Best Lines from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 6, “Off-Hour”

There weren’t a lot of laughs to be had when Star Trek: Strange New Worlds took on the “real-time” disaster genre, where the Enterprise got pulled into a spatial anomaly that threatened to accelerate it past the warp threshold.

For those who remember, Tom Paris did this on Star Trek: Voyager Season 2 Episode 15, “Threshold,” and got turned into a salamander for his troubles.

Fun fact: The theory is that if an object were to cross the warp threshold by exceeding Warp 10, the object would then exist everywhere in the universe simultaneously, resulting in complete disintegration.

That’s probably something even Pelia wouldn’t be eager to experience.

However, the situation is rife with great lines that underscore the personal perspectives of various crew members on the disaster and their reactions in a crisis.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Goes “Off-Hour”

There are three main arenas of action on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 6, “Off-Hour.”

There’s the sickbay, where M’Benga and Chapel’s emotionally charged conversation is interrupted when he’s nearly cut in half by a med-table.

A large part of the crew is stuck in the Port Galley, where they started their “weekend.”

And then there’s Scotty, and everywhere he goes, which doesn’t include Engineering, which gets shut down due to radiation and is now full of dead people.

Chapel and M’Benga: The Honeymoon is Over

M’Benga’s been hinting that he’s planning to move on for a while. When he tells Chapel he requested Dr. Boyce’s transfer to the Enterprise, she suspects something is up.

When she says she’ll leave if he leaves, M’Benga calls her out for her lack of commitment to any assignment.

M’Benga: You have a good situation here. You’re liked and respected. You’re doing important work. Yet you still have one foot out the door, as you always do.

She doesn’t think that’s fair since he’s the one leaving.

Chapel: I’m just keeping my options open!

M’Benga: That’s always your answer. Whenever things get real, you run.

And that’s when things get real.

Pinned by a med-table that’s locked into place around him, effectively keeping his internal organs from spilling out and keeping him alive, M’Benga is a medical impossibility.

Chapel keeps a cool head and refuses to give in to despair.

Chapel: Do me a favor? Don’t move.

M’Benga: I have nowhere to be.

While she’s formulating plans, he’s figuring out his situation.

When she refuses to follow Dr. Boyce’s orders, M’Benga’s pleas and demands that she save herself are also brushed aside.

M’Benga: Delaying’s only making things harder.

Chapel: You are really in a hurry to die all alone, aren’t you?

Eventually, he recognizes that he’d like someone by his side if this is his final bow.

Chapel: You can be mad. You can be as mad as you like. I am not going anywhere. 

M’Benga: I would appreciate it if you didn’t, actually. 

Their long association and deep respect for each other’s abilities form a foundation that even an emotionally charged argument and disagreement can’t shake.

She comes up with the plan. He doesn’t have much hope in the plan, but I suspect he believes in her.

Chapel: When the heat’s back, I restart your heart. And we’re back in action.

M’Benga: If we get the data from the pod. If the theory even works. Otherwise, you die too.

Chapel: Add it to my list of questionable life choices.

But just in case, he makes his peace with her.

M’Benga: I need to say this in case… I never imagined I’d go out this way, but I’m grateful I’m not alone. And that my final moments are with a friend. 

Chapel: Except that you’re not dying. You are not dying.

Things come together to avert disaster in sickbay, thanks to Chapel’s refusal to stand down and give up.

She risks her life, sacrifices a fingertip, and rewrites the laws of physics. But saving M’Benga convinces her that she’s where she needs to be.

Meanwhile, in the Port Galley

La’an, Una, and Spock are getting their R&R time started when the ship hits the slipstream.

As they are unable to move from the Port Galley to join the crew on the bridge, they have to collaborate and assist as best they can from where they are.

Spock, being the Science Officer, analyzes the situation and conveys it as best he can.

Spock: The scan indicates extremely rare neutrino currents moving at warp speed, suctioning anything that crosses its wake.

Ortegas: So we got yanked off course by a giant… vacuum cleaner?

Spock: Imagine one that spans countless light-years and flows with lethally radioactive dust

Una: Imagine it? We’re in it.

When gravity goes haywire, things start crashing to the ground, and the piano gets pancaked by G-forces.

Spock: We may be able to override gravity from here. Manual controls are in a panel on the far wall.

Una: I’ll go.

Spock: Unfortunately, that is where g-forces are most intense. They may already be intolerable.

Una: Then let’s hope I’m stronger than a piano.

Unfortunately, her leg bone isn’t. OMG, so much ick.

When Spock undertakes the space walk at warp to the ion pod, things get messy.

In a callback to Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 Episode 20, “Court Martial,” Pike is forced to jettison the ion pod without knowing if Spock has made it to safety.

La’an insists on spacewalking out to the ion pod bay to see if he’s still out there.

Una: La’an, it doesn’t have to be you!

La’an: It should’ve been me in the first place. I’m more expendable than Spock.

Una: I refuse to dignify that with a response.

Fortunately, La’an’s optimism pays off, and she retrieves a badly irradiated Spock and an even more damaged data chip.

Luckily, Spock has the information in his head and a mindmeld solves the problem.

Skipping ahead, Scotty’s got no problem with mindmeld-retrieved data.

Scotty: I trust a Vulcan’s memory as much as any computer.

Montgomery Scott, Ship-Whisperer-in-the-Making

As I’ve observed before, Scotty’s had a lot going on this season. “Off-Hour” gives him the chance to really connect with the Enterprise and learn to trust himself.

Others already depend on him more than they probably express regularly to his face.

Ortegas: I need an engineer pronto, or it’s right back to nosebleed city.

Uhura: I’m trying to raise someone, but coms are down on half the ship.

Ortegas: Did you try Pelia?

Uhura: Repeatedly. Even Scotty’s not answering and he always picks up.

Ortegas: Yeah. Even at weird hours. I wonder if he ever sleeps.

Uhura: I’m sure he’s fine.

To give him space to learn, he is teamed up with the one crew member with even less seniority and experience than he has, Cadet A’Sha.

This leads to some of the best lines of the episode, honestly, as A’Sha’s Vulcan-ness provides a deadpan baseboard for Scotty’s histrionics.

Scotty: I need to get to Engineering only the lift’s conveniently [kicks the lift doors] out of service.

A’Sha: I do not believe kicking addressed the problem. May I suggest the transporter? There is one on this level and no kicking is required.

Although she appears unflappable, she isn’t quite confident enough in her replies to feel condescending. I think she’s honestly offering options she thinks might help Scotty.

Scotty: Damn useless bucket of bolts!

A’Sha: Would it help if I lie and pretend coms are functional?

Scotty: No, it would help if you fix them!

And some questions are perfectly appropriate to the context of the conversation, if not the exact situation.

Scotty: It’s Choose Your Disaster Day! Whatever affects one problem then causes another, worse problem.

A’Sha: Is this a human holiday I am unaware of?

It isn’t logical to give in to despair. A’Sha is the perfect crewmate to help Scotty as he spirals.

Even if he’s not super appreciative in the moment.

Scotty: Pelia would know what to do.

A’Sha: Until coms to her quarters are restored, it is impossible to consult her.

Scotty: I can hear her in my head. “Pick something we won’t die without.”

A’Sha: In that case, I recommend shutting down life support.

Scotty: Oh, great idea, cadet. Air is overrated.

Together, they can patch together some solutions to the smaller problems at hand.

However, the truth of the situation lands like a lead balloon.

Scotty: Turns out this slipstream is like a warp slingshot. The longer we’re in it, the faster we go, and at the rate we’re flying, it’ll push us beyond the warp threshold.

Ortegas: Scotty, no offence, speaking as a pilot to the smartest engineer I know, isn’t that impossible? If we cross the warp threshold, we…

Scotty: … disintegrate into bits of space-time. The best pilot in the galaxy can’t outfly that. Not even you, Erica.

Pelia FTW

Once Pelia’s looped into communications, things really get rolling.

Like Chapel, Pelia refuses to believe there isn’t a way out.

Scotty: How do we find a way out of this nightmare with no eyes?

Pelia: We find new eyes. What about the ion pod?

Scotty: You want to send some poor soul out to that tube of horrors?

Pelia: Well, its purpose is to take readings when sensors fail.

Scotty: In ion storms! This is a completely different emergency.

Pelia: We’ll recalibrate it for neutrinos. Well, you will.

Scotty: Pelia, Engineering’s sealed. Someone will have to do a spacewalk at warp just to reach the damn thing.

Pelia: I never claimed it would be a vacation. But if we maintain a stable warp bubble, they’ll have a chance at surviving. A very small one. But a chance.

Trapped in her (incredibly spacious and insanely cluttered) quarters, Pelia talks Scotty through the worst of his panic. Sort of.

Pelia: Great idea harnessing strong force neutrinos from the slipstream. Ah, now that is turning lemons into lemonade. Actually, you know lemons are a hybrid. They didn’t exist before us. Life never gave us lemons. We demanded them! I know. I was there. Funny story, there was this nice lady in India who made the most refreshing brunch drinks. I think her name was Hajinder. 

Scotty: WHAT?

Pelia: I’m trying to distract you. How am I doing?

Scotty: You’re freakin’ me out.

Since distraction doesn’t seem to be working, and believing they may be minutes away from disintegrating (they don’t know about the salamander thing, remember?), she addresses his crisis of confidence in the ship.

Pelia: Talk to me, Scotty.

Scotty: It’s Enterprise. This ship is supposed to keep us alive in the blackness of space, but it’s doing just the opposite. She glitched when we needed her most. She put us in this pickle. We lost good members of our crew.

Pelia: Every ship glitches. Every ship. 

Scotty: After the Stardiver… I just can’t keep doing this.

Pelia: Yes, you can. I’ll tell you why. Because starships are also capable of miracles. If you listen. You have to be aware of everything around you. You have to hear what’s happening in the bones of the ship. Even when the computer fails to give you a critical warning. Especially then. You have to be a miracle worker. 

Scotty: Okay. I’m not freakin’ out anymore. As much.

With all her Doctor Who references and tangential observations, it’s easy to underestimate Pelia’s abilities.

However, her lived experience and time at the Academy anchor her teaching in care for her pupils and in a belief in their skills, even when they’re accusing their ship of trying to kill them.

Scotty: Scott to Pelia. I think I’m running out of oxygen.

Pelia: No, I had Cadet A’Sha double and triple-check. You have enough air for at least one hour.

Scotty: And what provided that morsel of assurance, huh? The computer? The same one that never warned us about the murder vortex?

Pelia’s also got a way with a turn of phrase. She may not be reassuring, but she’s consistent. I’m sure Scotty is grateful for that, deep down. Way down.

You Say “Strong Force Neutrinos”, I Say “Midichlorians”

To-may-to. To-mah-to. Hospital disasters get miraculous cures. Star Trek disasters get magic particles.

Once Chapel finds M’Benga’s research on the Strong Force Neutrinos, Scotty chimes in on additional benefits to the theoretical particles.

Pike: So you’re saying that strong force neutrinos can heal M’Benga and… make fuel? What?

Scotty: Almost sounds too good to be true, I know, but if they work like Chapel says, and I use the Bussard Collectors as a straw to drink up a neutrino smoothie, they’d mix with the residual deuterium and create a lot more of it. If they exist.

The downside, of course, is the need for the aforementioned spacewalk.

Pike: Pelia, what about radiation exposure?

Pelia: Ah, well. Before anyone could complete a full scan, their skin would be oatmeal. So, a word of advice to whoever goes: Wear sunblock, work fast.

Oatmeal skin, indeed.

No Wonder Anyone Can Work the Transporters

Starship skills feel like they should be very complicated and require extensive training. Apparently, not true.

A’Sha: There is power for one stable transport, though I should mention I have not completed my transporter training.

Pelia: Oh, it’s easy. You just push the sliders up.

Scotty: Small favor. Make sure there’s heat and oxygen waiting for me.

A’Sha: I will do my best.

Also, maybe Academy instructors don’t know everything?

Pelia: If we do get any data back from the pod, you’ll have to identify those strong force neutrinos. I never studied particle physics. Don’t tell anybody.

All that time lived and particle physics never did it for her? Ah well, she could still take it up as a hobby.

Well, over to you, Fanatics! What scene had you covering your eyes? Gripping your seat? Laughing because otherwise you’d cry?

Who held your absolute attention, and what made you sigh with relief?

Did Dr. Boyce win you over with his bedside manner? Yeah, me neither.

Drop a thought in our comments section on the hits and misses, your favorite lines, and why “Off-Hour” seemed more in keeping with Star Trek style for some Trek viewers than, say, puppets.

TV Fanatic is searching for passionate contributors to share their voices across various article types. Think you have what it takes to be a TV Fanatic? Click here for more information and next steps.