Monday, June 6, 2022

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x05 "Spock Amok" Review

This was a fun episode.

At the start of the episode, Spock has a dream that he's marrying T'Pring, but she has him fight a Vulcan version of himself because she thinks he's too human. That was a good indicator of what the episode was going to deal with, and I like the way they showed Spock's difficulty with being half Vulcan and half human, especially when it comes to his and T'Pring's relationship.

We quickly find out that T'Pring is actually visiting as well while the Enterprise is docked at a space station. She's not even there for five minutes before she criticizes Spock's quarters as being too human, so I can easily imagine where Spock's anxieties come from. Considering what he's dealt with from other Vulcans while growing up, I really wonder how he ended up betrothed to someone who would also make comments about it honestly. That only becomes more true when she makes a comment about Starfleet making him act too much like a human.

The crew gets shore leave in this episode. There's a scene with Ortegas, M'Benga, and Chapel as they're preparing to leave the ship that may be my favorite in the episode because it's hilarious. I love getting to see little moments like that which expand on all the different relationships between the crew members.

While everyone else is having fun, La'an and Una find out about the bingo game and try to play with together to find out why it's fun. This was a subplot that I expected to enjoy more than I did. I find out La'an and Una to be interesting characters, but for some reason, I just didn't get into that story that much.

Chapel and Spock have a couple heart-to-hearts in this episode where she gives him relationship advice. The advice she gives him does seem to actually help his relationship with T'Pring in the end, but at the same time, it seems like Chapel is developing feelings for him. Her conversation with Ortegas at the end of the episode strongly hints at it too. I'm curious to see what comes of that.

In an effort to understand each other better, Spock and T'Pring go through a Vulcan ritual, but it ends with them switching bodies. This is such a popular fanfiction trope that it almost makes me laugh when I see it play out in media, but it undoubtedly led to a lot of comedy in this episode. I think this is one of the funniest episodes of Strange New Worlds yet mostly because of the body swap.

Somehow, they have a medical way of helping them switch back, so everything ends fine. I'm not sure how much they've actually learned about each other though, to be honest. While that was supposedly what was happening, it doesn't really seem to have happened.

Of course, things work out with the R'ongovians in the end because Pike figures it out. To be completely honest, Pike is probably my least favorite character on the show so far, which I more or less expected from his appearance on Discovery. I have nothing against him, but I'm far less interested in him than the others. And him figuring out things like how to negotiate with the R'ongovians and just going with it without talking to anyone else and in a way that feels a little too good to be true kind of irks me a bit. But it's also more or less what I expected to happen, so... I don't know.

Overall, I did think this was a fun episode. I just didn't care all that much for the ending.

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