After a double episode premiere for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3, we’re back to weekly releases. This week, the episode is titled “Shuttle to Kenfori“. This episode is one we have been waiting for, based on scenes we have seen in the trailer. It’s also a team-up with Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and Doctor Joseph M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun). Finally, we’re getting more missions with Pike and M’Benga! It appears they are on a quest to save Captain Batel (Melanie Scrofano).
🚨 SPOILER WARNING 🚨 – This review contains spoilers for the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Episodes. You have been warned!
Jungle Planet
“Shuttle to Kenfori” opens retconning the end of the season premiere, with the Gorn infection about to kill Batel. With the three-month gap that’s already elapsed, it feels like a contrived way to get the episode moving. It also does little more than keep Batel around for a couple more episodes. At the very least, playing a game of chicken with Klingon territory feels very in-keeping with traditional Star Trek episodes.
The chemistry between Mount and Olusanmokun in the shuttle and throughout the episode is great. Strange New Worlds loves to mention that these characters have known one another for a long time. This episode gives them a lot of one on one time to flesh that out better. Putting them in a horror movie where they’re fighting for their lives is a nice way to push that relationship to the limit as well.
The biggest shame is the scenes on the surface of Kenfori. What easily could’ve been shot in the wealth of outdoor areas available ends up looking fake. The research facility is a massive step-up, even if it is a touch too dark for my taste. With everything being in disarray, vines growing on the walls, shrouding corpses on the floor, it really adds to the horror atmosphere.
Zombie Time
After a phaser fight with some Klingons, that’s nothing particularly special, the zombie Klingons reveal themselves. Giving Pike and the normal Klingons a common enemy, while never ending the hostilities, made it an interesting watch. Although, as zombies, the problem is that the episode’s big antagonistic force can’t articulate any kind of depth or motivation.
As threatening as they are, they mostly exist for “Shuttle to Kenfori” to indulge in violent excess. From seeing the skeleton at the start and the fleshy dismembered leg, I knew this episode was rated 15+ for a reason. It’s well done, looks convincing, and the blood spatter on the camera toward the end was a nice touch. But it left the episode feeling closer to Evil Dead than Star Trek, further abandoning the more family-friendly touch of the franchise’s past.
With past seasons of the show priding themselves on the variety of episodes, this season is off to a darker start. Two of the three episodes have been excessively violent spectacles, so hopefully the show is able strike that balance in the coming weeks. Thankfully that looks to be the case, but this still ventured further than a Trek episode should, especially with the zombies not serving a narrative purpose.
On the Enterprise
While the episode was mostly a Pike and M’Benga piece, and is near inarguably better for its focus, there’s a lot of motion on the Enterprise too. Mostly just manoeuvring around Klingon space, trying not to be seen, and failing that, fighting like hell until Pike’s back on board. It’s nothing that’s not been in any Star Trek episode before, save for a bit of disobedience.
Following her near-death experience, Ortegas (Melissa Navia) is dealing with some Gorn-related trauma. Of course, Gorn trauma was a whole arc with La’An (Christina Chong) in previous seasons, but this is manifesting differently enough. Violating the chain of command, a tense apology scene, her departure from Starfleet feels possible this season. With the show’s penchant for morphing into a lite version of The Original Series, could a legacy helmsman be on the horizon?
Speaking of a TOS merger, the episode moves Pelia (Carol Kane) into an entirely offscreen role. Replacing her in the senior officers’ meeting is Scotty (Martin Quinn). It’s even his voice communicating with the bridge from engineering later on. I happen to think he’s fine in the role, but it makes the show feel like a slow march to the days of Kirk’s command, rather than enjoying being the Pike show.
Characters Compromised
This rush to remove and corrupt the characters not present in TOS couldn’t feel more obvious this week. During a well-choreographed fight sequence, M’Benga confesses to murdering the Klingon general in last season’s “Under the Cloak of War“. While not a surprising twist, it does definitively compromise M’Benga’s moral character. The fact he didn’t feel a murderous rage at the end of this episode doesn’t excuse it either.
With his friend Pike now aware of it too, it’s only a matter of time until he faces some kind of consequences. The sort that would pave the way for another chief medical officer to take his place. At least they would under any other captain, because this episode doesn’t draw the line at compromising M’Benga. Using some loopholes, Pike says he will not report the confession.
Of course, those with power have used their power to protect and pardon their friends since the beginning of time. For a Star Trek captain to wield his power like this, excusing the murder of a high-ranking general, which was motivated by revenge, totally breaks the episode. It corrupts Pike as a captain in a way the episode’s ending doesn’t grapple with at all, not that I think adding a speech echoing “In the Pale Moonlight” could’ve saved the episode’s resolution.
Conclusion
“Shuttle to Kenfori” is a perfectly okay Trek episode, for the most part. It’s visually stunning, if a little indulgent on the violence. The focus on Pike and M’Benga was well chosen, adding depth to their relationship. Although the morally wrong conclusion, the series overall rush to move to The Original Series, and retconning the ending from two episodes ago really brought the episode down for me.
At least next week sounds like a refreshing change of pace. Episode four is “A Space Adventure Hour”, directed by Star Trek legend Jonathan Frakes. Presumably, this is the teased Hollywood murder mystery. Regardless, I hope that it’s a lighter outing for the Enterprise crew, and a change of pace from this week’s excessive violence.
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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