Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

“Charades”

Air date: 7/13/2023
Written by Kathryn Lyn & Henry Alonso Myers
Directed by Jordan Canning

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

While traveling through the Vulcan system, Spock and Chapel — with much tension already present between them because of their simmering and suppressed feelings about each other — take a shuttle to study the Kerkhovian moon, home of the mysterious and rarely encountered energy beings called the Kerkhovians. The promise of valuable scientific discovery may be at hand, but instead, an encounter with a rupture in space-time causes the shuttle to crash. The Kerkhovians intervene and repair the shuttle and heal Spock and Chapel, returning them to their state before the crash — except they make one crucial error and "repair" the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock by making him completely human.

"Charades" is an entertaining sci-fi high-concept comedy/soap opera with enough substance to provide some character insights amid the low-key but sometimes obvious humor. It strikes the right balance in not taking itself too seriously while still taking the characters' plights just seriously enough. Admittedly, the expanded run time of 60 minutes might be stretching some of the material a little thin.

The premise allows for a fun (albeit not uproarious) montage where we see Spock — now subject to the full intensity of human emotions without the Vulcan ability to control them — experiencing situations in a completely new way: He understands and laughs uncontrollably at jokes, can't get enough delicious bacon, is enraged by Sam Kirk's casual sloppiness, and feels confused embarrassment over the feelings La'an unexpectedly stirs in his loins. (Just imagine what might happen around Christine.) Ethan Peck gets to have some fun here, and the results are amusing and he is always credible. The jokes aren't hilarious, but they're worth some smiles.

The personal stakes are elevated by the fact that Spock is scheduled for a crucial engagement dinner with T'Pring (Gia Sandhu) and her parents, at which delicate Vulcan ceremonial procedures are to take place under the critical eye of T'Pring's mother, T'Pril (Elora Patniak), and her considerably less critical pushover of a father, Sevet (Michael Benyaer). Now being human, and with the medical DNA reversal procedure not likely to be available before the dinner happens, Spock finds himself in the worst possible condition to perform delicate Vulcan rituals.

As they say, hijinks ensue. Fortunately, the hijinks are restrained, making this a mild comedy of manners. Spock's mother Amanda (Mia Kirshner) is also on hand, and when she discovers the truth about Spock's sudden transformation into a human, she agrees to teach him how to fake his way through. Surprisingly, Amanda's human insights into Vulcan society are a key strength to the story being told here. We realize how difficult navigating Vulcan society has been for her, and through this realization, Spock gains a new understanding and appreciation for his mother and what she has done for him. (At the end of the episode, Spock's expression of gratitude to his mother and his regret that he has not expressed such sentiments before, is a highlight of the story.)

Ultimately, we go through the whole charade of the dinner ceremony (which eventually has Pike suggesting an actual game of charades as a stalling technique), which would have been hard enough with T'Pril's harsh judgments hanging over every single moment. I mean, this woman is a piece of work, insulting Spock and Amanda for their human failings at every possible moment and making no bones about her disapproval of this planned marriage. I mean, T'Pril lays into Spock, big time. The story wisely has T'Pring just as on-edge and out of patience with her mother's judgments as everyone else. But everyone has to just sit and endure it, in order to gain the required seal of approval. (Pike's reaction shots throughout are priceless; Anson Mount does a great job comically conveying his exasperation or relief without words.)

In the end, when Spock unveils his transformation to speak to the resilience of his human side and that of his mother, it's a nice moment — and also telling that it has so little to do with T'Pring. I also appreciated that T'Pring's problem with all of this was not that Spock undertook this charade, but that he didn't think to trust her with the truth. As a result of this newfound uncertainty, she and Spock decide to take a break and step back from the engagement. (Whether or not this is supposed to be the end for Spock and T'Pring until "Amok Time," I don't know and I guess we'll find out eventually, but it opens the door to what happens at the end of the episode.)

In a parallel plot, Chapel desperately looks for the cure to restore Spock to his former self before the DNA changes set in permanently, but she doesn't have the means to do it without the help of the Kerkhovians, so she takes a shuttle with Ortegas and Uhura back into the anomaly to contact them. This provides the sci-fi and VFX portion of the story, as we travel into the Kerkhovians' interdimensional realm and make contact. This also provides us the love triangle and soap opera angle, as making contact with the Kerkhovians requires Chapel to admit that she has feelings for Spock that might go beyond mere friendship — and, indeed, right before the shuttle crash, Spock had diverted the shields to save Chapel at the possible cost of his own life. The irony for Christine is that restoring Spock might make it less likely that he would return her feelings — but not restoring Spock would deny the essence of who he is and the reason she holds the feelings she does.

"Charades" is a Chapel story almost as much as a Spock story. In addition to her crucial role in contacting the Kerkhovians and finding the cure, the story also details her earlier hopeless attempts to satisfy the terse and inflexible Vulcan administrator who is selecting candidates for a two-month research fellowship Chapel has applied for. The interview doesn't go well; the administrator is much more interested in black-and-white academic prerequisites than lived experiences. One wonders why an interview was even required since Chapel's credentials were all that mattered. In a way, this mirrors Spock's experience with T'Pril, who is more interested in whether Spock checks the required boxes than how he has lived as a Starfleet officer.

At the end, after Spock's true Vulcan self has been restored, and the Vulcan dinner has been successfully navigated, and T'Pring and Spock take a break from their engagement, the episode reaches its big moment where Spock and Christine kiss. It works on its rom-com level, and it's a risk that could prove intriguingly messy, like Spock and Uhura in the Kelvin films. Whether this tracks adequately with TOS canon is an open question (Chapel's crush on Spock in TOS was implied only a handful of times), but I can't say it's a question that hugely matters to me since this can easily be hand-waved a number of ways. "Charades" carves out what it wants to do and achieves it successfully.

Previous episode: Among the Lotus Eaters
Next episode: Lost in Translation

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234 comments on this post

James Smith

Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 3:36am (UTC -5)

Oh good. Magic Fun Time With DNA™. A Trek staple...