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Strange New Worlds Episode 6 'Off-Hour' spotlights Nurse Chapel

tvAug 27, 202668915

Directed by Dan Liu and written by Bill Wolkoff, Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 6 “Off-Hour” traps the USS Enterprise in a slipstream wormhole and turns Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) into the story’s hero as she fights to save a mortally injured Dr. Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun). A medical table nearly bisects M'Benga, and with Sickbay powered down Chapel freezes him in a cryo-like state, loses a finger in the process, and rigs a way to capture strong force neutrinos to both stitch his body back together and re-ignite the Enterprise’s deuterium. Scotty (Martin Quinn) overcomes fears to lead engineering while Commander Pelia (Carol Kane) is cut off, Spock (Ethan Peck) performs a radioactive spacewalk to retrieve ion pod data, and La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) rescues him and then mind-melds with Spock to transfer the data Scotty needs. With the neutrinos restoring power, Lieutenant Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) pilots the damaged starship out of the slipstream to safety, though several crew members including Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) are seriously injured. The episode links back to Season 1’s “The Elysian Kingdom” by using M'Benga’s research into saving Chapel’s terminally ill daughter and reveals Chapel has been on temporary duty aboard the Enterprise, explaining earlier tension between her and M'Benga. Critics and reviews called “Off-Hour” a return to form and described it as “Star Trek at its very best.”

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