It seems weird that after seven episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds this season, we get to one that has no discernable genre. It’s not puppets, it’s not a horror movie, it’s not even that stupid soap opera. At least this one felt like a real Star Trek episode. Lots of plot and science… I better get into it!
We open with Kirk on his way back to the USS Farragut, with a quick stop by the Enterprise, there for a check-up from Dr. M’Benga… but that’s not the only reason he stopped by. Kirk, trying to be casual, asks about a landing party Pike took to the surface of a nearby moon, where they’re investigating a weak SOS signal. But really, he’s looking for La’An.
Ortegas finds La’An in the galley, surprised she didn’t go down with the landing party. Ortegas teases La’An a little bit about how she’s there to see Kirk, but La’An’s reaction is harsh, a bit stand-offish. She quickly departs, leaving Ortegas surprised.
The landing party includes Pike, Uhura, Chapel, Chin-Riley, and Uhura’s mentee, A’Sha. Uhura warns that they will lose all communication with the ship when they enter the cave where they’ve traced the SOS signal. Pike tells this to Spock, and promises to check in after an hour. They enter the cave.
On the Enterprise, they get a call from a Starfleet admiralty shuttle requesting immediate clearance to come aboard. La’An is starstruck when realizes it’s from Admiral Simon Reeger (Joe Morton), the former commanding officer of the USS Constitution during the Klingon War. Spock grants clearance and welcomes Admiral Reeger to the ship with La’An. Reeger says he needs to speak with Pike immediately.
In the ready room, with the rest of the crew, Reeger greets Dr. M’Benga warmly, having worked with him on the Constitution. He asks if the crew is aware of the Vardan massacre, an unprovoked attack on a Federation colony, over five million dead, conducted by one ship. Scotty points out that this enemy ship has a new cloaking system that prevents them from being discovered. Reeger says that’s true, but it might still be possible to track the ship by following what it leaves behind: its gamma-ray burnoff.
Reeger came across this trail by chance when he was on his way to a conference. The Enterprise is the closest ship; because of that, he is commandeering it for this mission. Spock is in charge while Pike is gone, but technically, Kirk is the ranking officer on board, even though he’s not part of the Enterprise crew, so Reeger assigns Kirk as his acting first officer. Reeger sends everyone to their stations and they set out to stop the invisible ship.
Spock announces to Reeger that the sensors have locked on to the gamma radiation. Reeger wants to set off immediately and not wait for Pike and his crew to return. If they wait, they risk losing the trail. Kirk wants to at least let Pike know why they’re gone, and Reeger takes affront to that: “Are you saying Pike can’t handle the situation?” No, of course Kirk isn’t saying that. Reeger tells them to go.
In the galley, Reeger tells Kirk he shouldn’t have questioned Reeger’s decision. “On the bridge, you and I need to speak with one voice. Mine,” Reeger says. Reeger assures him they’re fine but admits he did have some concern when he heard Kirk’s name. George, Kirk’s father, was his first officer on the Constitution. He was a good man, a good officer, but he never got his own ship because when it came to warfare, it was clear combat wasn’t his strength. Kirk finds that hard to believe.
Back with the landing party, Pike says something feels off and tells them to have phasers at the ready. They find the source of the signal, and Pike realizes—this is a trap! A group of Andorians start shooting at them and capture the landing crew.
Back on the Enterprise, Kirk stops to check in with his brother, asking if their dad was afraid of command. Sam suggests he talk to Dr. M’Benga—he was on the Constitution at the same time. That will have to wait, though, as Kirk is called to the bridge.
The invisible ship is on course for Argus II, a non-Federation planet. Kirk volunteers to let the Federation know they found the ship, but Reeger says no; the Enterprise is running silent. No comms because they can be traced. Kirk seems surprised that the rest of the bridge crew agrees with Reeger.
Ortegas picks up a cargo vessel in the area. Reeger doesn’t want to do anything that would give away their location and instead says to arm a torpedo. This gets looks from the crew, but only Kirk openly questions it, worried about destroying a ship without any evidence that they’re working with the enemy. Reeger stands by his decision and checks with La’An, who believes she can disable the ship without destroying it. Kirk can’t cast doubt on La’An’s skill, so Reeger commands her to fire the torpedo. La’An shoots; the cargo vessel is damaged but still intact.
Unfortunately, they lost track of the invisible ship, but Reeger thinks Argus II could be its home base. Kirk takes issue with this assumption, and even more so when Reeger asks Spock for his opinion. Spock suggests a landing party, but that’s not enough. Reeger must make sure that the ship doesn’t leave the planet. As painful as it may be, he sees only one choice: authorizing Order 24. The entire inhabited surface of the planet will be destroyed. This finally gets some looks of doubt from the crew, but still, no one says anything.
After the commercial break, Kirk is desperate to find middle ground and get Reeger to consider other options. Reeger refuses every time, telling Kirk that the middle ground is where most people die. He dismisses Kirk and sends him away. In the boardroom, a notification pops up on a tablet.
This sends Kirk to sickbay, where he asks Dr. M’Benga if he knew about Reeger’s wife and two daughters—Kirk learned from the tablet that they were killed by the enemy ship they’re hunting. Dr. M’Benga admits he knew. Kirk worries that Reeger is seeking revenge and his judgment is compromised. He wants Dr. M’Benga to declare Reeger unfit for command.
Then, Kirk switches topics to why his father left Reeger’s command. “I need to know who I am dealing with here!” he exclaims. Dr. M’Benga says there were rumors that some saw Reeger’s appointment to admiral as an excuse to get him off the bridge of a ship. He tells Kirk to proceed with caution, then leaves.
On the planet with Pike’s landing party, their captor tells them he wants help calibrating the comms gear to mimic Federation transit signals so they can get by without getting harassed. Then he’ll let them go free. Pike offers a counter: he’ll double whatever his buyers are offering to pay and save him the trouble of smuggling the cargo. The captor seems to be intrigued by this offer and says his compatriots would likely agree… and then he grabs a crystal and stabs A’Sha in the belly. He says the crystals are extremely toxic, and she doesn’t have much time—but he’ll happily get Chapel her med kit when Pike agrees to help them.
On the bridge, everything is tense. Kirk comes back in, and Reeger stands up to speak to the crew. “I know what we are about to do is hard,” he says. He compliments Pike on putting together an excellent crew, and gives special praise to Ortegas.
They are 19 minutes to targeting range. Reeger radios to Scotty, telling him to use the engines to supercharge the phasers—something he learned during the war. Kirk suggests that if the ship becomes visible, Reeger will want La’An standing ready; he can handle the upgrade. Reeger agrees and sends Kirk out.
Kirk stops to talk to Scotty and asks him if increasing power through the warp core could burn out the phaser couplings. Not likely, Scotty responds. Kirk leaves, but Scotty runs after him, asking if Reeger really wants to destroy an entire planet. Kirk’s non-answer is enough for Scotty.
In the cave, Chapel is worried about A’Sha, and Chin-Riley is worried because they’re late for their check-in with the ship and La’An should have sent a security team by now. Uhura is getting desperate to help her mentee; Pike tells her to remember her training when the captors come back over.
Pike keeps trying to negotiate, but A’Sha is running out of time. Uhura admits she can reprogram the equipment. Pike is furious and warns her against it, but Uhura doesn’t care. Med kits will be provided once Uhura is done.
Back on the bridge, Reeger calls out Kirk and asks him to play the recording he is about to send to Starfleet. It’s a recording of Kirk asking Starfleet to remove Reeger from command. Kirk then confronts Reeger directly and accuses him of seeking revenge for his family. Reeger promotes Spock to first officer, and orders La’An to take Kirk to the brig.
In the hallway, La’An apologizes for having to be the one to do this. Kirk asks her if she believes Reeger is doing the right thing; “We both know how easy it is to lose perspective,” he says. La’An admits she has reservations, but this is her job right now. They begin walking again, and Kirk distracts her by asking her about her watch. He takes her phaser and stuns her, then makes a hasty retreat.
In the cave, Uhura is mad. She knows that they specifically made an SOS signal that would lure in a Federation ship. The captor admits that the Federation’s savior complex made it easy. He waxes poetic about human hypocrisy. He gives her his word, as an Andorian, that when Uhura is done with her comms work, they will all go free.
Sam returns to his room to find Kirk waiting for him and asks what the hell is going on. Kirk needs to get to engineering to shut down the phasers, and he needs Sam’s help. Sam doesn’t want to, but Kirk points out that their dad’s career started to decline as Reeger’s was rising. Sam pulled the comms that their dad sent home to them from that time. The last one states that he was the acting captain of the Constitution. It’s right after the date of Reeger’s supposedly heroic battle. Neither brother had heard about this. Could it be a mistake? Kirk says he’s going to engineering, but Sam wants plausible deniability—like when they were kids.
Dr. M’Benga finds La’An and wakes her. She can’t believe Kirk stunned her and takes off to find him.
The Enterprise is five minutes from the targeting range.
La’An runs in to engineering, phaser pulled, and is surprised to find Sam there, claiming his brother brought him there at phaser-point and clocked him. He has a bruised eye as proof. La’An is annoyed—Kirk tweaked the censors to throw them off.
Dr. M’Benga finds Kirk in sickbay, going through his medical logs from the Constitution. He discovers that Reeger suffered a traumatic brain injury at the start of the big war he’s famous for, and George Kirk was actually in command during the big battle. Kirk is desperate for answers; Dr. M’Benga warns him that he is partaking in mutiny. La’An bursts in and interrupts them, telling Kirk that whatever he’s trying to do, it’s too late. Kirk teleports out of there.
Back in the caves, as Uhura is finishing up, the Andorian admits he was in Starfleet before being dishonorably discharged for not following orders. He says that Pike had a point about the piracy. He tells Uhura to do the honors, and she does. She flips a switch that emits a horrible, high-pitched tone that causes all the Andorians to grab their ears and double over in pain. She starts blasting their captors with the phaser gun.
La’An goes to see Scotty, who finds Kirk in the phaser power junction. Scotty beams him out, but he’s in bad shape. La’An brings Kirk to Reeger, with Dr. M’Benga there to fix him up. Reeger asks if this was worth a court marshal. Kirk says it was if it means saving innocent people. But what if they’re not innocent? Reeger rages. Ortegas radios in to announce that they’re ready. Reeger decides that Kirk needs to be brought to the bridge to witness what’s about to happen.
Back to the caves, where Uhura is blasting away at the Andorians—and she seems to be winning. The main guy comes out, talking about a fight to the death. Uhura shoots the crystal ceiling, causing a ton of shards to fall, crushing him to death. She then goes and lets her crewmates out of their holding cell, and we’re done with the caves (which, frankly, could have been developed a little more and been its own episode).
On the bridge, they’re ready to rock, just waiting on Reeger’s order. Everyone seems a little more cautious, unsure if blowing up 5,000+ people is the right thing to do. Ortegas finally speaks up, but Reeger says they need to hit them hard. He commands La’An to fire. Kirk orders her to stop, saying that if they do, the Enterprise will be destroyed. He changed the phaser codes, effectively sabotaging the Enterprise if engaged.
Reeger demands the new codes, but Kirk refuses. Reeger punches Kirk and tells Spock to mind-meld with Kirk and get the codes from him. Spock respectfully refuses.
Reeger grabs a phaser gun and threatens to burn a hole through Kirk skull. Kirk finally reveals the truth, that his dad was the hero of the war. “It was my ship! My victory!” Reeger responds. He’s completely lost control and refuses to stand down. “I am killing those bastards who killed my family,” he insists.
Dr. M’Benga declares Reeger unfit, removing him from command. Reeger laughs and continues marching across the bridge, so La’An stuns him. Kirk demands the torpedoes be powered down. He then admits, with a little laugh, that he was bluffing about changing the codes.
Pike and the rest of the landing crew return to the ship. They recovered the gear and put the Andorians in the brig. The invisible ship has already left, and it can’t be traced. Reeger steps up—this is exactly what he was trying to prevent! No one is buying it.
Dr. M’Benga admits he drugged Reeger to get him to act out and certify him as unfit. Reeger insists that Pike arrest Dr. M’Benga for assault and mutiny, but Pike says he’s going to let Starfleet sort it out. To Kirk, Reeger promises that when the ship attacks again, “that will be on you.” And with that, he leaves.
In sickbay, Uhura enters to check in on A’Sha, who will be okay, thanks to Uhura. A’Sha admits she was impressed by Uhura, and has decided she doesn’t belong in Starfleet. Uhura takes it personally, but A’Sha insists she came to this decision logically.
Kirk goes to talk to Dr. M’Benga. He admits he spiked the coffee, and says he’ll take the blame so M’Benga doesn’t have to, but M’Benga refuses. Kirk realizes he knew the truth the whole time. Dr. M’Benga admits that Kirk’s dad had asked them to keep quiet, so as not to collapse faith in Starfleet at a pivotal moment. All Dr. M’Benga asks is that Kirk respect his decision. Kirk leaves, giving Chapel a chance to step in. She’s pissed that he’s throwing his career away for Kirk.
Kirk checks on Sam. Turns out that any time dad asked for family leave, he was given a new assignment, thanks to Reeger. But he never said a word to his boys, to protect them and their dream of joining Starfleet.
Finally, Uhura meets Pike and Chin-Riley in Pike’s room. She apologizes for failing with A’Sha. Pike insists it wasn’t her fault. For courage under fire, and for exemplifying the best qualities of Starfleet, he is awarding her a promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade.
New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds arrive on Thursdays on Paramount+.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
