Strange New Worlds: Spock Amok

Nearly every Star Trek series has gotten a handful of episodes into their first season before serving up a sort of goofy romp meant mainly to highlight character. Strange New Worlds took its run at that with "Spock Amok"... and it was delightful.

The Enterprise returns to spacedock, and much of the crew takes shore leave. Spock and T'Pring conduct a Vulcan ritual to bring themselves closer together... and wind up switching bodies. Meanwhile, Una and La'an stumble onto the activities of junior crewmembers, and Pike is unexpectedly drawn into diplomatic negotiations with an alien species. Hijinks ensue.

Until perhaps the last 5 to 10 minutes of the episode, "Spock Amok" almost strikes the tone of an episode of Lower Decks. Live action Star Trek has dared to be this irreverent before. It's even done a body swap story or two. But here, the episode just goes full "Freaky Friday," embraces the hijinks (literally calling them that!), and gives us Spock-as-T'Pring and T'Pring-as-Spock. It's even doing it for the same typical "moral" of a Freak Friday scenario: for each person to learn what it's like walking in the others' shoes.

Every aspect of this story line is perfection. Ethan Peck and guest star Gia Sandhu expertly mimic each other's vocal inflections and physicality (and yes, they are different even within the narrow confines of being Vulcan). And theirs isn't the only marvelously subtle acting on display; Anson Mount is chef's kiss with Pike's reaction to the situation, and Jess Bush gets her best scenes yet as Nurse Chapel.

The comedy isn't limited to just this "A story," though. La'an and Una's pairing to discover "Enterprise Bingo" is another light (and wonderful) story line, filled with truly funny moments. (Both wanting to be "bad cop" is perhaps the best.) Chapel telegraphing a bad date and then us seeing that is a lot of fun.

But most incredibly, the episode does take a turn for the serious in the end... and while not quite the pure joy like everything that preceded it, it basically works too. Pike resolves the diplomatic crisis with the R'ongovians with pleasant subtlety; we'd all figured out that they empathically react to the people they speak to, but Pike goes one step further in serving their empathy back at them. Una and La'an share the awe inspiring moment of watching the solar ship sail over them as they stand outside in space. Chapel hints at a romantic interest. (In Spock? In Ortegas? Both? Interesting!) And Spock and T'Pring finally do share their deep insecurities with one another.

All of that in an episode that also opens with a nightmare that re-stages the classic episode "Amok Time" -- complete with composer Gerald Fried's iconic battle music! I found myself totally, unreservedly enchanted by the spell this episode cast on me. For certain, it's at least an A-. Perhaps I'm only withholding an A here because I can't see my way to that for a "comedy episode?"

Then again, I really can't think of what more I would have wanted here. So... sure! Call it the first A episode of Strange New Worlds in my book. No, this is not what I want every episode of Strange New Worlds to be. But yes, this was my favorite episode so far.