6 Ups & 4 Downs From Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3.3 — Shuttle To Kenfori

2. DOWN AND UP — Death Un-Becomes You

People do say the cruellest things in times of stress. At the end of Shuttle to Kenfori, Batel might as well have shot Pike with a phaser set to vaporise. "I don't have the space to worry about how my dying hurts your feelings," she noted, with all the abject individualism of the 21st century, not the interstellar collectivism of the 23rd. 'You do you,' I suppose.

Of course, that point comes with about as many caveats as there were zombies on Kenfori. Pike does bluster his way into situations, though hardly with malice. He was nearly eaten by the walking dead to get that Chimera Blossom, but he didn't really give anyone else (other than M'Benga) the opportunity to be food in the first place.

Batel was, by her own admission, quite rightfully "scared". Heat of the moment isn't a reason for permanent discord, plus who knows what all that Gorn can do to a person's psyche. Batel is also already in the rather unique position of being in a relationship with a precise countdown over it.

In the end, the pair do hug it out. What was a DOWN for that one line becomes an UP for a better resolution, portrayed, as ever, with grace and talent by Melanie Scrofano and Anson Mount.