Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 5 - "Spock Amok"
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds dispels a myth surrounding the modern Star Trek franchise. Both a spin-off from Star Trek: Discovery and a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, it sits along with a stable of live-action and animated Trek shows. However, Strange New Worlds season 1, episode 5 "Spock Amok" owes more to the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks than it does to these modern live-action shows.
With the ship undergoing repairs after their traumatic encounter with the Gorn in season 1, episode 4 "Memento Mori", the Enterprise crew is enjoying some well-deserved rest and relaxation. As the crew embarks on their shore leave, Pike (Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck) are left behind to negotiate a treaty with the R'ongovians. The Federation hopes that the empathetic species will join them, scoring much-needed allies following the Klingon war. This vital negotiation is complicated by a visit from Spock's betrothed, T'Pring (Gia Sandhu.)
"Spock Amok" was billed by Paramount+ as a "comedy of manners" and it certainly delivers on the comedy. Acting on advice from Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), Spock suggests a soul-sharing ceremony with T'Pring so that they can better understand each other as a couple. It goes comically wrong when they accidentally swap bodies, just as negotiations with the R'ongovians heat up. It's a classic body-swap comedy plot that feels refreshing in modern, live-action Star Trek. By writing what is possibly the first overtly comic Star Trek episode since the early 2000s, Henry Alonso Myers & Robin Wasserman disprove a modern belief that each of Star Trek's multiple aspects must remain in silos. There are a great number of comedy episodes across Star Trek history, but despite this, the comedy is mostly reserved for Lower Decks in modern Trek.
One of the sub-plots in "Spock Amok" even has Una (Rebecca Romijn) and La'an (Christina Chong) literally borrow from the Enterprise's lower decks crew by playing "Enterprise Bingo" - a series of increasingly rule-breaking tasks. Deemed "childish" by La'an, Enterprise Bingo allows her and Una to attempt to shake off their reputations of being "where fun goes to die". It's a funny subplot with a surprisingly moving climax that would feel at home in either Lower Decks or one of the 1990s Star Trek shows. The stern and serious La'an and Una's engagement in the childish games of the lower decks become a metaphor for how the darker, thematically heavy live-action series like Star Trek: Picard and Discovery could address their problems by lightening up a little too.
In the streaming age, Alex Kurtzmann's Star Trek is specifically engineered to appeal to multiple audiences. If viewers want a darker, more adult Star Trek show then they can tune into Discovery, if they want an irreverent, mythology-literate comedy then they can turn to Lower Decks. The issue with this approach is that, as good as these shows are, it misses the appeal of the Star Trek franchise in the 1990s. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was a show that pondered what Gene Roddenberry's utopian future meant in a time of war, while Star Trek: Voyager was about introducing the ideals of the Federation to completely uncharted territory. At each series' core, however, was the mixture of political allegory, comedy, fantasy, and sci-fi that defined the Star Trek franchise. Alongside Lower Decks, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is returning the franchise to those roots with its episodic nature, and given how well Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and the cast perform comedy, it's a promising sign that more comedic episodes are in the future.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues Thursday on Paramount+.