Stardate: 2011.7
Original Air Date: August 6, 2026
Writer: Kathryn Lyn
Director: Yana Gorskaya
“I promise you this will be the best shore leave ever.”
The Enterprise is en route to the Rodaxian System where Captain Pike is expected to negotiate a peace treaty during a civil war (it is a difficult system to travel to) however “Alpha shift” is badly in need of a break. Pike and Una decide to send Alpha shift for some shore leave on a “resort planet” called Cesnar Grand with an intoxicating atmosphere wherein each visitor experiences a customized journey to relax, a technology-free zone. The planetary host is an alien named Dendru (played by Dave Foley), “your new best friend on your personal journey to de-stresstation.”
Ortegas wakes up some time later, hungover, in a trashed hotel room with her arm in a cast, wearing an Andorian headband, beside Scotty in a large furry costume, with no idea what happened. After much predictable hijinks, they venture out in search of the rest of the crew: Spock has been playing board games with a hallucination of Jim Kirk (apparently we later learn Kirk is not a hallucination and he is somehow unaffected by the intoxicating atmosphere on Cesnar), Uhura is having a strange drug-fueled hippie party, Una is singing a Klingon rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in a bar, Dr. M’Benga is pouring drinks behind a bar, and Pike is getting a tattoo on his face.
Scotty and Ortegas deliver a note to Pike. Alarmingly, it says the Rodaxians are now headed to the Enterprise in two hours for the negotiations. Scotty and Ortegas race to try to find their missing shuttlecraft. In the process, they shatter Uhura’s tricorder, Spock performs a mind-meld with a plant (“my mind to your leaves, my thoughts to your root system”), Nurse Chapel plays bingo in an alien retirement home, and La’an randomly beats up people in a fight club. They find the shuttle behind a billboard before they are attack and tied-up. But this was all caused by the host Dendru.
Eventually, they escape Cesnar aboard the shuttle and Pike and Una meet with the Rodaxians for negotiations led by Co’Rah (played by Darryl Hinds), while Scotty and Ortegas have a heart-to-heart and discover a bomb hidden aboard the shuttlecraft and a secret message they recorded for themselves. Also, Scotty cannot let go of the bomb or it will release a catastrophic explosion. After sending the shuttlecraft away so the bomb can detonate, Spock and Kirk narrowly manage to beam Ortegas and Scotty back to the Enterprise while the explodes and the ensuing fireworks are celebrated by the Rodaxians and they agree to the negotiations with Pike. The bomb had been placed by a “Rodaxian militant” who intended to disrupt the negotiations. The episode ends with Scotty and Ortegas finding a way to be friends again.
My Thoughts on “Human Best Friend”
“Human Best Friend” is another ridiculous gimmick episode, this time the writers decided to pay tribute to college comedy films like The Hangover and Dude Where’s My Car? Unsurprisingly, there are many guffawing contradictions in this episode (for example, why would the Rodaxians suddenly arrive at the Enterprise while it is on a brief detour, two weeks away from their meeting?) But there is really no point in seriously examining this one. It’s a poor attempt at doing a “Shore Leave” episode mixed with dashes of “The Naked Time.” Plus, the forced Scotty and Ortegas tension is just not even interesting. And the oddball friendship between Spock and Kirk is sloppily done (why wasn’t Kirk affected by the intoxicating atmosphere on Cesnar?) Tragically, Strange New Worlds continues to lean more into soap opera antics instead of science fiction. “Human Best Friend” is just a mess. I would rank this one near the bottom of the SNW episodes thus far, somewhere near “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans” and “Subspace Rhapsody.”
Star Trek Trivia:
- In this episode, we learn that Beta and Gamma shifts had shore leave last month and Alpha shift did not (Alpha shift apparently includes Ortegas and Scotty as well as the rest of the primary crew members).
- At one point, Scotty asks Dr. M’Benga what drink he just poured while tending bar, and Dr. M’Benga simply responds saying that his drink is “green.” This is a callback to the TOS episode “By Any Other Name” when Scotty pours a drink and simply says it is “green” and also the TNG episode “Relics” in which Data says the same thing.
- Scotty offhandedly mentions he has a tattoo in a private area.
- The title of this episode is a reference to Spock believing his hallucination of Kirk is his subconscious need for a “human best friend.”
- Scotty says he grew up with 6 brothers (4 adopted).
- As part of Spock’s hallucination, he sees Scotty and Ortegas as a pair of plants.
- Scotty says he crashed seven shuttlecrafts during his only piloting class.
- Quadrium is a rare mineral used in explosives on Rodaxia.