Stardate: Unknown
Original Air Date: July 31, 2025
Writers: Dana Horgan & Kathryn Lyn
Director: Jonathan Frakes
“So we can’t shut it off, the program could actually hurt us, and we can’t get out.”
In a colorful 1960s throwback to The Original Series, “A Space Adventure Hour” opens with a clip from a faux old television show called “The Last Frontier” (a campy spoof of Star Trek) aboard the USS Adventure representing the Whole of the Alliance of Outer Space Planets. In it, we see a Nurse Chapel-esque character dressed in a short skirt, announcing to a Captain Kirk-esque character that the ship is picking up “space radiation” that does not appear to be native to the “Blootar Nebula.” In the past hour, fourteen more crew members have reported to the ship’s “medbay” on account of “melancholia.” Then comes a conflict with the “Agonyans,” who are described as extremely dangerous space creatures under the leadership of a clumsy prop alien holding its own eyeballs called “Zipnop” of the “Triathic Agonyan Empire” as it demands human brain cells (perhaps a nod to the TOS episode “Spock’s Brain”).
At any rate, the real episode begins with a security officer’s log from La’an. The Enterprise is about to pass through the Kitolian Belt which centers on a neutron star. But while the Enterprise studies the neutron star, La’an has been assigned a separate but equally important task, a “duel mission” of sorts. Starfleet believes it has figured out a solution to long-term, faster than light travel. Starships will soon be able to go for more than five years without returning to the Federation. How? Through games and entertainment as a stress release for crewmen. Starfleet is testing a device called the “recreation room” or just a “holodeck” for short. La’an has been selected because she has beaten every battle simulator available. Her job is to test a rigorous new challenge in the holodeck, she gets to choose her own simulation.
After a brief scene of practicing tango with Spock, La’an elects to choose an “Amelia Moon” simulation. Amelia Moon was an earth detective story from the 1960s (in this case, in 1969 Hollywood). The captain of the ship who rescued La’an from the Gorn once gave her a copy of an Amelia Moon book. The challenge will be for Scotty to preserve enough energy for the holodeck as well as the ship’s normal functions, and the holodeck can only use pattern buffers of other crewmen from the ship’s transporter. Tony Hart (head of Lomond Pictures Studios), has been strangled in his own home. The suspects? All the cast and crew of the show “The Last Frontier” which is being canceled. As the program proceeds, it quickly finds a way to outmaneuver La’an so she decides to invite Spock to work alongside her in solving the murder. But as they get close to the solution, Spock and La’an realize that the safety protocols have malfunctioned and they both become trapped inside the holodeck.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the ship, there is a power overload near the neutron star as Scotty struggles to handle the unfolding situation. He loses contact with La’an inside the holodeck and a gamma burst suddenly comes from the neutron star, nearly destroying the Enterprise. The holodeck simulation is pulling all system power away from the rest of the ship.
In the end, La’an solves the mystery –her ally Spock was actually just a hologram of Spock the whole time, the person she least suspected. Once the mystery is solved, La’an and Scotty amusingly recommend to Starfleet that these holodecks not be installed on starships… at least for the foreseeable future. As the episode ends, Spock and La’an embrace in another tango lesson before they kiss.
As the credits roll, we see a hilarious blooper roll of b-footage for “The Last Frontier.”
My Thoughts on “A Space Adventure Hour”
Despite being another goofy, whimsical, gimmick episode, I had a lot of fun with “A Space Adventure Hour.” It’s great to see the cast and crew enjoying themselves in a murder mystery holodeck plot (it brings to mind Picard’s famous adventures in TNG). “A Space Adventure Hour” is a comedic, self-referential episode riddled with all sorts of meta allusions to the show –a writer’s dream! I can just imagine Dana Horgan and Kathryn Lyn chuckling as they smartly crafted this one (even if I solved the holodeck murder mystery fairly early on). At times it’s an eye-roller, a farce, and deeply unsubtle, but at least it’s still plenty of fun if you can shut off your brain.
However, at this point I am at my limit with Spock romance subplots in SNW. Adding yet another romance, now between Spock and La’an, is simply tarnishing the character of Spock –a cold, rational, logical half-Vulcan. Will every character in this show suddenly find themselves caught up in a love triangle? It’s rapidly becoming a tired cliché for a show that is not supposed to be a soap opera.
And with respect to the holodeck, why must the Enterprise conduct a test of this holodeck new device under such a strenuous situation? Couldn’t they test it out a little further away from the neutron star? And why is Scotty so anxious about hiding his struggles from the rest of the crew? Why not immediately profess to the captain that he has lost control of the holodeck? I really want to like some of these Season Three episodes, but hopefully the show will return to more serious science fiction in the vein of the first season episode “Children of the Comet.”
Star Trek Trivia:
- The opening monologue for “The Last Frontier” reads: “Galaxies: the last frontier. This is the tale of the USS Adventure on an 84-month mission as it treks across the furthest reaches of the universe striving to find unknown life, unexplained phenomena, and new space destinations. To go forward, to go beyond, to go further and bolder than anyone ever before.”
- “The Last Frontier” mock show was created by fictional cast and crew: TK Bellows, starring Maxwell Saint, Adelaide Shaw, and Lee Woods as the doctor, and produced by Sunny Lupino.
- Spock has a playlists in the ship’s computer called “Spock 19” and “Spock 21.”
- Spock mentions Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is his ancestor (there has been a long-running allusion in Star Trek that Spock is related to Sherlock Holmes, it began as a gag in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).
- Jess Bush uses her native Australian accent in a rare moment on the show as her character in the holodeck murder mystery.
- Scotty says the holodeck is a complex balance of forcefields, tractor beams, and precision-guided diodes all hardwired in. Blowing it up would crash the whole ship’s computer.
- Number One says there are 203 crewmen on the Enterprise.
- The silly Agonyan character is played by Kira Guloien (she also played “Kelzing” the Edosian bartender in the earlier Season 3 episode “Wedding Bell Blues”).
- At one point in the murder mystery, Lee Woods says “I’m an actor not a doctor” –a nod to Dr. McCoy.
- The “Showbiz Spectrum” newspaper briefly visible in this episode in the holo simulation is on June 6, 1969, which is three days after the final episode of TOS aired “Turnabout Intruder.”
- This episode was directed by Jonathan Frakes, celebrated Star Trek actor and director. “The Last Frontier” spoof of “Kirk” swinging his leg over the chair and breaking it is a satire of Riker’s iconic move in TNG.