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Is This the Best Disaster Episode? | Strange New Worlds 4x06 Review

Sci-Finatics

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The Enterprise is falling apart, the crew are fighting for their lives, and the clock is ticking down to disaster! In this review of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 6, “Off Hour,” we take a deep dive into one of the season’s most traditional Star Trek stories — a full-blown Enterprise disaster episode with a ticking clock, split-screen visuals and a very obvious 24 influence.

After a season that has taken Strange New Worlds from horror and buddy comedy to film noir and puppets, “Off Hour” brings us back to something wonderfully familiar: the crew of the Enterprise facing an impossible scientific crisis and having to work together to save the ship.

We look at what works in “Off Hour,” including the introduction of Beta Shift, the return of Dr. Boyce, the increasingly brutal injuries suffered by the crew, Spock’s spectacular spacewalk, and the episode’s surprisingly emotional storyline involving Christine Chapel and Dr. M’Benga.

We also take a closer look at Scotty’s character development as he begins to become the “miracle worker” we know from The Original Series, and why the episode’s final solution feels particularly faithful to the spirit of Star Trek — because nobody can save the Enterprise alone.

But there is one major problem with making Strange New Worlds a prequel: we already know some of these characters survive. Does knowing Spock and M’Benga’s future take away from the tension? Or does the episode successfully create stakes in other ways?

And what about that one-second countdown?

Is “Off Hour” one of the best episodes of Strange New Worlds Season 4 so far? Does the 24 influence work? And after all the genre experiments this season, is this exactly the kind of classic Star Trek story we needed?

Watch the full review and let me know what YOU thought of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 6 – “Off Hour.”

🚀 What did you think of “Off Hour”?
Did you enjoy the 24 influence? Did the ticking clock work for you? And did knowing the future make it harder to worry about Spock and M’Benga?

👇 Let me know in the comments!
👍 If you enjoyed the review, hit LIKE

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20 Comments

@andrecalli4397 1 month ago

Did anybody else get the vibe, however subtle, that Pelia might not survive, and was just keeping Scotty calm while not showing her own peril?

@davidbaker7349 1 month ago

I thought Spock was going to pop like a can of T’Pringles

@ReapWithRick 1 month ago

Great recap. Unlike some of the others out there in Youtube land, I felt like you actually watched and experienced the same episode as me. Well done.

@danielketch4868 1 month ago

The dad jokes, the scottish elevator nod, injuries everywhere, the sense of adventure, great acting.What an episode it was.

@Jayjay-qe6um 1 month ago

One of the good episodes this season yet. It just that I wasn't prepared for another severed finger, bone petruding, and M'Benga guts.

@Mr_Kenneth 1 month ago

Love how Chapel made a Karl Lagerfeld designer coat from blankets and duct tape and still looked like a model

@databasedesignstar308 1 month ago

As has been pointed out, the Ion Pad was a callback to the TOS Court Martial. But also Pike going to red alert BEFORE jettisoning the pod was a further callback to the episode.

@robertmoore7071 1 month ago

Best episode of the season so far! They really had everyone involved. Now THIS is Star Trek!

@nikolaosstamatiadis5406 1 month ago

They should have put new, unknown characters in the risky, potentially lethal situations, and the legacy characters desperately trying to save them. Because unknown characters die more often than regular cast.

@JeghedderThomas 1 month ago (edited)

My bloody nerves were frayed, this was an intense episode amongst four seasons of excellent entertainment.

@cathytalbert6548 1 month ago

Good point about the shift changes! I don’t think we saw that in TOS. But we did see it in TNG & Voyager. 🙂

@andreapinzow1630 1 month ago

This episode was the best so far. The crew had to work to save themselves and the ship. Each person was part of the storyline to find a way to save the ship. Scotty was very scared and he was talked by Peleia to work thru a solution .Chapel and doctor is sickbay was heartfelt and very human . Chapel refused to believed he would die and found a solution not only to saved him but Scotty also found that solution can saved the ship also.. This keep me on the edge of my step and wanted to see how the ship was saved. Everyone had to do a part to do this. I give this episode an A +

@rnews5750 1 month ago

This was a good episode. Don't forget the ST: TOS Court Martial where Kirk was negligently accused of jettison an ion pod with Ben Finney. Here we have Pike jettison the ion pod that Spock has entered. He had to make the decision to eject the pod to save the ship.

@loraweems8712 1 month ago

FANTASTIC episode!!!

Loved the "dad" joke!

@jceggbert5 1 month ago

It really seems like new Trek writers are obsessed with giving Spock all kinds of damage, especially radiation poisoning. It feels like they're kind of addicted to it, but I also wonder if they are doing it to emphasize how much damage he really went through in Star Trek 2.

@PJsFirstChannel 1 month ago

The first episode this season I didn't want to turn off. It kept me fully engaged.

@Exaris79 1 month ago (edited)

That's why in TMP era that there's tertiary backup controls&safety protocols to prevent this type accidents or critical system failures. Although there's a new term called a slipstream wormhole which implies that slipstream Faster Than Warp came from a natural spatial anomaly.

@Micah-Ch6V8 1 month ago (edited)

There are two small changes they could've made that would have solved the biggest problems with this episode. 1) Make La'an the one to go to the ion pod initially, and have Spock saving her. That would have been a real threat to a character we don't have plot armor for. 2) Have Ortegas head to sickbay for some little nuisance problem right before everything goes haywire. Then have her be the one that's critically injured that Chapel has to save because M'Benga got trapped helping the injured when they locked down Engineering. Ortega's, like M'Benga, is very much the type to throw herself in harm's way to protect one of her crewmates. But again no plot armor. We don't know what happens to her character. So it's a real threat.

The only real pet peeve I had with this episode was Cadet A'Sha. They brought her on as a reoccurring character, but we know next to nothing about her, other than she didn't make it into the Vulcan Science Academy. I couldn't even remember her name! I had to look it up! The issue. There is no real reason for her to be on the ship. The only time she ever shows up is to be a whiny, pain in the ass! What was the point of casting her? She's done absolutely zero all season, and we only have 4 episodes left!