselves have hair loss, one of the burning questions never answered in the almost fifty years of Star Trek films and television series is: “If it’s the future and they’ve got all this sophisticated technology, how come people still go bald?”

Bald starship captains in Star Trek

When it comes to hair loss in Star Trek, the shows’ producers seem to simply go with the hairline, or lack of it, that the actor himself has.

Hence Patrick Stewart, who suffered from Male Pattern Hair Loss at an early age, plays bald captain of the Enterprise, Jean Luc Picard, in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Male Pattern Hair Loss is a genetic condition that affects 50% if men at some point in their lives, but there are already treatments available to clear this problem up.

Captain Picard is not the only prominently bald member of Starfleet though. Captain Benjamin Sisko in the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was also entirely bald, in later seasons at least. Played by Avery Brooks, Sisko had hair but a prominently receding hairline during early seasons of the show, but later went entirely bald.

This change is reportedly due to the fact that Brooks had originally wanted to shave off all his hair and play the role bald, but the producers didn’t want another bald Captain following straight on from Picard. It seems that they eventually let the actor shave his hair off as he wanted to, leading to the later bald look, preferred by many fans.

One notable exception to the rule however is Canadian actor William Shatner, who played the original and best-known incarnation of Captain Kirk in the original 1960’s Star Trek TV series and subsequent films.

Shatner has reportedly worn a toupee to conceal his hair loss since the late fifties, and did so throughout his appearance in Star Trek, so the iconic image of Star Trek’s most prominent captain may itself be an illusion. Shatner’s toupee has even developed its own following of fans, as demonstrated at the tongue-in-cheek blog.

As for why hair loss continues even in the 24th century, the most common answer given is that, in such enlightened times, people simply don’t care about such things.

Back on earth: Hair loss treatments today

Despite the seeming inability of humanity to discover a cure for hair loss in a distant future where spaceships travel faster than the speed of light and teleporting is possible (as are artificial intelligence and human cloning), there are hair loss treatments available today which can treat your hair loss in the real world.

If you no longer wish to baldly go to the final frontier, or down to the corner shop for that matter, contact us at the Belgravia Centre to arrange a consultation. Alternatively fill in our online diagnostic form to receive a home-use treatment programme which can be delivered globally, at warp factor nine. We have hundreds of success stories that show just how successful our regrowth treatment programmes can be.

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