Don’t come clanging down the street with saucepans for feet when it comes to your sci-fi horror, or quite frankly horror in general. A solid suspenseful horror will always outshine the jumpscare-athons that plagued us throughout the 2000s. This is the only episode to be written by a single person. Unless we count Akiva Goldsman writing the teleplay for “Strange New Worlds,” we have Davy Perez returning from “Memento Mori.” Directing “All Those Who Wander” is Discovery alum and second unit director for such shows as Hannibal, The Last of Us, and more, Christopher J. Byrne.

Given that I’ve said it is horror and we’ve got Perez writing once again, it is no secret we’re once again following La’an, and (in this case) Uhura. As the final mission for the young cadet’s current tour, she’s ready to go back to her home on Earth. La’an, on the other hand, is asked by Pike to join him on an away mission with the cadets as the Enterprise continues on to its original mission of delivering stuff to a place while they touch down in hell. That bacon, omelet, and waffle better be good Pike. This field trip with the kids isn’t the fun we had last time in “The Elysian Kingdom.”

Away with your DS9 references, we’re back to the plight of Tiberius or rather the people before him who gave him the Indiana Jones-like fear of lizards. At least, they looked like lizards before when they were cartoonish dinosaurs made of spit, a bit of hope, and paper maché. A ship has crashed on Frosty the Snowman’s planet and Pike takes La’an, Uhura, the bloke that was promoted and was instantly dead the moment that happened, Spock, M’Benga, Hemmer, Chapel… You know what, it is easier listing who isn’t on the away mission, which is Una. Even Tiberius’ brother is on the mission.

Now basically marooned on Valeo Beta V with the crashed Peregrine, the away team is tasked with starting up the battered and broken ship. Their goals are finding any and all survivors, killing the Gorn if possible, and getting away. Let me cut through the suspense for a second. Of course, they get away. Strange New Worlds has been an episodic series thus far and it isn’t going to change beyond the arcs that are being told. That doesn’t stop Perez, Byrne, and the cast from creating one of the best horror-focused episodes of Star Trek or even sci-fi shows in general. It’s done with an entire revamp of a squeaky hammer turning into an all-out monster.

Heavy on the Dutch angles, Byrne attempts with a somewhat heavy hand early on to suggest something isn’t quite right. It is similar to Discovery and much like F1 this year had a heavy overreliance on the Dutch. Otherwise, he isn’t too egregious. Where Byrne succeeds and Discovery on the whole fails is making sure I know which way is up. The less nice way of saying that is, I don’t feel like I’m being thrown around in a front-loading washing machine. One thing fails me, the lack of light or colors in a show has been fairly bright and colorful thus far, but I get why.

Being the penultimate episode, we’ve got a whole lot of heavy lifting to do with select characters. We’ve hardly scratched the surface on Hemmer, Uhura is still trying to work out what her next move is, M’Benga is coming to terms with the loss of his daughter, and La’an is facing not only another encounter with the Gorn but also a young woman who was in a similar position. Spock and Chapel get a fair showing but move at a glacial pace, so we’ll move past that for now. It is definitely a slower pace until we get to about the second act, as we’re focused on personal conflicts more than anything else.

As it turns out, the Peregrine (which was supposed to have a crew in the ’90s) was all gone soon after picking up a couple of strays: A human teenager calling herself Oriana, an Orion (because Oriana and Orion couldn’t be misheard) called Pasko, and a great big lumbering creature called Buckley. Soon after the ship took them in, Pasko committed Hara Kiri knowing he had been infected by Gorn eggs. Where “All Those Who Wander” picks up as a horror, or more aptly a recreation of Alien is when Buckley went like Tim and OD’d after snorting a small bag of Gorn hatchlings.

I believe “Shook” is what the kids call it, at least that’s what Spock seems to be when the tiny hatchlings rip ensign Duke from his hands. I’ll call him an ensign, he ain’t chasing me for that drink anytime soon. Playing a game of Home Alone, the remaining crew and the kid have to direct the Gorn to survive gestation, the rapid neonate/infancy period, the aggressive adolescence, and hopefully never get into adulthood. At the same time, Hemmer deals with the produce from the acid-spitting maw, which I am pretty sure only adult Gorn are supposed to see.

I mentioned it in “Strange New Worlds” and again referred to it last time out in “The Elysian Kingdom,” I said: “[…] both M’Benga and Hemmer are going to make me cry again.” What little we saw of Hemmer I was enjoying, and I think a majority of those watching the show up to this point did too. The acid from the Gorn isn’t just something to kill you, it is how they reproduce and this is where Perez gets some extra credit. We’ve seen the result of the Gorn, we’ve seen the death of a crew member, and we’ve seen a hatching moment, we know as viewers what Hemmer is facing next.

It is how his story is closed out that matters most. In “Memento Mori” he tells Uhura of his pacifist nature. Here, Uhura names the team up “Hemhura” while he gives the OK to plant roots, and we’ve got his small interaction with Spock. Breaking tradition, Spock shows emotion as he’s attacking a Gorn, so much so that he’s about to get ambushed by the other. I’m going in circles because a well-told story is circles looping on each other. He is pulled out of being bait resulting in La’an taking his place in the cargo bay next to Hemmer, and Hemmer gives us the famous Vulcan line as his goodbye.

The eulogy that really did it was Ortegas. They were simple lines told by someone who couldn’t have delivered them any better and were in complete contrast to their typical character. Meanwhile, it isn’t a kiss we’re graced with for Spock and Chapel’s story, it is a punch of a wall and a hug telling him he’s allowed to feel emotions. La’an takes a leave of absence to get Oriana back to her family, something La’an could only hope for. It is only a hint but I think that moment after La’an leaves and we’re hanging around in the silence with Pike tells us he’s at least satisfied that the crew (for the most part) are safe.

I’d have preferred to have seen Hemmer do something a little more. Up to this point, he had been a mentor for Uhura for only a few moments, then was shouted at to get something to work. I like his story and arguably that’s why I sort of wanted something more. I don’t think there was a better way to end his story, but I think more could have been done to make the journey feel at least a little bit more impactful. He was great, fun, and enjoyable to see in a scene, and Bruce Horak who’s arguably only notable for playing Hemmer did a great job.

As an episode on its own and as a whole, it is a great example of doing a horror episode that doesn’t rely too much on loud orchestral pieces and jittery editing that is common with the jumpscare crew. It is weird to say because I rail against him being so prominent, but any episode that genuinely seems like it has rattled Spock is worth at least some praise. Perez wonderfully doesn’t overload the script too much and progressively tells the story of the crew being picked off with an alien, an ensign, an ensign turned lieutenant, and eventually a lieutenant we’ve come to care about.

I want to praise the actors just as much, but there was something that felt a little off when La’an was goading that final Gorn to chase her. I praised the “ropey” acting in “The Elysian Kingdom” because that is what was called for at that moment. It was an episode that needed a hint of self-awareness surrounding it to truly get the point across just how odd but fun it was. “All Those Who Wander” is an episode that demands sincerity throughout, so that little stumble into campy western for the line “Come on. It is just you and me. Fight me! Come on fight me! Aghhh!” doesn’t land so well.

Ultimately, “All Those Who Wander” is a fantastic episode, especially for a sci-fi horror that lets the suspense build and bubble up, with a bitter-sweet ending for a loved character. I think that maybe the pacing got a little too quick once the Peregrine had the power back, as it rushed through the Gorn killing. Though at around 50 minutes without credits, the first act makes up for it. Arguably it was a solid finale of its own, but as the falling action before the denouement, Davy Perez and Christopher J Byrne’s “All Those Who Wander” is great.

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8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• A horror episode that understood horror.
• A fantastic Gorn redesign.
• Spock might just be a real boy.
• Ortegas' Eulogy.

Cons

• La'an's final goading of the Gorn
• The pacing in the second half could have been a touch slower with a longer episode.