(courtesy IMP Awards)
“Shuttle to Kenfori”
Zombies! Yes, my friends, zombies! Granted Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a little late to the party on this one, but when it’s executed with as much as this episode, you can forgive their tardiness. In this case, the zombies, though Dr M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) is reluctant to call them back, are the result of a Federation scientific facility on the planet of Kenfori being bombed during the Klingon-Federation war, an act which released a perennial moss meant to keep crops growing and alleviate food shortages. But all that bombing of the facility, to which M’Benga and Captain Pike (Anson Mount) journey against Star trek protocols to source chimera blossoms which may stop Pike’s beloved, Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano) from being killed or transformed by her resurgent Gorn infection, sent the moss crossed with the blossom into tissues of the resident scientists and invading Klingons and, well … zombies!
They add some real tenson to the episode which is a real run and hide from danger story – the running happening not just from the zombies but from a Klingon landing party, who thanks to Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) who openly defies Number One, Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) and guns the Enterprise faster than 1/8 impulse thus putting a big target on the ship, now know the Federation is violating a no-fly zone. It’s all cloak and dagger stuff until it’s not, and while you can understand why Ortegas disregards the advice from Spock (Ethan Peck) and the subsequent order from #1 to take it softly, softly, it makes life even harder for Pike and M’Benga who really don’t need vengeful Klingons when they already have, yes, zombies chomping to spread their mossy infection. In the end ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- Pike and M’Benga don’t become zombie chow and are beamed out just in the nick of time as the angry Klingon, furious at M’Benga for shredding her family’s honour during the war, decides that dying as a zombie distraction is enough honour restoration for her, even if no one in the Klingon Empire learns about it.
What sits at the heart of “Shuttle to Kenfori” – read the full synopsis – though are two great personal struggles. Firstly Ortegas defiance of #1, driven by trauma and a growing sense that people aren’t acting fast enough for her taste. PTSD, especially of the Gorn-derived variety will do terrible things to someone but #1 makes it clear to Ortegas that she can’t afford to go rogue again. Meanwhile, the big heart-on-the-sleeve moment is the fact that Batel is very close to dying from her simmering Gorn infection and that she, along with M’Benga, Spock etc has kept from Pike. He’s unhappy about that as you can imagine but as Batel tells him, he wouldn’t have gone railing against the fact that there’s nothing to be done when in fact the mission to get the chimera blossom is a last, desperate roll of the medical dice. Pike can’t face losing Batel which is why he goes on the covert mission but at its heart, the episode is about what we do for those we love and how the need to save them if we can results in some fairly unorthodox behaviour. It also leads to a very touching scene at the end with Batel and Pike who embrace in the face of some fairly terrifying odds that might mean love isn’t enough to defeat the Gorn.
“A Space Adventure Hour”
This is a perfect example of Strange New Worlds love of good, almost whiplash-inducing tonal shift. While the Enterprise on a very serious scientific mission to the Kitolian Belt where they are monitoring and studying a neutron star, La’an (Christina Chong) is given a mission to essentially road test a new invention called a holdeck which could have all kinds of applications for crews from actual work to a little on-board R&R. While on the surface a routine testing of new tech, things as you might expect don’t go to plan and apart from the holdeck draining HUGE amounts of power just when the Enterprise needs to protect itself from some fairly powerful energy releases from the star, the holodeck malfunctions, trapping La’an in a murder mystery with safeties off and the only off switch being a successful solving of the mystery at the heart of the story.
Acknowledged in fan site, Memory Alpha as a “homage to the various “holodeck malfunction” stories that appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager, including “The Big Goodbye”, “Elementary, Dear Data”, “A Fistful of Datas”, “Emergence”, “Our Man Bashir”, “Heroes and Demons”, “Projections”, “Bride of Chaotica!”, “Worst Case Scenario”, and “Spirit Folk”, “A Space Adventure Hour” is part Agatha Christie-n murder mystery with cast members playing various people involved in the production to a cheesy 60s-style sci-fi show which bears more than a passing resemblance The Original Series (TOS), even down to the Western wagon train allusions. A standout is Celia Rose Gooding (Uhura) who plays a vampy, cigarette smoking agent, Joni Gloss, with a lot of reason to begin killing some people, especially the studio heads who have cancelled the show prematurely (again very TOS-like). She’s a lot of fun; alas the same can’t be said for Mount as the show’s creator, TK Bellows. While he channels some of the reported elements of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry to great effect, he never really lands as effectively as Gooding does Gloss. Still with all of the show’s main cast given a chance to play totally different charactcers in a murder mystery that’s very film noir-ish, “A Space Adventure Hour” is a huge amount of fun, with some added danger thrown in for good measure and a very unexpected killer.
Alas, the holodeck is seen as too unstable and power sucky to get the big green tick of approval at this stage, but as we all know that comes through soon enough so when The Next Generation does its thing, they’re part and parcel of an average mission. Channelling Carmen Sandiego in a setting that owes a great deal to classic whodunnit mysteries, Chong is a delight managing to be both goofy and serious all at once, and while the episode may not totally stick the landing, it’s still a nice, comedic filling to a very serious episodic sandwicj either side of it.
“Through the Lense of Time”
“There is evil in this universe, as sure as there is good. A — as sure as there is matter, as sure as there is light. I know… that being was ancient. Malevolent. The desire to malign, to pervert… and consume, given corporeal form. If any of those things… ever escape that well down there… God help us all.” (Pelia, played by Carol Kane)
We may have had whimsy in the last episode but this time it is all grimness and pain and the emergence of a great malevolent evil. If that sounds like a LOT, that’s because it is. What starts out as a reasonably routine away mission to explore some exciting archaeological remains, soon becomes a desperate battle for survival which ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- claims a life and which places the Enterpirise, indeed all of the galaxy, in the existential firing line. At the heart of the story is the eagerness of Nurse Dana Gamble (Chris Myers) who is THRILLED, to M’Benga’s affectionate amusement, to have his firwat away mission request successfully granted. He’s an eager young ensign, awash with ambition and ideas and seeing him pretty much skip from sick bay as he rushes to the away mission briefing is a real joy.
That makes what happens to him so unbearably tragic, imbuing an Indian Jones-ish episode where a grand hidden temple sits on a shifting temporal plane for reasons not immediately clear until ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- Gamble has his eyes and brain blown out and is possessed by an truly evil being called Vezda, of whom Pellia is speaking in the banner quote above. Only Pellia realises that Gamble is gone, completely gone, with Vezda’s ability to mimic his destroyed host, and psychic ability to know about the rest of the crew fooling pretty much everyone else.
While there are some impressive graphics at work here, and a swashbuckling piece of archaeological discovery that Roger Corby (Cillian O’Sullivan) is excited to explore, along with his supportive love Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), and some forward momentum in the Batel storyline which will shock and surprise, what sits at the heart of this episode is Gamble and his loss and how this affects M’Benga, Pellia and others. It also demonstrates that not all archaeological discoveries are benign and that maybe there’s a very good reason this temple aka prison full of poisonously orb-cased souls is hidden away and why it exists in a multitude of realities all at once. “Through the Lense of Time” has excitement and the thrill of discovery but it also has an intense beating heart that recognises that no matter how epic and blockbustery a storyline may be, that raw humanity sits at the heart of them all, and that you should never ignore the darkness amidst the light lest great and terrible things come to pass (which the final scene indicates may not have been thwarted as everyone assumed).
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams on Paramount+