6 Ups & 4 Downs From Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3.3 — Shuttle To Kenfori
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' zombie episode wasn't quite the graveyard smash.
Shuttle to Kenfori is a curious episode. Despite what the title says, there is very little 'shuttle' in it. That is part of the problem. This isn't Train to Busan or Dawn of the Dead, but it is trying to be both at the same time, all whilst mixing in a little The Last of Us, and remembering to add some Star Trek on top. Like Pike whispering the "z-word," the episode can't seem to commit to the genre. And yet, that genre is the thing keeping it going.
This is not a bad episode by any means, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds should always be applauded for taking risks. Shuttle to Kenfori does have its effective moments — notably those with Scotty, and between Una and Ortegas. Character development for the latter has been lacking. For now, Ortegas' arc in season three is being handled with finesse. Martin Quinn's Scotty goes from strength to strength.
Visually, the episode is a delight. In a saturated space, it also manages to carve out a rather distinctive look for its 'zombies' (if that term is apropos). At times, however, it is all flash no shuttle, when just the shuttle would do.
10. DOWN — Style Before Substance
Genre bending and blending is all well and good. In fact, it is all well and Star Trek. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has already managed to incorporate an array of different storytelling styles into its episodic makeup. We've had comedy, horror, fantasy, a courtroom drama, a crossover, and that musical. With too much of a good thing, however, Shuttle to Kenfori reaches the effective limit of the multi-genre approach.
The opener wastes little time in concocting the most convenient premise — of ALL the planets in ALL the galaxy… This was the 'zombie episode,' come what may. The rest had to follow suit. Rationale and plot felt more like the afterthought of an initial idea — the substance had to be made to fit. Of course, Shuttle to Kenfori is far from the only Star Trek episode (or film — looking at you, number five) to be guilty of that.
There is also an awfully long wait for those zombies. A good portion of the episode is then spent back and forth to the Enterprise, thus diffusing any tension built up on the planet.
9. UP — The Monsters Mashed
What Shuttle to Kenfori lacked in reason, it made up for with zombie gore. Who needs cordyceps when hybrid super moss will do! Everyone in and around the research station down on the planet had been infected. The Federation scientists had been working on a new food source for the colonies. Now, it was they (and a few Klingons) who were looking to feed.
'Want of a better word' won't help you either when you're being eaten alive. The episode does not hold back when it comes to blood and guts. Shuttle to Kenfori is definitely not for the squeamish, but if you can stomach it, it is a feast for the eyes. Zombie Head 0. Klingon Boot 1. Time to get out the whip for some more serious play.
Faced with the hoards on the roof, M'Benga's "don't call them that" also quickly turned into "you got one" like he was playing Resident Evil with Pike. Perhaps they can release the episode in 4D so we can really feel that blood hit the camera? Death for Bytha was, then, like her colleague earlier, by classic zombie swarm. We're all now trying to learn the Klingon for "Choke on me, you filthy targs!"
8. UP — You Want Mortegas, You Got Mortegas
This is the season of Erica Ortegas. Three hasn't been the happiest for the helm officer, but it is giving fans what they have been clamouring for. This is no fan service that would do disservice to the character. So far, the Gorn and post-Gorn storyline for Ortegas has been handled with depth and compassion. It is more than a little intriguing to see more than a little insubordination.
Things start off well for Ortegas. She is the one to recommend the "secondary scan of Section Eight" that reveals the Klingon battlecruiser. Her success turns to frustration, however, as Una decides to "sit tight". Later, in the ready room, Ortegas questions Una more brazenly. "Yeah, that won't work for me."
Later still, and back on the bridge, Ortegas deliberately increases speed so that the Klingons will detect the Enterprise, forcing Una's hand. She openly, and angrily, contradicts the commander whilst she is in the middle of giving orders.
Whilst we, the audience, know (from the end of last week's episode) that something more is going on than just excessive disagreement, the crew do not. Ortegas' internalised emotions are slowly simmering over to the exterior. Things have not yet reached boiling point. Melissa Navia plays the balance between Ortegas' inner- and outer-conflict brilliantly. We can only wait to see what happens next.
7. DOWN — The Klingons Were Zombies Long Ago
You'd have better luck getting bloodwine from a stone than convincing this writer to enjoy a Klingon episode (with some notable exceptions). Though Shuttle to Kenfori is at most a Klingon side quest, the episode doesn't do any favours for the image of the Federation's on-again, off-again foe. Having said that, the ships do look good!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has the tough task of being a prequel to those Klingons and a sequel to THOSE Klingons. It's not just the ones from Star Trek: Discovery we should take issue with either. Representation of the species in Star Trek: The Original Series was problematic, to put it mildly, and with a lot of hindsight. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds attempts a noble, balanced solution by picking from the movies and from Star Trek: The Next Generation onwards.
Nonetheless, the Klingons — except when they're all singing, all dancing — remain remarkably one-note. Honour, honour, shame, blood feud, discommendation, vengeance, take your pick. Shuttle to Kenfori is symptomatic, emblematic (literally so, in places). "Bytha, daughter of Dak'Rah, champion of House Rah'Ul" was certainly well acted, but she was reading from the same old script written decades before, and often for a century or so later.
6. UP — My Mind To Your Face
"The last time I heard the words my mind to your mind, I had a headache for two weeks," Captain Janeway would note to Commander Chakotay in the 24th century. More than a century or so earlier in Shuttle to Kenfori, the one giving the mind meld would wind up with a sore head in what was an unexpectedly comical, yet all the while terrifying, scene.
More Nurse Gamble is already an UP. Then Spock enters the room to perform what is, in essence, a previously unseen form of mind meld as meditation on Captain Batel. "One breath between us" was a nice touch! Things go wrong rapidly. The Gorn tissue inside Batel asserts itself. Both begin to scream.
The direction and editing of the scene are impeccable. A series of close-ups on Spock and Batel are interspersed with a split-screen effect featuring the Gorn. Through Spock's eyes, we also see like the lizard species for a moment. Poor Gamble is sent flying.
The comedic comes when Nurse Chapel is forced to slap Spock across the face to break the meld. The half-Vulcan takes it in his stride, merely noting, "I seem to have temporarily lost control". Ya think?
5. LATINUM UP — Scotty Floats, Scotty Soars
This is an easy LATINUM UP. In Shuttle to Kenfori, Martin Quinn continues to shine as Scotty, and that with relatively little screentime. Quinn has clearly understood that the essence of the character is to bring an offbeat sense of fun when fun is exactly what is needed, with an ample amount of (nervous) expertise.
Scotty joins the episode by joining the senior officers in the ready room. The scene is fraught with tension, and the engineer is already on the back foot, having been sent as replacement by Commander Pelia who "hates these meetings". Largely through posture and facial expression, Quinn plays the entrance sheepishly, but endearingly.
Moments later, "shredded cabbage" leads to not wanting to "step on Mr. Spock's toes". Facial expressions become a wealth of loveable awkwardness and some side glances from his colleagues. Scotty was right, of course, and he proved it whilst floating above the transporter controls. Ultimately, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds knows enough not to take its own premise too seriously. Gravity is not to be confused with gravitas.
4. UP — Dressing-Downs Are For The Living
In an episode all about the un-dead, it is no doubt fitting that Ortegas was doing everything to prove her own vitality, even when that clashed with her own best interests (and those of the crew). Her encounter with the Gorn has left its mark. Wedding Bell Blues showed us Ortegas' battle on a personal level. In Shuttle to Kenfori, that struggle spills over into her professional life, also personal by the very nature of a starship.
Trauma manifests itself in different ways, and at different times. If the psych evaluation 'missed it,' then it's perhaps because it wasn't yet there to see. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th Edition) notes that, for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):
Symptoms usually begin within the first 3 months after the trauma, although there may be a delay of months, or even years, before criteria for the diagnosis are met. There is abundant evidence for what DSM-IV called 'delayed onset' but is now called 'delayed expression,' with the recognition that some symptoms typically appear immediately and that the delay is in meeting full criteria.
It had been exactly three months between the events of Hegemony, Part II and those of Wedding Bell Blues. In that sense, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is remarkably accurate in its portrayal of PTSD, if that is, in fact, what Ortegas is experiencing.
Shuttle to Kenfori is also remarkable in its compassion, without shying away from consequences. Ortegas' does get that 'dressing down' from Una, but it is done with kindness, calmly, and with care. It is formal, but it is also coming from a friend.
3. DOWN — 28 Winks Later
The Frontier — final or former farming — is already a lawless place, we understand. Three episodes in, two missions have been "completely off the books". This is dangerous territory of 'tired refrain'. Hegemony, Part II did well to break down dichotomies between legal/illegal, between inside and beyond the line. Shuttle to Kenfori pushed the boundaries, and violation thereof, too far.
No-fly zone? No problem! Multiple treaties? Zero worries, so long as they can get that blossom. Don't tell Starfleet! If breaching restricted space to save a life were the only wink at the rules in Shuttle to Kenfori, it would be understandable. If a zombie's not a zombie, however, then a spade is a spade is still an accessory to murder.
"I don't have any report to file" is too easy an excuse for Pike, too easy an absolution for Doctor M'Benga. Hypotheticals are also just that, for the moment, since no one else had to hear the story. Like for Una at the end of season one, lies, even the more virtuous, may still come back to bite.
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.
1. Cetacean Observations Feat. Seán (of the Dead)
First, for all the zombie movie trivia you can eat, please see the far better informed Seán in his Ups & Downs. As for Star Trek itself, Shuttle to Kenfori isn't the first time the franchise has dipped its toes into the genre. Impulse of Star Trek: Enterprise's third season did 'Vulcan zombies' in the Expanse. Down the dark and claustrophobic corridors of the Seleya, that episode remains truly frightening to this day.
On the other end of the zombie-horror scale (and excluding "bionic zombies," the Borg, in between), Star Trek: Lower Decks provided a comedic twist on all things undead in its very first episode, Second Contact. In that, the crew of the Cerritos were infected by the "rage virus" (cf. 28 Days/Weeks/Years Later). Zombies also ruin dates!
In Hegemony, Uhura referred to the "old zombie movie trick". Having never seen a zombie before, Spock was perplexed, but promised to "add some to [his] research". A form of foreshadowing for season three, no doubt, even if he did miss out on collecting some very rigorous data.
Failing all of the above, we could just watch Tom Paris' favourite — Orgy of the Walking Dead. We hear good things about the sequel, too!