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
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.
Spock’s engagement came as a shock to everyone in Amok Time and that was part of what made the episode interesting. It was not some obscure detail. The storytelling in TOS isn’t boring, especially not Amok Time, one of the best episodes in the franchise. As for the social commentary this episode did nothing new so I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Also, narrow social picture? The new shows have been pretty timid in this regard, far more than TOS was for its time. Picard gave us an uninteresting token lesbian relationship that no one can care about and Disco gave us a non-binary character who had to explain her use of pronouns to the characters. Buckle up, non binary people, you’ll still be weirdoes 300 years in the future, according to Star Trek at least.
Advice: if different opinions about a TV show bother you to the extent that you feel the need to insult those who have them maybe it’s time to disconnect from social media for a while and come back with a cooler head.
Edit: I know that if you are a younger fan you probably have not watched TOS and your limited exposure to different kinds of media probably makes enjoying it a tall order for you; it might as well not exist. You should keep in mind, however, that many of us genuinely enjoy it and you have no right to call us pseudo-fans just because you don’t like it.
Beyond the fact that classifying fans by presumed ages tends to get one into unhelpful frictions, I actually find at this point that many of the older fans who saw TOS in first run are the ones who are more likely to roll with the changes than the somewhat younger fans who got into the franchise through TOS syndicated reruns or TNG. On average, many of those would be Gen Xers.
It’s kind of ironic that it seems that many who were ready to embrace new characters, eras, tone in the late 80s and 90s now often are the least open to something new, and most vocal.
Certainly, back in the 80s and 90s, there were OG TOS diehards saying only the original 1701 and her crew were ‘real Trek’. They were vocal at cons, in fanzines and anywhere else that they could express their outrage. They were relentless, and it seemed that Voyager and Enterprise both suffered from Paramount’s attempts to satisfy their complaints.
These don’t however seem to be the fans who are complaining about SNW for the most part. While there are they odd few, most of the oldest fans who saw TOS in first run seem to be delighted with SNW and rolling with it.
Akiva Goldsman is himself an OG fan who attended the first convention ever in NYC in the 70s. Age-wise he falls at the very end of the boomers and the beginning of Gen X as do many of us who watch TOS in first run as young kids. He’s got a good grip on the vibe of TOS that he’s trying to recapture and it seems that many of us who saw TOS as kids are welcoming that.
