Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 3
"Human Best Friend"
Writer: Kathryn Lyn
Director: Yana Gorskaya
Cast: Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, Babs Olusanmokun, Martin Quinn, Rebecca Romijn
Desperate for some downtime as the tensions between Ortegas (Melissa Navia) and Scotty (Martin Quinn) continue to grow, the crew of the Enterprise puts a pin in peace talks to pay a visit to Cesnar, a tech-free pleasure planet with a unique atmosphere that intoxicates its visitors. What could go wrong?
The following morning, Ortegas awakens in a trashed hotel room, brandishing a broken arm while an equally groggy Scotty (dressed in a rather familiar-looking Mugato costume) stirs nearby. Dendru (“The Kids in the Hall” co-founder Dave Foley), the resort's avuncular majordomo, shows up and tasks the duo with bringing a time-sensitive letter to Captain Pike (Anson Mount). After knocking on a few doors to find several of their crewmates still engaged in some rather intense unwinding, the pair are eventually directed to a tattoo parlor by a bartending Dr. M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), where they find their clearly inebriated commander contemplating a bit of face ink.
Quickly scanning the paper (tech-free, remember), it is revealed that a Rodaxian delegation is en route to resume peace talks — two weeks ahead of schedule!
Tasked with prepping the shuttle, Ortegas and Scotty, already at each other's throats, head to the parking garage, only to find the craft missing and the required operations chip nowhere to be found. Making their way to Uhura's (Celia Rose Gooding) room, where they acquire a smuggled tricorder after being ordered to apologize to one another, they hope to locate the missing shuttle but end up breaking the device almost immediately. This leads the duo to recruit a seriously stoned Spock (Ethan Peck), who's apparently been locked in his room playing board games with an imaginary version of Paul Wesley's James Kirk, to help them hack the resort's security system.
What follows is one of the funniest scenes of the episode as the pointy-eared extraterrestrial proceeds to mind-meld with a potted plant ("My thoughts to your leaves...") before sending Ortegas and Scotty to a relaxation class to pull a pent-up La'an (Christina Chong) into their quest by getting her to extract the shuttle's location from a local gang — with the aid of a big stick.
Making their way to the craft, parked behind a billboard on the roof, the duo eventually discover that the operations chip is hidden in Erica's cast — just in time to be kidnapped.
Waking up tied to chairs in a dingy warehouse, they take some time to "bury the hatchet" before Dendru arrives to reveal that everything that has happened was their idea in the first place! That, and they should probably remove Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) from the bingo hall before she comes to blows with some elderly guests. Fortunately, La'an, now leader of that aforementioned gang, shows up, big stick and all, to put an end to the shenanigans.
Back aboard the Enterprise, and not nearly as sober as they need to be, the crew welcomes the Rodaxian diplomats, while newly minted friends Ortegas and Scotty discover a bomb onboard the shuttle meant to disrupt the peace talks. Flying the shuttle to a safe distance, the pair are beamed off the craft by a still-sobering Spock, with the resulting explosion delighting the Rodaxians, who see the fiery display as a show of respect.
While "Human Best Friend" follows in the footsteps of classic "drunk crew" episodes like "The Naked Now" and "Fascination," it filters the familiar premise through a far more chaotic 2000s stoner-comedy lens. There's a definite "Dude, Where's My Car?" kind of energy going on here as Ortegas and Scotty stumble from one ridiculous situation to the next, desperately trying to piece together the events of the previous night while their crewmates provide increasingly bizarre clues.
It's an absolutely laughable setup, but that's precisely what makes it work. Once again, Strange New Worlds demonstrates just how effortlessly it can jump between genres without losing sight of what makes these characters so much fun. One minute we're watching a buddy comedy, the next we're getting a classic Trek mystery, a little action, some surprisingly sweet character development, and enough callbacks and Easter eggs to reward eagle-eyed fans — including a hilarious Klingon take on Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" that proves a power ballad can become even more awesome when paired with the right universal translator!
"Human Best Friend" is just a wonderfully silly hour of television — the kind of episode that embraces the freedom of Strange New Worlds to have a little fun. And after kicking things off with a dastardly duo of deadly dinosaurs and scary spaceships, watching Ortegas and Scotty stumble through a series of bizarre misadventures that ultimately brings them closer together proves to be just the sort of unwinding the crew — and the audience — needed.
