SNW 403: Human Best Friend

This week's episode of Strange New Worlds actually isn't terrible. Part of me does hate it, but it's the part that has been disappointed by the writing in so many streaming era and 21st century film installments of the Star Trek franchise; here we again have an episode that has little to no depth to it, another junk food meal of empty calories. On the other hand, I did find it entertaining despite my qualms. It's very much like last season's "Wedding Bell Blues" in that regard, though not as steeped in the series mythology and a whole lot more derivative.

Had I known in advance what they were going for with this one—it's a stoner comedy that borrows heavily from lowbrow films The Hangover and Harold & Kumar Go Wherever They Went; it could be titled "Dude, Where's My Shuttlecraft?"—expectations would have been lower than low given what came last season, in which case this post would be about how I was pleasantly surprised by the not-terribleness of it. But even though I kind of liked it, it does nothing to assuage my fears that the rest of the series is going to be frustrating. Especially knowing that both this season and the abbreviated next season was all either in production or the can before any of the flawed and troubling season three had aired (dropped? What is the proper terminology for the release of streaming internet TV?). I suspect that no one in this writers' room ever came to any realizations that last year had real problems before it was too late and all was completed. Thematic depth? Nah. Ethical quandaries? Meh, we might touch on them vaguely. Dumb humor? Oh, yeah, that's our jam, and if we can cheapen what comes later in the timeline, so much the better.

There is plenty of dumb humor and cheapening what comes later in this one, to be sure, but in large part—not entirely—I am choosing to overlook it because there's some fun to be had.

Let's get into it.

Episode 403: “Human Best Friend” | Written by Kathryn Lyn | Directed by Yana Gorskaya

★★½

I am probably not the target demographic for this episode. I do not have the personal experience of being drunk or stoned or otherwise wasted and only have known these things from observing other people imbibe and finding it unappealing from that perspective. People are much less likeable when in such states, I've found, and with so many alcoholics in my lineage my basic attitudes toward such things tend toward the conservative (one of the few areas where that word applies to me). It's the reason I don't gravitate towards the movies this episode riffs on and why I don't appreciate the plot point in this episode that has all of our main characters going to a resort that's all about getting stoned with the intention of doing exactly that. Seeing people we know and like, or in this case characters we know and like, behaving this way walks a fine line. Are they funny or are we embarrassed for them or are they just fucking obnoxious?

We open this story on the Enterprise with log entries by Lieutenants Ortegas and Scott, each of whom is annoyed with the other for making their own job unnecessarily harder. This builds on the tension set up in 401 between the two that I was hoping we'd get more of, but after this episode that's probably all done; we'll see if it gets replaced with something else, but given the history of this writers' room, it's likely to be forgotten altogether now, just like Ortegas' insubordination that amounted to absolutely nothing last season. Alas. Anyhow, we see a bit of Ortegas and Scott dealing with their irritations—Scott having to continually adjust things in the engine room because of Ortegas' piloting choices, Ortegas whipping out a handy roll of duct tape to cover up the warning messages Scott has piped up to her console—and then cut to off-shift, when everyone is in or passing through the bar/rec room. I'm still a little confused as to whether the bar adjoins the mess hall or is the same set or if they're distinct; I imagine they'd be adjacent rooms, which would make the most sense here. Pike and Una are there, talking about the upcoming mission Pike has been tasked with, mediating peace talks in a planetary civil war; Una also reminds the captain that the crew needs a break, tensions are high all over the place. She notes Scott and Ortegas, who pass each other with a grumpy huff, and points out others in the room that are in some way overstressed. She also points out that, though the peace talks are a big deal, they do have two weeks before they start and using one of those weeks for shore leave might be a good idea.

Cut to the briefing room/ready room, where Una has brought up her suggested port of call, a planet on their route that's home to a resort called Cesnar Grand. The promotional video explains that the resort (whole planet?) has a literally intoxicating atmosphere that will provide an individualized de-stressing experience for all. It's also a decidedly low-tech place, so don't worry about being bothered or distracted by your modern conveniences. There's a funny bit when the video ends with a rapid-fire disclaimer that's so fast as to be unintelligible, and then we're off, shuttling down to the Cesnar Grand. What could possibly go wrong?

Now, one might think that someone—be it a member of the shore party or someone else brought along for the purpose—would be a sort of "designated driver," someone charged with being the backup person should a need arise to get everyone, or just the captain or someone in the top chain of command (I think the first five in the chain are all in the shore party), back to the ship in an emergency. Heck, one might even think that the captain stays behind. But no, Pike is the chummy captain, so he leaves, I don't know, wacky Chief Pelia or Lt. Mitchell or someone minding the conn while he joins the rest of the gang in stonerville. We'll allow it, but it seems like we could have accounted for this in dialogue somehow.

Smash cut to Ortegas waking up in a hotel room with her arm in a cast and no memory of what she's been doing, ala Ed Helms in The Hangover. Scott is also there, waking up in the mugato costume last seen in Starfleet Academy and also with no memory of the night before. Scott is also still more than a wee bit tipsy, as you would expect given the "intoxicating atmosphere," though Ortegas is, to her confusion, stone-cold sober. They are interrupted in their arguing by a knock at the door—it's the manager of the resort, played brilliantly by Newsradio and Kids in the Hall alum Dave Foley, with a message for Captain Pike. He can't find the captain, so would Ortegas mind delivering it for him? It's apparently time-sensitive. The message is on paper in an envelope as this resort is deliberately lacking in higher-tech contrivances.

Harold and Kumar—er, Mongomery and Erica

Ortegas starts to leave in search of the captain, but as Scott is clearly in danger of hurting himself—he goes to grab a "souvenir" of some sort of sharp bladed object impailed in the wall—so she brings him along for his own protection. Thus begins the journey of unlikely duo Erica and Monty (sorry, Montgomery), the Harold and Kumar of this story (maybe? I haven't seen those movies), encountering their shipmates as they quest. First they find Spock, who appears normal but does not immediately recognize them and explains that he is quite incapacitated. (In stark contrast to Ortegas', his room is spotless.) He explains that he has been hallucinating a manifestation of James Kirk—whom Scott and Ortegas verify they do not see in the room—and the two of them have been playing board games. He does not know where Pike is, though the captain had expressed interest in a party in Ensign Uhura's room. The dynamic duo leave to follow that lead, then we see Kirk in full uniform ask Spock if they should order some fries.

Uhura's room is a smoke-filled dance party which our two questors are not invited into because their energy is bad, and besides, the captain isn't there. At the bar, they find Dr. M'Benga mixing drinks because he's enjoying doing something with his hands that isn't life-or-death and he gives Scott a cocktail of some sort. "What is it?" Scott asks, and as any Trekkie worth his or her salt knows is coming, M'Benga shrugs and says, "It's green." Also in the bar is Una, and the first officer has commandeered the karaoke stage to sing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in Klingon. She also has signed up for several more "Klingon power ballads" in succession. Interesting as that is, M'Benga actually does know where the captain is—at the tattoo parlor, having "a horsey" drawn onto his arm and contemplating a face tattoo. Ortegas delivers the message, which turns out to be a change in the schedule for the peace talks; the parties are now coming to them, and will arrive in about two hours.

Crap! What to do? Pike directs them to retrieve the shuttle, and by the time they do that, he'll have finished with his tattoo and rounded everyone else up to leave. Ortegas wants to leave Scotty with Pike, but the captain likes that the two of them are having fun together and sends them both off. When they get to the "parking garage" they discover their shuttle is missing, ask the attendant what's up with that, and she explains that she gave Scott the key-analog device several hours earlier. He must have  moved it.

More bickering between Erica and Monty, then they go back to Uhura to get her tricorder so they can search for the shuttle; she'll give it to them, but only after they apologize to each other, and once with the tricorder Scott locates a security feed with it but then accidentally drops the tricorder off a balcony and it shatters to pieces on the floor below. Who knew they were so fragile? But they now know there's a security feed, so they go to the office where such a thing would be located after grabbing Spock, who at least appears to be competent enough to use such a computer and get around any safeguards it may have and locate the shuttlecraft.

They find no computer in the office, but there is a plant that inebriated-Spock suspects is "photosynthetic technology." He attempts to mind-meld with it and improbably does learn where the shuttle is, though I will headcanon a reason for that other than "mind-meld with a plant" or even "mind-meld with a machine interface made to look like a plant" because that's a bridge too far. It's several bridges too far. So I prefer to think the "mind-meld" did nothing, but Spock's unconscious recalled seeing a camera image of the city somewhere else and in his inebriation processed the memory in a way befitting his addled thinking. The experience now has intoxicated-Spock seeing people as plants, though, which I admit is amusing.

The shuttle is on a rooftop in a region of the city that is ruled by outlaw gangs. As Ortegas and Scott head out to retrieve it, Spock suggests they take La'an along as muscle. Spock stays behind as they leave, claiming that he is far too impaired to go along, and we then see him engage "Kirk" in conversation, postulating that he is hallucinating Kirk as he is in need of "what humans call 'a human best friend'" to discuss things with. Kirk explains that they don't actually specify "human" in that context, but is game to hear whatever deep thoughts and personal troubles Spock needs to discuss.

Erica and Monty find La'an trying to turn a yoga class into an anbu-jitsu death match, we get some more amped-up, spoiling-for-a-fight humor(ish) with La'an, then we get to the missing shuttle, which has been monkeyed with in some fashion; the sensors detect the key-fob analog nearby, though, and we discover that it's hidden under the cast on Ortegas' arm. Mysterious! But before they can start the engines, our unlikely pair of frenemies have hoods placed over their heads and are abducted by thug-types. We learn in time that the thug-types were sent by Dave Foley because that was what Scott requested—he recounts, in a good imitation of Scott, their earlier instruction to him not to let them leave with the shuttle and to "tie us up if you have to." Confusion all around now, as they head back to find the captain again, and oh, would you mind checking out room C on your way, as one of the crew is causing some sort of disturbance? The disturbance is Nurse Chapel taking a bingo tournament way too seriously and antagonizing her fellow players as she wins all their "money." 

Eventually everyone is rounded up and we get back to the shuttle and leave the resort. Back on the ship, everyone is still stoned even though it was expected that the effects of the resort atmosphere would wear off after only an hour. This is bad, as the peace talk parties are arriving and (a) Pike has a face tattoo now, (b) Una has snort-giggles, and when the aliens beam over the captain introduces himself as "U.S.S. Christopher Pike." Meanwhile, Ortegas and Scott have independently both gone back to the shuttlebay to try and effect repairs on the poor craft, the damage to which is still unexplained. After their planetside ordeal, the two are more comfortable talking to each other and divulge some of their issues that inform the tension the two have had. Unfortunately, they have basically the same issues—jealousy of the other being so gifted at their chosen profession while they themselves suck at the other's forte, rooted in childhood issues with brothers. (Scott has six brothers. Who knew?) It makes for some detente between them, and we can see them moving from frenemies to actual friends here. Oh, they also find what the tampering on the shuttle was—someone implanted a bomb on it, which Scott now has in his hands and can't let go of or it will detonate.

Ortegas goes for help, and after a goofy game of stoner telephone that eventually reaches Spock—who deduces via "reverse-human-logic" what the garbled message that reached him probably started out as (it's actually pretty funny)—who offers assistance with the bomb even though he still sees Ortegas as a cactus. It is determined that the bomb cannot be transported without setting it off and thus Scott and Ortegas will take it out of the ship aboard the shuttle and Spock will attempt to beam the two of them back "a zeptosecond" before the bomb goes off.

Meantime, the peace talks are going poorly. Pike has been trying to deliver his remarks by reading them off of his hands and has somehow offended the aliens. This is leading to a breakdown of proceedings until the shuttle goes by the viewports and blows up—which also sets off a kind of fireworks display that is reminiscent of an ancient rite of peace on the aliens' homeworld. Talks are saved as the aliens assume this was a deliberate overture by the Federation undertaken at great expense. Back in the transporter room, we see that Spock—with the aid of Kirk?—has retrieved Ortegas and Scott no worse for wear except Scotty had his thumb nearly blown off, and as the two new buds head for sickbay to tend to that, Ortegas says hi to Kirk, startling Spock, who had assumed this was still an hallucination of Lt. Commander Kirk. Kirk reveals that, no, he's not a figment of Spock's unconscious, he's been real the whole time; he, too, was vacationing on Cesnar and randomly crossed paths with Spock there and has been hanging out with him ever since. (If so, how did he get to the Enterprise? Did he ride up with everyone else in the shuttle? And nobody noticed?! Despite the pre-recorded goodbye message from Dave Foley imploring visitors to make sure they're leaving with everyone they came with and no additional people?!) Spock is momentarily horrified that he actually divulged so much personal info to Kirk the real person and not Kirk the hallucination.

This shot isn't actually in the episode—cut, I presume, maybe because it's super obvious there was digital tech involved in placing the paper in Ethan Peck's hand—but I do wonder why Spock was drawing a cat.

In our wrapup scene, Pike explains that the saboteur, who was trying to kill the aliens in the peace talks by having the Enterprise blow up with them aboard, has been caught, he asks Dr. M'Benga to remove his face tattoos, Scott and Ortegas get chummy with the others and start piecing together all that they don't remember from the first night at Cesnar, and Chapel proposes that they make Cesnar Grand an annual shore leave event.

Oy.

Like I said, I did actually enjoy this ep, but the one thing I cannot forgive is the continual retconning of Kirk and Spock's relationship. We had the interactions last year in "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail" and "New Life and New Civilizations," the latter of which was especially egregious, and now we have the reveal that Spock was unwittingly spilling his guts to Kirk here, still at least two years before they start serving together. The retcon has the two of them being besties before anything that happens in the original series, thus cheapening the whole relationship. In the original, we both see and infer an organic bond forming over the first season to the point where it's kind of a surprise when Spock asks both Kirk and McCoy to join him on Vulcan in "Amok Time" as his "closest friends."

It would have been far, far better if Kirk here had actually been an hallucination. I get that they wanted the "twist" at the end, but it wasn't worth it, not by a long shot. It strains credibility more than ever that Kirk was just by happenstance also taking shore leave at that same resort at that same time, if nothing else. I mean, Kirk has a job. A big one. He's first officer on a starship, but apparently takes so much time off that it's amazing to think he actually gets promoted at some point. But moreover, this is not Kirk's show. This is Pike's show. If you must use Kirk, do so much, much more sparingly, and not in a way that fucks with established relationships. I hate that preoccupation of these writers so very much. You have characters here, regulars on this actual show, that could be served by all that screen time. We're told early on that M'Benga is stressed out, but we don't know why and never learn why. Chapel too, she got relegated to just being an overly competitive bingo hustler in one scene here and we never learn what prompted her to smash a glass at the beginning. La'an has a throughline for the season around her genetics, so we can infer something to do with that for her agitation, but it's not mentioned here. 

We did get some good Ortegas stuff in this one, anyway, and her entirely platonic pairing with Scotty is a good one. (I do hope we get to hear her imitate his accent again, though, that was a highlight of "Valles Marineris.") The title of "human best friend" should apply to the two of them, not to Kirk and Spock, and if Kirk had been hallucinatory it would work that way.

The peace talks scenes were just embarrassing. It's less funny to see these characters we admire for their competence and ideals bumbling around because they were irresponsible than it is upsetting. The plotline of the saboteur trying to destroy the ship comes out of nowhere and with no real explanation and no logic behind it—how would this person know there would be a detour to Cesnar Grand? How would this person know the timetable would change? Did they change the timetable? We're led to believe Pike did it but forgot, which really doesn't track, stoned or not, so let's say the saboteur was responsible for that and make it part of the story so it isn't just a stupid bit to throw in for "stakes."

Also, I'm more than a little bothered by the crew's nonchalance regarding the whole experience. Chapel wants to do this on a regular basis, everyone else is keen on the idea, yet this was a near-disaster—the ship was nearly destroyed, Scott and Ortegas were nearly killed to thwart that, they lost what had been a perfectly good shuttlecraft, and the epic diplomatic failure was mitigated only by the most absurd deus-ex-machina surprise. Take some note of the fact that this completely irresponsible decision to send the whole senior staff out to get high for a week might not have been the greatest plan. I don't advocate for a just-say-no message or anything, but a "drink responsibly" approach seems called for.

It's a romp. It has amusing moments. It has zero depth. It has nonsensical plot points. It has not a shred of what makes Star Trek Star Trek.

And yet, it might turn out to be among the best episodes of the season. Good grief, I hope not.

Short tokes:

• While another use of a contemporary pop song is mildly annoying, Una's rendition of Bonnie Tyler's hit in Klingon is a tour de force.
• Among the other "Klingon power ballads" in Una's set list are "Smells Like Bloodwine" and "Aim for the Second Heart." Also "Romulan Rhapsody," which I'm glad wasn't readily visible because no one is supposed to know about Romulans yet (unless you were in a time-travel episode in season one or two).
• The promotional video for Cesna Grand contains some illustrations done in perfect Filmation Star Trek: The Animated Series style, which was kind of funny.
• There's a tribble in Ortegas' hotel room. Come on, stop that, you guys, quit throwing tribbles everywhere. It's not clever.
• For all the effort this writing staff puts into retconning/pre-establishing the Kirk-Spock dynamic, you'd think they'd pay some attention to showing us the Pike-Spock dynamic. It's pretty damned strong. We know this from "The Menagerie," at which point Spock's loyalties to Pike outweigh everything else. But we see almost nothing of that relationship in this series, at least not since season two. Not that it would have fit in this episode to do something with that, but it's a massive missed opportunity serieswide.
• Does Ortegas just keep duct tape lying around in strategic places just in case? Or did she stash some at her helm console for the express purpose of blocking out Scotty's warning messages?
• Martin Quinn is an excellent Scotty. Love what he does. I do wonder about the gag at the end when Scott realizes his thumb is nearly severed—was that supposed to be some sort of macabre homage to Jimmy Doohan, the original Scotty, who lost a finger at Normandy in World War II? If so, I question the appropriateness of it.
• The rationale for Ortegas waking up sober was that sometimes the intoxicating atmosphere gets blunted by angry negative emotional states. So... don't wake up mad and punch the mugato in your room?
• If Kirk was indeed really there the whole time, that means he was on shore leave in a stoner resort wearing his uniform. I guess he doesn't have many other clothes.

Next episode: More genre of the week, as the Enterprise goes film noir. I think.