Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 3 Reaction: Episode 8

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Star Trek Strange New Worlds
Season 3 Reaction: Episode 8


Four and a Half Vulcans

So...another "Vulcan hijinks" episode.  And more of the La'an-Spock relationship.  Still not sure about this one.  The story line about the mission to the planet undercover as Vulcans is interesting.  Not sure about the choice of music for the corridor scene.  I got a giggle at Pike doing the "Space the final frontier" speech as a Vulcan.  Honestly I'd have liked to have seen a bit more of the mission down to the planet, but I'm guessing story and probably budget considerations said otherwise.  The human characters acting "super Vulcan" comes off as a bit campy and stilted.  Also: contrary to the writers belief Vulcans can use contractions.  The twist of "we've fixed the problem but we don't want to use it" is cliche at this point and over used.  Honestly the "humans being over-done Vulcans" gag wears thin fast.  The Vulcan with a human name? Lame.  The gag of Una making up that she and Spock are married is corny, and I feel unnecessary.  I did get a little giggle at Captain Batel's little tiff in Pike's quarters during the dinner with the admiral.  Not getting to see the process to reverse the "vulcanization" of the crew is a bit of a cop out, although we did get to see the Spock-La'an mind meld, although it feels like more of an excuse to see Christina Chong and Ethan Peck dancing again.  The "all's well that ends well" endings with all the messed up relationships/friendships repaired is very TOS, but also very easy (no repercussions).  Interesting that Batel get's offered a promotion to replace the Vulcan admiral as Starfleet JAG.  Cool possible future storytelling there.  The post credit scene is goofy and in my opinion unnecessary, but still kinna fun (I could still do without the contractions thing).  Seems like they just wanted to give the Doug character more screen time.

Observations: It is fun to see Kirk again.  Pike's mention of Vulcans having a heightened sense of smell is a reference back to Enterprise's pilot "Broken Bow", in which T'Pol mentioned it after first encountering Porthos.  Nice references to the Vulcan Katra as part of the solution to Pike/Chapel/Uhura/La'an problem.

I liked seeing the beginning of the Kirk/Scotty friendship, that was fun.  I'm liking the idea that as we get closer in time to TOS we start to slowly build the friendships and relationships that will become the core of that crew.  Kirk and Scotty, Kirk and Spock, Kirk and Uhura.  It's a frsh angle, in contrast to Picard or Janeway who basically met all (or most) of their crews when they took command of their ship.

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