Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-4. Spoilers are also present for The Original Series and The Search for Spock.
In the lead-up to Strange New Worlds’ fourth season, much was made of this idea of “big swings” across the ten episodes; i.e. that there’d be episodes in completely different genres, with the show jumping from one to another and trying out completely different styles of storytelling. And after last week’s ghost story? Well, Human Best Friend was *definitely* a “big swing!”
At its core, if you strip away all of the drunkenness, partying, and other fluff, Human Best Friend is a character piece that saw Scotty and Ortegas bring their (short) feud to a climax and then figure out a way to work together. That side of the story genuinely worked well – though I would caveat that, at least a little, by saying that the setup to this feud was both short and felt pretty arbitrary in the first two episodes of the season. But I think Human Best Friend will be most remembered for its lightheartedness and sense of fun – and I really did have fun with this story!
Photo: TrekMovie
I don’t think any individual moment or scene in Human Best Friend eclipsed the high points in either Valles Marineris or The Griffin Incident, by which I mean both of those episodes had genuinely fantastic highlights – the visual beauty of prehistoric Earth, or the shocking twists and turns aboard the wreck of the Griffin. But, as you’ll know if you’ve read my reviews, both of those episodes also came with significant weaknesses. Valles Marineris was so overstuffed with ideas that it didn’t manage to do justice to the “dinosaur episode” idea that I felt had been teased in pre-season marketing, and The Griffin Incident came with a fundamentally unsatisfying lack of an ending. In contrast, while the high points of Human Best Friend may not soar quite as high as its two immediate predecessors, it comes with basically none of their flaws, either, making it a better all-rounder – and, I would argue, the first genuinely *good* episode of Season 4.
What was nice about Human Best Friend when compared to a lot of modern Star Trek – including in Strange New Worlds itself – was that the episode didn’t need to have some giant existential threat hovering over the Federation or the whole galaxy. Even the final act’s bomb plot really only impacted a couple of characters – and it never felt like a true threat (for reasons I’ll elaborate on later). This is something I’ve said before when talking about modern Trek: you don’t need to put the entire galaxy in danger to tell a story that’s worth following. I got invested in Scotty and Ortegas’ quest to locate their missing shuttle because it was… fun. And I know Star Trek’s streaming era is coming to a close, but I hope that’s a lesson that the franchise can truly take to heart one day.
Human Best Friend might’ve found a stronger foundation to build upon if we’d heard more about this conflict between the Enterprise’s different shifts before. I don’t remember Strange New Worlds so much as mentioning “alpha shift” and “beta shift” until this episode – though there have been similar references in other Star Trek stories, on occasion. We also don’t know any of the characters who might be part of any of the Enterprise’s other shift rotations, so again, there just wasn’t much to this idea that “those guys got shore leave, so we need it too.”
Where the setup worked, though, was in showing how several members of the crew seemed tired and overworked. Some of this felt a tad exaggerated in the opening montage at the bar; Chapel breaking a glass and La’an and Spock seemingly having some kind of “domestic squabble” seemed to come from nowhere. What might’ve been stronger, perhaps, would’ve been to lean into what happened last time and use *that* as the excuse to divert to a shore leave planet; a couple of lines in Pike’s log could’ve said something like: “After the shocking tragedy aboard the USS Griffin, I’ve determined that a short diversion on the way to our negotiations will give the crew some much-needed shore leave…”
We could start from basically the same place, but without a few moments at the beginning that felt just a little contrived. Is it a huge deal for the episode? Not at all – but worth mentioning, I feel!
Star Trek has always included planets and aliens that, to be blunt, don’t make a ton of sense if you think about them too hard! And the shore leave planet of Cesnar in Human Best Friend, with an atmosphere that makes you drunk? It’s the latest part of a storied tradition of Star Trek being weird and wacky, and in that sense I really liked it as a concept!
It’s also interesting, if you think about it a bit more deeply, that both the planet of Cesnar and the wreck of the USS Griffin from last week’s outing are both settings that cause changes to characters’ mental states. In this case, it was clearly explained from the start that the planet’s unique atmosphere is to blame; The Griffin Incident didn’t come up with an in-universe reason for its ghostly shenanigans. But it’s still noteworthy, I feel, that – despite “big swings” in terms of tone, style, and genre – we got two episodes in a row that both rely on the same “mind-altering” underlying premise. It’s a way for both episodes to feel connected, like their stories conceivably take place in a consistent setting.
Sticking with Cesnar, I felt that the sets used to depict the planet and its luxury resort were… fine. But they weren’t spectacular, and there were a couple of places where either set redresses seemed pretty obvious – like the bar – or where sets used to depict the inside of the resort didn’t really line up with the exterior, which was a wholly CGI creation. Several of the hotel rooms just looked kinda… generic. If Strange New Worlds was a modern-day series – or this episode was supposed to involve time travel to the 2020s – I’d have just rolled with it. But this futuristic 23rd Century luxury resort on a planet with a funky atmosphere that causes strange effects looked a lot like a modern-day three- or four-star hotel, with a few Enterprise sets redressed for good measure.
The exterior shots which established Cesnar were pretty good, though, and I thought the creations matched the planet’s “Risa but with more booze” idea. There were some creative CGI moments in the story; I particularly liked the shot of the missing shuttle parked on top of a skyscraper, semi-obscured by a billboard. That kind of method of “hiding” something was truly in keeping with the episode’s inebriated characters! It was both a great effort and also kinda silly, which I appreciated.
We’ll cycle through the other main characters first, then come to Scotty and Ortegas in a moment, since their storyline was the main focus of the story.
Captain Pike getting a tattoo was a fun idea. I wish we could’ve seen more of the tattoo he was getting on his arm, as I think the glimpse we got looked really neat – and I can see that kinda thing being something fans would want to recreate (either impermanently for cosplay or perhaps even more permanently!) And in an episode where drunken shenanigans were a big part of the story for most of the characters, it was fun to see Pike joining in, and not locking himself in his room with a padd and trying to get some work done.
It’s a relative rarity, in Star Trek as a whole, to see characters off-duty – captains even more so. Some of my favourite moments with Picard came from stories like Captain’s Holiday, where we got to see some of the things he actually enjoys doing in his time off. And though it was completely different in tone, I got some of that from Anson Mount’s take on Pike this week. Here was the captain, who’s been so focused on his ship and his job – going all the way back to his first appearance in The Cage, where he lamented the weight of command – finally just… letting go of it all, even if it was just for an evening. I liked it.
Uhura got a pretty typical “let your hair down and unwind” sub-plot. Literally: her hairstyling in this episode was pretty fun! Her mini-arc took her from “but I like working and I’ve got so much to do!” to “let’s just party!” and it was pretty well-executed. It was basic, but for something that wasn’t the episode’s major focus, I think it worked quite well. And her costume in this story was great, too. I liked the kind of “retro” rave aesthetic that her design leaned into.
We know that Uhura can dance – and likes to dance. Just look at Star Trek V: The Final Frontier for an example of Uhura’s dancing being plot-relevant! And her scenes this week felt like they naturally followed on from last season’s Wedding Bell Blues and What Is Starfleet?, which also gave us some off-duty moments with Uhura.
A relatively minor part of the episode, but a good one nonetheless.
Una got even less of a “story” than any of the others, really – we really only saw her singing on stage. But you know what? I love this entire sequence, and the callback to it during the closing credits!
I’m a big Bonnie Tyler fan – she passed away just a few weeks ago, may she rest in peace – and her music was just such a perfect choice for this kind of moment. First of all, props to Paramount for licensing a *modern* (okay, modern-ish) pop song for an episode of Star Trek for once, instead of relying on out-of-copyright trad-pop numbers! But also… Klingon power ballads? It just makes so much sense that you almost wonder why it’s never been tried before!
We’ve had Klingon opera for a long time. And, thanks to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, we also know that Klingons have a penchant for Shakespeare! But this warrior culture would surely have more than one musical genre, right? Power ballads are just a great fit for the Klingons, and it kinda makes me want: 1) a full recording of this song as an MP3, and 2) an entire album of Klingon covers of power ballads! We could have Livin’ on a Prayer, Don’t Stop Believin’, It’s All Coming Back To Me Now… I mean, you’d buy that album, wouldn’t you?
I liked how Una’s singing also connected back to her role in the Short Treks mini-episode Q&A. If you’ve forgotten, Q&A was a flashback to a young Ensign Spock’s first moments aboard the Enterprise – and it ended with he and Una singing while stuck in a turbolift. I wish Star Trek had done more with Short Treks… there was a lot of potential in it as an idea! But these sequences with Una, short though they were, harkened back to that and felt in keeping with her character.
Dr M’Benga got a turn playing bartender, and again this was a short but fun sequence. It reminded me of The Cage, in a way, where Dr Boyce played barkeep and counsellor to Captain Pike – though obviously with a very different tone. There was also a fun little callback to The Next Generation, where Data presented Scotty with a drink with the line: “it is green,” which M’Benga also said here.
I think too many references or callbacks like that could overwhelm a production, so I’m glad Strange New Worlds doesn’t overdo it! But for long-time fans, small moments like that go a long way to tying different parts of Star Trek together. It’s now canon, if you want to be fussy about such things, that Scotty was *twice* served an unknown green alcoholic beverage!
As above with Pike, it was fun to see Dr M’Benga – who’s usually quite serious – letting his hair down, having fun, and not even caring if he messed up or smashed a bottle.
Chapel’s bingo sequence was funny – but I didn’t really get the aliens she was facing off against. They looked like Vulcans at first, but then seemed to have Ferengi-like teeth, before going almost vampiric when they became hostile. I actually would like to know more about those aliens, because even in such a short appearance, they made a pretty big impression!
Otherwise, though, Chapel being hyper-competitive in such a completely low-stakes environment made for a fun little set-piece, and seeing her carried out of the room as La’an’s group and the bingo players descended on one another was… I mean, it made for a funny visual presentation, and was one of those laugh-out-loud moments that Human Best Friend managed to do really well.
La’an’s story was interesting. Maybe you’ll say I’m overreaching with this, but I felt the Cesnar atmosphere seeming to heighten her inclination towards violence actually furthers a theme we’ve been seeing this season – and, I would argue, going back to Season 3 with her Romulan turn, too. Obviously this was more in focus last week, where La’an succumbed to… whatever was going on aboard the wreck of the USS Griffin, fully giving in to a violent streak that she fears is part of her latent augment DNA. But this time, we saw her also losing her composure, thanks to the atmosphere, and once more going down that violent path.
My theory for this season, by the way, is that this “augment DNA” storyline will – somehow – lead to the end of La’an’s time aboard the Enterprise. It seems too much of a coincidence that it arose now, with the show moving “one step closer to where it all began.” Lest we forget, La’an has left the Enterprise by the time of Kirk’s five-year mission.
If I’m right, La’an’s story this week furthers her overall arc across the season – losing control, giving in to violent impulses, fearing what that might mean, and potentially seeing her dormant augment genes “awaken” somehow. If that isn’t part of the plan, though… I think it could’ve been a lot of fun to put La’an in a totally different situation. Maybe she could’ve sung karaoke with Una, been at the bar with M’Benga, or partied with Uhura. But I’d have done something a bit different, if I had the choice!
La’an is another workaholic, like Pike, M’Benga, and so on. But she’s also the security officer with a traumatic Gorn past. I’d have liked to put La’an in a totally different – and much softer – mini-story, something that saw her relaxing and unwinding in an unexpected way for her character. Maybe she could’ve had a spa day, or something like that! You see what I mean, right? It would’ve been a twist on what we might’ve expected – but, as I said, I think there are bigger reasons for her to be shown in this kind of light given her potential arc this season.
That brings us to Spock… and Kirk.
I’ll level with you: I did *not* see the “Kirk actually isn’t a hallucination” twist coming! And I was totally prepared to sit here and write about how it wasn’t exactly strong world-building to say that Spock’s opinion of Kirk is at least partially based on a hallucination that he had on a shore leave planet. But then we got a last-second twist: that Kirk actually was really there all along, and that Spock simply believed that he was hallucinating him because of the effects of the planet’s atmosphere. This was creative, clever, and – for me, anyway – it worked really well!
Spock’s other hallucinations – that Scotty and Ortegas were plants – was such a stupid non-sequitur that it made me laugh out loud both times it appeared. I didn’t think the episode would actually depict both characters *as* plants, but it was such a dumb and ridiculous visual that it caught me completely off-guard. Oh, and Spock “mind-melding” with a plant – complete with a spin on the typical mind-meld line – was another genuinely funny moment. I guess there’s still a tiny bit of room for “Spock comedy” in Strange New Worlds, after all.
If La’an’s role this week continued a theme that’s part of her season-long arc, so did Spock’s. If we use that tagline again – that Season 4 is going to “boldly go one step closer to where it all began” – then establishing the Kirk-Spock bond is going to be part of that. We saw their first canonical meeting last season, and we’ve since had a couple of episodes where that friendship is strengthened. Spock referenced their mind-meld from the end of Season 3, and I liked this continuation of their friendship.
In my review of New Life and New Civilizations, I said that it would feel kind of underwhelming if Strange New Worlds was going to say that Kirk’s close, brotherly bond with Spock was nothing more than the lingering after-effects of a Vulcan mind-meld. So I’m glad that this season is building on that, referring to it where it makes narrative sense, but not leaning on it as the exclusive reason for Kirk and Spock becoming so close. Though you could argue, I guess, that their friendship being partly built on a misunderstanding (that Spock thought he was hallucinating when he wasn’t) is no better! It’s a sitcom cliché in a way; a character says something aloud, not expecting or realising that the person is really there and able to hear it all. But I still think it’s better than a mind-meld, and for a one-off comedic storyline that *probably* won’t come up again in a big way, I think we can give it a pass. It made me laugh, anyway.
So that brings us neatly to Scotty and Ortegas – the main duo that Human Best Friend focused on.
As I said above, and in my review of the season premiere, I kind of felt that Scotty and Ortegas’ rivalry pretty much came out of nowhere. They were never friends before this season, sure, but I just didn’t feel they’d spent enough time together on screen to really justify that kind of rivalry. I even speculated, when reviewing Valles Marineris, that the writers might’ve been setting up a “rivals-to-lovers” kind of storyline, with Ortegas and Scotty following Pike and Batel, Spock and T’Pring, Spock and Chapel, Spock and La’an, and others to become Strange New Worlds’ next power couple. That seems not to be on the table any more – though I suppose this new friendship could still blossom into something more.
The arc they got over the course of Human Best Friend was a fairly straightforward “enemies become friends” plot, complicated only by the weird goings-on on this strange alien world. It played out almost like a comedy film, in parts, with even the rivalry between the two characters coming over as less-than-serious. Given that we want to see both Ortegas and Scotty as protagonists, letting the story unfold in a way that neither of them seemed annoying, unfair, or like they were instigating things was definitely the right call.
We got the comedy cliché of “two characters who hate each other wake up next to each other,” and that made for a fun start. At first, it seemed to reinforce my “enemies to lovers” theory from a couple of weeks ago! But it definitely gave both Scotty and Ortegas a genuinely fun adventure, starting out with a hangover and no memories of the night before… I mean, we’ve all been there, right? Remind me to tell you one day about the time I woke up next to a dumpster!
I also really liked Scotty’s shirt. We talked a bit about costuming with Uhura a moment ago, and her costume was definitely neat. Dr M’Benga and Una also got some fun outfits. Scotty’s shirt was *definitely* a modern-day thing – you couldn’t get away with calling that anything other than the kind of silly shirt people would wear nowadays! But it was a fun design, it suited him, and Martin Quinn wore it well. I liked the “outer space” theming, and again, as with a recording of Una’s songs or Pike’s tattoo, I could see the shirt being something fans would want to own and wear at conventions!
Scotty and Ortegas’ quest took them across the resort, and gave us those little vignettes with all of the other members of the crew. Their initial goal – to deliver the letter to Pike – was so incredibly basic, but it worked really well as an excuse to explore the resort and see what everyone was up to. Then when they had to locate the missing shuttle, the tension did ramp up a notch or two – and this is where we got to see a bit more action, albeit that Human Best Friend kept that same lighthearted and comedic tone.
The mystery of who took the shuttle fed into both characters’ dislike of one another, and it was pretty creative how each of them could be both in the wrong and in the right at the same time; the blame for the missing shuttle and the potentially compromised negotiations seemed to fall on one, then the other, then both of them. And this was in keeping with the episode’s core message for Scotty and Ortegas: that insecurities led to this dislike of one another, that they were each overreacting to perfectly understandable behaviour from the other side, and that they’re not only on the same team, but they even come from similar backgrounds. Star Trek has done stories like this before, but the way it was handled here was particularly smooth – the writers really seem to have thought of everything to make this “rivalry-turned-friendship” arc stick the landing.
I think I’m right in saying that Scotty’s family and background weren’t ever explored in The Original Series and its films, so there’s plenty of scope to pad out the character with new revelations without treading on the toes of what came before. The same is true for Ortegas – she’s still, really, the main character we’ve spent the least amount of time with across the three-and-a-bit seasons of the show so far. So giving both of them effectively the same Starfleet background (only from opposite angles) was a creative idea and a fun way to help them find common ground.
We tend to look at characters and see them fully-formed – of course Scotty’s an engineer, so he must’ve *always* wanted to be one. And for Ortegas, because she’s so natural and skilled at piloting, we just assume that it’s – for want of a better term – her “calling” in life. But I think it humanises both characters, and makes them feel more real and more well-rounded, to know that they didn’t start out just knowing, innately, where their skills were best utilised.
How many folks reading this review right now started out thinking that you’d want to be a teacher or a chef or a professional golfer – only to come to the realisation that it wasn’t right for you, or that the “dream job” didn’t align with your skillset? And how many of us started a job, changed jobs, changed again, and took a while to settle? I don’t want to say those things are “universal” – I know a few people who knew what they wanted to do in life from the age of ten and went on to achieve it! But I think it’s fair to say that I know a lot *more* people who had an idea, tried it out, didn’t stick the landing for whatever reason, and ultimately moved on to something else.
I know I’ve done that more than once in my life.
And I think there’s something about saying that Scotty had dreams of being a pilot, or that Ortegas once aspired to be an engineer that really makes both of them feel more like real people. Sure, it’s a bit of a convenient way to push them closer together for the sake of this one episode, and that’s a point of criticism I’d expect some long-time Trekkies to make. But for me, I just really liked the way this came across; even though it’s arguably not the most original storyline, it was well-executed. And anything that adds to the depth that these characters have is a net positive.
All of their chasing around and bickering back-and-forth eventually led to them making it back to the Enterprise in time for the peace talks that served as little more than the background to the episode. But it also set up one last twist: the bomb aboard the shuttle!
I’ll be honest: I kind of rolled my eyes a little when I realised that Scotty was holding a bomb. I mean, it just seemed like such a clichéd way to take this kind of “frenemies” storyline to an extreme – and I was also *convinced* that it would be revealed to be just another of the Cesnar Grand’s illusions before the credits rolled. I was still sure of that even as Scotty and Ortegas flew their shuttle away from the Enterprise and Pike tried to give his speech to the delegates.
So when it turned out that Human Best Friend was playing this final act about as straight as possible, under the circumstances… well, I was surprised! It seemed like such a trope, but both Melissa Navia and Martin Quinn played their roles so earnestly that I actually really enjoyed this way of ending their story and bringing them closer together. And on a second watch, knowing what was going on? I think it works even better.
On the visual side of things, I wanted to highlight the cute little Animated Series-inspired clips that played near the beginning of the episode as part of the Cesnar Grand’s advertisement. The animators were clearly leaning into The Animated Series for inspiration; we even caught sight of an Edosian, which was really fun to see. Again, I like when Star Trek harkens back to its past in small ways – especially in this big anniversary year. A few years ago, Very Short Treks even showed off some TAS-style mini-episodes, which were a lot of fun.
The main character from the Cesnar Grand, though, seemed to be set up as some kind of big antagonist-slash-ally… but nothing ever really came of that. In fact, the character – who could’ve been fun if we’d spend much time with him – just felt like a bit of a non-entity in the story. He clearly pulled the strings behind the scenes, setting things up so that everyone would get the right kind of shore leave experience: be that something cathartic, some relaxation, or just blowing off steam. But as a character in a story, I just didn’t really get much of anything from him, to be honest.
So that was Human Best Friend.
A fine addition to Strange New Worlds, and an episode I’ll happily revisit when I want a self-contained Star Trek story that doesn’t take itself too seriously! It’s definitely a “big swing” from the time travel adventure of the season premiere and last week’s spooky ghost story, but that’s in keeping with what we’ve come to expect from Strange New Worlds, isn’t it? The show is happy to be more episodic, to dip its toes into different genres and different kinds of storytelling. Or, as in this case, to enthusiastically jump into this kind of unashamedly comedic story.
I didn’t really know what to expect when I sat down to watch Human Best Friend, but I found a lot of things to enjoy. Some sub-plots – like the instigating diplomatic negotiations – didn’t feel fully fleshed-out, and I can see that being a point of criticism. But as a character piece looking at Scotty and Ortegas, it was genuinely well-constructed and well-written. And plenty of smaller moments throughout the story, from beginning to end, literally had me laughing out loud.
Next week, we have an episode titled A Case of Chiaroscuro. Some of you might’ve already been able to watch it; the episode allegedly “leaked” prematurely on some international Paramount+ platforms a few days ago. This episode is, if I’m remembering correctly, a “noir-inspired” story, and the blurb seems to hint at Una being involved with a world under Klingon occupation. Sounds interesting, and another “big swing” after this week’s comedy story! I hope you’ll join me for that review, too.
I hope you enjoyed Human Best Friend as much as I did. On the whole, it’s my favourite of the three stories we’ve seen so far in Season 4 – not because it’s exceptional, or anything, but because it was focused on its two main characters and stayed consistent in tone. Star Trek can be funny, Star Trek has always been funny, and it’s nice – every once in a while – to see our characters let their hair down and have a bit of fun, even when things don’t go *entirely* to plan.
Thanks for reading, and as always… Live Long and Prosper, friends!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-4 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform is available. The first three seasons are also available on DVD and/or Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Strange New Worlds and all other properties discussed above – is the copyright of the Skydance-Paramount corporation. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 