How have you been sleeping this past week, fellow Trekkies? From what I’ve seen online, “The Griffin Incident” scared the $*%! out of all of us last week. This week’s episode, “Human Best Friend,” provides a much-needed palate cleanser for Strange New Worlds‘ fourth season with lots of laughs and enough Easter eggs to keep the kids busy for hours.

Prologue: I Would Not Feel So All Alone

The crew of the Enterprise is burned out. They were already tired when the season began, but after traveling back in time 65 million years and whatever you want to call what happened on the Griffin, they’ve reached their breaking points. While Beta and Gamma shifts were able to be granted some shore leave, Alpha shift hasn’t yet had the luxury.

While en route to the Rodaxian System to host a series of peace talks that could unite a planet, Number One / Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) lets Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) know in no uncertain terms that Alpha shift desperately needs a break. Now.

Security Chief Lieutenant La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) is ready to throw down with anyone who breathes the wrong way.

Her situationship, Science Officer Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck), is trying desperately to keep La’an from having to send herself to the brig.

Chief Medical Officer Doctor Joseph M’Benga (Babs Olusankamun) “needs to loosen up,” according to the First Officer.

Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) is nothing more than a raw nerve that everyone is getting on.

Worst of all, Scotty and Ortegas are having… interpersonal conflict.

Engineer Lieutenant Montgomery Scott (Martin Quinn) and Pilot Lieutenant Erica “I Fly the Ship” Ortegas (Melissa Navia) are each recording their personal logs, and we learn that their tension has little to do with their workload. Ortegas’s “fancy flying” everyone loves so much is also the junior engineer’s nightmare. Every time she pushes the engines harder than she has to, it’s up to Scotty to fix and/or replace every component she burns out. Scotty retaliates by setting up alerts to go off on Ortegas’s helm console every time she’s about to burn something out. Ortegas then retaliates by covering up Scotty’s alerts and ignoring them.

And each one is taking it personally.

Act One: Everybody Must Get Stoned

Alpha shift gathers in Captain Pike’s Ready Room to learn that there’s a pleasure planet that isn’t Risa along the way, Cesnar Grand. According to the video brochure’s host, Dendru (Dave Foley), there’s a little something for everyone to help them relax and enjoy themselves. Oh, by the way, leave the gadgets at home; Cesnar Grand happens to be a tech-free zone.

Of course, every brochure has its fine print. Dendru mentions something about effects wearing off shortly after leaving, and that landing on the planet is tacit agreement to all the terms and conditions, blah-blah-blah, lots of really tiny print flashes across the screen. That wasn’t important, right?

The workaholics, Uhura and Scotty, immediately protest that they still have a lot of work to do. No worries, kids; they have two weeks to prepare for the peace talks, and even if they stop at Cesnar Grand, that still gives them a week to get their work done.

Ortegas, on the other hand, knows a good time when she sees one, and she enthusiastically agrees with her commander’s proposal.

Ever cautious, the phrase “intoxicating atmosphere” used in the brochure caught Spock’s attention. Chapel, already familiar with the resort, explains that the air itself literally gets you… let’s go with intoxicated.

(Author’s Note: I really hope this planet exists, and I get to go there someday.)

Captain Pike and the rest of Alpha shift climb into a shuttlecraft and head down to the not-Risa pleasure planet. On the way, Scotty takes the opportunity to tell Ortegas everything she’s doing wrong with the shuttle that he’ll have to fix later. To add insult to injury, Ortegas deliberately sets the shuttle down hard, giving Scotty one more thing to fix.

(By the way, the two workaholics who didn’t want to go on vacation to a tech-free zone snuck a couple of tricorders in their bags.)

Fortunately, the air works fast. When the door opens, the crew begins counting down from ten. By the time they reach seven, they’re giggling. When they reach five, they start hearing colors. Once they reach one… well, we’ll never know.

Act Two: The Journey

The next scenario should feel very familiar. Most of us have been here.

Ortegas wakes up the next morning with a pounding headache, a cast on her arm, and no memory of what happened the night before. A quick glance around the room looks like Star Trek: Lower Decks’ “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place” meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The room is trashed (not to mention full of Star Trek Easter eggs), and she has an epic hangover.

Erica realizes she isn’t alone when the mugato (mugatu? mugutu? whatever) she trips over starts yelling with a distinct Scottish accent. Just as she’s about to wrap her head around waking up in a strange room with Scotty dressed in a mugato suit, there’s a knock at the door.

It’s the host himself, Dendru, with an urgent message for their captain. Since Cesnar Grand is a tech-free zone, the message is on a good old-fashioned piece of paper in an envelope. When Ortegas starts to cry bait-and-switch, Dendru very politely informs them that negative emotions may counteract the effects of the intoxicating atmosphere and reminds them that when they landed, they automatically accepted the terms and conditions in the brochure, and all this is in the fine print, well, micro print, that you totally blew past when you decided to take your shore leave here, and it’s all very legally binding, so good luck!

Great. Now, the Alpha shift pilot of the U.S.S. Enterprise has to spend the rest of her shore leave babysitting a still-drunk-from-last-night engineer she’s got beef with and deliver a note to its captain. On the journey to piece together what happened the night before, Scotty and Ortegas (Scortegas?) they learn a lot about their shipmates, themselves, and each other.

Spock

The first stop on the pair’s quest for answers is Spock’s room. At first glance, he seems fine, although he does apologize for a mess no one sees. Unfortunately, Spock can’t help them; he’s been hallucinating a manifestation of Commander James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley), and they’ve been playing board games all night. Spock theorized that it might be some side effect of their recent mind meld when they shared each other’s consciousness. Whatever the reason, in spite of his calm exterior, it’s freaking Spock out.

He does have one clue for them, though: At one point, he heard Ortegas running down the hall yelling, “I got the dragon!” While Spock didn’t know what dragon she was referring to, it was a start.

Both Ortegas and Scotty admitted they didn’t see James Kirk in the room with them (unless he’s cloaked), so of course Kirk pops around the corner as soon as they leave the room, which causes Spock to freak out again. The last time he hallucinated, his ex-fiancée tried to mutilate him, so what was Kirk’s purpose? Kirk sees his friend in obvious distress and comforts him the best way he knows how – with a deep, long, intimate hug.

Uhura’s Journey

The next stop on Scortegas’s journey leads them to Uhura’s room, where an epic rager is taking place. Not only that, but Uhura has ditched the uniform and is looking absolutely fierce. She has embraced her inner chill and is showing signs of that unflappable badass she’s becoming. She won’t let them in, though, because she doesn’t want their negative energy harshing her buzz.

Uhura can’t help them, either, because, as she put it, “It’s not my journey to know.” This means their journey must continue. She also plants the Scortegas seed by off-handedly mentioning how good it is to see them working together for a change. Ortegas was about to argue that point, but she’s still babysitting Scotty, and he just became a flight risk.

Now, she has to track him down, too.

The Bar

Finding Scotty proved much easier than finding their elusive commanding officer. Scotty was getting his groove on at the bar, where Dr. M’Benga(?) was serving him drinks. Sure, why not? When Scotty asks what the doctor poured him, M’Benga’s response was simply, “It’s green.” Hmm… where have we heard that one before?

M’Benga is not a good bartender. He’s trying some flashy, Cocktail-style bartender moves but failing miserably. He doesn’t care, though; dexterity is crucial for his job on the Enterprise, but at Cesnar Grand, it doesn’t matter if he drops something. To him, clumsiness is a luxury he usually can’t afford.

Wait… Is that “Total Eclipse of the Heart…” in Klingon?

It sure is. Those of us who grew up during the 1980s/early 1990s remember a glorious sub-genre of music called the power ballad. Artists wearing more hairspray and makeup than my mom screamed their emotions into a microphone while guitars wailed away loudly on slow jams. It was magical.

To paraphrase a quote from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, “You haven’t experienced power ballads until you’ve heard them in the original Klingon.” Ortegas and Scotty were hearing them coming from their XO, who usually favors works by Gilbert and Sullivan (ah ha!). Not at the Cesnar Grand, though; Una is pouring her heart into Klingon power ballads (or as Scotty calls them, “warrior songs”). All 15 of them.

Tattoo You

A good Number One knows where their captain is at all times. Luckily, Ortegas and Scotty caught Una between sets, and she knew where to find Captain Pike.

In a tattoo parlor.

Drunken tattooing is a proud naval tradition that seems to have survived into the 23rd century. While it’s never a good idea, Pike’s suggestion of a face tattoo is quickly dismissed. It’s at this point when Scotty mentions that he, too, has a “secret tattoo” no one knows about, but no, no one wants to see it right now.

They’ve reached the end of their journey when Ortegas hands Pike the letter. Pike is so enamored with the paper and envelope that he suggests using them on the Enterprise just to mess with Uhura.

The party’s over when Pike reads the note. Someone called the Rodaxians and invited them to Cesnar Grand to start the talks now. All that time they thought they had to prepare has gone from two weeks to two hours. Pike orders the duo to get the shuttle ready while he rounds up the rest of Alpha shift to head back to the ship. Like Uhura, Pike also comments on how nice it is to see Scortegas in action and encourages them to keep that energy going.

Act Three: An Unexpected Journey

Scortegas successfully completed their first challenge when they found Pike and delivered the note. Now, their challenge is to find the shuttle. Simple enough, right?

Not on shore leave.

The Cesnar Grand parking structure is set up like its own little video game, but when the duo check the spot where their shuttle is supposed to be parked, it’s not there. According to Scotty, whoever has the Geotronic Processing Chip (car keys) has to be the one who moved it. When they ask the apathetic parking attendant, she casually informs them that she gave the Geotronic Processing Chip… to Scotty, who can’t remember what he did with it.

Now, they have another challenge: Find the Geotronic Processing Chip (car keys) and the shuttlecraft all while babysitting still-drunk Scotty.

Ortegas is going to need a vacation from her vacation.

If they find the shuttle, they can use its scanners to find the chip, so they decide to look for the shuttle first. Back to the bar to strategize.

The pair of unwilling detectives realize that if they had a tricorder, they could interface with the resort’s security system and use it to find their shuttle. Workaholic Scotty snuck his tricorder with him to the not-Risa pleasure planet, but oops, he left it on the shuttle, which is exactly what they need it for. They remember that Scotty isn’t the only workaholic on Alpha shift, so back to Uhura’s party they go to borrow hers.

Uhura (Reprise): The Journey Continues

Uhura’s party is still in progress (and she is still looking fierce). Unfortunately, it’s not her journey to share her tricorder with Ortegas and Scotty. Scotty, using perfect drunken logic, counters with the suggestion that it is her journey to help them on theirs. Uhura likes the sound of that, but before she can agree to it, the pilot and engineer must first clear the negative energy between them.

Before Ortegas can object, Scotty takes the path of least resistance and suggests they just get it over with. He turns to Ortegas and gives her a semi-sincere apology for criticizing her piloting. Ortegas starts her apology by addressing Scotty as “Monty,” but we quickly learn he does not like to be called that. Ortegas, to her credit, corrects herself and offers her semi-sincere apology for doubting his engineering skills. Oh, yeah… Scortegas is starting to come together.

Uhura gives her stamp of approval and agrees to let them borrow her tricorder. She’s going to regret that decision, though. They leave the party, and Scotty searches for the shuttle, which he quickly finds. In his drunken wisdom, he tosses the tricorder to Erica to show her, but she’s nowhere near where he thought she was, and the tricorder goes over the balcony and smashes on the ground below. Scotty is obviously a better engineer than he is an athlete.

On to Plan B. They can sneak into the security office and hack into the terminal to locate their missing shuttle. Scotty confesses he’s in no shape to hack anything, so they decide to try to enlist Spock’s help again. Even if he is as incapacitated as he says he is, he’s still a better option than anyone else in their party.

Spock (Reprise): Photosynthetic Technology

Ortegas and Scotty return to Spock’s room to find him pretty much the way they left him and are able to convince him to help. He follows them to the security office where they don’t see a terminal, but they do see a houseplant in the middle of a desk. Spock believes the resort is using photosynthetic technology and attempts a mind meld with a plant.

“My mind to your leaves. My thoughts to your root system.”

It actually works.

The Ficus actually shows Spock exactly where their shuttle is: on the roof, behind the resort’s billboard. That solves one problem but brings up another one; a biker gang has claimed the roof as their turf. They’re going to need back-up.

Spock taps out; he’s still hallucinating. Sure, he may seem fine, but when Ortegas and Scotty press him on it, he asks them if they’re both plants right now. Nope, Spock isn’t an option, but he does recommend enlisting La’an’s help. Apparently, she’s found ways to release some of that pent-up aggression, and she’s frightening some of the other tourists.

Once again, James Kirk pops out from around a corner. Spock is really freaking out now; there’s a lot going on inside that big brain of his, and it needs to come out. He has to talk to someone but admits he doesn’t know how to. He’s never had what he calls a “Human Best Friend.” In fact, Star Trek canon tells us he never had many friends at all growing up. Kirk tells him what he’s really talking about is someone he can trust to be vulnerable with and promises he’ll be that friend. Since Kirk isn’t really there, anyway, Spock relents and begins to open up to him.

La’an

Ortegas and Scotty find La’an in the process of turning a relaxing yoga class into an anbo-jyutsu self-defense class, and her students are… nervous. They didn’t sign up for this, but no one is brave/dumb enough to tell her that. They’re saved when Ortegas and Scotty explain their situation, and La’an, still itching for a fight, agrees to help.

They get to the roof and find the biker gang waiting for them. La’an quickly steps in and fights their leader for dominance, easily beating the crap out of him (maybe he likes it?). Now, however, she needs something to justify giving them the shuttle, even though the gang would have just given it to them in the first place. La’an grabs Scotty’s shirt and tells them she’ll explain that it has some sort of deep Earth cultural significance. Well, of course it does; it’s Scotty’s favorite shirt. The relationship between a man and his favorite shirt has been known to be sacrosanct. Unimpressed, La’an holds the shirt high in triumph, and Ortegas and Scotty can finally get to the shuttle.

One More Challenge

Now that they’ve found the shuttle, they need to find the Geotronic Processing Chip. That’s going to be harder than they thought, since all of Scotty’s tools are scattered all over the cabin, and someone has been messing with the console. Not to worry; one Fonzie-style pound on the console, and it perks right up. The chip turns out to be really close, but it’s moving away, then it’s closer again. Ortegas has hidden it in her cast (for some reason). The why isn’t important, though; they found it, and now they can go back to the ship.

Not so fast.

Two mysterious individuals throw black cloths over Ortegas and Scotty’s heads, knock them out, and kidnap them.

Stolen Eyeballs

The pair wake up each bound to a chair with the cloths still over their heads, which causes still-drunk Scotty to panic, believing the kidnappers also stole his eyeballs. A very disappointingly-sober Ortegas reminds him of the cloth, and they each shake theirs off, falling to the floor in the process.

We suddenly get more of a back story on Scotty’s character than we ever have. He explains to Erica that he grew up with six brothers (and a sister, right?), four of whom were adopted, but all of whom used to blame him for everything. Ortegas confesses she used to get her brother, Beto, in trouble on purpose, too. They also learned that each of their moms encouraged them to keep open hearts and love people as much as they could. They had more in common than they thought.

Their moment was interrupted by Dendru, who explained that they asked him, no, begged him, to keep them away from the shuttle. Kidnap them if they have to, which, of course, they did. This is really a full-service resort.

When asked why, Dendru explained that it wasn’t his journey to know that. He also explained, while he freed the pair, that he used to be angry a lot like Erica, but he changed his perspective and encouraged her to do the same. Maybe he has a point.

Before they left, Dendru asked if Ortegas and Scotty could please look in on their shipmate in Room C. Things were about to go down.

Room “C” for Chapel

Bingo is not a game for the faint of heart. The little old ladies who play take it very seriously. They know the rules (and how to get around them), and they don’t like losing to strangers.

This is where we find Chapel – the Bingo room. She’s been on a winning streak, and the locals won’t stand for much more of that. The Enterprise‘s head nurse has been antagonizing three seemingly-harmless old women (until their eyes glow red and they bare their fangs) to the point where they’re all on a first-name basis. Chapel jumps onto the table and challenges the ladies to bring it on.

Suddenly, La’an and her new biker gang friends burst in; they heard there was a fight. News travels fast.

Ortegas and Scotty realize they need to defuse the situation fast, so they grab their shipmates and run out of there with La’an still crying, “Avenge me!”

The crew, finally gathered, climb into the shuttle and head back to the ship. Pike reminds them that the vacation is over, and they’re back on duty. No matter how drunk they are, they are still Starfleet officers and will conduct themselves accordingly. And yes, this is very common in the U.S. Navy. I have personally driven a billion-dollar warship out of a harbor still drunk from the night before. I don’t recommend it.

Act Four: Formal Peachy

Back on the Enterprise and in uniform, Pike and his Number One arrive in the transporter room to greet the Rodaxians. Pike has to give a speech later, but he’s not worried about it; he got it tattooed on his face and hands so he wouldn’t forget it. The Rodaxians won’t notice, right?

The atmospheric intoxication clearly hasn’t worn off yet as Pike and Una shield their eyes from the light of the transporter beam. The Rodaxians greet the two officers with, “Formal hello,” thank Pike for his hospitality, and express their confusion regarding Pike’s eagerness to start the talks so soon. This causes Una to chuckle and mutter that she expected nothing less from her commanding officer. The Rodaxians don’t understand what’s happening and ask Una if she’s all right, to which she replies, “Formal peachy.”

That went well.

Scortegas

There’s still a shuttle to repair, so Scotty heads down to the shuttlebay to get to work. To Scotty’s surprise, Ortegas is already there working on the shuttle. Scotty begins working on the console next to her, and they begin to open up to each other.

Ortegas wanted to be an engineer when she joined the Academy but couldn’t get past Intro to Impulse Mechanics. She found her calling, though, and became the pilot we all know, but when Scotty started nit-picking at her flying, she took it personally.

Scotty, on the other hand, tries to avoid the helm as much as possible. During his academy days, he crashed seven shuttlecraft (now eight if you add the one from the Stardiver he crashed in “Hegemony, Part I”), so he’s always been a little jealous of pilots.

Of course, they have more in common than they thought.

Their sweet moment is interrupted, however, when Scotty opens a panel and finds something that shouldn’t be there – a bomb. He recognizes that the bomb has a reactive casing, meaning if he lets go, it goes off. Ortegas runs to find a little help from her friends.

Palm. Avocado. Bad.

Her friends are watching Captain Pike contort himself to read the speech tattooed on his hands and still aren’t sober yet. Ortegas tries to explain the situation, but Uhura is still on her own little journey, so she passes Ortegas’s message down the line.

Spock joins Ortegas as she’s returning to the shuttlebay and informs her that he got the message, “Palm. Avocado. Bad.” Spock is no stranger to the Telephone Game, and he quickly figured out that they meant that there’s a bomb on board the ship. Or, Ortegas was just referring to bad avocados, but he thought that was unlikely. He agrees to help her as best he can, but in all fairness, he warns her that she’s still a plant.

Back in the shuttle, Scotty is really starting to sweat. Ortegas and Spock come back, and Spock finds an isolinear chip on the shuttle’s floor. They play it, and it’s a drunken video message from Ortegas and Scotty to themselves warning themselves about the bomb on the shuttle, explaining everything, and explicitly told themselves not to fly the shuttle back to Enterprise.

While Scotty laments how much better that plan could’ve been, Spock scans the bomb and determines it’s a mix of quadrium and veruvium nitrate (Star Trek: Lower Decks fans know how dangerous veruvium can be).

They’re running out of time when the bomb starts to heat up. Scotty tells Ortegas and Spock to get out of the shuttle; he’ll fly it away from the Enterprise and save the ship. Ortegas rightly points out that his hands are a little full at the moment, so he’ll need her to fly the shuttle. Spock tells them he’ll be standing by in the transporter room to beam them out a zeptosecond (it’s a thing) before the bomb explodes.

Hallucination, Begone!

In the transporter room, Spock remarks that he could use an extra pair of hands to help with the controls. As if summoned from Spock’s mind, James Kirk steps up to the controls and starts pressing buttons.

Spock has had it with hallucinations. First, his ex tries to kill him; now, he keeps seeing Jim Kirk, and he doesn’t have time to deal with this. Kirk spins Spock toward him and slaps him hard across the face. Kirk wasn’t a hallucination; he was real. And Spock was more confused than ever. Still, Ortegas and Scotty were counting on him, and he had a job to do.

Ortegas flies the shuttle to a safe distance, and she and Scotty wait for the inevitable. They both agree they’ve been unfair to each other, and they would have been friends if their lives hadn’t been cut short.

You Guys!

Back at Pike’s speech, the captain is finishing his remarks. The speech was not well-received by the Rodaxians. They saw his contortions as insults to their culture. In short, they’re pissed.

Pike interrupts them when he sees the shuttle flying out of the shuttlebay. Soon, everyone’s attention is on the beige, boxy, Federation-issue craft flying away from the ship. Before anyone can ask what’s going on, the shuttle explodes in a brilliant display of light and fireworks.

The Enterprise crew members are in shock. Did they just watch a couple of their friends blow up? The Rodaxians, however, change their tune. The explosion happened to be the same as their Formal Rite of Peace, but they weren’t expecting Enterprise to perform the rite, since quadrium is really hard to come by. Relieved that the Rodaxians aren’t mad anymore, Pike grabs them in a group hug with a, “You guys!”

All is well. The peace talks can begin.

Thumbs Up

Ortegas and Scotty weren’t on the shuttle when it blew up. Spock was able to beam them out, and they were now trying to get their bearings. They both look fine, until Scotty holds up his hand with his thumb hanging on by a tiny piece of flesh. As the pair leave to get Scotty to sickbay, Ortegas finally notices Jim Kirk standing at the transporter console and acknowledges him with, “Oh! Hey, Kirk!”

Now, Spock is really confused. How did Jim Kirk get there?

After their harrowing incident on the Griffin, Kirk needed a vacation, too. We can’t really blame him; anyone would need a break after seeing their brother get turned inside out and getting impaled by an ex-crush. Kirk just happened to be there when Spock needed him most, and he was happy to help. While Spock replayed every potentially embarrassing secret he told the younger Kirk brother, Jim promises him he has nothing to worry about. Spock punctuates the moment when he asks, “Are you going to hug me again?” Kirk responds with, “Do you want me to?”

The look in Spock’s eyes said yes, he did, but his Vulcan demeanor wouldn’t let him admit it.

Denouement

Alpha shift finally sobers up and gathers in the bar for a little hair o’ the dog and to compare notes. The only unanswered question revolved around Ortegas’s dragon Spock overheard her yelling about.

That was a “Dragon Bomb” that was supposed to mist a little extra atmosphere and get everyone in the room a little higher. Ortegas grabbed it for herself and presumably took it with her when she went to fix the shuttle, winding up doing the whole thing with Scotty.

That’ll do it.

It’s time to move onto another adventure, which means Ortegas is back at the helm. One of Scotty’s warnings flashes on her console again, but instead of ignoring it, she seeks permission from Pike to go down to Engineering, which he gladly grants.

Erica walks into Engineering and finally sees firsthand what pushing the engines causes in Scotty’s space. She concedes that she doesn’t have to push the ship hard every time. In turn, Scotty concedes as well, providing a little more power to the impulse engines to give Erica a little extra kick. Having gained more of an understanding for the engineer, Erica promises Scotty she won’t let him down. Scotty, without a shred of doubt, replies, “I know ya won’t.”

Thus, a new friendship, Scortegas, is born.

Final Report

“Human Best Friend” is a much-needed hilarious break in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ fourth season. Every time I watch it, there’s something new to laugh at.

• This was an extremely accurate portrayal of what often happens when a U.S. Navy crew takes shore leave.
• We learn more about Scotty’s background than ever. The closest Trekkies ever got to learning anything about Scotty’s family was in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the Director’s Cut, when Scotty introduces Cadet Peter Preston as “my sister’s youngest.” In the episode, however, Scotty only mentions six brothers, which may be a continuity error.
• The Easter eggs were abundant. Here’s what I found. I’m sure I missed some.
  • When Ortegas wakes up in her room, she’s wearing a set of novelty Andorian antennae with the left antenna broken off. (Star Trek: Enterprise, “Babel One”)
  • A tribble (Star Trek: The Original Series, “The Trouble with Tribbles”)
  • A remote-controlled toy (Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Rascals”)
  • “What is it?” “It’s green.” (Star Trek: The Original Series, “By Any Other Name,” Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Relics”)
  • Anbo jyutsu (Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Icarus Factor”)
  • Krog on the Rocks poster (Star Trek: Lower Decks, “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel”)
  • Mugato costume (Star Trek: The Original Series, “A Private Little War”)
  • Alfa 177 canine (Star Trek: The Original Series, “The Enemy Within”)
  • Veruvium bomb (Star Trek: Lower Decks, “wej Duj”)
• Klingon power ballads are my new favorite sub-sub-genre in music. I want to hear the other 14 Una had selected.

Watch season four of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds every Thursday on Paramount+ through September 24.