Scotty Doesn’t Know His Star Trek Future, But Strange New Worlds Can't Stop Joking About It
Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 4 - "A Case of Chiaroscuro"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds amusingly can't stop joking about Scotty's (Martin Quinn) future, even though the young engineer has no idea what's to come for him. Directed by Meera Menon and written by Skylar Ojeda and Dana Horgan, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 4, strands an away team led by Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) on a noir world occupied by the Klingons.
The reason the USS Enterprise travels to the Mat'Aar system in Klingon space, where the sun emits radiation that renders everything in black and white, was to retrieve an errant Starfleet probe. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 4's B-story involves Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) investigating missing data from the Angelo-1 probe after it was beamed aboard.
La'an's quest for answers ultimately leads her to the culprit: Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), who deleted the probe's data incriminating her friends aboard the medical starship USS Yang. However, La'an followed clues that brought her to Scotty, who was a suspect until he revealed his ingenious solution to the Starship Enterprise's Klingon problem.
Strange New Worlds Repeatedly Jokes About Scotty’s Star Trek Future
La'an learned that Scotty was innocent of wrongdoing. Rather, the brilliant engineer innovates a signal that gives his new friend, Lt. Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia), a way to track a Klingon D7 battle cruiser orbiting Mat'Aar XII. Scotty then cracked wise, but he had no idea how prescient his joke really was: "Cross my heart and hope to get stuck in a pattern buffer."
Roughly 165 years after Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Scotty (James Doohan) will, indeed, be stuck in a pattern buffer. Star Trek: The Next Generation season 6's "Relics" reveals that Captain Scott stored himself in the USS Jenolan's transporter buffer after it crashed on a Dyson Sphere. The USS Enterprise-D rescued Scotty, who found himself in the 24th century.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' wink-wink to Scotty surviving in a pattern buffer for 75 years follows another joke in season 4, episode 3, "Human Best Friend." Hungover on the resort planet Cesnar, Scotty drank a cocktail made by his very inebriated bartender, Dr. Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun).
Dr. M'Benga could only describe Scotty's drink as "It's green," which Strange New Worlds retconned as the origin of a running joke about green alcohol. Scotty will describe a drink as "It's green" in Star Trek: The Original Series before Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) pours Scotty Alderbaran whiskey in Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Relics," which the android described as "It is green."
Rounding out Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' string of funny Scotty jokes (so far), "Human Best Friend" also saw a bomb's explosion sever Scotty's thumb. This was a sly reference to the fact that James Doohan was missing the middle finger of his right hand, which he lost during World War II.
What Still Has To Happen For Strange New Worlds’ Scotty To Become James Doohan’s Version
Martin Quinn quickly won over Star Trek fans as the younger Scotty and earned raves from his co-stars. Melissa Navia calls him "just wonderful. He is truly the best Scotty. We could not have landed a better Scotty." Dave Foley, "Human Best Friend's" guest star, concurs, telling ScreenRant, "He’s a great Montgomery Scott, if you ask me."
Scotty has several more steps to take before he becomes the "Miracle Worker."
As the remainder of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, and the fifth and final season, zero in on the prequel's endgame to connect to Star Trek: The Original Series, Scotty has several more steps to take before he becomes the "Miracle Worker" of Captain James T. Kirk's (William Shatner) Starship Enterprise.
Scotty is still falling in love with the USS Enterprise, which will be the only ship he still thinks about in his later years. Montgomery is also still a Lieutenant and far from replacing his former Starfleet instructor, Commander Pelia (Carol Kane), as Chief Engineer.
However, Scotty's fondness for drinking has begun in earnest. In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, episode 2, "Wedding Bell Blues," Mr. Scott said he doesn't drink. A year later, Scotty has developed his infamous taste for spirits, including green alcohol.
Martin Quinn made history by being the first actor to play Scotty who is actually Scottish. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds understands that they scored big time by casting Quinn as Scotty, and the prequel is having a lot of fun plugging Martin's Scotty into situations that brush against famous moments in the engineer's future. Perhaps even more jokes are still to come.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's new episodes premiere Thursdays on Paramount+