Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Gives Scotty's Biggest Relationship An Origin Story

This article contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" Season 4, Episode 6, "Off-Hour."

If you asked Trekkies which character on "Star Trek" most loved the Enterprise, they'd all know the answer: Lt. Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan). As the Enterprise's chief engineer, it was Scotty's job to maintain the ship, a job that demanded he know the Enterprise inside and out while working right next to the ship's "heart" (read: warp core). 

A famous example of Scotty's love is in "The Trouble with Tribbles," one of the most essential episodes of the original "Star Trek." Scotty, Chekov (Walter Koenig) and some other Enterprise crew members are drinking at a starbase bar. Some Klingons try antagonizing them by insulting humanity at large and then Captain Kirk (William Shatner) specifically. Scotty holds an angered Chekov back until the Klingons deride the Enterprise as "garbage." Then, Scotty throws fists and a bar fight breaks out. The subsequent disciplinary hearing hurts worse than any punch: Scotty has to admit to his captain that he won't stand up for Kirk's honor, only the Enterprise's.

The ongoing prequel series "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" depicts how a younger Scotty (Martin Quinn) first joined the Enterprise crew. But this Scotty is not the man Trekkies know. For one, whereas Doohan's Scotty famously liked his booze, Quinn's Scotty is (initially) a teetotaler. Scotty is also not yet the chief engineer of the Enterprise; that would be Pelia (Carol Kane), one of his old Starfleet Academy instructors.

The latest "Strange New Worlds" episode, "Off-Hour," where the Enterprise is caught in a "slipstream wormhole" and Scotty has to help save the ship, shows the beginning of the love so strong Scotty would punch a Klingon over it. It starts when Pelia gives him his most important lesson yet.

During the crisis in this episode, Pelia is trapped in her quarters, while Scotty is working in a Jefferies Tube. The two keep in touch via comms, and in a moment of frustration, Scotty reveals who he blames for this disaster: the Enterprise itself. "This ship is supposed to keep us alive in the blackness of space, but it's doing just the opposite!" he says. So Pelia tells him that all ships, even the best one, glitch at times. The job of a chief engineer is to predict those problems before the ship's computer announces them, which you can only do by listening to and feeling the ship as if its bones were your own.

At the episode's climax, the ticking clock runs out. Without getting into the technobabble, the crew has found a way to restore power to the ship, but they have only 30 seconds until the Enterprise crosses a "warp threshold" that will tear the ship apart. Scotty reassures them that the Enterprise will hold long enough — not through any scanning or diagnostics, but by closing his eyes, placing his hand on the hull, and listening like Pelia said to. The shot holds on Scotty for a few extra seconds, almost silent except for a ticking sound, and his communion with the ship is so total that he completely ignores a cloud of steam that erupts from the end of the tube right by his head.

When Scotty guest-starred on the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Relics," he compared the Enterprise to a first love. "Strange New Worlds" suggests this wasn't love at first sight, but rather a love that grew as Scotty served aboard the ship.

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is streaming on Paramount+.