This Star Trek: Strange New Worlds review contains spoilers for season 3 episode 4.On any series that isn’t Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, you’d be forgiven for getting a bit nervous when the fourth episode of a new season kicks off with a neon-colored 1960s-style parody sequence featuring characters who clearly don’t exist within the world of the show you’ve been watching. But on this series, it’s pretty much par for the course, and no one will be surprised when I say that “A Space Adventure Hour,” which begins with a segment from an obvious Star Trek send-up, is the best episode of the season so far, and likely destined to join the ranks of such Strange New Worlds classics as “Subspace Rhapsody,” “Those Old Scientists,” and “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.”cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});One part love letter to science fiction storytelling, one part gentle spoof of Star Trek: The Original Series, and one part murder mystery – all wrapped up in a delightful Holodeck origin story – this is an hour that allows pretty much every major cast member the chance to step out of their comfort zones as performers in new and entertaining ways. Yes, it’s essentially another self-contained alternate reality episode, but it’s one that still manages to move some fairly significant character beats forward. And, frankly, it’s just a tremendous amount of fun. The episode opens with a six-minute segment from a series called The Last Frontier, essentially a candy-coated, more colorful version of The Original Series, complete with Paul Wesley doing his best William Shatner impression, an alien costume essentially made out of papier mache and prayer, and some…let’s just call it questionable gender politics. The set is dodgy, the dialogue is cringe, and it’s all terrible in the delightful way that often makes old school Doctor Who so entertaining. While the Last Frontier concept comes into play later on in the episode, this cold open is pure fan service, honoring and poking fun at Strange New Worlds’ origins all at once. (If you didn’t guess immediately that this episode was directed by Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Jonathan Frakes, well. There’s also a failed attempt at a Riker maneuver in the fake blooper reel that closes out the hour…) “A Space Adventure Hour’s” framing story is fairly basic. The Enterprise is on a routine mission to study a collapsing neutron star. While they’re engaged in this fairly basic task, La’an has been chosen to do a test run on a new piece of technology: The Recreation Room. These so-called “Holodecks” use a huge amount of processing power and energy, and her assignment is to figure out whether they’re capable of functioning in the real-life conditions of a starship taking part in an actual mission. (La’an has apparently already beaten all the battlefield training modules, which is part of the reason she’s picked for this job.) What follows is a fun spin on a locked-room murder mystery. Allowed to choose the setting of her test run, La’an asks the computer to recreate the world of her favorite series of novels: The Amelia Moon mysteries. The 1960s-set noir stories feature a snazzily dressed female detective solving crimes, and when La’an asks the holodeck program to create her a challenging mystery, it serves up a story about the death of Tony Hart, the studio head behind the science fiction program The Last Frontier. Found dead in his bathroom after word of the show’s impending cancellation leaks, Amelia must interrogate the half dozen guests in his home before the story can become public.Familiar faces from the Enterprise are used to portray the various Last Frontier cast members and production types in the holodeck’s reality. Pike is the whiny and vaguely alcoholic series creator T.K. Bellowes, while Chapel, Kirk, and Ortegas are Last Frontier stars Adelaide Shaw, Maxwell Saint, and Lee Woods. Una is the show’s producer, Sunny Lupino, who also happens to be the victim’s ex-wife, while M’Benga is there as Shaw’s boyfriend, Anthony. And Uhura is the delightfully unhinged PR agent who seems to manage most of the folks involved with the show. The mystery itself is pretty basic, but watching the Strange New Worlds regulars get the chance to play various mystery archetypes and poke fun at prevalent Hollywood and entertainment industry stereotypes is pretty darn entertaining, if generally ephemeral. (And, to be fair, some of these moments, such as Shaw’s complaints about the gender politics of her role or Gloss’s heartfelt ode to the inspirational power of science fiction, are still pretty relevant to the TV industry as we know it today.) Meanwhile, in the real world of the Enterprise, the holodeck is draining so much power that the ship is starting to have problems functioning. Scotty, of course, is convinced he can fix the problem with some creative wiring and rerouting of power supplies. But he’s also wildly averse to the idea of asking anyone for advice or help with this project, which leaves him struggling to stay on top of all the problems that keep arising. (The most unsubtle lesson of the hour is that asking for help is not a weakness.Ta-da!) Eventually, the Holodeck itself malfunctions, trapping La’an and Spock inside it, leaving them suddenly capable of being harmed and only able to escape if they successfully solve the mystery at the program’s center. The two work together well, which likely won’t come as a surprise to those who’ve paid attention to their growing closeness this season. And the twist that the Spock in the holodeck is not precisely what he appears to be is interesting on multiple levels. It not only offers a generally satisfying solution to the game’s larger mystery, but since the program was built to challenge La’an specifically, Spock’s presence in the world of the holodeck says some pretty interesting things about how she views the science officer and her relationship to him. Your mileage may vary on the wisdom of giving Spock another potential love interest who is also a member of the Enterprise crew (and who is friends with his ex, or however we refer to his relationship with Chapel). But you have to admit there is a certain kind of delightful symmetry to the idea of Spock being romantically involved with one of Khan’s relatives, and Christina Chong and Ethan Peck have genuinely interesting chemistry with one another (as well as decent dance skills). But where this particular tango goes from here is anyone’s guess. New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiere Thursdays on Paramount+, culminating with a finale on Sept. 11.The post Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Episode 4 Review — A Space Adventure Hour appeared first on Den of Geek.