The Enterprise crew really needs a break in the Thursday, August 6, episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, but perhaps not the one they all get — though it makes for a very funny, very entertaining, very Star Trek version of The Hangover. It’s what the franchise does best: dig into the characters against the backdrop of wild (bold) adventures. TV Insider spoke with the cast and executive producers about this episode. Warning: Spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 3 ahead!
It all begins when Una (Rebecca Romijn) points out to Pike (Anson Mount) just how much the crew needs a break, resulting in them all heading to a resort planet, with an intoxicating atmosphere that gives each visitor a one-of-a-kind customized journey to get what they need to relax. The weight is off Pike, who gets quite a few tattoos, even with impending peace talks. Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) throws quite the party. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) bartends. Una sings power ballads in Klingon. La’an (Christina Chong) gets aggressive in a relaxation class then, while helping Ortegas (Melissa Navia) and Scotty (Martin Quinn) find their missing shuttle, becomes the leader of a local gang.
Meanwhile, Spock (Ethan Peck) opens up to a hallucination version of Kirk (Paul Wesley) … or so he thinks. As the science officer learns at the end of the episode, Kirk was also on the resort planet, though he thinks he’s simply intoxicated and seeing him because of their previous mind meld. It’s a very Strange New Worlds way to continue to build what we know becomes an iconic friendship.
Jan Thijs/Paramount+
“Even now thinking about it, the memory of it, I feel embarrassed about the sort of vulnerability and all the goofy stuff that he shared with you,” Peck admits, looking to Wesley, while discussing the episode with TV Insider. (Watch the full video interview above.) “I remember being really excited to do it because I think we get along so well, and to have moments like that where we’re kind of goofing around as the actors — very seriously goofing around for the purposes of a comedic episode — I remember just being really excited about those scenes and uncovering these versions of them.”
Adds Wesley, “I kind of had the challenge of, I am actually there, I’m not a ghost, and so how do I play that? But then also maybe there’s this wink to the audience that something’s a little different about Kirk, and so maybe he really is in Spock’s imagination. And so I got to have a little bit of fun and make him different, but not wholly different.”
Speaking of characters being different, Pike is certainly one of them very much affected by the planet’s atmosphere.
“That episode was a banger on the page. When I put it down, I thought I’d read what might turn into the funniest live action episode of Star Trek ever,” Mount raves to us. “I had to decide what kind of inebriated Pike was going to be. And I just made this decision that if he was at a rave, he’s the guy who you’d find him in the chill out room sitting in a corner holding somebody’s hand and having deep conversations.”
Jan Thijs/Paramount+
M’Benga discovers how much he enjoys bartending and continues that back on the Enterprise, even after the effects have (finally) worn off everyone. “He didn’t realize he needed that at all,” Olusanmokun says. He even learned how to juggle for the episode. “I put some work in.”
While others have fun on the resort planet, it’s “tense” for Ortegas who, along with Scotty, spend the episode running around, trying to piece together the night before they can’t remember and find their shuttle. But it’s because of that that the two find common ground. Ortegas opens up about blaming her brother for things that weren’t his fault because she was jealous and admits that she’s been so angry with Scotty because of the idea of not being enough. Scotty reveals that he couldn’t cut it in piloting class and may have been trying to bring her down for her skills because his brothers did that to him.
“They had to be forced to work together to work together,” explains Quinn. “They’re too stubborn in their own kind of ways. What is it when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force? That’s what I think it was. … I think it was the perfect scenario for them to get over it. Had they never stopped there, perhaps they would still be brawling today.”
Dave Foley guest stars as the one who runs the resort, and as a “huge fan of all things Star Trek, going back to growing up on The Original Series,” he was thrilled when he was offered the part.
“When I first got there, I was touring the sets and FaceTiming my daughter, and she said, ‘Dad, I’ve never seen you this happy,’” he shares.
He enjoyed that his character was “fun” and “silly,” adding, “Even if they aren’t quite sure what they need, he’s there to make sure they get it. He’s just a happy facilitator of whatever people need.”
As Dendru tells Ortegas, he used to be like her and knows how it feels to always be looking for something to be angry about.
“Psychedelic therapy can be very curative. A lot of people who’ve been traumatized in war are now benefiting from psychedelic therapy. So, I think Dendru believes that she can jumpstart a happier way to live,” says Foley.
As for any improv he did for the episode, “little bits here and there, a little ad-libbing. I know when we were going over the details of the contract, the fine print and the micro print, that was kind of a bit ad-libbed,” he reveals.
Watch the full video interview for more from the cast and producers about this episode.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Thursdays, Paramount+