Spoilers for the latest episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” to follow.
If you thought “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” season 3 got its silliness out of its system with “Wedding Bell Blues,” think again.
One of the best received episodes of “Strange New Worlds” season 2 was “Charades,” in which Spock (Ethan Peck) is temporarily turned into a full human. So, the latest episode flips that premise and turns half of the human main characters into Vulcans. “Charades” and “Wedding Bell Blues” director Jordan Canning even sits back in the chair to helm “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans.”
In this episode, the Enterprise has to visit the planet Tezaar to fix a failing power supply. The only problem? The Tezaarians are a pre-warp people who haven’t made contact with the Federation, so under the Prime Directive, Starfleet is barred from helping. But there’s a loophole here. The Tezaarians had made contact with the Vulcans, and only the Vulcans, before the founding of the Federation. (The Vulcans gave them the power supply in the first place.) So, a Vulcan team can go on the planet without breaking the Prime Directive of noninterference. Spock is apparently the only Vulcan on the Enterprise, and fixing the power supply is a five Vulcan job.
However, Pike (Anson Mount), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), Chapel (Jess Bush), and La’an (Christina Chong) can’t just disguise themselves as Vulcans because the Tezaarians (somehow) have advanced scanning technology. Instead, they have to become Vulcans by taking the serum that turned human Spock back to his normal self in “Charades.”
The set-up is painfully contrived, but it’s a tad easier to swallow since this is a comedy episode. The now-Vulcan Enterprise team fixes the problem on Tezaar in about 10 seconds before beaming back to the ship. But the serum doesn’t reverse the effects, and soon, they decide they’re going to stay as Vulcans.
Vulcans can be prejudiced and elitist because they think their logical ways make them superior to more emotional races like humans. During Spock’s childhood on Vulcan, he was bullied for being half-human. His now Vulcan friends repeat that, constantly reminding Spock that they’re (genetically) more Vulcan than he is.
The rest of the Enterprise crew refuses to accept this decision, because their now Vulcan shipmates are all huge a-holes. One of them even becomes outright dangerous. La’an, as the ship’s security officer and survivor of childhood trauma, is closed-off and paranoid. She keeps those traits after her transformation, so she’s less a logical Vulcan and more of a devious Romulan.
