star trek strange new world episode 4

'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' episode 4 embraces epic, submarine-style space battles

There are notable nods to "The Wrath of Khan" because that's the best space battle that's ever been seen on the big screen

Warning: Spoilers  for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 1, episode 4

Every sci-fi fan must feel like Christmas has come early with Lucasfilm dialing the hype up to 11 at the Star Wars Celebration 2022, the first two episodes of the latest live-action "Star Wars" spin-off, "Obi-Wan Kenobi" making its debut, Season 3 of "The Orville" beginning in a little over a week, plus of course our recommended weekly intake of "Star Trek" on Paramount Plus .

And the fourth episode of the first season of " Star Trek: Strange New Worlds " is probably the best so far. Even Anson Mount thinks so . And despite a couple of plot strands that really could've been improved — which we'll get to shortly — this episode, entitled "Memento Mori" — which is "remember that you must die" in Latin, is thoroughly enjoyable.

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Following the recap, which incorporates lots of the main cast, suggesting already we're in for a full-on episode, there's a nicely executed edit from looking over the saucer section of the hull to a round Starfleet Remembrance Day pin, that almost everyone wears in this episode, which itself is a great example of forward thinking by the producers given it was Memorial Day in the United States this past weekend. Honestly, this series alone is going to far exceed any other of " Star Trek " in sales of new merch, what with those jackets we saw last week as well. 

The USS Enterprise is on en route to deliver an atmospheric processor upgrade to Finibus III, but as they enter orbit, they discover communications are down for some reason. Upon breaming down, a landing party led by Lt. Cmdr. Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) discover only blood trails and blaster marks. And again, the away team is appropriate attire for this situation, although not the gorgeous leather-style jackets they had last week, this is a little more like the body armor seen in " Star Trek: Discovery " with those cool, ergonomically-placed shoulder lamps. 

The days of Enterprise-D crewmembers beaming down to a planet's surface wearing exactly what they had on five minutes beforehand on a climate controlled starship bridge, are long gone, thank The Maker. Regardless of whether the surface was hot, cold, covered in sand, or covered in snow, that same Starfleet tunic was somehow sufficient and those black booties always seem to provide just enough grip — not to mention breathability and sole cushioning — no matter what the ground conditions were like.

Related: 'Strange New Worlds' episode 3 builds up Number One's backstory

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It's clear something is very wrong and then the Enterprise detects another ship in orbit. It seems some survivors somehow were able to escape from the planet's surface in a run-down, old transport once used for hauling radioactive ore. 

Unfortunately, because of the unique nature of this vessel's purpose, the Enterprise's transporter cannot penetrate the ship's hull and so a "deep space transport tube" is used to bring the refugees aboard. It's at this point that an already suspicious Lt. Alara Kitan Lt. La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) listens to the description of events from the survivors and immediately calls for the Enterprise to raise shields ... except it can't with the "deep space transport tube" still deployed.

Then, out of the blackness of space, a Gorn interceptor appears and all but destroys the Finibus III transport along with most of the connecting gangway and with her shields down, the Enterprise too takes some heavy hits. And all of that is before the opening credits, those beautiful opening credits.

Damage to the Enterprise is considerable and casualties are overwhelming sickbay, including Chin-Riley. However, the situation is made worse by the fact that most Enterprise systems are offline, including the replicators needed to replenish medical supplies like blood plasma. It also means that Cadet Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) and Lt. Hemmer (Bruce Horak) are trapped in the main cargo bay.

Related:   'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' episode 2 adds to Uhura's history

In a very nice nod to the tactics employed by Admiral Kirk in "The Wrath of Khan," Captain Pike (Anson Mount) — under the instruction of Noonien-Singh, who we know has experienced the Gorn before — puts the Enterprise into the atmosphere of a gas giant, which has the same affect as entering the Mutara Nebula. All that static discharge and gas will cloud their tactical display, visuals won't function and shields will be useless. "Sauce for the goose," as Mr. Spock puts it in the movie. 

He's actually referring to the saying, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, which in context means that any situation one starship will have to deal with, another will similarly also have to deal with. In short, it equals the odds, despite the USS Enterprise being the underdog in both instances.

Things continue to look bleak on the Enterprise, despite having lost the Gorn interceptor in the atmosphere of the gas giant. Number One is badly injured and medical supplies are low after the stores were destroyed. Meanwhile Uhura and Hemmer are trapped and the Chief Engineer has a broken hand, so he's unable to prevent an overload that will eventually destroy the ship. When it rains it pours. 

Spock postulates that while primary sensors aren't available, navigation systems constantly take in atmospheric data to maintain stability. Any ship traveling through the gas cloud creates oscillation in the atmosphere, which are converted into rotational motions by Coriolis forces, which in-turn the nav-com detects automatically. Marking Coriolis force readings would allow the Enterprise to triangulate movement inside the gas giant, in essence turning a compass into a radar. And hey, it could work…

Related:   'Strange New Worlds' is a love letter to 'The Original Series'

At this point the fight against the Gorn represents the primary plot while Chin-Riley and then the Uhura and Hemmer predicament make up the supporting storylines. And here's the thing, it's all handled really rather well. The pacing is perfect, the tension gradually builds and retains your attention and more than any of that, the 360-degree camera shots around the bridge are amazing. In just four episodes of a brand new spin-off show, so far what has been produced is better than anything from the other "Nu-Trek" live-action shows. In future seasons, and we hope there are many, we cannot wait to see what slightly longer story arcs develop.

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Pike is able to destroy the Gorn interceptor in an audacious maneuver performed by Lt. Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) however, the destruction of that ship has alerted other, additional Gorn vessels: they sacrificed that interceptor purely to determine the position of the Enterprise. The only way to avoid being destroyed by another inbound interceptor is to go full "Das Boat" and take the Enterprise deeper into the atmosphere of the gas giant…and hope the Gorn ship succumbs to the pressure first.

This is a phenomenally well-filmed set piece. Not only does it stay true to "Trek" but it's also a huge homage to the best of "Star Trek" — which is " The Wrath of Khan " — but also to those epic movies that portray the slower, strategic nature of Starship space battles. Not only can we hear the groaning of the Enterprise hull has she glides deeper into the depths of the brown dwarf , but a little later on there is even a noticeable musical nod to the magnificent score of "The Wrath of Khan" by the late, great James Horner.

Science-fiction stories often include a big battle in space — at their best, they provide both a breathtaking visual spectacle and a tense finale as the powers of good and evil fight for supremacy. At their worst, we are overwhelmed by far too many ships, drones and whatever else zips around the screen in an lame attempt to replace quality with quantity.

"The Original Series" beautifully portrayed a battle between two starships in the episode "Balance of Terror" (S01, E14). It tapped into the notion that battles in space would be very much like submarine warfare; slow, methodical and purposeful. Before this epic episode aired in 1966, we'd seen outstanding movies like "The Enemy Below" in 1957 and "Run Silent, Run Deep" in 1958 and it's clear they were an influence to writer Paul Schneider.

The general idea is that it would more like a game of chess rather than a game of Whac-A-Mole. We are already familiar with the USS Enterprise and we know what she is capable of; breaking these established, in-universe rules drives a wedge between the viewer and the experience. Then "Star Wars" came along and changed everything. Not only did we get to see an Imperial Star Destroyer disable and capture a Rebel Alliance Blockade Runner within the first 60 seconds, but it also took everything that made an aerial dogfight exciting and put it into space.

And we've accepted this. Each franchise has gone in a slightly different direction and that's the best possible outcome. But…when one starts changing their stance, you get a problem. For instance, we know that an Imperial II-class Star Destroyer is a fairly cumbersome cosmic colossus and while its maximum faster-than-light speed is an impressive 60 MGLT (something approaching 7 trillion miles per second) just think for a moment how annoyed you'd be if some Santa Monica-based movie producer made a big-budget film where one of these massive, 1.6km long starships suddenly started maneuvering around like the Millennium Falcon.

And this is the pitfall that the producers of "Strange New Worlds" must avoid. So far ... they've walked the very fine line between what is acceptable and what isn't, thus pushing the envelope, if you will, as far as it will possibly go before credibility is irrevocably destroyed. Which is, as we've mentioned previously, about what can be successfully accomplished with an equal mix of old and new, which is what "Strange New Worlds" is. Any more, will be too much.

Turns out the Gorn interceptor can't quite withstand the atmospheric pressure as well as the Enterprise and it's crushed. A shuttle is launched — the Galileo, naturally — in a questionable attempt to establish long range communications, since not only is the Enterprise and everyone aboard soon to be blown to atoms in an atomic explosion but before then, it might get dragged into the nearby black hole along with gas from the brown dwarf. Spock and Noonien-Singh volunteer. While onboard, Spock performs a mind-meld with Noonien-Singh in an attempt to relive and thus learn from her past experience of surviving the Gorn.

It's a nice that the writers recognize the potential in this: Spock can do this, it would help in a dire situation, so let's have him do it, despite the fact that in "The Original Series" episode "Dagger of the Mind" (S01, E10) Spock says the procedure is seldom performed. However, that notion has been long since readjusted following episodes of "Discovery" and "Enterprise."

In a fairly essential part of the escape plot, which isn't really properly explained, Noonien-Singh sends a message from the shuttle, without being detected, to the larger, undamaged Gorn destroyer vessel that the smaller, badly damaged Gorn interceptor has been boarded by humans. The Gorn destroyer then blasts the smaller ship and the shuttle manages to get away, again undetected.

The shuttle safely returns to Enterprise, without really accomplishing a great deal and a daredevil plan is hatched to jettison the atmospheric processor, which is currently going critical in the cargo bay, while flying into the accretion disk of the nearby singularity. Fingers crossed the Gorn will see the explosion and believe the Enterprise has been destroyed, before the steadfast Constitution Class starship can slingshot around the black hole and escape to safety. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, this is of course impossible.

Having established the Pike Maneuver in the annals of history, the wounded Enterprise limps home and concludes an extremely memorable episode that actually could've been a little bit better, which demonstrates how far this show could potentially go, given it's already of a very high quality and hasn't even found its feet yet.

Rating: 8/10

The first four episodes of "Strange New Worlds" is now available to watch on  Paramount Plus  as is the entire  second season of "Star Trek: Picard."  Season 4 of "Star Trek: Discovery" is also available on the Paramount streaming service in the US and CTV Sci-Fi or Crave TV in Canada. Countries outside of North America can watch on the Pluto TV Sci-Fi channel.

Paramount has confirmed that its streaming platform will launch in the UK and Ireland on June 22, available both as a standalone service and as part of the Sky Cinema subscription for the UK cable provider.

Follow Scott Snowden on Twitter . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook . 

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

When Scott's application to the NASA astronaut training program was turned down, he was naturally upset...as any 6-year-old boy would be. He chose instead to write as much as he possibly could about science, technology and space exploration. He graduated from The University of Coventry and received his training on Fleet Street in London. He still hopes to be the first journalist in space.

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Strange New Worlds Went Full Star Trek Disaster Movie, and It Ruled

"memento mori" delivers an exhilaratingly intense hour of tv, while keeping strange new worlds ' focus tight on its characters..

So far, so Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has given us a really solid formula between riffing on classic Trek premises and taking one of its main characters for a little deeper dive along the way. This week is no exception, but with an especially great riff: What if modern Star Trek did its own “Balance of Terror,” with a dash of “Year of Hell,” and even a little whiff of The Wrath of Khan ?

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Because really, that’s what “Memento Mori” is: Strange New World ’s take on a disaster movie in just 50 minutes, mostly onboard a single ship, and it sells the hell out of that premise with the series’ most action-packed and intense episode so far. Set on Starfleet Remembrance Day—a day to mark fallen comrades and Federation citizens who died in the name of space exploration—the bulk of the episode sees the Enterprise on the way to deliver supplies to a distant colony, only to find it battered, with just a scant hundred survivors of a mysterious assault. In the middle of transporting survivors from a small cargo hauler with its shields down, the Enterprise quickly discovers the horrifying nature of the threat the colonists face: a squadron of Gorn vessels, which immediately lance the Enterprise with fire and gut the ship.

It’s a proper disaster movie vibe, and both thematically and visually Strange New Worlds sells it with aplomb. It is, like much of the series so far, trope-y as hell—this time leaning into more standard disaster fiction fare rather than anything specific to Trek —but, also like much of the series so far, it’s delivered with charm. There’s the aforementioned “Year of Hell” vibe, as a wounded Enterprise finds systems crippled and things slowly going from bad to worse as the situation gets more dire, forcing the battered vessel into a deadly game of hide-and-seek in the clouds of a brown dwarf circling a black hole. That environment in turn makes this also Strange New World ’s “Balance of Terror”-meets- Wrath of Khan ’s Mutara Nebula battle. Outside of their ships, the Gorn are never actually seen in the episode. They’re still largely unknown to Starfleet at large at this point; outside of that, Lieutenant La’an is very much horrified at the thought of enduring what is apparently her second encounter with the species (more on that later). The Gorn act as a shadow that lingers throughout the episode’s disaster, an unrelenting threat that pushes the Enterprise crew to their limits as they find themselves outnumbered and outgunned.

But between those Trek vibes you have all the great disaster hallmarks—risky plans made with limited options, big personal stakes, queasy medical triage, unlikely allies forced together (in this case, Chief Engineer Hemmer and Cadet Uhura, trapped in Engineering) who have to learn to be a team to survive. Strange New Worlds tackles these with the same vim and vigor with which it tackles Star Trek ’s finest tropes, and because it does so with such earnestness, you quickly forget what really shouldn’t make “Momento Mori” work: you’re watching a disaster movie about a ship and a crew that you know is going to escape the disaster. Strange New Worlds might be a largely episodic show, and so the Enterprise will be fine next week, despite the hammering it takes here, but the episode never makes light of the danger every section of the ship and crew finds itself in. You fear when characters like Number One get badly wounded, or when iconic Trek legends like Spock and Uhura are put in danger, even though you know they won’t meet their end facing the Gorn. When Pike tells the audience and his crew alike that he believes the Enterprise can pull out all the stops in its game of space cat-and-mouse, you believe it through his earnest conviction, not because you know it’ll be fine but because it’s the goddamn starship Enterprise .

Getting to play with how big it can push these stakes and how much of a battering those pristine, gorgeously faux-retro sets can take, “Momento Mori” shines as one of the best “action” episodes of Trek in years, perhaps the best of its modern iteration, if not up there with the franchises’ cinematic and televisual highs in the genre. But what elevates even further is that the episode isn’t just a really killer action movie shrunk down to an episode of TV. Just like last week shone a light on Number One , and the week before it Cadet Uhura , “Momento Mori” puts its heart into another of the series’ still-fresh faces: Christina Chong’s La’an Noonien-Singh . Centering the disaster movie on the tough-as-nails, no-nonsense security chief is a smart idea; La’an is a fighter, and this episode is a fight for the Enterprise crew’s lives. But “Momento Mori” explores the cracks in La’an’s professional and personal armor by quickly revealing her past with the Gorn, making what should be the perfect professional crisis for her to face a deeply personal one, compromising her steely exterior in fascinating ways.

As we eventually learn from a mind-meld Spock makes to secure some key tactical information about Gorn communications from her traumatized memory, La’an’s colony shin (the S.S. Puget Sound ) was a rare Federation vessel to encounter the Gorn, its colonists captured and sent to be hunted on a Gorn breeding world. Losing her family in an attempted escape and facing the Gorn is what transformed La’an into the cool, closed-off woman she has become as a Starfleet officer, and those barriers begin to break down as she now faces them again. There’s a brilliant push and pull in her arc across “Momento Mori” where she’s allowed to feel all the rage, pain, and fear she has buried in her past over the death of her family and her brother in particular at the Gorn’s hands—and how she then has to re-confront all that and work to do her job, to rally the people around her, and prove to them that they’ll make it through the crisis they face. By having this mostly unknown-to-us character run the whole gamut of fear into hope, La’an becomes the focal point that makes “Momento Mori” such a gripping survival thriller, selling the episode as much as the grand spectacle and action does.

Obviously, the Enterprise can’t face such explosive disaster every week—high stakes, sure, but you couldn’t expect a largely episodic series to completely bang up the ship week in and week out without someone , whether textually or metatextually, finding it a little bit too weird. So if “Momento Mori” was Strange New Worlds season one’s big Hail Mary into an action blockbuster that it had to go all out on because we won’t get something like it for a while, well... it set an extremely high standard for future episodes to match, to say the least.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1, episode 4 review: "Embraces every opportunity to ratchet up the stakes"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

With nail-biting tension, a classic villain reinvented and the Enterprise crew thrown headfirst into a nightmare scenario, this really is an episode to remember. Everyone will die eventually, the ‘Memento Mori’ title reminds us, but thankfully not today.

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Warning: Our Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1, episode 4 review contains major spoilers – many of them set to stun. Boldly go further at your own risk…

While it doesn’t quite fit with Gene Roddenberry’s ideals about exploration and the betterment of humanity, many of Star Trek’s most memorable moments have come when a Starfleet vessel has taken a complete and utter pounding. This week, Strange New Worlds follows in the footsteps of The Next Generation’s ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’, Voyager’s ‘Year of Hell’ and the franchise’s finest hour, The Wrath of Khan, by ensuring Pike, Spock and the crew spend an entire mission with their backs against the wall.

The episode’s title, ‘Memento Mori’, translates as a reminder that everyone must die – an echo of Game of Thrones’ famous ‘valar morghulis’ – and for once, it doesn’t feel like an empty threat. While Trek canon dictates that Pike, Spock, Uhura, M’Benga and Chapel must live to fight another day, there are moments when you believe the show might do a Tasha Yar, and kill off a regular before season one is done. That all the leads make it out in one piece (more or less) almost comes as a surprise – and a definite relief, seeing as every member of this beautifully assembled crew is worthy of more screen time.

The cause of the Enterprise’s woes is an intriguing contradiction, both refreshingly familiar and the chilling face of the unknown. The Gorn date back to – or, in Trek continuity, technically forward to – original series episode ‘Arena’, when Captain Kirk was forced to take on his rival captain in hand-to-hand combat. The stiff, rubbery prosthetics of the ’60s ensured that the reptilian species became figures of fun in some quarters of fandom – they were subsequently given a hokey CG makeover in Star Trek: Enterprise’s Mirror Universe – but there’s no question we’re taking this new incarnation very seriously indeed. The reinvented Gorn may be the first genuinely frightening ’new’ threat the Federation has faced since the introduction of the Borg and the Dominion – and because it’s made clear that they like eating humans for dinner, we don’t even have to see them to know they’re bad news.

Their introduction is an Alien-like masterclass in building suspense. The season opener already established that Lt La’an Noonien Singh had a close encounter with the Gorn as a kid, an attack that left the rest of her family dead. Now she’s forced to relive the trauma on the abandoned colony of Finibus 3, gradually deducing that the ominous bloodstains and the clicking sounds recreated by a terrified eye-witness can mean only one thing…

With the Enterprise still tethered to the cargo vessel it’s evacuating, however, La’an’s desperate call to raise shields comes too late, leaving the ship a sitting duck when the Gorn open extremely hostile hailing frequencies. Despite being temporarily frozen in fear, La’an is mostly unscathed by the brutal surprise attack, but not everyone is so lucky – there are numerous dead, Number One is injured, and Starfleet’s flagship is left an inoperable warp drive, medical supplies running out and – perhaps most ominously of all – its air-con on the fritz. There are also lots of random wires left dangling from the ceiling, in the finest Trek tradition.

Things are so bad that retreat is the best option, the only place to hide an unstable brown dwarf that’s being sucked into a black hole. It’s an unashamed homage to The Wrath of Khan, but it works spectacularly. That movie’s director, Nicholas Meyer, famously reinvented Star Trek as a submarine adventure, and ‘Memento Mori’ takes the same approach, plotting a tense game of cat-and-mouse as the Enterprise tries to stay one step ahead of the enemy. In fact, this episode is so blatant about its nautical influences that the ship’s pressure-induced creaks and improvised take on radar feel like they could have been lifted from Das Boot. Lt Ortegas even gets to acknowledge one of Pike’s orders with a tongue-in-cheek, "Aye aye, skipper – dive dive dive!"

From start to finish, the episode embraces every opportunity to ratchet up the stakes, gradually introducing a hull breach, a larger, more powerful Gorn vessel, and the threat of a cataclysmic explosion in a cargo bay to a seemingly unsolvable equation. Maybe it’s a consequence of the show’s decision to embrace standalone stories, but the Strange New Worlds writing team is ensuring that every episode is consistently loaded with plot – four episodes in, there’s been little time (or need) for narrative padding.

But once again, the show’s most powerful weapon is its cast. This story wouldn’t have worked as a season opener, but now this wonderful new crew is established, you’re totally rooting for them in their darkest hour. While La’an gets the most prominent character arc – the ever-impressive Pike reminds her that, sometimes, hope is just as important as her usual ruthless efficiency – everyone gets a moment to shine, whether it’s the medical team taking advantage of “archaeological medicine”, or Ortegas delivering her trademark gallows humour. Crucially, you believe that when they’re together, Pike and his crew can accomplish pretty much anything, but not in that contrived, borderline superhuman way that dragged down the most recent season of Discovery. Indeed, the way the rookie Uhura and sarcastic engineer Hemmer bond while trying to avert an explosion is one of the early highlights of the season.

An otherwise brilliant episode is slightly let down by the contrivance of its conclusion. Spock using a mind-meld to help La’an access old memories comes a little too soon after Picard episode ’Monsters’ took advantage of a similar plot device, and – while it’s a long-established Vulcan ability – skirts perilously close to a magic trick here. It also seems unlikely that La’an would be able to recall the Gorn’s light-emitted language in such detail, or that a technologically advanced species could be so easily fooled by a fake message. Have they never heard of coded transmissions?

That minor slip up aside, Strange New Worlds has established this new version of the Gorn as a genuine threat to the Federation. Canonical restraints may ensure that they remain bit-part players – the ‘Arena’ incident in the original series is treated as a first contact situation – but we’ll be eagerly awaiting their return. Who knows, maybe next time we’ll even get to see what they look like…

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is currently airing now in the US on Paramount Plus. A UK airdate is TBC – though Paramount Plus launches in the UK on June 22. For more, check out our guide to the Star Trek timeline .

Richard is a freelancer journalist and editor, and was once a physicist. Rich is the former editor of SFX Magazine, but has since gone freelance, writing for websites and publications including GamesRadar+, SFX, Total Film, and more. He also co-hosts the podcast, Robby the Robot's Waiting, which is focused on sci-fi and fantasy. 

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 4 Review: Among the Lotus Eaters

On a mission to clean up potential cultural contamination, Pike and the Enterprise crew lose their memories, but it doesn’t change who they are.

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This Star Trek: Strange New Worlds review contains spoilers.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 4

Because Strange New Worlds is more episodic in nature than many of its recent Star Trek onscreen brethren, one of the most intriguing things about watching this show week to week is wondering what kind of story we’re going to see. The series has gleefully embraced wild shifts in genre, tone, and narrative style over the course of its run so far, giving us everything from courtroom legal dramas to heartbreaking trips into alternate pasts , and while season 2’s fourth episode initially seems like your standard away mission adventure, “Among the Lotus Eaters” actually turns out to be anything but. 

An hour that epitomizes the creative gap filling in terms of its own canon that Strange New Worlds excels at, this is an episode that not only offers new context for one of the few canonical facts we know about Christopher Pike’s time on the Enterprise but one that has plenty to say about human nature and what makes us who we are at our core. It’s also just an all-around great hour of Star Trek , one that mixes classic sci-fi tropes with light horror elements, allowing its actors to play different versions of themselves even as it affirms the power of their characters’ emotional connections. 

The episode revolves around the Enterprise being sent back to Rigel VII to try and clean up an incident of cultural contamination its previous visit to the Bronze Age society five years prior apparently caused. Longtime fans will remember that this mission is one that Pike still mentions with regret in The Original Series pilot “The Cage,” as several crew members were killed in an ambush, which is perhaps why he approaches this second visit to the planet differently. Pike, La’an, and M’Benga go undercover among the Kalar people in an attempt to discover what it is that they left behind, only to be almost immediately captured. The revelation that one of the Enterprise’s presumed dead former crew members has essentially taken over the planet using Starfleet tech and installed himself as High King certainly comes as a shock to Pike (who is clearly tormented by the idea that he left a man behind), but the group soon has bigger problems to face, namely the strange event known as The Forgetting. 

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In Greek mythology—and most specifically Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey —the story of the Lotus Eaters, from which this episode clearly takes its name, centers around a group of island dwellers whose primary food source, the lotus plant, is a narcotic that causes those who consume it to live in peaceful apathy, and which leads to those who visit to forget their lives, loved ones, and previous homes. On Rigel VII, the planet’s strange radiation causes those left outside the walls of Kalar’s primary fortress to lose their memories of the previous day each night, splitting their civilization into two castes—those who remember who they are and those who don’t. After Pike and friends are thrown into a cage and lose all memories of themselves and each other, they’ll have to work to figure out who they are and where they came from. 

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“Among the Lotus Eaters” asks intriguing questions: who are we, if stripped down to our most basic selves? What do we value? How do we see ourselves and our place in the world? Which people or identities do we care for most and why? As the effects of the planet’s radiation begin to spread among the crew of the orbiting Enterprise as well as its away team, most of the show’s main characters are given key moments of self-discovery tied to the core of who they are, from Ortegas’ enthusiastic reclamation of her status as the person who flies the ship to La’an’s aggressive default setting and M’Benga’s eventual understanding that while he certainly possesses some kickass fighting skills, at his heart, he is a healer who wants to help take away the pain of others. 

Pike, of course, is…exactly who we all already know him to be, a leader who cares deeply about others and values those he cares about more than himself. (Though there are brief glimpses of a dark streak I hope the show comes back to it at some point.)  A talisman given to him by his sort-of-girlfriend Captain Batel not only helps Pike reestablish and center his connection to both himself and his crewmates, but helps him realize that he owes her a chance at a real relationship, and the episode ends with his apology and promise to make a real go of things with her, despite the fact that their duties as Starfleet captains will likely always take precedence over their date nights.

Granted, it’s not entirely clear that many Strange New Worlds viewers really care all that much about Pike’s romantic situation with the captain of the U.S.S. Cayuga , given that we know so little about Captain Batel as a character. (What is her first name? Did I miss this??) Even in this episode, during which Pike theoretically comes to understand that he cares for her more than even he realized, Batel is almost more of an idea than a person, and a handful of one-off lines about how her career trajectory is somehow being hampered by her relationship with him does not a real character arc make. That’s not to say that this wouldn’t be an extremely worthwhile story to explore, just that Strange New Worlds hasn’t actually done it yet . Here’s hoping that changes— Wynona Earp fans already know that Melanie Scrofano is an amazingly capable actress who can more than go toe to toe with Anson Mount if given the chance. (Give her the chance, is what I’m saying!)

At this point, it seems almost redundant to say that “Among the Lotus Eaters” is another strong installment in a season (heck, a series ) that seems to be comprised of nothing but bangers. It’s easy to feel spoiled by the consistently high quality of this show—but we’re so lucky to have Strange New Worlds , which has such a strong command of not just its characters but the stories it’s using them to tell. What a gift, indeed.

4.5 out of 5

Lacy Baugher

Lacy Baugher is a digital producer by day, but a television enthusiast pretty much all the time. Her writing has been featured in Paste Magazine, Collider,…

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 Episode 4 “ Memento Mori ” preview

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns on Thursday with the fourth episode of the series “ Memento Mori ” and we have a collection of 17 new photos and a teaser trailer below.

Written by Davy Perez and Beau DeMayo and directed by Dan Liu , the episode premieres Thursday, May 26th on Paramount+ .

Official synopsis:

While on a routine supply mission to a colony planet, the  U.S.S. Enterprise  comes under an attack from an unknown malevolent force. Pike brings all his heart and experience to bear in facing the crisis, but the security officer warns him that the enemy cannot be dealt with by conventional Starfleet means.

The series stars Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Ethan Peck as Spock, Rebecca Romijn as Una Chin-Riley (a.k.a. Number One), Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga,  Christina Chong  as La’an Noonien Singh,  Celia Rose Gooding  as Cadet Nyota Uhura,  Jess Bush  as Nurse Christine Chapel,  Melissa Navia  as Lt. Erica Ortegas, and  Bruce Horak  as Hemmer.

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'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Season 2 Episode 4 Recap: Memories Worth a Thousand Cuts

"Among the Lotus Eaters" delivers an action-adventure mystery that dredges up tragic memories for Captain Pike and gives Ortegas her superhero moment.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 delivers its fourth episode with an action-adventure story featuring high stakes and a fascinating concept that scrapes the surface of the potential emotional depths within. "Among the Lotus Eaters" sees Captain Pike ( Anson Mount ) , La'an ( Christina Chong ), and Doctor M'Benga ( Babs Olusanmokun ) stranded on a pre-warp planet and struck with the loss of their memories. With a mystery rooted in lore from the original series and a ticking timer engulfing everyone on the planet and in its orbit, Pike must face some demons buried in his past in order to live in the present.

Written by Kirsten Beyer and Davy Perez , and directed by Eduardo Sanchez , "Among The Lotus Eaters" picks up a thread from the unaired Original Series pilot, "The Cage." In that episode, Pike mentions a mission that went horribly wrong on Rigel VII, in which he lost a yeoman, and multiple people died after he found himself trapped and forced to fight one of the planet's warriors. The impossibly high standard that Pike holds himself to is very telling, and this episode both allows the Captain some emotional introspection and pushes him to let himself get close to people.

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Pike and Batel Board an Emotional Rollercoaster

"Among the Lotus Eaters" opens with Captain Pike preparing a delicious-looking pasta dish with his mother's sauce recipe in anticipation of a cozy night in with his on-and-off romantic partner Captain Batel ( Melanie Scrofano ). Their two ships are working together to map a binary star system and while it's quiet they try to sneak in some personal time with each other. Almost immediately, their date night is interrupted by various inquiries from both of their crews, but it's nothing urgent so they settle in. She's brought him a gift from an archaeological dig, a token to "bring lost sailors home," and he's ready to show her his appreciation when they're interrupted again by a call from the Admiral for Batel.

What seems like quite some time later, she ends the call and attempts to rush through their date after getting bad news — because she didn't go hard enough against Pike and Una ( Rebecca Romijn ) during the trial, she lost out on promotion to Commodore. Pike worries that their relationship isn't worth the trouble because he feels like he's hurting her career and suggests that they pull back a bit, effectively doubling down on Batel's absolutely terrible evening. While the terms of their seemingly open relationship haven't exactly been defined on screen, not being on the same page about it easily throws a wrench in their evening. She leaves without finishing dinner and Pike gets a call from the bridge regarding sensitive information about Rigel VII.

In Pike's ready room, Una briefs the captain as well as La'an, M'Benga, and Ortegas ( Melissa Navia ) on the mission ahead. Five years prior, Pike, Una, and Spock ( Ethan Peck ) came here to survey an M-class planet, but things went south quickly with three crew members dying resulting in Pike and Spock needing an emergency evacuation. Recently, Starfleet received images from the planet of the delta shape of the logo used on comm badges and other gear cut into the shrubbery of a palace garden, making it clear that Pike and Spock did not escape the pre-warp planet without impacting it, essentially violating the Prime Directive by accident . They need to land on the planet and correct the cultural contamination they caused with that first visit. Pike implies in very few words that the team he's assembled for this mission was chosen for their combat skills.

After the briefing ends, Una lingers behind to talk to Pike — he seems distant, fiddling with the token that Batel gave him before their date went sideways. She presses him slightly about why Batel's ship left in such a hurry, and he reveals that they decided to take a break. Una sees straight through him and points out that he always panics when someone gets too close, essentially self-sabotaging all of his romantic relationships before he can get hurt. While they agree that it doesn't make sense for him to wreck his relationship with Batel, they've got bigger fish to fry with the mission to Rigel VII. Pike admits that he still thinks about what went wrong the first time, wondering what he could've done differently to keep his crew alive. She offers to tell Starfleet that they need to recuse themselves from this mission, but Pike is determined to clean up the mess he blames himself for.

Pike Must Face a Ghost From His Past on 'Strange New Worlds' Season 2

Ortegas is overjoyed to be going on her first (on-screen) away mission aboard the Enterprise, making a Pilot's Log about how excited she is to not only be flying the shuttlecraft down but to be on the away party. Dressed in planet-appropriate clothing to help them blend in she meets up with La'an and M'Benga on their way to the shuttle bay when they're stopped by Spock. He explains to the captain that the debris field around the planet is shifting, meaning that they'll need their best pilot aboard the Enterprise and Ortegas must stay behind. Pike decides to fly the shuttle down himself, and while Ortegas knows it's the right call she can't help but be a little bit resentful of Spock for delivering the information.

To reach the settlement undetected, Pike has to land the shuttle 20 kilometers away — and to make matters more complicated, they can't bring phasers or comm badges and risk further contamination of the planet's burgeoning society. Luckily, they have sub-dermal universal translators, but otherwise, they're on their own. As they exit the shuttlecraft, La'an suffers from a serious bout of tinnitus, a violent ringing in her ears that makes her feel confused and disoriented, not realizing that they've already traveled six hours away from where they landed. It's more dangerous to turn back now than to keep moving forward so La'an brushes it off and M'Benga hopes that it's not a sign of anything more serious.

Outside the palace, La'an surveys the area and notes that the Starfleet delta is also forged into the gates. They decide that the best course of action is to talk to people who live outside the castle because they're more likely to talk without their guard up, but if that fails they'll have to slip inside the palace. La'an is hit with another wave of tinnitus and Pike suggests that they lie low and head back to the shuttle first thing in the morning. However, that's not a viable option as they realize that the guards surrounding the palace are armed with phaser rifles. Pike explains that when they ordered their emergency evacuation, Spock had been bleeding out, and he hadn't been keeping an eye on where the rest of their gear was in the haste to save his life and not lose a fourth crew member. M'Benga joins them with six guards in tow, and while La'an is ready to fight, Pike makes an attempt at diplomacy first. However, the guard reveals that he already knows they're from Starfleet.

M'Benga suffers from his own wave of tinnitus as the guards take them into the castle and they're greeted by the yeoman that Pike believed died during their first mission here. Pike is overjoyed to find Zach still alive, but there's a menacing tone in Zach's words, making it clear that he's not exactly happy to have been abandoned on this harsh stone-age planet. He goes by High Lord Zacharias on this planet and though Pike wants to fix his mistakes, Zach tells him it's too little too late. Pike assumes that Zach put the delta symbol in the garden as a message, but the former yeoman says the people here just adopted it as his symbol, and he has every intention to tear it down at the earliest opportunity.

The captain attempts to empathize with Zach over how difficult it must have been for him to be here over the last five years, but it's far worse than he realizes. The source of the ringing in La'an and M'Benga's ears is the radiation from a meteor that struck the planet's surface years ago; it makes it difficult to think and ultimately makes you forget who you are. Pike tries one more time to bargain with Zach, but he's convinced there's no going back for him after what he's done on this planet, arming the guards with Starfleet weapons and installing himself as their king. While Pike insists that the Enterprise will come for them, Zach takes no small joy in subjecting Pike to the same suffering he went through in his abandonment, explaining that within a day no one will remember they're even there. Outside in a cage, Pike and M'Benga try to piece together a solution, struggling through serious brain fog. La'an attacks Pike when he approaches her because she doesn't remember who he is — in fact, none of them can even remember why they're on the planet .

Ortegas Gets to Flex Her Pilot Instincts at the Helm of the Enterprise

The same tinnitus that the officers on the planet are suffering from extends up to the ship, first causing Uhura ( Celia Rose Gooding ) to become disoriented, having no memory of the past two hours on the bridge. Commander Una insists that she go to Sickbay and see what's going on, and sends Ortegas with the young comms officer, taking over flying through the debris field herself. Uhura explains her symptoms to Nurse Chapel ( Jess Bush ) and the scans of Uhura's brain reveal that something much more concerning than a headache is plaguing her. Chapel and Ortegas attempt to deduce what the source of the problem might be, saying that it shouldn't be a problem as long as it's just happening to Uhura. Like clockwork, Spock calls over comms, saying he's sending in six more crew members suffering from acute memory loss.

Back on the ship, Chapel explains what's happening to everyone to Una when the commander is hit with a wave of tinnitus. She delivers the same information that Luke told Pike, they can remember their emotions and instincts, but everything beyond that is being blocked by the radiation. Pike comes in and insists that they each keep a copy of their information to remind themselves of who they are. They realize that they need to leave orbit in order to get their memories back, but they can't leave the away team behind. Spock returns to the bridge and insists that Ortegas fly them into the debris field to block out some of the radiation.

Spock and Ortegas' attempt to lessen the radiation backfires drastically as they're both hit with a wave of tinnitus and extreme confusion over everything from who they are to how to read their data pads. Ortegas can recall that they were trying to make things better and that she's angry at Spock, but that's where her memories stop. The rest of the crew is wandering around confused, as Ortegas gets the computer to lead her to her quarters. When the debris field starts to impact the ship, Ortegas begs for someone to make it stop before realizing she is, in fact, the one person who can make it stop. Navia does a wonderful job with Ortegas' determination, leaning into the comedy of the moment with ease while inspiring hope and becoming the hero that the Enterprise needs .

'Strange New Worlds' Season 2 Sends Mixed Messages About Memories and Living in the Moment

The next morning on the planet, the away party is granted some grace by a man named Luke who lives outside the palace. He explains their roles are defined by the colors that they wear, and promises to explain later why he's able to understand the basic functions of this society. While they go to work in the stone quarry, the man explains that each night they go through "the forgetting" — he says that they don't lose the "deeply known" things like walking and talking, but memories and the things that make them who they are disappear. He offers to help them with their next "forgetting" so that they don't wake up lost and afraid. It's not like this for everyone, though; the people in the palace are able to retain their memories each night. Despite his attempts at comfort, Pike and La'an are certain that they aren't supposed to be here and neither is M'Benga. Pike has a vague memory of the pendant that Batel gave him, and Luke encourages him to trust his emotions more than his fleeting memories. Despite Luke's insistence that they just go with the flow, La'an and Pike start a fight with the two guards keeping watch over their work area. They incapacitate the guards but not without La'an getting stabbed in the process. M'Benga instinctively knows how to treat her wound, but they have to flee back to Luke's place to do more than wrap her in a temporary bandage.

M'Benga believes he can save La'an, but he needs his memories back to properly treat her. Luke has already written her off and tells them to just let her go with peace, but La'an is not exactly jazzed about the prospect of dying. While M'Benga tries to keep taking care of her, Luke says that at least when she's dead they won't have to carry the pain of the loss because they'll just forget her. A totem in the center of his room explains enough to keep Luke and the other workers in line, but it doesn't tell Pike enough to satisfy him. His determination to save La'an stirs a change of heart in Luke, and he agrees to go with them back to the castle to get their memories back.

A significant portion of the emotional weight of this episode rests on Luke's shoulders as he says that he'll watch after La'an, but he doesn't want Pike and M'Benga to retrieve his memories. He explains that he still carries the weight of his grief, having deduced that he likely lost the people he loves, and he's certain that remembering the specifics won't make the burden any lighter. It conflicts slightly with what he'd previously said about Pike and M'Benga being able to forget the pain of losing La'an. He insists that part of Pike's motivation to get his memories back is linked to the pendant he wears because it reminds him of someone he loves, but Pike still can't recall who gave it to him. M'Benga gets shot as he and Pike attempt to storm the palace — he can't keep going, so he decides to defend the entrance while Pike retrieves their memories.

Inside Pike faces off against Zach, and he lets himself be guided by his baser emotions, the leading of which is certainly anger, allowing himself to attack the young self-appointed king. Admitting defeat in his cowardice, Zach points Pike towards what he has left of the Starfleet equipment in a box where he pretends to keep everyone's memories. He explains that the whole castle and the helmets of the guards are made out of an ore that protects them from the radiation and everything else is a myth to keep the working class submissive. When Pike doesn't believe him, Zach laughs in his face and says it's just like Pike to start a revolution. In his frustration, he nearly kills the former yeoman, but his memories return just in time. Pike knows that who he is at his core hasn't changed — he values the lives of his crew, including Zach's, above everything.

M'Benga is able to heal La'an with a dermal regenerator from the box of Starfleet equipment. Having been through a lot together, the two warriors agree that it can be nice to not have to carry the burden of the past for a little while, but ultimately "some memories are worth the pain of others." Meanwhile, Luke decided to stay inside long enough to remember his family, and he takes back what he said to Pike before, admitting that the little things about your life matter. Pike is finally able to remember Batel, realizing that he needs to apologize to her after he's learned the importance of living in the moment. The messaging gets a little muddy here, as that instinct to live in the now and forget the past was part of the myth designed to create a class divide. However, for Pike maybe he needs to stop worrying about the future so he can enjoy the present.

When everyone returns to the Enterprise, Ortegas wraps up her Pilot's Log, explaining how they were able to get their memories back and how she and Spock resolved their temporary beef. With the Prime Directive already thoroughly smashed to bits with regard to their actions on this planet, Pike decides that they're within their bounds to yank the meteor off the planet's surface and throw it back into the atmosphere so that the people no longer have to lose their memories.

Later, Pike makes sure that Batel's ship is part of the prison transfer for Zach so that he can apologize to her. He explains that he was wrong to end their still-undefined relationship and asks for her forgiveness. Though hesitant at first, she kisses him and says they can keep playing it by ear the way they have been. Nothing really changes about the nature of their relationship, and they've essentially ended up right back where they started with an open, "I'll see you when I see you," kind of thing going on, but they're back on good terms after their rocky start at the beginning of the episode.

New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 are available every Thursday on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 4 Review

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds takes a different tone than other episodes this season and that tone turns out to make a masterpiece of an episode.

Every once in a while, a very special episode of television comes along, and it should always be celebrated. This isn't the kind of "very special episode" where parents sit down with their kids and talk about the dangers of going home with strangers or doing drugs. This kind of special episode is all about making sure that eyes are absolutely glued to the screen from beginning to end.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds managed to come up with one of those kinds of episodes in just its fourth installment of the new series. The best news of all is that this particular episode comes after the previous episode of Strange New Worlds left a bit to be desired. It turns out the series made quite the comeback with its follow-up.

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The title of the fourth episode of the new Star Trek spinoff definitely hinted that something big was coming. "Memento Mori" is a phrase and a theme that has been used in television a lot, but it seems as if there have been few episodes that managed to really embody the phrase the way that Strange New Worlds managed. The Latin phrase translates to "remember that you must die." While this was certainly a hint that people were indeed going to lose their lives, it also has an interesting history behind it that hinted at what else audiences might have in store.

Hubris On Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

The legend behind this particular phase is that in ancient Rome, slaves would be trailing behind famous generals during parades and whispering Memento Mori. The point of this was to let even the most lauded and successful warriors in the land understand that sooner or later, they were going to meet their end. That theme certainly shows up early and often in this particular episode of Strange New Worlds and best of all, the idea presents itself in a way that it could apply to both the Enterprise and its crew as well as its adversaries.

In the end, there's a definite statement as to who it applies to more, but the fact that it's a little open-ended is why this episode is as good as it is. It also needs to be pointed out that Anson Mount did another great job as a Captain Pike that has the usual belief in the fact that his crew and his ship are almost unbeatable. At the same time, he quickly understands that he's not quite as powerful as he might have thought when the show began. He also tends to realize quite quickly that the adversary he's going up against are quite formidable.

This episode is the first real introduction of a race that has been hinted at since the start of Strange New Worlds . The Gorn have finally arrived and it turns out that their introduction likely means they are going to have at least some sort of presence throughout the rest of the season. For those who are not Star Trek original series fans, this particular race of lizard-humanoid hybrids was first introduced when Captain James T. Kirk did battle with one. That battle has become one of the more iconic ones in the franchise, even if it is a bit comical when looking back at it today.

The Gorn have largely been a bit of an afterthought, perhaps because its hard to make a lizard race walking on two legs not look a little odd no matter how good the special effects are. That's also allowed canon for all the shows to basically make the race one of those no one in Star Fleet knows that much about. The mystery behind this kind of alien also made them the perfect boogeyman for Strange New Worlds .

The program does a very good job of making them a boogeyman as well because it's not afraid to make it very clear that crew members died in the confrontation with The Gorn. It adds heft to the episode as a whole, especially considering that it started off by pointing out that people have already lost their lives in service to Star Fleet. Talking about the people who have died in such a real way feels like something new to the Star Trek universe, even if fans know that death has absolutely happened before. The franchise has largely painted over that realization. This time around it was the focus.

Dive Dive Dive!

There was a ton to like about this episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds but one of the most interesting decisions by the writers and showrunner that really paid off was the idea to take a starship and put it in a situation that was incredibly reminiscent of a story set in a submarine. The Enterprise took quite a lot of damage in the initial volley against The Gorn and that led to the crew needing to use their scanners and other devices much in the same way submarines use radar. There were even quite a few scenes where Spock was peeking into a device that did indeed look like something that could be found on a sub.

The submarine theme of the episode even went so far as to knock out the environmental controls so that it was hot inside the ship, making everyone appear sweaty in a way that people could expect them to look when they are inside the hull of a heated tub miles beneath the surface of the water. The finishing touch on this effect was when the Enterprise found itself inside a brown dwarf star, that had a gravitational effect of crushing ships, much like going deeper underwater. All of this combined to pull off the look and feel of this part of the show quite well, and it was quite entertaining.

Overall, there was just a ton to like about what this week's installment of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds had to offer . It was the kind of episode that should make viewers excited to see what comes from the rest of the season.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds airs every Thursday on Paramount Plus

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1, Episode 4, "Memento Mori," Recap & Spoilers

A routine mission turns into a disaster when the Enterprise finds itself under attack by a relentless enemy. Here's a recap of Strange New Worlds.

The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1, Episode 4, "Memento Mori," streaming now on Paramount+.

A routine mission to visit a Federation colony goes horribly wrong when the Enterprise discovers that the sinister Gorn have expanded their hostile incursions into Federation territory. This shocking attack comes as Chief Security Officer La’an Noonien-Singh recalls her own traumatic history with the reptilian species; an incident that continues to haunt her years later. And with the Enterprise outnumbered and outgunned, Captain Christopher Pike will have to make desperate decisions if he hopes to lead his crew out of this confrontation alive.

As the Enterprise crew reflects on those that paid the ultimate price in their service to Starfleet on Remembrance Day, the crew is puzzled to find a Federation colony seemingly abandoned, with its communication systems inhibited. Number One decides to personally lead a landing party to investigate, joined by Singh. As the landing party discovers the disturbing signs of a wholesale massacre at the colony, the Enterprise encounters a mysterious spacecraft orbiting the planet, with the crew of the approaching vessel identifying themselves as refugees from the colony.

RELATED: Star Trek: Strange New World Star Wasn't Told Her Role Until After Landing It

As the Enterprise welcomes the surviving refugees onto the ship, Singh realizes that the attackers are the Gorn, noting that she barely survived in her own previous encounter with them. This realization comes too late, as the Gorn take advantage of the Enterprise’s lowered shields to accommodate boarding the refugees to launch a surprise attack on the two starships. The Enterprise sustains heavy damage, with Number One and Chief Engineer Hemmer wounded, while the refugee ship is destroyed in the assault.

Singh advises Pike not to attempt to flee or engage the Gorn directly as the enemy still holds a considerable upper hand against them while pressing the attack. Pike has the Enterprise enter a nearby brown dwarf which will interfere with both the Enterprise and Gorn’s ship systems, helping mitigate the Gorn’s advantage. With the Enterprise’s phasers and shields out, Pike has helmsman Erica Ortegas maneuver the ship over the Gorn to manually drop a photon torpedo on the vessel and destroy it.

RELATED: George Takei Reacts to Fox News Headline Stating Star Trek Was Never Political

While Pike’s strategy was successful, the Gorn allowed this to learn the Starfleet vessel’s location, with three additional Gorn warships now in active pursuit of the Enterprise. Pike orders the Enterprise to move deeper into the brown dwarf, believing the drastic increase in pressure will affect the Gorn ships faster than his own. After the Gorn lose a ship to the increased pressure, Spock and Singh investigate the immediate area outside the ship in shuttle craft. While piloting the shuttle together, Spock carries out a Vulcan mind meld revealing details about Singh’s past encounter with the Gorn. Afterwards, Spock privately admits to Singh that he is still haunted by the apparent death of his sister, Michael Burnham .

With the two remaining Gorn ships still in pursuit, Pike has Ortegas slingshot the Enterprise around a singularity at the heart of the brown dwarf, successfully accomplishing the maneuver despite the escalating damage to the ship. Having effectively outmaneuvered the Gorn, Pike is confident that Starfleet will be better prepared for any future skirmishes with them, though Singh remains visibly concerned. As the crew picks up the pieces from the harrowing battle, Number One and Hemmer recover from their wounds as Singh faces the future, a little less uncertain of how to face the horrors of the cosmos and no longer alone.

Created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds releases new episodes Thursdays on Paramount+.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 4 Recap – what causes the illness on Rigel VII?

We recap the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 4, “Among the Lotus Eaters,” which contains spoilers.

One of the Enterprise’s main directives is to not interfere with developing societies. “Among the Lotus Eaters” finds Pike’s crew returning to Rigel VII after the discovery of advanced technology and cultural contamination on the planet. This standard mission could end up being one of the deadliest quests in a long time for the crew, though.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 4 Recap

Episode four begins with Pike and Batel attempting to enjoy a romantic meal together. Unfortunately, they are continually interrupted by work. Batel is also frustrated because she has been overlooked for a promotion.

Pike worries that he’s harming her career. The Captain suggests that they go on a break.

Why is the crew needed on Rigel VII?

Next, Pike is informed of new information about Rigel VII. The crew had performed a routine exploration there five years ago, but since, photographs have picked up some disturbing images. The Starfleet logo can be seen in a castle garden. Pike’s team must survey and correct this cultural contamination.

They plan to go in undercover to find and retrieve any Starfleet technology. Pike blames himself for this problem and is eager to clean up his own mess. He takes Erica , La’an , and M’Benga with him for this mission.

Erica is excited and nervous about her first undercover operation. But she ends up losing this new role, as she is needed back on the Enterprise instead. The landing party leaves without her.

Pike lands the shuttle on Rigel VII in hostile territory.

What are La’an’s symptoms?

To blend in, the trio wears civilian clothing and forgo any futuristic technology. This means that they have no backup. Once on the planet, La’an starts to act strangely. She has a ringing in her ears, memory loss, and overall confusion.

They decide to keep moving forwards. At the castle, they find the logo again. It also appears the guards are armed with futuristic weaponry.

The trio are then ambushed and taken inside the castle. The Kalar’s leader is Zack , a previous crew member who was thought to be dead. He is now their king, but he’s still bitter that Pike left him behind to die.

What causes the illness on Rigel VII?

Zack explains that Rigel VII is a strange world. The radiation here affects people’s brains. It causes memory loss and other side effects. Zack is excited to watch Pike lose his own memories and suffer for his treachery. The trio are imprisoned in a cage, where they quickly lose all sense of their own identities.

Back on the Enterprise, the crew starts to have similar symptoms, starting with Uhura . Christine observes Uhura’s memory loss as a third of the crew follows suit. They fear that in an hour’s time, all the crew will be affected, and the starship will be in serious danger.

Meanwhile, a stranger helps Pike, La’an, and M’Benga acclimatize on Rigel VII. He talks of the forgetting that they are undergoing.

The only place that is safe from this memory loss seems to be the palace. The stranger uses tattoos and totems to help with his memories. Pike panics, realizing that he doesn’t have any tattoos of his own. But Betal’s gift seems to steady him.

Pike and La’an battle the guards to escape their imprisonment. La’an is seriously injured in the fray, though. M’Benga instinctively comes to help, realizing that he is a doctor. M’Benga needs his memories to return, though, if he is to save La’an’s life.

Spock decides to fly the Enterprise into a debris field, hoping that this will shield them from the radiation. Erica follows Spock’s orders, although she, too, starts to lose her memories while piloting.

Then Spock loses his memories, unable to even read. Confused, Erica stumbles back to her room as asteroids hit the ship. Eventually, Erica remembers that she is the pilot, and she guides them out of the debris field to safety.

Why are they safe in the palace?

On Rigel VII, the stranger takes them to the palace. Pike fights his way into the building and confronts Zack. Pike demands that Zack returns their memories immediately. Zack admits that the palace is made of a special ore that protects them from radiation. Slowly Pike’s memories return.

Pike apologizes for abandoning Zack but confesses that they must take him back to Starfleet now.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 4 Ending Explained

In the end, M’Benga heals La’an, and all of the crew’s memories return. This is helped by them clearing the debris field. Spock creates a protective shield to defend them against any further memory loss. The Enterprise then removes the deadly asteroid from Rigel VII.

Pike reunites with Batel. He admits that he was wrong and asks for Batel’s forgiveness. She accepts his offer with a kiss. It looks like the couple are back together once again.

What did you think of the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 4? Comment below.

More Stories

• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Review
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 3 Recap
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 5 Recap

Article by Adam Lock

Adam Lock is a highly experienced Freelance Entertainment Writer who has written for Ready Steady Cut since January 2022. He is passionate about all things film and TV-related and has devoted his time to tracking streaming content on his social media.

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Published Apr 12, 2024

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Renewed for Fourth Season

The acclaimed hit original series is currently in production for its third season.

StarTrek.com

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will return for a fourth season.

Co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers and executive producer Alex Kurtzman confirms in a statement, "On behalf of the cast and crew of ‘ Strange New Worlds ’ we are thrilled and grateful to continue our voyages together. We can't wait for you to join us and the crew of the Enterprise on another season of exploration and adventure."

The third season, set to debut in 2025, is officially under way with production continuing in Toronto.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds  is based on the years Captain Christopher Pike manned the helm of the  U.S.S. Enterprise . The series features fan favorites from Season 2 of  Star Trek: Discovery  — Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Number One and Ethan Peck as Science Officer Spock. The series follows Captain Pike, Science Officer Spock and Una Chin-Riley (Number One) in the years before Captain Kirk boarded the  U.S.S. Enterprise , as they explore new worlds around the galaxy.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds  also stars Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel, Christina Chong as La’An Noonien-Singh, Celia Rose Gooding as Nyota Uhura, Melissa Navia as Erica Ortegas and Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds  is produced by CBS Studios, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers serve as co-showrunners. Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet serve as executive producers in addition to Alonso Myers, Heather Kadin, Frank Siracusa, John Weber, Rod Roddenberry, Trevor Roth and Aaron Baiers.

Watch the first two seasons of  Star Trek: Strange New Worlds  now!

Get Updates By Email

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Latin America, Brazil, South Korea, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In addition, the series airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave in Canada and on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Central and Eastern Europe. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

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Episode list

Star trek: strange new worlds.

S1.E1 ∙ Strange New Worlds

S1.E2 ∙ Children of the Comet

S1.E3 ∙ Ghosts of Illyria

S1.E4 ∙ Memento Mori

S1.E5 ∙ Spock Amok

S1.E6 ∙ Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach

S1.E7 ∙ The Serene Squall

S1.E8 ∙ The Elysian Kingdom

S1.E9 ∙ All Those Who Wander

S1.E10 ∙ A Quality of Mercy

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Season 2, Episode 4

Among the lotus eaters, where to watch, star trek: strange new worlds — season 2, episode 4.

Watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds — Season 2, Episode 4 with a subscription on Paramount+, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

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Cast & crew.

Jenny Lumet

Alex Kurtzman

Akiva Goldsman

Anson Mount

Captain Christopher Pike

Rebecca Romijn

Science Officer Spock

Critics Reviews

Episode info.

Screen Rant

Truth about captain pike’s hair confirmed by star trek: strange new worlds’ jess bush.

The authenticity of Captain Pike's hair in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, dubbed Pike's peak by fans, is verified by Jess Bush.

• Jess Bush confirms Anson Mount's hair as Captain Pike on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is all real.
• Fans fondly refer to Captain Pike's hair as "Pike's peak" and cosplayers try to replicate the iconic style.
• Behind-the-scenes, Jess Bush enjoys falling asleep and snoring on the sickbay beds on set.

The authenticity of Anson Mount's hair as Captain Christopher Pike on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is confirmed by his co-star, Jess Bush. Bush plays Nurse Christine Chapel on Strange New Worlds , which is closing in on the end of season 3's production in Toronto. The final two episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 will be directed by Andrew Coutts and Maja Vrvilo, who also directed Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2's finale , "Hegemony".

On her Instagram Stories, Jess Bush (@onejessa) often plays a game with her followers called "Give me a topic I'll give you a fact" where she displays her wide range of trivia knowledge about myriad facts. One follower gave Jess the topic of Anson Mount's hair, and she confirmed that it's "ALL REAL BABY" . Check out Bush's post below:

Fans appreciatively dubbed Captain Pike's hair "Pike's peak" and many cosplayers have attempted to replicate Anson Mount's distinctive coif.

Jess Bush also gave a fact on the topic of "Toronto's Starfleet BG", and the Nurse Chapel actor admitted she loves "falling asleep and snoring on the sickbay beds". This is a fun behind-the-scenes tidbit of what it can be like filming on the sets of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds . Check out Jess's post below:

Strange New Worlds Season 2 Cast Guide — Every New & Returning Star Trek Character

Star trek: strange new worlds is renewed for season 4, strange new worlds season 3 is expected to premiere in 2025 on paramount+.

Captain Pike's hair, Jess Bush's Nurse Chapel, and the rest of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ' cast will return for season 4. Paramount+ confirmed that Strange New Worlds received an early season 4 renewal , guaranteeing more voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Strange New Worlds season 3 is highly anticipated by fans, and the series will soon take its place as the flagship live-action Star Trek show on Paramount+ after Star Trek: Discovery ends with season 5.

Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5 becoming its final season was also announced by Paramount+ alongside Strange New Worlds ' season 4 renewal.

What Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 will be about is top secret , although a cover story by Variety about the future of Star Trek revealed Jonathan Frakes is directing a "Hollywood noir" episode, and the USS Enterprise will have a new Science Lab set. Joining Frakes to helm episodes of Strange New World s season 3 are season 2 directors Dan Liu, Jordan Canning, Valerie Weiss, and Chris Fisher. No doubt, S tar Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 will keep taking the "big swings" the series is now known for, and there will be plenty of spotlight on Anson Mount's Captain Pike and Jess Bush's Nurse Chapel.

Source: Instagram

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is available to stream on Paramount+

Star Trek: DS9 Almost Did Strange New Worlds' Super Soldier Drugs 20 Years Ago

• Star Trek: DS9 planned super soldier drugs 20 years before SNW's Protocol 12
• Kira's drug backstory was considered in "The Wire" episode.
• DS9's Kira and SNW's M'Benga both have dark connections - combat experience and murder, but they are redeemed by heroic actions.
• DS9's dark storytelling success in SNW echoes through shared character struggles. Watch both series on Paramount+ for more.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine planned a storyline involving super soldier drugs nearly 20 years before Dr. Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) and Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) used them in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2. It was revealed in SNW season 2 that Dr. M'Benga had developed a combat drug known as Protocol 12, which was used by Starfleet officers fighting in the Klingon War . The drug was a cocktail of adrenaline and pain inhibitors that made the user stronger, more aggressive, and more resistant to pain, all of which were valuable attributes when fighting in Star Trek: Discovery 's Klingon War .

The existence of Protocol 12 was disavowed by M'Benga and Starfleet, but Star Trek: Strange New Worlds revealed that the USS Enterprise's chief medical officer still had a supply of the drug. Both M'Benga and Chapel used Protocol 12 in Strange New Worlds ' season 2 opener , when they had to fight their way through a group of Klingon and Federation conspirators. Nearly 20 years earlier, while breaking the story of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode that would become "The Wire", the writers' room considered introducing a similar story about combat drugs involving one of DS9 's regular characters .

Strange New Worlds Dark Klingon War Episode Makes It Star Treks True DS9 Successor

Star trek: ds9 nearly did strange new world's super soldier drugs first.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 22, "The Wire" revealed that Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson) had burnt out a pain-inhibiting implant in his brain, leading to disastrous results for his health. However, writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe's original intention for the episode was to reveal that Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) was suffering withdrawal from repeated use of combat drugs during the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor . As a story for a Star Trek episode, this pre-empted Dr. M'Benga's Protocol 12 by about 19 years.

Eventually, it was decided that the revelations about Kira's drug use and addiction were too major to not factor into future episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . It was also felt that Kira's character would be tarnished by her reliance on combat stimulants. Instead, the episode became a key moment in the friendship between Garak and Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig). As Garak was a recurring character with an enigmatic and sinister past, the revelations about his implant and addiction to pain inhibitors were a better fit. However, Kira's own dark past would continue to influence future DS9 episodes.

"The Wire" is the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to name the Obsidian Order, the shadowy intelligence agency that Garak once worked for.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' M'Benga And DS9's Kira Have 1 Dark Thing In Common

Although Kira's combat drugs storyline was dropped from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , she still has a dark connection to Dr. Joseph M'Benga. Both Kira and M'Benga have seen brutal conflict from the Bajoran Resistance to the Klingon War. However, many Starfleet officers have seen combat throughout the Star Trek timeline , meaning that these two tragic characters aren't alone in their wartime experiences. What does connect Kira and M'Benga, however, is the fact that they have both committed murder .

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 8, "Necessary Evil" it was revealed that Kira murdered a Bajoran collaborator aboard Terok Nor during the Occupation. Kira acted in self-defense, but her disdain for collaborators suggests that she may have done it regardless. Similarly, Dr. M'Benga murdered Ambassador Dak'Rah (Robert Wisdom) aboard the USS Enterprise in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 8, "Under the Cloak of War", and claimed it was self-defense. However, despite Kira and M'Benga's crimes, they are both Star Trek characters whose heroic acts far outweigh their villainous ones, going some way toward redeeming these complicated characters .

All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are available to stream now on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, Ren Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

• May 5, 2024 | Alex Kurtzman Says There’s An Infinite Number Of Star Trek Stories To Tell, But New Shows Must Be “Authentic”
• May 5, 2024 | Interview: Mary Wiseman On Doing Some “Classic Star Trek” In ‘Discovery,’ And Tilly’s Future
• May 5, 2024 | Doug Jones Explains His Recent Absence From ‘Star Trek: Discovery’… And Confirms Saru’s Return
• May 3, 2024 | Michelle Yeoh Receives Presidential Medal Of Freedom
• May 3, 2024 | Chances Of Skydance Takeover Of Paramount Fades; Competing Sony Deal Reportedly Unlikely Too

Preview ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Episode 506 With New Images. Trailer And Clip From “Whistlespeak”

| April 29, 2024 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 19 comments so far

The second half of the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery arrives on Thursday with the sixth episode, and we have details, new photos, a trailer, and a clip WITH SPOILERS .

Episode 6: “Whistlespeak”

The sixth episode of the season, “Whistlespeak,” was written by Kenneth Lin & Brandon Schultz and directed by Chris Byrne. It debuts on Paramount+ on Thursday, May 2.

While undercover in a pre-warp society, Captain Burnham is forced to consider breaking the Prime Directive when a local tradition threatens Tilly’s life. Meanwhile, Culber tries to connect with Stamets, and Adira steps up when Rayner assigns them a position on the bridge.

Co-showrunner Michelle Paradise previously teased this episode saying, “Oh, classic TOS-style adventure!”

NEW photos:

Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

Alfredo Narciso as Ohvahz and Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

June Laporte as Ravah (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

Mary Wiseman as Tilly (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham and Mary Wiseman as Tilly (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham and Alfredo Narciso as Ohvahz (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham, Mary Wiseman as Tilly and June Laporte as Ravah (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

Alfredo Narciso as Ohvahz and June Laporte as Ravah (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

Previously released photo:

Anthony Rapp as Stamets (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

Episode trailer

You can see a clip from “Whistlespeak” from the latest episode of The Ready Room below …

Season trailers

Here is the trailer released in February.

And the season preview released with the first episode…

The fifth and final season of  Discovery debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+  in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria.  Discovery also premiered on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuted on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.

Find more stories on the  Star Trek Universe

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Podcast: All Access Listens For “Whistlespeak” With Commentary From Mary Wiseman Of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’

Looks pretty Trekkie!

I think they misspelled “Whisperspeak.”

This kind of drive by stuff is trolling.

“Captain Burnham is forced to consider breaking the Prime Directive when a local tradition threatens Tilly’s life.” Sounds like the TNG episode “Justice” from season 1…

Sure, but at least it looks less stupid than Justice.

While undercover in a pre-warp society, Captain Burnham is forced to consider breaking the Prime Directive when a local tradition threatens Tilly’s life. 

Tilly probably hits a ball into the one tiny forbidden area on the planet and breaks the glass, thus getting the death penalty. It happens more often than you would think.

Yah, that’s what I thought too.

I’ll settle for a recycled idea exectuted well… but to be honest, my preliminary interest into this one is low.

Holy Wesley Crusher batman. Now I know they’ve gone full canon connections.

Rayner is a great character. It’s a shame we only get one season with him. Callum Keith Rennie does a good job. I’ve liked him in his other roles. Well, we are in the final half of the season. I’m hoping they finish off strong. I have mixed feelings about DSC ending. I feel bad for all the fans who claim this is THEIR Star Trek.

It’s a shame we only get one season with him.

It’s always possible that he moves over to the Academy show.

Agreed on all counts, despite Prodigy being my #1 current Star Trek show.

He instantly makes any role he’s doing better by default. One of my favorites was Californication. He was great in that.

“Best show ever.” -Access Hollywood

Hopefully this is another good filler episode, like ep 5×4. When DIS isn’t all phasers blazing or overly melodramatic, it is much better. Plus, more Rayner please.

discovery is always overly melodramatic, always!

On a scale of overly melodramaticnes from 0 to 10 Discovery has its own scale that is in its entirety contained in the 10 of the normal scale.

There’s no such thing as filler episodes in Discovery. They’re all ‘high impact.’

Bohemian clothes and slightly different foreheads… ironically, very TOS :-)