After a light-hearted "wedding," Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 gets darker in episode 3, as a quest to save Batel involves Klingons, a troubled crew member, and the closest Star Trek has come to The Walking Dead!
Warning: Spoilers for Strange New Worlds season 3 episode 3 are below.
"Shuttle to Kenfori" opens with the Enterprise on a scouting mission as Pike notes Batel is about to leave for a new command. He finds her unconscious on the floor, with M'Benga revealing that the Gorn tissue is reforming in her body. Spock relates that there's a rare flower that may contain a compound that could remove the infection.
Of course, there's a problem as the flower can only be found on the planet Kenfori, which is in a "no-fly zone" left alone since the Earth-Klingon war. This means going in breaks various treaties, so they have to go in alone, with Pike volunteering to go with M'Benga.
Ortegas is downright eager to fly into restricted Klingon space with Number One warning everyone of the consequences of getting caught. Pike and M'Benga take a shuttle through an asteroid field with the Klingon version of "go back or die" communicated to them.
On the planet, both men are confused at the lack of life besides plants, even animal life. They find the abandoned research facility while bantering on Chapel's romance and their own relationships. This leads them to discover the remains of a Klingon that appeared to have been torn apart by some beast.
The pair enters the facility for some classic "spooky surroundings" tension to find the flower. Pike is eager to know if this could truly help Batel, with M'Benga saying this was her only real chance. Pike is thrown to find a chewed-off leg amid the plants.
On the Enterprise, the crew detects what seems to be an anomaly, but Ortegas insists on a deeper scan, which uncovers a cloaked Klingon battle cruiser. Ortegas is suspicious of Una, thinking it could be scavengers.
The severed leg is the cue for Pike and M'Benga to leave, only for a Klingon fighter to fly by and blow up their shuttle. A trio of Klingons led by a female enter the facility to hunt Pike and M'Benga.
A brief firefight has one Klingon ready to shoot M'Benga when a pack of forms attacks, human, Klingon, and other aliens, all with grey skin and literally feasting on the Klingon. Yep, we've got space zombies.
Gamble treats Batel, who is in agony, with Spock proposing a mind meld to alleviate the pain. It seems to work at first, only for both to feel an agony so great it makes Spock scream, and at one point, he sees the world the way a Gorn would. Chapel literally slaps him out of it with both Spock and Batel realizing something deeper was happening to her.
Number One relays that the shuttle's communications are out, with Scotty filling in for Pelia at the meeting. They have to get into emergency transporter range without the Klingons noticing, which would drop them to impulse with barely any power. It would also take four hours, with Ortegas openly saying, "That won't work for me," and they have to work faster.
She suggests warping right into the planet's atmosphere, beaming the two out, and warping out, something no one had ever tried before (mostly because of how insane it is). Scotty actually gets into the idea of how it could work with Una going with the slower method. La'an is thrown at how Ortegas is almost insubordinate and may have returned to duty too soon.
Back on the planet, Pike and M'Benga note the creatures don't register on life signs, as the only way to send a signal to the Enterprise is through the roof array. A quick search of the records reveal a strange moss has been developed for hunger, but when the Klingons attack, it unleashes the moss, which mutates and turns them all into what Pike openly calls zombies (and even compares them to Xenomorphs).
Pike pieces together that rather than a full cure, M'Benga and Spock are planning to turn Batel into a human/Gorn hybrid. As it turns out, Batel already knows about this and doesn't want Chris to know. Pike's dismay is cut short by the zombies attacking, with the pair bailed out by the Klingons. When one is bitten, the female leader simply vaporizes him with his attacker.
On the roof, the Klingon calls her shuttle, only to awaken a horde of zombies, with Pike quickly setting up a force field around them. When Pike asks for a weapon, the Klingon stabs him in the leg. She's been hunting M'Benga and identifies herself as B'itha, the daughter of Ambassador Rah, the Klingon M'Benga had killed in season 2.
The Enterprise is going through the field when it hits one of the objects around it, at first looking clear, only for the Klingon ship to spot them. Surprisingly, B'itha isn't upset that M'Benga killed her father, who she saw as a weakling and traitor who dishonored their house. She is upset that M'Benga killed him before she could, so killing M'Benga is the best option. Klingon honor can be weird.
B'itha holds a knife to Pike's throat to push M'Benga to confess to killing Rah in cold blood. Ortegas actually speaks back to Number One about being past the point of diplomacy. With the Klingons going into battle, Number One gives Ortegas permission to do fancy moves while M'Benga and B'itha get ready to fight old school, with knives and even a blood-stained scarf wrapping them together.
M'Benga wins but refuses to kill B'itha. With the field coming down, B'itha embraces the chance to go out in a blaze of glory, taking as many of the creatures down with her as she can. The Enterprise charges down to the planet with Scotty doing his first "miracle" of making the engines work in the atmosphere, with everyone briefly losing gravity. Pike and M'Benga are beamed away as B'itha goes down fighting. The Enterprise warps out just as the Klingons attack.
Pike's log relays that they have the flower for the therapy, as he worries about its effects on Batel. Pike does assure M'Benga that he wouldn't report him murdering Rah, though, since this whole mission was off the books.
Una calls Ortegas on the carpet for deliberately shaking up the impulse power to alert the Klingons so Number One would have to go with her plan. Ortegas explains that she couldn't leave Pike and M'Benga alone that long, clearly remembering her captivity by the Gorn. Number One pulls Ortegas from active duty for two weeks and warns her that this could never happen again.
Pike confronts Batel about being out of the loop on her condition with an argument on how Pike would have tried to find any other way to save her. She is terrified, and Pike has to comfort her as the episode comes to a close.
This is a thrilling episode with the battle with the zombies (something Star Trek was overdue to tackle), and M'Benga facing his own dark past. Pike's frantic worry for Batel drives him on, perhaps triggered by the knowledge of his own dark fate. Meanwhile, Ortegas is clearly not handling her experience with the Gorn, which can cause problems later to cap off an emotional hour.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds releases new episodes every Thursday on Paramount+.
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