Strange New Worlds Season 4 Finally Takes Star Trek Into Its Most Unexpected Genre Yet
by Witney Seibold · /FilmMild spoilers ahead for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" Season 4, Episode 3, "Human Best Friend."
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," if nothing else, doesn't lack for variety. At some point early in its run, the show's creatives seemingly developed a mission statement to make sure that every one of its episodes is a different genre, merrily testing the limits of what the "Star Trek" franchise can contain. These experiments have been largely successful. Last week's "The Griffin Incident" was a straight-up haunted house in space story (à la "Event Horizon"), Season 2's "Subspace Rhapsody" was, somewhat infamously, a musical, and so forth.
That brings us to this week's Season 4, Episode 3, "Human Best Friend," which is, believe it or not, a stoner comedy, as unexpected as that may be. Some of you out there might already watch "Strange New Worlds" in an altered state of mind, so to speak, but this is the first time the show's characters have been in the same boat.
In "Human Best Friend," the crew of the USS Enterprise is severely overworked. Lieutenants Scott (Martin Quinn) and Ortegas (Melissa Navia) are at each other's throats, Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) is breaking glasses in the ship's lounge, and Lieutenant La'An Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) wants to fight everyone. Longing for a vacation, the Enterprise heads to Seznar Grand, a planet with a unique atmosphere that, just by breathing it, makes you drunk. It's also a tech-free zone, so no screens, scanners, or transporters are permitted. A zany caretaker (Dave Foley) serves as our heroes' guide.
As one might predict, the Enterprise crew soon gets drunk on Seznar Grand's air, only to wake up a few days later with no memory. All they have to piece together what happened are some bizarre post-party clues.
Human Best Friend is basically a Star Trek stoner comedy
Part of the pleasure of "Star Trek" TV shows doing comedy episodes is getting to watch ordinarily staid Starfleet staff members face slapstick scenarios. "Strange New Worlds," however, thrusts its crew into sitcom scenarios more often than other "Star Trek" series. As such, when Scotty and Ortegas wake up in a world where the air itself makes you drunk, they're quite well-prepared to deal with the fallout of their co-workers' hijinks.
Indeed, the entire crew of the Enterprise gets in on the whimsical party atmosphere of the planet, including Spock (Ethan Peck). Spock remains composed and logical as ever, yet he, too, understands that he is intoxicated. Notably, although he keeps seeing James Kirk (Paul Wesley) in his room, Spock openly acknowledges that he is a mere hallucination and uses the opportunity to confess some very personal things to his "friend." Meanwhile, Commander Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) puts on a feather boa and sings "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in Klingon. (R.I.P. Bonnie Tyler.) It's good to know that, even after centuries, some karaoke standards will not vanish. She can sing "Sweet Caroline" in Vulcan and, like so many before her, fail to hit the high notes in "Don't Stop Believin'."
Elsewhere, Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) merely becomes more dazzling when drunk, and Captain Pike (Anson Mount) gets a facial tattoo. As for Scotty and Ortegas, they spend their time shaking off the drunken effects of Seznar Grand's air (an overt amount of stress can counteract the planet's effects) and finding where the heck their missing shuttlecraft is. We certainly live in interesting times when a "Star Trek" TV show emulates the plot structure of a well-known stoner comedy like "Dude, Where's My Car?"
Strange New Worlds is the perfect Star Trek series for a stoner comedy episode
"Human Best Friend" is a very funny episode, and its plot becomes more complicated than one might expect. There's even a late-in-the-game twist and a ticking-clock element that makes the silliness of it all suddenly seem less trivial. Overall, though, this installment is delightful. Besides, "Strange New Worlds" has always, generally speaking, been a much more laidback series than most other "Star Trek" shows (perhaps "Star Trek: Lower Decks" notwithstanding), so watching its characters cut loose in such a fashion is nothing out of the ordinary.
Of course, some old-school Trekkies might want more technical details. After all, on a world where everyone becomes drunk just from breathing the atmosphere, how do the local authorities prevent "Dude, Where's My Car?" and/or "The Hangover"-style incidents from happening on a daily basis? Or perhaps such shenanigans are encouraged. But then, how does the planet's basic infrastructure work if everyone is always drunk? Personally, I wouldn't expect plumbers or electricians to be able to do their jobs well while intoxicated. Presumably, the citizens of Seznar Grand have gas masks or special medicines they can take to counteract the planet's intoxicating effects.
But look at me, nitpicking like an old-school Trekkie. If you're wondering how they eat and breathe and other scientific facts, then repeat to yourself, "It's just a show, I should really just relax."
Naturally, the real comedy scenes come at the end of the episode when the crew of the Enterprise has to get back to their jobs, yet they're still feeling hungover. In a world of synthehol, hangovers are going to be a new experience for the people of the 23rd century. Good luck, folks.