Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Off-Hour Review

I promise I had no idea this episode was coming when I wrote my review of last week’s installment. But wow, I’m really amazed that only a week after I lamented that Strange New Worlds seems uninterested in writing for its deep bench of main cast members, the show turned around and gave us exactly the type of episode I had been hoping for. There are several archetypal episodes that get done time and again in the Star Trek cannon, and “Off Hour” was representative of one of the most interesting of them: the “the entire crew must work together to save the ship” episode.

Now, why is this type of episode so great? Well, because it lets every member of the cast have a chance to shine. It shows us the intricate teamwork that is needed to keep a vessel as complex at the Enterprise out in space and in one piece. And, as was the case here, it often throws in a lesson or two for certain characters that helps them to grow just a touch and realize something about themselves or the crew around them. This time out, those lucky characters were Scotty and Chapel – but we’ll get to that in a minute. Does everything that happened in the episode make sense? Absolutely not – these types of episodes are full of technobabble that is tossed around to explain how the crew can save the day just in the nick of time – we are supposed to suspend disbelief and accept the results as presented to us. But getting to see the entire crew, working side by side, in a race against time and space to save themselves? Yeah, that’s one fun ride.

So, what made this particular episode work? First, this is the first real episode this season that let every main cast member have something to do. Uhura was tasked with trying to get comms back up. Ortegas actually got to take the con and was responsible for doing something beyond flying this ship – showing us that despite her belief that she’s really only good for one thing, she’s actually a competent leader and cool under pressure. Spock and La’an took dangerous space walks – that really should have caused more damage to them both than it appears it did (perhaps another sign that La’an dormant DNA is rising to the forefront). Una showed command prowess in directing everything from the lounge and also using her Ilyrian abilities to save the entire room. And then there was Scotty and Chapel, who were both able to step up, get through their self-doubt and fear, and be the heroes the ship needed at the right moment.

I was thrilled that we got to see Scotty as more than either comic relief or an anal retentive foil to Ortegas’ more laissez-faire attitude. We know he’s smart – and we know he’s going to be a crucial member of the Enterprise for years to come – but we’ve also learned that he doesn’t always trust himself when things get dire. And, without Pelia’s aid – at least for a chunk of the episode – Scotty was forced to accept that he’s lost key members of Engineering, that he might not be able to solve this problem in time, and that’s he’s the best hope the ship has. Once he’s reunited with Pelia, she proves once again just how good of a teacher she can be, taking time to calm him down with a ridiculous story and then challenging him to take her lessons and use them in real time to do what needs to be done. It’s a great performance from both Martin Quinn and the great Carole Kane.

Over in Sick Bay, the lesson is much different. Since Strange New Worlds premiered, we’ve seen that Chapel is allergic to the idea of staying in one place for a long period of time – in her career and in her personal life. She doesn’t like being stuck. So, it makes sense that with the threat of M’Benga, her friend and mentor going back years, contemplating walking away from Enterprise, she would be thinking about moving on as well. However, seeing how easily she could lose the one person she was willing to uproot her life for, well, that is quite the wake-up call.* One of the more disappointing aspects of the last few seasons has been the isolation of Chapel in one romance after another. Remember back in season one when she and Ortegas were best friends, thick as thieves and planning various escapades both on and off the ship? Then Chapel was paired off with Spock in a love triangle and suddenly the only people she really got to interact with where Spock and M’Benga. Hopefully her choice to become a permanent member of the crew means we’ll get the chance to see her interact with the rest of the crew more often in the future.

*The choice to have M’Benga essentially cut in half, saved by the moveable island brought back memories of one of the best episodes of the great series Homicide: Life on the Street, where guest star Vincent D’Onofrio plays a man trapped between a subway car and the platform. Much like M’Benga, the pressure holding him in place keeps him alive despite the fatal injury, leading to a truly incredible hour of television. I suspect that was the inspiration here, since the injury and situation are so similar. And in both instances, the character left with the trapped man has the chance to learn about strength and compassion during the ordeal.

One the best parts about sticking to an episodic narrative, with only a few serialized through lines (this season, it appears La’an’s emerging DNA is the major character arc we’re tracking, along with Spock’s attempt at inner peace), is that it allows for the show to experiment with different genres. Sometimes that works – like the horror episode earlier this season – and sometimes it doesn’t – those puppets were mostly a miss for me. And sometimes, it allows the writers to pull from a tried and true Star Trek episode type like this one. It was sharp, it gave everyone a chance to have a moment in the sun, and it reminded us all that this is a highly capable crew who cares deeply for one another and can work together to get things done.