When it comes to embodying the defining ideals of Star Trek, Strange New Worlds has a very mixed track record. On the positive side, it’s continued and expanded Gene Roddenberry’s commitment to diversity, particularly with how many women are main players on this version of Enterprise. On the negative side, it struggles to use its sci-fi metaphors to say anything meaningful about the world we live in now, even as it aesthetically dabbles in the morally gray. And it’s been all over the place when it comes to the simple pleasures of watching a highly trained, science-minded crew tackle anything the universe throws at them. Sometimes Pike and company have a real sense of duty and competence to their characterizations. Other times the show deploys a goofy hangout vibe that makes them feel more like the teenagers of Starfleet Academy or the action junkies of the J.J. Abrams films.
The thrill of “Off Hour” is how much it addresses that latter concern in particular. It’s real-time disaster-movie riff puts our heroes through the kind of high-stakes scenario you could easily imagine causing chaos and yelling in those other two Trek series—only this one highlights how the Strange New Worlds crew are able to pull it together when it matters most. Emotions still run high and people still make imperfect, risky decisions as the Enterprise gets sucked into a deadly slipstream wormhole that will rip the ship apart in less than an hour. But collectively, the crew are stronger together than they are apart—able to pull each other back from panic attacks and balance the cool, calm, collected attitude you need in a crisis with the kind of gut instinct and hope that has always been an unspoken part of the Starfleet ethos too. That leads to one of the most exhilarating, emotional hours the show has ever delivered.
In fact, this Poseidon Adventure riff made me realize I care about these characters and their relationships to one another in a way I’m not sure I would have identified beforehand. Without an alien world to establish or any one-off guest stars to introduce, this bottle episode has space for the whole ensemble to shine. The dynamics between Chapel/M’Benga and Scotty/Pelia are the clear standouts here, but just about everyone is well served, from Cadet A’Sha proving her mettle to Una, Ortegas, Uhura, Spock, La’An, and Pike calmly figuring out priorities and how to communicate them with the whole ship. Ortegas even gets to take the captain’s chair for a while!
What “Off Hour” captures so well is how much the personal and professional mix in the kind of workplace family of a Starfleet ship. The pre-disaster fight between M’Benga and Chapel is kind of about work. She’s mad he’s brought on former Enterprise interim CMO Dr. Boyce (Brian Markinson) as a potential replacement in case he decides to leave one day. He’s mad she’s been serving on the Enterprise with one foot out the door for some time now. Yet it’s clear their actual concerns are far more personal. Their time in the Klingon War gave them a complicated trauma bond that’s wrapped up in their deep understanding of one another. “Whenever things get real, you run,” M’Benga tells Chapel. Naturally, this ship-wide disaster puts her in a situation that tests that impulse.
It’s a simple but incredibly well executed throughline, with Babs Olusanmokun and Jess Bush turning in their best work yet on the series. They wind up in what feels like a classic Grey’s Anatomy sweeps week episode as a heavy table all but slices M’Benga in half; with only the magnetized force of the table itself holding him together, which makes for an eerie visual. Medical protocols (and Dr. Boyce’s literal orders) tell Chapel to ease his pain and leave him to die. But their loving friendship inspires her to stay and pull off the impossible—or at least die alongside him if she can’t. It’s a story that gets its power from how tangible and human it all feels. These are two old friends thrust into an agonizing situation, trying their best to be brave and selfless for one another. As it turns out, sometimes letting the personal override the professional is the way to save the day.
Even more impressive, “Off Hour” manages to wring just as much pathos from a storyline that emphasizes the professional over the personal too. Scotty and Pelia don’t have the kind of intense friendship that Chapel and M’Benga do. Instead, they’re bonded by their mutual love of what they do for work, which, in this case, means they’re bonded by their mutual love of the Enterprise. As engineers, they have a different relationship to the physical ship than anyone else onboard—and a unique weight of responsibility on their shoulders too. There’s a great sense of continuity to “Off Hour,” which remembers not just M’Benga’s seldom mentioned daughter but also Scotty’s trauma over being the sole survivor of the Gorn attack on the Stardiver too.
It’s Pelia who helps him work through that as Carol Kane balances her always sharp comedic instincts with a welcome bit of dramatic heft. Pelia makes the case that every ship glitches sometimes, but every ship is capable of miracles too. A good engineer can listen to the bones of the vessel rather than the official computer readings in order to make those miracles happen, which we eventually see manifest in the absolutely gorgeous shot of sparks flying behind Scotty as he reaches out to touch the ship’s walls. As with Scotty’s friendship with Ortegas, it’s a best-case scenario for this kind of prequel series. It doesn’t alter canon, it expands it. Now every time we watch James Doohan’s Scotty secure his “reputation as a miracle worker” in The Original Series, we can imagine it’s Pelia’s influence living on—which doubles as a nice way to weave more of a female presence into the male-centric 1960s show.
Compared to all that, Una’s leg-shattering climb to a manual control panel and Spock and La’An’s dangerous space walks are a little more basic disaster-movie material, although they certainly fit with the personal/professional theme. All three characters prove willing to sacrifice themselves for the rest of the crew, even as it’s La’An’s personal history with Spock that lets her mind meld with him when she needs some crucial data. Still, they’re throughlines that mostly get by on style. Both the onscreen countdown clock and the shifting comic book panel aesthetic are clever ways to give this episode a distinctive visual look even though it unfolds on familiar sets. And though the idea that the “strong force neutrinos” in the wormhole can heal M’Benga and refuel the ship is a slightly silly resolution, at least the episode lampshades that in its technobabble.
Indeed, this close to the end of its run, Strange New Worlds probably isn’t going to suddenly become a tightly written show like The Next Generation or a morally complex one like Deep Space Nine. But “Off Hour” proves it still has plenty of time to recalibrate its dials in a more Trek-ian direction even as it maintains the bombast and movie-inspired premises the writers love so much. Chapel ultimately ends this hour ready to fully commit to the Enterprise, and that’s how I felt too. After two lackluster episodes in a row, that’s just what the doctor (and nurse) ordered.
Stray observations
- • Dr. Phil Boyce is the Chief Medical Officer in Pike’s Original Series episodes, “The Cage” and “The Menagerie,” which is why he’s introduced like a dramatic celebrity cameo this week. (He was played with more hair by John Hoyt back in the 1960s.)
- • To be clear, I don’t have any beef with Starfleet Academy (which I think is a really charming show!) or the Kelvin movies. They’re just doing something distinct from what the “prime” Trek series are trying to do.
- • Scotty using an American accent to try to get the turbo lift to work is a great little comedy beat. I also love the reveal that he always picks up comms, even at weird hours when he’s off duty.
- • Between Chapel snapping off a finger here, Scotty blowing off his thumb in “Human Best Friend,” Pike chopping up his own hand on “The Griffin Incident,” and all those limbs popping off in last week’s puppet episode, the writers have stumbled upon a very weird trend this season.
- • “Lemons are a hybrid. They didn’t exist before us. Life never gave us lemons, we demanded them.”
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