On Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 episode 4 “A Space Adventure Hour,” we experience an early canonical holodeck episode. La’an plays Detective Amelia Moon, working to solve a murder mystery intertwined with a canceled sci-fi television series that is definitely not Star Trek. There’s action and excitement! There’s cheesy special effects galore!
This is basically Strange New Worlds does Clue and I’m here for it!
So put on your best 60s get-up and join me for my review of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 episode 4 “A Space Adventure Hour.”
Nods to Classic Hollywood and Classic Trek
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 episode 4 “A Space Adventure Hour” nods to old Hollywood and classic Star Trek. While it’s clear that The Last Frontier is a satirization of Star Trek: The Original Series and let’s be honest, a little bit Pigs in Space, what is buried a little deeper are the nods to two important figures in Hollywood history. They are Ida Lupino and Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry.
Rebecca Romijn’s holodeck character, Sunny Lupino is an homage to Ida Lupino, an actress, writer, and film and television director whose career spanned from the early 1930s to the late 70s. She was the second woman ever inducted into the Directors Guild of America. The big thread connecting her to Star Trek is that she directed a Gene Roddenberry-penned episode of Have Gun – Will Travel, “Charley Red Dog.” While Ida Lupino never worked on Star Trek proper, she is an important figure in film and television history, especially for women. It’s fitting that they have Una portray her here.
The second is Anson Mount’s portrayal of T. K. Bellows is clearly Gene Roddenberry. While he’s got the look of a 1970s Gene Roddenberry down, the homage ends there. The defeatist attitude, lack of optimism, and then the waving about of a gun are anything but Gene. There’s more to say here, but I’ll dig into this a bit later.
MORE: Read our Strange New Worlds season 3 reviews—Episode 1, Episode 2, and Episode 3.
Commentary on Generative AI
One thing that bothered me initially about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 episode 4 “A Space Adventure Hour” is that the holodeck scenario felt, well, for want of a better word, hollow. The story felt half-baked. And upon further reflection, I think it’s meant to. This is a new technology that they’re trying out. It’s not got all the bugs worked out, which makes sense that the story goes wrong. But I think there’s also some interesting commentary here on generative AI.
The holodeck runs on AI that bases its creations on things like people’s transporter patterns, personnel profiles, and even La’an’s feelings towards her crew. You get the look and a flavor of our crew, but not the substance. Similarly, having a show spoof like The Last Frontier has the look and characters that are like classic Trek, but the details are wrong. While it may look like Trek in some ways, it misses that Star Trek was one of the highest quality productions on television at the time. It looked good then, and though it may look chintzy now to our 21st century eyes, it is a misconception to portray it as low budget or of poor quality.
The main thing it gets wrong is that this show that gives so much hope to others is created by a cynical, miserable person. That isn’t the historical Gene Roddenberry by any stretch of the imagination.
The Heart of the Story
Despite this, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 episode 4 “A Space Adventure Hour” gets this really right with a line from Celia Rose Gooding’s Joni Gloss,
“T. K. wanted to give audiences a digestible reflection of their own world through the lens of fantasy. Social commentary through the lens of rubber masks and buried metaphors. You know, science fiction? …T. K. wanted to take our rotten world, you know, with its warts and its injustices and give audiences something better. …You don’t think some kid out there isn’t going to see this show and spend the rest of their life searching the stars? …You don’t think someone can love a piece of art so much that it heals them?!”
That is exactly what Star Trek is. Can someone love a piece of art so much that it heals them? I believe so. I believe it because I have loved and still love certain pieces of art so much that they have healed me and continue to heal me. Star Trek has my heart because it makes me want to be better. It is social commentary in alien makeup and in space. Good art should make you want to be a better human. Star Trek is consistently good art.
Final Thoughts
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 episode 4 “A Space Adventure Hour,” while not a complete hit for me, does hit where it counts. Art is therapeutic and healing. Give artists space to write and create without too much studio interference and then we’ll have art that really makes a difference in people’s lives.
Finally, while I can’t blame anyone for falling for Spock, I didn’t have Spock and La’an falling for one another on my bingo card. And honestly, I don’t know how I feel about it. Sure, they seem at ease with one another, but this just feels like a rebound and I don’t really see either of them as rebound sorts of people. We’ll see where this goes.
The next episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will air on August 7, 2025, on Paramount+.
