"Shuttle to Kenfori" Enters Hostile Space and Delivers Most of the Goods

“Shuttle to Kenfori” is a good episode, slightly overstuffed with plot.

A mildly unnecessary homage to zombie plots obscures a reasonably interesting Klingon plot, and the best character work the show’s done since it started, in my opinion. We got some come-uppance from M’Benga’s past actions, a slight exploration of Klingons (hooray), and the start of what feels like a really good plot arc exploring the consequences of being a “hotshot pilot” off balance. This feels like a good trek - it definitely feels better than the baseline of Season 2 of Strange New Worlds. It has some flaws - there definitely isn’t enough Klingon stuff going on, and I wish we interrogated “M’Benga commits extrajudicial murder” more than this, but it’s still a solid performance all around.

“Kenfori” does not waste time with the setup: Captain Batel’s treatment has failed and the Gorn hatchlings are returning: the only way to save her is to break the treaty with the Klingons and retrieve a rare flower from an abandoned research outpost on the planet Kenfori, within a restricted border area. Another off-the books mission? For the flagship? Under Captain Pike? What is still on the books at this point? Yet, even before they go, there is some tension: Pike has to pull rank to go on the high-risk mission in the first place, and as they enter the atmosphere, a Klingon beacon warns with typical bravado: GO BACK OR DIE.

Just an average diplomatic missive, sure.

With Pike and M’Benga headed to the planet to gossip about Chapel and Korby (and look mournfully at the desiccated skeleton of a klingon), we are left with our much more interesting B-plot: the Enterprise doing its best impression of a space rock in a dust cloud which (for some reason, despite being part of orbital space) sits on the Treaty line. This focus on a typical Star Trek challenge - staying in contact with an away team while not breaking the diplomatic rules - is a nice refresh. Not only that, but Ortega’s grumbling and retorts about Una’s hard line on the Klingon treaty is an interesting break from the typical harmony of a bridge in this situation, especially when it’s paired with her correct calls: it is Ortegas’s hunch that spots the Klingon Battlecruiser hiding in an EM emission, after all. Yet the talking back to power - especially in a crisis - is an interesting moment of writing for new Trek, which generally has embraced the bridge-as-conference room attitude in danger moments that those of us a bit more keyed in military matters (or just The Original Series) find odd. Ortegas is absolutely in the wrong to question their orders, and the diplomatic treaty itself, in this circumstance, and Una putting her in her place for it is both an aberration from the norm and a great moment. Not only are we seeing the cracks in Ortegas’s resolve emerging, we are also starting to see the clear differences between Pike and Number One’s command style.

Planetside, the arrival of the Klingons (and their nifty insect-like shuttle) has thrown Pike and M’Benga’s exploration of the abandoned research base into chaos. Their ride home is blown up and with Klingon warriors closing in on their position, they retreat upstairs with their medicine flower in hand. We are then greeted with some new Klingon enemies, stalking our heroes through the overrun outpost. I am, to be frank, annoyed that we are just getting The Next Generation Klingons in a slightly different font: especially when there’s something forever charming about the slick, savage ruthlessness of the Klingons we meet in The Original Series. I know that these all fighting, all glory, all Sto-vo-Kor Klingons are classic, but I would kill to see a Klingon closer to William Campbell’s Koloth at some point. Watching Klingons attempt to vaporise our intrepid heroes - and then get to vaporise a bunch of zombies(!) is not an interesting enough visual to make up for the fact that they are just…pretty standard Klingons when they easily have been something else!

The more interesting plot in space only becomes more interesting from this point on. Even though we get the big reveal of the planet’s disaster (the Federation scientist’s attempt to create a supercrop failed and accidentally created a life-consuming airborne moss, because saying it’s a fungus would probably piss off the lawyers from The Last of Us), it is still significantly less gripping than the ready room debate on Enterprise (or the brief-mind meld C plot where Spock gets spooked and overcome by a, uh, Gorn mind in Batel? I guess?) Now in my opinion, Strange New Worlds' conference room sequences are some of the driest in the whole 8 and bit hundred episode franchise. Except for this one: this one was excellent. We had two plans to get to Kenfori and rescue the team: the slow, safe option from Spock (four hours of looking like a rock) or the fast, risky, dangerous option from Ortegas (fly into the planet’s atmosphere, carefully avoid blowing the ship up, and then very carefully avoid scrambling Pike and M’Benga into atoms). It’s…quite a bad plan, considering it makes the whole treaty-violation thing very obvious, even if you don’t get everyone killed. And, even when Scotty pulls a typical Scotty and explains how it might be possible. Una still chooses the safe option, especially with the Klingons still operating on radio silence. 

It’s a great sequence: Ortegas’s interjections and growing frustration are very noticeable amongst the typical competency porn of a Trek briefing sequence: again her informality crashes with the very strained tension of a high stakes mission, and you realise that she’s very used to getting her way, and to being right, and Una…isn’t a fan of that. Navia and Romjin (and Chong, frankly) are brilliant in this sequence. Something’s not right with Ortegas, everyone knows it, but in the crisis no one’s willing to say anything about it.

On the planet, we are getting more and more tension. The revelation of the planet’s research and what the flower will do to Batel (hybridise her with the Gorn! Sure! Why Not!) has put massive strain on Pike and M’Benga: Pike is not happy about it, even though apparently Marie has days (!) left to live otherwise. There is a conversation to be had here about why Pike is mad: why exactly being hybridised is so wrong when it’s not him being operated on. But we end up putting that aside for 1) more zombie vaporisation and confrontation on the rooftop with the Klingon commander, who turns out to be…Dak’Rah’s daughter, Bay'tha seeking revenge on M’Benga for the death of her father. Not because she liked him or anything, just…standard blood feud stuff. Her confrontation (and the knife at Pike’s throat) forces the truth from M’Benga. Pike is disappointed: I wish he’d been…more than that. Sure, Dak’Rah was a mass murderer, but that’s still an extrajudicial killing. Not something Trek usually endorses. And, again, as fun as it is to watch Babs Olusanmokun demonstrate his martial arts skills…it’s not very interesting. An AR Wall set with zombies and a forcefield cage match is no contender for high-stakes Cold War ship drama on the high frontier.

Which is, again, why the Enterprise plot is simply better. Tense bridge shots, close cuts as they go toe to toe with a Klingon Battlecruiser, sneaking past at spitting distance - now that’s the stuff! And then - when Spock’s originally four hours arrival time is halved, Ortegas puts everyone in jeopardy by revealing Enterprise to the Klingons: giving them no choice but to rush for the planet. This is one of those moments where the potential within Strange New Worlds’ writing, characters and setting shines - a sentence I should not have to say three seasons in but here we are. With M’Benga overcoming Bay'tha and sparing her life (phew), it’s down to the wire as Pike and the Doc escape, thanks to her sacrifice. Which, ew, gory, yes - but…whatever. Normal Klingon bow out in Star Trek, actually.

With the away team recovered thanks to some fancy flying by Ortegas and Scotty pulling off the first of (many) transporter miracles, all’s well that ends well: Enterprise escapes Klingon attack, Batel is thriving, and…actually, that’s it. In fact, it turns out things are not, in fact, ending well at all. Ortegas has been thrown off bridge duty for severe insubordination, pushing her relationship with Una to a new low. Pike has…decided to ignore M’Benga’s massive crime, because that went so well with Una that time. And Batel? Well, she’s fine - but Pike isn’t, and again this show’s writing gives us another moment of good character development, especially given the context of what we know will happen to Pike. His desire to find another solution, a better solution, a cheat, a work-around - he’s been hit here with the one thing he can’t work around: what someone else wants to do when there’s no other option. And we can see Batel knows him well enough to have predicted all of this before it even happened. Already in three episodes, we’ve seen Batel and Pike’s relationship expand and evolve even more than it did in two seasons, really.

I liked "Shuttle to Kenfori." No, seriously, I did. It was good television - high stakes, good character work, pretty starships, acceptable resolutions of old plots - and yet, I am left asking again: is it good Star Trek? What’s the damn thing trying to say, plotwise? Murder is okay? Don’t mess around with molecular biology? Don’t pick a fight with your boss on an interstellar treaty line? I’m not actually sure. Frankly, if they’d dump the whole “remember The Last of Us?” thing the planet plot had going on, I wonder if we’d have had time to ask what this is all about: because right now it’s quite difficult to work it out. And figuring that question out is what allows to elevate something from good television to good Star Trek. Between the improved character work and the emerging elements of some interesting season arcs around Ortegas and Batel, Strange New Worlds is still struggling to hit that Trek Spark that Discovery was always quite good at finding, despite everything.