In scenes reminiscent of George Romero’s cult classic Night of the Living Dead, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds takes Star Trek to new frontiers in the third episode of this season. These boundaries, though, are not just lines on interstellar maps. A final frontier of “horror” appears in the season 3 nail-biter of an episode “Shuttle to Kenfori.”
Star Trek Goes To Horror
Star Trek boasts an idyllic future and an egalitarian lifestyle for humanity. But sometimes, the stories tap into our current fears through classic horror images. Why is that?
In “Shuttle to Kenfori,” Captain Pike and Dr. M’Benga travel to a restricted-zone planet to find a needed plant to help Captain Batel’s invasive Gorn affliction. This planet, home to an abandoned Starfleet science facility, becomes collateral damage during the war with the Klingons. The scientists there studied a special plant, the chimera blossom, rumored to stop malignancies among other uses. The scientists incorporated parts of the chimera plant with moss on Kenfori in an attempt to improve harvests. But like so many stories about hidden research facilities, the result of the experiments run amok and turn personnel into monstrous versions of themselves.
The crisis of the episode revolves around the what ifs. Even if the plant can help Batel, the plant comes from research on “frontier” farming and crop longevity, and there was a problem. It came back to bite them—literally. Like Victor Frankenstein’s monster returning to wreak havoc on his creator, this mold infects everyone and causes a form of zombieism if handled without proper protection. Pike and M’Benga must hold off the un-dead horde, fight Klingons, and save Batel in under an hour. They, of course, do this but at a cost.
Some fans might think this story might be far fetched for even Star Trek, but we’ve been here before. The Borg are case in point. Like the depictions of the Borg early in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Strange New Worlds uses forms of monsters on screen as the antagonists. While the Borg stay in stasis on their ships or operate until they “see humans as threats,” the undead creatures in “Shuttle to Kenfori” function more as unthinking, ravenous beings. Pike calls them “zombies,” but Dr. M’Benga asks him to refrain from the “Z” word. The comparison makes sense, however. Most of the monsters look like they might have just stepped off the music video for “Thriller.”
In reality, these beings are human and plant hybrids that only become active when something they can consume is nearby–like Pike and M’Benga and the various Klingon away team members.
Star Trek’s Zombies or Not?
This begs the question, why? Why not call the former Federation scientists and Klingons zombies? What does that word bring up for people? For viewers?
The short answer, I think, is the idea of American Frontier Gothic, and Strange New Worlds leans into it. The teaser poster for the series reminds audiences that the “Frontier is Waiting,” so finding dangers worthy of a Stephen King novel might seem out of place when the series advertises a traditional cowboy image juxtaposed with the pristine future Trekkies love to imagine.
But the sub-genre of Frontier Gothic fixates on the monsters found in the more desolate areas, like deserts or uninhabited regions, instead of the “safer” settings like cities or inhabited Federation planets, for example. And the ideas that monsters are all around us all the time become part of that reality.
The episode’s use of jump scares, music, and near-death experiences all position the series in a more “gothic” space than just an average Science Fiction adventure. This is not the first time for a darker Trek, though. Star Trek: Enterprise’s “Impulse” features some zombie-like Vulcans. Discovery also possesses Gothic-themed elements. Plus, season two’s “Hide and Seek” from Star Trek: Picard gives viewers a futuristic-Victorican version of “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, where the mother is driven mad by confinement.
The tempo of SNW’s “Hegemony” also brings more fright to the ship and crew. The Gorn appears like the xenomorph, and the whole sequence with Spock and Nurse Chapel calls back to Ridley Scott’s Alien. Moreover, Batel’s body hybridisation with the Gorn is the stuff of nightmares. This plot gives insight into other Gothic themes, like doppelgangers and monstrous women.
Rushing the solutions and tying up all loose ends before the conclusion of the episode calls back to the good-old-days of TV watching. Strange New Worlds uses this technique often. But putting the Gorn to “sleep” is an easy answer to the problem and sets-up the action of The Original Series’ “Arena.” At the same time, this harkens back to the moment where Captain Picard says, “Sleep, Data” in Best of Both Worlds Part II when the crew is out of options to fight the Borg.
Strange New World’s Monsters
Monsters under the bed or creatures being part of waking dreams telegraph the ideas of horror to audiences. Just because the villain is stopped at the end of the movie–doesn’t meet the villain is gone. (Cue: Freddy vs. Jason).
Modern Star Trek speaks to the needs of 21st-century viewers in the same ways The Original Series helped discuss controversial topics in the 1960s. What we might want to ask ourselves as viewers: what are we afraid of now? These lab accidents and larger-than-life monsters offer more insight into audiences than they initially seem to.
We are in a time of controversy and upheaval, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds speaks to those fears through the nods to American Frontier Gothic.
Strange New Worlds Season 3 premiered on July 17th (2025) and will continue weekly on Paramount+ in the US, UK, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Japan. It is also available to stream on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Central and Eastern Europe.
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