Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 3 “Human Best Friend”
Strange New Worlds finally offers Montgomery Scott and Erica Ortegas a much-needed chance to grow beyond their immature rivalry as the Enterprise crew takes a shore leave they won’t soon forget.
Montgomery Scott (Martin Quinn) and Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) are constantly at odds. The rest of Alpha Shift — you know, all the main characters — are also on edge, so Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) decides to divert his crew’s attention away from an important upcoming alien negotiation and over to shore leave on a planet that gives Risa a run for its money.
Cesnar has a naturally intoxicating atmosphere, the effects of which make itself apparent to the eager vacationers within seconds of touching down. Taking clear inspiration from the likes of The Hangover, the story cuts to Scotty and Ortegas waking up in a room together amid clear signs of a raging party. What exactly did the Starfleeters do on this wild shore leave, and where is the rest of Alpha Shift?
The unlikely pair receive an objective that might illuminate their missing memories: deliver a letter to Captain Pike. The letter is delivered by the host of the resort, Dendru (Dave Foley), and he reminds Ortegas and Scotty that the intoxicating nature of the planet impacts everyone differently, especially if someone is hanging on to negative emotions.
The pair’s first visit is to Spock (Ethan Peck), who we thought delivers the episode’s funniest moments. Being high means Spock is even more sedate, while being confused by hallucinations — like Ortegas and Scotty being human-sized plants. Crucially, Spock also imagines that James Kirk (Paul Wesley) is there with him on Cesnar, leading the Vulcan to carefully consider how important the other man really is to him.
Spock points Ortegas and Scotty to a costume party being thrown by Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), who in turn points the pair to the local bar where Joseph M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) is animatedly tending bar while Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) marathons Klingon karaoke.
Doctor M’Benga is the one who finally points Ortegas and Scotty to Captain Pike; while getting inked up, the captain opens the letter which tells him the alien delegation the Enterprise crew was going to meet is coming to Cesnar and will arrive in a mere two hours.
Dude, Where’s My Car?
Scotty and Ortegas realize their shuttle is missing, and the only way to find it is with the tricorder Uhura smuggled onto the otherwise tech-free planet.
Going back to Uhura’s party, the communications officer makes Scotty and Ortegas apologize to each other to help clear their bad blood before she hands over the tricorder. Getting the tricorder is a short-lived victory, though, as the still-inebrated Scotty accidentally throws the tricorder off a balcony, leading the pair to seek out Spock, who they think can help them hack a computer to locate the shuttle.
“My mind to your leaves, my thoughts to your root system.”
– Spock, as he mindmelds with a plant to find the missing shuttle.
Spock, high as a kite, tries to mindmeld with a plant, as if the plant holds the secret to where the shuttle is. This scene is a pretty funny riff on a normally serious topic, and funniest of all, it actually works. The shuttle is located on the roof of the resort, and Spock suggests bringing some muscle to ensure Scotty and Ortegas can access the shuttle. Who better to escort the pair than the Enterprise’s security officer, La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong), who has busied herself with leading a combat class with scared resort-goers?
Getting the shuttle up and running is cause for celebration until the pair immediately get kidnapped by Dendru, who asserts he was just following the instructions the pair drunkenly gave him to keep them away from the shuttle. During their brief kidnapping, Ortegas and Scotty show the first signs of friendship as they bond over their respective experiences with their siblings before the mysterious Dendru imparts some wise words about how holding on to anger can be damaging.
One Last Surprise
Alpha Shift is back on the Enterprise, looking a bit worse for wear — and most of them are still feeling the effects of the intoxicating atmosphere. While the captain is trying to pull off the diplomatic meeting, Scotty and Ortegas aim to fix the shuttle after their adventure.
Some quiet time repairing the vehicle is what the pair needs to explain why they hold resentment toward each other. For Erica, Scotty reminds her that she initially went into Starfleet to become an engineer, but couldn’t handle the intense technical knowledge needed, so she became a pilot. Scotty, for his part, is naturally envious of pilots as he couldn’t quite cut being a pilot himself. It’s a tender moment for the former antagonists, but one last challenge awaits them.
Hidden behind a panel is a bomb, one Scotty cannot let go of lest half of the ship be destroyed. After enlisting Spock’s help, Ortegas and Scotty fly the shuttle away from the Enterprise before Spock beams them out just as the bomb explodes — a solution we struggled to believe, considering Spock, according to his own words, needed to beam the pair out one zaptosecond (a trillionth of a billionth of a second) after the explosion.
Nevertheless, this plan is successful thanks to not only Spock’s transporter skills, but help he receives from the real James Kirk, who happens to not only be on the Enterprise, but in the transporter room; in fact, it was really Kirk down on Cesnar, which is a momentous realization for Spock, as the Vulcan shared his most personal thoughts and feelings with Kirk. This is an intriguing development considering what we know of the duo from the last 60 years, and undoubtedly is a foundational moment for their decades-long friendship.
The explosion, which looks just like a fireworks display and conveniently occurs just outside the Mess Hall where Pike is navigating his diplomatic ceremony, actually encourages the aliens and presents the Federation in a positive light. It’s a happy ending for everyone, especially for Ortegas and Scotty, as they finally have gotten past their immature rivalry and have become friends.
A Mixed Bag of Fun
Strange New Worlds is no stranger to comedy, as some of the show’s most memorable installments have been the likes of “Charades,” “Those Old Scientists,” and “Wedding Bell Blues.” “Human Best Friend” tries to follow in these footsteps and only partially succeeds; some moments that were supposed to be funny didn’t really elicit even a chuckle from us, while other moments gave us a good belly laugh — and it’s all in a package that contains some frustrating narrative shortcomings.
Some moments, like Pike trying to read his speech via tattoos on his hand, Spock imagining people as plants, or the game of telephone that results in Spock thinking the bomb on the shuttle was something to do with avocados certainly warranted a hearty chuckle from us. Meanwhile, Ortegas and Scotty’s constant bickering was just downright immature — their behavior makes one wonder if they are fit to serve on a starship at all. Chapel’s ultra-competitiveness at bingo missed the mark for us, which is a shame because that’s basically the only thing Jess Bush has to do in this episode, and Scotty accidentally tossing the tricorder to its destruction was a weak way to artificially extend the pair’s adventure on Cesnar.
Some narrative issues arose that made us cock an eyebrow. Why didn’t Ortegas run to a non-stoned crew member when she discovered the bomb? Going to the people who were still suffering the effects of Cesnar’s atmosphere probably wasn’t the best idea. Couldn’t Scotty have used autopilot to get him and the bomb off the ship? Was there really no way for the Enterprise’s medical staff to eliminate Alpha Shift’s intoxication when they got back to the ship — surely entering negotiations with an alien race while high is grounds for reprimand? How did the medical officer on duty not force Alpha Shift to sober up before resuming their work? All these issues arise because it’s funnier or more meaningful than a plot that sticks with logic, but it breaks our immersion in the story this episode is trying to tell.
Ultimately, “Human Best Friend” serves as a mixed bag in the roster of comedy episodes for this series. While it succeeds in delivering some genuinely funny moments and provides necessary growth for the relationship between Scotty and Ortegas, these bright spots are frequently undercut by narrative inconsistencies and some jokes that fall flat. It is an entertaining enough romp, but it falls short of the high bar set by the show’s strongest comedic outings.
Stray Thoughts:
- The animated part of Dendru’s promotional video for his resort somewhat mimics the animated style of Star Trek: The Animated Series.
- In Erica’s hotel room, we see a stuffed animal version of the Alfa 177 canine — you know, the dog with a horn from The Original Series.
- Scotty’s right thumb is blown off because of the explosion. We know James Doohan, who played Scotty in The Original Series, was missing the middle finger of his right hand due to an injury from World War II. Makes us wonder why Scotty in this episode didn’t lose the middle finger of his right hand as a neat canonical tie to The Original Series.
- Kathryn Lyn plays the bingo announcer. Lyn was a writer and executive story editor on Star Trek: Lower Decks, and supervising producer for season two of Strange New Worlds.
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