“I do not need the monster today.”
These are the words Dr. Joseph M’Benga tells his Klingon opponent on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds when refusing to kill her after winning a duel to the death in an hour that delivered zombies, multiple characters defying orders, and the latest interrogation of the Enterprise doctor’s morally questionable past war record.
When Captain Batel’s invasive Gorn tissue reemerges, Spock determines the only viable treatment for the malignancy is Chimera Blossom, a rare compound only available on the planet Kenfori, home of a former Federation research facility that has been off limits since the war with the Klingons.
So Captain Pike and Dr. M’Benga embark on a rogue mission to retrieve the medicine that will save her life. But that mission proves far riskier than they expected, both for the landing party and Enterprise while it waits on the brink of disputed Klingon territory.
“Shuttle To Kenfori” serves as a quasi-sequel to last season’s “Under the Cloak of War” but unfortunately lacks the elements that made that episode intriguing in the first place: its exploration of war trauma, its moral ambiguity, and its interrogation of the past war record by Enterprise’s medical chief without resolving its story with easy answers.
Here, M’Benga’s past offenses, both during the war and in the aforementioned episode from last season, resurface only to offer quick fix absolution Klingon-style, by way of mortal combat. This would be a cheap out in an episode that centered M’Benga’s crimes in its main plot but feels even lazier tacked onto what’s effectively a pulpy zombie story.
Zombies are easy villains in action adventure stories because the more mindless and aggressive they appear, the less ethical consideration there needs to be for the heroes “killing” them for lack of a better word. It’s particularly unfortunate that this zombie story comes so soon after the release of 28 Years Later, a film that uses its “zombie” — or rage virus infected, if you will — conceit in service of a far deeper meditation on violence as well as coping with death and trauma.
Photo: Marni Grossman/Paramount+
Star Trek traditionally promotes coming to understand and empathize with its enemies, fostering peaceful coexistence with them, whereas the zombie-like monsters of Kenfori are just a threat to be shot at, each one thoughtlessly targeted as cannon fodder.
The most compelling part of the episode is also its riskiest. Having now heard M’Benga’s confession of what was effectively the deliberate killing of the Klingon general-turned-defector Dak’Rah last season, Pike decides to treat that confession as M’Benga just telling Dak’Rah’s daughter a fiction to save Pike’s life while she had a knife to Pike’s throat.
Strange New Worlds has perhaps been too casual in its numerous depictions of Enterprise’s crew disobeying orders even for this era of Starfleet full of what a much older Spock would come to describe as “cowboy diplomacy.” Though this final scene between Pike and M’Benga isn’t merely brushing aside the infraction as usual.
Here, the writers are making a choice in defining who Pike is as a person and as a commanding officer. Pike will put his friends and crew ahead of his duties to Starfleet, as he did for Una last season in “Ad Astra Per Aspera.” That’s not to conflate the two cases though. Una was a victim of systemic prejudices that violate the spirit of Starfleet and The Federation, making an easier moral defense for her crimes than M’Benga’s actions at the end of “Under the Cloak of War.” Regardless, it’s clear Pike’s loyalty, for better or worse, is to his crew and his friends.
Despite the shallowness the episode shows in its primary story, “Shuttle To Kenfori” does successfully tie all its central plots around the shared theme of acting on one’s own judgment in defiance of the rules. Unfortunately, writers Onitra Johnson and Bill Wolkoff never provide any indication they’re even aware themselves of this commonality. Pike and the rest of Enterprise’s crew defy orders to travel to the forbidden Kenfori because they prioritize Captain Batel’s survival over their duty as Starfleet officers to honor Federation laws and treaties.
Erica Ortegas directly disobeys an order from her commanding officer because she prioritizes the safety of the landing party and thinks her rejected plan is their best chance. And M’Benga has possibly committed war crimes for what he believed was the greater good. But the writers don’t seem to have a clear sense of when this trait should be regarded as good or bad, so we’re ultimately left with a muddled story that doesn’t know what it’s trying to say.
New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds release Thursdays on Paramount+.
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