- Title: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Charades
- wiki: link
One of the oddest and most unexpected aspects of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the running theme of wacky Freaky Friday-style romcoms centered around Spock‘s (Ethan Peck) love life. And both times it has produced some wonderful television. As in “Spock Amok,” events swirl around engagement to T’Pring (Gia Sandhu) and a Vulcan ceremony to cement their engagement. Also at play here is Nurse Chapel‘s (Jess Bush) feelings for the Enterprise’s science officer who has been noticeably avoiding her of late, unsure how to deal with the feelings he harbors for her. When a shuttle accident leaves Spock injured, and then healed improperly by aliens, a now fully human Spock needs to master his human emotions and prepare for the arrival of T’Pring… and her parents.
“Charades” is very much a Spock episode with Chapel getting the bulk of the B-story in her attempts to cure Spock’s condition and, when that fails, putting her own life on the line to return to the site of the accident and get the aliens to return Spock back to normal. The episode culminates twice, both centered around revalations to Spock that likely only occurred because of circumstances created here. First, Spock empathizes with his mother (Mia Kirshner) standing up for her at a time not the most convenient to his fiancé, and later giving in to the mutual attraction he shares with Chapel. Other characters, however, get their moments such as the rest of the bridge crew giving Spock lessons on how to be Vulcan and Pike (Anson Mount) kept on his toes playing host to T’Pring’s amenable father (Gia Sandhu) and disapproving mother (Ellora Patnaik).
