Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 4 - "Memento Mori"

Dr. Leonard McCoy's (DeForest Kelley) medical nightmare in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was paid off by Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode 4. Set several years before "Bones" McCoy serves as the Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Strange New Worlds charts a new five-year mission of galactic exploration led by Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount). Strange New Worlds episode 4, "Memento Mori," involves a desperate medical crisis as a result of an attack on the Enterprise by the Gorn where Pike's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) has to implement medical procedures that would have made McCoy cringe.

Medicine is one of the true miracles of Star Trek's vision of the future. By the 23rd century of Strange New Worlds, science and medicine have wiped out the diseases that plagued humanity. Biobeds can monitor a person's entire bodily system, organs can be regrown, surgery can be non-invasive, and technology to even alter an individual's genome to transform a human into an alien exists, which is Nurse Christine Chapel's (Jess Bush) specialty aboard the Enterprise. Even though Dr. McCoy's nickname is "Bones," nodding at how field doctors were known as "Sawbones" in Earth's 19th century, and Leonard had the demeanor of an old country doctor, McCoy was a stern advocate of 23rd-century medicine. In Star Trek: The Original Series, Bones lamented how people in the past used to be "sewn up like garments" with "needles and sutures." When McCoy time-traveled to 1986 in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Bones' visit to a 20th-century hospital to personally see how medicine was practiced turned into one of his nightmares come true. In fact, Bones was furious at the doctors he met in the operating room.

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In Strange New Worlds episode 4, Dr. M'Benga and Nurse Chapel were forced to resort to the kind of antiquated medicine McCoy hated. When the Gorn launched a surprise attack that damaged the Enterprise, killed crewmembers and civilians, and left several more badly wounded, Dr. M'Benga's Sickby was deprived of the power he needed for his biobeds and equipment to work. Number One AKA Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) was among the seriously injured, but there was only enough plasma left for one person. Number One heroically ordered Dr. M'Benga to use the remaining plasma on another member of the crew, and she gutted it out as the physicians sewed the wound in her torso.

Strange New Worlds Chapel Una MBenga

Dr. M'Benga and Nurse Chapel forced to suture Number One's injury was exactly the kind of outdated medical procedure Dr. McCoy loathed. Yet it was the only recourse left to Pike's medical team given the crisis they were in. Presumably, when the Enterprise's power was restored, M'Benga and Chapel were able to repair Number One's injury with the full technology at their disposal. But during the Gorn attack, the Enterprise's Sickbay was reduced to a grim triage as if they were in a war zone. In Star Trek's future years after Strange New Worlds, Dr. McCoy will find himself in medical no-win scenarios as well, including trying to save the mortally wounded Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) despite not being familiar with Klingon anatomy in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

The USS Enterprise is gleaming with the finest technology Starfleet has in 2259, but the savage attack by the Gorn proved how quickly the starship can be turned into a war zone. To their credit, Dr. M'Benga and Nurse Chapel performed their duties admirably and kept as many of their crewmates alive as they could until the Enterprise's power was restored. In the same scenario, with Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett) by his side on Kirk's Enterprise, Dr. McCoy would have performed in a similarly admirable fashion. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds showed how resourceful Dr. M'Benga and Nurse Chapel were in what would have been one of Dr. McCoy's medical nightmares.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams Thursdays on Paramount+.