Logline
A shuttle accident leads to Spock’s Vulcan DNA being removed by aliens, making him fully human and completely unprepared to face T’Pring’s family during an important ceremonial dinner.
Written by Kathryn Lyn & Henry Alonso Myers
Directed by Jordan Canning
This episode was really fun
such a great episode. love it
By far the best moment was Pike’s face when he noped out of the scene after Spock revealed the deception.
His 90° turn sent me squealing I had to rewatch it. I love how Pike is supportive and a better model of masculinity.
So… what was up with the door in the transporter room slamming shut in Pike’s face when he turned to leave Amanda and Spock? lol
Yeah. Pike kept trying to avoid the family conflict the whole episode. Seeing the door shut on him and him trying to wave it open was comic gold. He was probably thinking, “what the hell? This is my ship!” then he just stood there looking awkward. Gold.
Yeah! I was wondering that too. Either it was a flub that they left in because it was funny, or it was a flub that they left in because they didn’t have another good take, or it’s a breadcrumb for a weird AI-takes-over-the-Enterprise season finale.
Ethan peck looked like he had a blast with this episode, screaming into a towel is a mood
I also enjoyed the “subservient” dad who really just wanted to eat good food and play charades but was shot down :'( but then the captain gave him leftovers with a cool snap :)
Also, as a meta comment, I really dislike the scenes where it’s clear they are just I don’t of the LED wall. It looks so fake and the actors just stand there in an obviously empty room. Season 1 of SNW had at least one episode of this, and season 1 of the mandalorian did too, and they really need to follow the mandalorian example.abkut having actual physical props in addition to the LED wall to prevent it from looking fake as hell
The AR wall was obvious but it doesn’t bother me that much. Environments that require active suspension of disbelief have been a Star Trek staple since the 1960s.
I think my problem was that the rest of the sets look so good with actual physical spaces that a empty wall feels…empty :P
Regarding the LED wall, yeah, it was more obvious here. It felt like they were entering one of those gimmicky project-Van-Gogh-art-on-a-warehouse-wall tourist traps.
The episode where Uhura and Hemmer were trapped in the engine room was another one that stood out.
Actually, I think they were in one of those places, given this post:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cupdh9eAWf-/?igshid=Y2IzZGU1MTFhOQ==
Having grown up watching matte paintings, shaky plywood sets, bubble wrap monsters and people running up and down the same corridor repeatedly and then decades of soulless bad CGI I have nothing bad to say about modern productions standards. There is something special and human about the artistry of matte paintings, scale models and physical sets but I don’t know that today’s viewers have the same capacity for suspension of disbelief. LED walls allow some story telling that would otherwise be to expensive to visualise.
The last episode on Rigel VII was shot in front of the Holodeck (what the call Trek’s AR Wall) and it was breathtakingly good. The emptiness was likely part of the point with this species.
I laughed more times in that one episode than I have during hundreds of previous Trek episodes COMBINED. Trek comedy has never landed with me which makes this the best Trek comedy ever by a large margin. Angsty Spock and the crew’s reaction to him were genuinely funny, with a special nod to Pike’s “WTF” facial reactions in the background during the ceremony.
Going in spoiler-free and without having read people’s opinions in this thread, I’m going to guess this is going to be one hell of a polarizing episode. But one I really enjoyed, so there’s that.
It is a great what if episode ( what if Spock was human for a day) and colors within the lines (in that everyone else plays true to the their character & situation).
We really really enjoyed it!
Spock being human was great in that he had no clue how to be human, like when he overlaughs at the bar. Lol!
Now… there are a few moments where I feel like the dialog of the Vulcans used more emotional words than the precise language of logic might require.
One is where T’Pring says her mother felt and perhaps believed would have been a more rational word choice?
There are a few cases like that and for me it is surprising each time it happens.
Hehe, yeah, same here. My favorite one was the “What the F—” from Spock from the teaser.
Given the way that T’Pring and her father were acting, I thought for sure that all four of them were transformed into humans.
@ValueSubtracted they really decided to bet everything on this Spock - Nurse Chapel thing, haven’t they? Not a fan.
Nice comedic episode nonetheless.
Things I liked: Ethan Peck and Mount have some great comedic chops. Many funny lines throughout, generally enjoyable.
Things I did not like: Never been a fan of altering Spock’s backstory with T’pring. Chapel doesn’t even know that Spock was engaged in Spock Amok. Please stop the T’pring stuff, also maybe it’s time we saw some Spock instead of all this funny stuff.
The entire part where Chapel has to explain her feelings to an alien felt juvenile and stupid.
Overall an ok episode.
My last comment was deleted because it wasn’t constructive enough. Let me try to remedy that.
I completely agree that the confession part was not done in a way that fulfilled it’s possible potential. It felt forced and rushed. It was such a prominent plot point that had been built up for a while. IMO it would have been better for her to talk to a friend like Uhura who knew what was going on anyways. This could have made for an intimate character development moment. Like so we had more of an “alien of the week” moment.
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I loved this episode!
I thought this episode walked a really fascinating line in its approach to exploring the lived experience and cultural significance of mixed identities. Having the ancient alien species misinterpret Spock’s Vulcan DNA as an anomaly/pathology was a risky move from a writing perspective given the potential for reproducing language and ideas associated with eugenics. But doing so allowed what what I thought was a more robust examination of Spock’s character and his relationships, by way of separating one half of his identity from the other and seeing what happens (like a smaller scale of Community’s excellent “Remedial Chaos Theory,” which examined how the study group might be affected by the temporary removal of each group member in turn).
There was plenty to laugh at, of course. Ethan Peck could easily have gone too over-the-top in playing Spock’s surge in human emotions, but I think he threaded the needle really well in allowing through just enough Vulcan “muscle memory” (as it were) to tamp down the humania – and he still managed to be extremely funny. And Anson Mount as always shined with his subtle (and hilarious) comic timing as the host of the engagement ceremony. Watch the way he snaps his fingers when T’Pring’s father asks for more Tevmel --and how he continues on in wide-eyed stride on his way back to the group once Spock starts admitting to his “condition.” Mount is a performer who knows how to blend into the scenery rather than chew it – a distinct quality in a Star Trek captain and a consistently funny one to boot.
But what really made this episode work for me was the heart in addition to the humor. I have a friend who remarked earlier this season that she doesn’t understand why Star Trek is so obsessed with Spock’s human side; she’s much more attracted to his Vulcan side and is confused at what she sees as the constant efforts to make him “more human.” I can see her frustration, and this episode certainly turns into that skid a bit. But the show isn’t fantasizing or daydreaming about a Spock that’s fully human – it’s using the idea as a tool to understand his fuller and more complex identity, and to celebrate what makes Spock Spock. And I absolutely shed tears when Spock came clean to T’Pring’s parents about his condition, not just out of personal pride but as a way to express affection and appreciation for his human mother. What a wonderful moment.
And I think this episode’s true strength was in depicting how everyone in Spock’s life understood that being made “more human” didn’t make him better or more “fun” or more “relatable.” Not once did anyone murmur to anyone else something like, “Are we sure we want to fix him?” (which I could easily see Dr. McCoy saying, for example). Instead, everyone understood fundamentally the unique value of Spock’s half-human/half-Vulcan identity, and went to great lengths to bring it back. It might have been a bit corny to funnel that through Nurse Chapel’s romantic feelings for him, and having her have to admit those feelings to an ancient alien species – but it was smart, too. (And seeing her tell the Vulcan Science Academy that she didn’t think their fellowship was ready for her made me literally pump my arm, by the way).
Another solid Spock-centric episode in my book. I look forward to reading what everyone else thought!
humania
My first time seeing this; delightful term hahah
I also can’t agree enough with your observation about the human side as a lens through which to understand Spock and how he relates to those around him. Double points for noting the lack of quippiness in the vein of “Are we sure we want to fix him?” I hate that I need to praise that kind of restraint in TV / movie writing these days but, well, here we are.
As for my original contribution here:
I realllly liked the fact that while I’m sure I’m not alone in shipping TF out of Spock and Chapel, I feel like this episode went to decently robust character exploration such that the ending bit felt a lot less tacked on, or a writer’s wink “for the shippers”. A lot of that IMO rests on Spock’s monologue at the end of the dinner. For just another layer of appreciation of that character moment.
Speaking of Community, I once banged Eartha Kitt in an airplane bathroom
Remedial Chaos Theory synced to Jeff hitting his head:
So, that whole section for Spock on being a Vulcan, That’s the video clip they’re going to give new actors for Vulcans isn’t it? Right down to the prosthetics.
Kinda sad we didn’t get James Frain back as Sarek for this episode. I could kinda see him bumping into Chapel and reminiscing about how the Vulcan Science Academy was absolutely awful to his 1.5 human kids.
Remember that Sarek is not speaking to Spock for another like 18 years or so
In a good way, they took a lot of scifi things that have been done in other trek and remixed them into a very good episode. It had shades of Voyager’s “Faces”, DS9’s “You Are Cordially Invited”, Data getting his emotion chip in generations. These are things we’ve seen, but explored in new and pleasing ways.
I feel like these bread crumbs of context to “Amok Time” are going to make a classic episode better, but for a lot of newer fans there could potentially be no pay off if TOS can’t hold their attention.
Some fan discourse I’ve seen on mastodon suggested “oh look there’s the AR wall” like its some kind of bad thing, but I don’t see this as any different to saying “oh look CGI character” we all know it, you don’t need to point it out.
“Oh look, it’s the AR wall” is the modern version of “oh look, it’s the same octagonal set dressed up with random props from a couple of other episodes to represent an alien planet”
Good CGI/LED walls blend in. If you notice it, it breaks the 4th wall a bit. Battlestar Galactica 2004 had CGI and it worked so well and looks very believable.
Some fan discourse I’ve seen on mastodon suggested “oh look there’s the AR wall” like its some kind of bad thing
AR wall is just 21st century matte painting
The AR wall stood out to me more on Rigel VII, where the background, while beautifully done, just had that empty, standing in the middle of CGI look. In this episode, it made sense for it to be obvious. They’re in a space humans can’t truly perceive, much like the celestial temple, and it had a sterile feel that seemed right for the chatbot aliens.
Good for Ethan Peck. It’s like when Brent Spiner got to play Lore or Doctor Soong and express himself through other characters. Human Spock is basically another character. It would be nice to see him again some day.
Chapel killed Hupock. That monster!
