This week, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds turns into a 24-esque real-time action thriller, complete with a ticking clock that gives immediacy to the trope.
Season four, episode six, “Off-Hour,” opens with Chapel’s voiceover counting down the minutes until the weekend begins. Viewers get a “Shipboard Chronometer” graphic to see how much time is left. We start with 48 minutes even. The U.S.S. Enterprise is headed back to Starbase 7 for repairs, where the ship will then become Beta shift’s problem and Alpha shift will get their break. Ortegas inputs Warp Factor 4, and they’re off.
Chapel is in sickbay, talking with Doc about how Dr. Boyce transferred back to the Enterprise. Doc explains that he requested Dr. Boyce’s transfer in case Doc decides to leave. Chapel is distraught. “If you leave, I would have to leave, too. I wouldn’t do well with Boyce,” she says. Doc replies that she’s doing good work, but he’s concerned because she has one foot out the door.
Scotty is going over some stuff with his Beta shift counterpart, Lieutenant Early (Ziye Hu), when he notices the computer glitching. Lieutenant Early says it’s just some bad code and assures Scotty that he’ll take care of it.
Meanwhile, Pike turns over control of the ship to his Beta counterpart, Lieutenant Rahda (Abinaya Sivakumaran). As he’s about to leave, his counterpart notices that their warp trajectory has shifted by a few degrees. Pike decides it’s worth rechecking, which means Ortegas and Uhura are dragged back to work.
Chin-Riley, La’An, and Spock have already started their weekend, enjoying drinks in the port galley.
Scotty gets a call in the elevator from Lieutenant Early. There was a bigger problem with the computer glitch: the ship’s warp shield has become unstable and they’re headed for a slipstream wormhole. Scotty calls for power to be cut to the warp engines without telling the bridge, fearing that they will get caught in the slipstream, but he’s too late.
In sickbay, Chapel is still giving Doc a hard time about his maybe-leaving. He points out she never applied to be a permanent member of the crew; whenever things get real, he tells her, “You run.” Their argument is interrupted by a Red Alert announcement. All hands brace for impact.
The ship is immediately thrust into chaos. On the bridge, everyone is knocked over and thrown around. Lieutenant Rahda has no control over the ship and they can’t get the shields up because everything is electrified. Pike decides to risk it—and is promptly shocked, causing him to flip backwards over the railing.
Scotty is stuck in the lift while Lieutenant Early determines that they have to evacuate engineering.
In sickbay, large pieces of equipment and furniture start flying across the room. Doc pushes Chapel out of the way but he gets slammed into a wall, held in place by a lab table. Chapel approaches, concerned, especially because of the gasping noises he is making. And that distant look in his eyes…
The shipboard chronometer is at 40 minutes and change. This is just getting started.
Ortegas and Uhura move across the bridge, slipping and sliding and struggling, trying to get to their stations. Ortegas levels out the ship, but it takes nearly all of the ship’s power. She needs engineering, but she can’t get in touch with anyone. Chin-Riley calls in from the port galley, asking what’s going on. Uhura says they have multiple injuries; Ortegas says they are bleeding fuel, all sensors are down but one, and they’re flying into… whatever that flashing light cluster is out the window.
Luckily, Spock knows what it is (Scotty already figured it out, obviously, but they can’t get in touch with him right now): it’s a slipstream wormhole with extremely rare neutrino currents. Basically, they were “yanked off course by a giant vacuum cleaner,” one that spans countless lightyears and flows with radioactive dust. Chin-Riley says they’ll come to Ortegas on the bridge when things are stable in the galley, but Ortegas tells her it’s not safe to move about. Uhura is still trying to reach Scotty.
Scotty is still trapped in the lift; he bangs on the doors until Cadet A’Sha (Bianca Nugara) hears him and forces open the doors. Scotty thanks her and tells her he needs to get to engineering. She suggests using the transporter. He agrees, and they race down the hallway.
In the transport bay, Scotty sees that the ship is running out of power and the transporter doesn’t work. Cadet A’Sha tells him they don’t have comms, either—this section of the ship is non-functional.
The shipboard chronometer is at 35:21.
In sickbay, Chapel runs a diagnostic scan on Doc, which reveals some distressing news: he has a trans-lumbar severance, and it’s likely fatal. He’s only alive because the table is holding his organs in place. She goes to him, asks him a few questions, and finds that his memories are intact. The computers are down so she hasn’t gotten the X-ray results yet, she says. She tells him it’s too dangerous to move the table off of him until they know more. Doc senses that this is bad, but he agrees and goes along with it.
Over in the galley, the comms are back up and they’re all on an open line with Scotty and Ortegas. Scotty recommends everyone stay put for now. Suddenly, glasses break and the piano is crushed—there’s a gravity malfunction.
Spock says that the g-forces can be manually overridden from a panel on the other side of the galley. Chin-Riley volunteers to go, but Spock warns her that the g-forces are most intense over there. “Then let’s hope I’m stronger than a piano,” she says before she starts crawling over there.
The trip is not easy, but Chin-Riley makes it to the far wall. She pulls herself up until she is standing—but then her leg breaks, bone tearing through skin, and she screams. Somehow, though, she pushes herself up further, hits a button, and then collapses. Spock says the gravity is normalizing, and rushes to Chin-Riley’s aid.
The shipboard chronometer reads 30:24.
Scotty is trying to get the transporter, but it’s a disaster. Cadet A’Sha suggests shutting down life support. Not all of it; just in certain areas. Scotty considers it. “If we shut it down in the corridors, we may pull enough power to override the malfunctions,” he says. He takes A’Sha’s advice and sends out a ship-wide communication announcing he is shutting down life support in all the corridors.
Boyce calls in to sickbay. He needs help in the galley and there’s only a minute left before the hallways become impassable, but Chapel refuses to leave. She sends him Doc’s medical info, and he gets angry. He gives her a direct order and instructs her to let nature take its course. She claims the signal is breaking up and disconnects.
Chapel gives Doc a painkiller, which helps him, but then he asks why Boyce said no one can help him. Chapel states they have a difference of opinion, but Doc insists on seeing what the problem is.
Scotty determines that radiation is scrambling their one sensor, so he comes up with a plan to extend it by deploying a probe to the edge of the warp bubble. Ortegas likes the idea, so Uhura sends the sensor out, but it blows up almost instantly. They’re flying blind now.
Scotty calls the bridge and alerts them that the slipstream is like a warp slingshot. The longer they are in it, the faster they go, pushing them past the warp threshold. If that happens, they will disintegrate into bits of space-time. According to Scotty—and the shipboard chronometer—they have 24 minutes.
Doc reviews his test results and agrees with Boyce—Chapel should have left him. Doc tries to move the table, but Chapel won’t let him: if he does, he’ll be dead in seconds. She insists that there must be some way to save him. Doc admits he is grateful to have her company.
A warning signal goes off in sickbay. There is a seal breach. As Chapel rushes around trying to fix it, Doc again tries to convince her to leave. “I am not leaving you!” she insists. He relents.
The shipboard chronometer says they have 22:43 left.
Scotty finally reaches Pelia, who is in her room. He needs her advice: how do they get out of this mess with no eyes on the situation? Find new eyes, Pelia suggests. She wants to send someone outside to the ship’s ion pod, even though that means they’d be exposed to dangerously high levels of radiation. “I never claimed it would be a vacation,” she responds to Scotty’s panicked response. If they maintain a stable warp bubble, there is a chance whoever they send out could survive.
Scotty checks with Uhura, who heard the whole thing. She turns it over to Pike, who’s back up after being electrocuted. He sends the request to Spock because he’s closest, even though he doesn’t want to ask. Spock assures Pike that he is best suited for the job. A’Sha uses the transporter to send Scotty to recalibrate the pod to scan for neutrinos. He makes it in unscathed.
In sickbay, Chapel looks up an experimental treatment and shows it to Doc. He insists it won’t work, but she won’t take no for an answer.
Scotty finishes with the pod and radios to the bridge that they are ready to go.
Chapel calls the bridge next. Right now, she says, they’re in a neutrino motherload, which is a difficult subject to study. Basically, according to theory, the strongforce neutrinos can be used for medical treatment. Chapel thinks that if she can get enough of them, she can reverse Doc’s trauma and save him. Scotty joins in, and says that the neutrinos can also be used to make more fuel. It’s a whole theoretical science smorgasbord.
Spock goes through the airlock and proceeds down the secondary hull. The energy currents are intense—and he only has 16 minutes left. He enters the ion pod. Uhura is getting readings; It looks like he’s in there, but all she’s getting is static. Uhura gets a warning: the pod transceiver is overheating. If Spock doesn’t jettison the pod, it could blow up the entire Enterprise.
Uhura tries desperately to reach Spock and get him to leave the pod. There is a quiet panic as they have ten seconds to jettison, and Pike wants to give Spock as much time as possible to evacuate. Pike finally jettisons the pod at the last moment… but there’s still no word from Spock.
There are just over 12 minutes left. La’An argues with Chin-Riley, saying she should have gone instead of Spock because she’s more expendable. She believes he’s still out there and says she has to go get the data. Chin-Riley lets her go.
Pelia tries to distract Scotty, but she’s doing a piss-poor job of it. Scotty says that the ship is supposed to protect them, but instead it’s glitching. Pelia assures him that every ship glitches. Starships are also capable of miracles, she insists. While she explains this, she quietly patches a tiny pinhole in the wall that is sucking out her oxygen.
Back in sickbay, Chapel gives Doc the rundown of her planned treatment of him. When they’re both ready, she’ll open the door and allow Doc to freeze to death, which will hold him together while she moves the lab table off of him. Then, it’s surgery time. She will draw the strongforce neutrinos out of the slipstream into a device, which she’ll use to stitch him up. When the heat’s back, she’ll restart his heart. Doc needs to say this: he is grateful that he is not alone, that in his final moment, he is with a friend.
Chapel insists he is not dying—but, suddenly, the power goes out in sickbay. “You are kidding me!!” she screams. A computer tells her that all biobeds are non-functional. She takes an axe to the wall.
With just over eight minutes to go, La’An is outside, on the same track Spock was on. She calls to the bridge and tells them Spock isn’t there, but she keeps going. She climbs into the pod housing, where she finds Spock passed out but alive. La’An also gets the data chip.
Chapel explains to Doc that the procedure is basically just cryostasis. He’s still trying to get her to leave, go someplace safe. She won’t, though, and asks him to tell her a joke. He agrees, and launches into a joke about a Lanthanite birthday party. She opens the doors and he freezes before he gets to the punchline.
It’s four minutes to warp threshold. La’An walks Spock into the galley, warning that they’ve both been out in the radiation too long and they need to decontaminate. But first, they need to deal with the pod data, which was damaged on their way back to the ship. Spock is their last hope, but he’s busy vomiting up green goo. He’s too sick to communicate, so she coaxes him to do a mind meld with her to get the information they need. She calls the bridge.
Meanwhile, Chapel is moving ahead with her plan for Doc. As she moves the lab table away from his body, her finger freezes to it and snaps off.
Pike sends the info from Spock’s memory to Scotty. He trusts a Vulcan’s memory as much as any computer. He reads the info, and is pleased to announce that Chapel has rewritten physics—strongforce neutrinos are real!
Ortegas reroutes the Enterprise’s trajectory. They’re 30 seconds away from warp threshold, and when they hit it, the ship will break up. Scotty insists the ship will keep them alive until they get the neutrinos.
They hit the warp threshold and the ship comes back online—the power, life support, and comms are all back up, so Chapel can finally perform the life-saving surgery on Doc. With seconds left, Ortegas gets them out of there. They slow down to a stable warp speed and Pike lets out a breath.
Chapel collapses to the ground as she finishes surgery on Doc. “You’re gonna be okay,” she mutters.
Pelia meets Scotty in the transport bay, where they share a smile.
Chapel wakes in a sick bed and sees Doc being treated beside her. Pike comes in and congratulates her, telling her they would all be dead without her. She has a request: she puts in for an official duty station. Pike agrees. Chapel goes to Doc, who is alive. He gives her the punchline to the joke, and she teases him—but they both laugh.
New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds arrive on Thursdays on Paramount+.
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