[Petrarch]

Episode Discussion

"Charades"

US Airdate: 12/07/2023 (Paramount+)
International: 12/07/2023 (Only in countries with access to Paramount+)

This thread is for the pre and post discussion of the fifth episode "Charades" - this will be a spoiler filled discussion so if you've found your way past the warnings in the activity stream and the spoiler tag on the thread, this is your last chance to turn back, or at least it will be at the end of this first post. You have been warned!

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.

You can find a preview of the episode details here.

Charades is episode 5 of 10. Halfway mark this week!

Written by: Kathryn Lyn & Henry Alonso Myers
Directed by: Kathryn Lyn and Henry Alonso Myers

[JCarrill0]

This was an absolute pleasure.
From the ceremony dress captain pike wore, to the full human side of Spock.
I can honestly say this was better than the last episode.
And the Nurse Chapel/Spock relationship… “gold”

[Solace]

Fantastic episode! I was in stitches when spock went into the bathroom to punch the air and scream into a towel!! XD

Also I’m so glad he finally told nurse chapel

[Soral]

I really liked the Amanda and Spock moments. Especially as she helped him prepare for the ritual dinner. Mia Kirschner really embodied the character and I felt like I was watching a younger version of the Amanda I remember from TOS and movies. I hadn't seen Mia's performance from Discovery, so I was pleasantly surprised. Spock's comments to her and her sacrifice for him was really great and a nice foundation for the relationship we'd seen before (years later in their lives).

And without a doubt, the Nurse Chapel and Spock parts were fantastic. Ethan Peck was clearly having a blast in the "human" moments and it was super fun to watch. I laughed continuously, including when the crew was trying to help him be more Vulcan. And while Chapel and Spock's interactions have always been a highlight, Jess Bush has really made Chapel a force on the show. Loved her response to the interviewer for the fellowship and the turnabout of dismissal from earlier. She's as much a reason to watch SNW as anyone else, including Anson Mount's Pike; who is my favorite of the characters.

[Josh Broughm]

Best moment of the Epi....

M'Benga: You're human, Spock.
Spock: WHAT THE F- SMASHCUT TO OPENING TITLES

Had me cackling!

[Stormy]

To anyone who grew up with TOS, this episode is a disaster from the beginning to the end. At no time during TOS was there any indication that Spock and Nurse Chapel actually acted on their feelings and that tension was one of the things that made their relationship so compelling. To gut that for the sake of a trendy storyline is a slap in the face of TOS and the characters Gene Roddenberry created. By far the worst episode in the series to date and I regret watching it. I give it a -2 on a scale of 1-10.

[Bridger]

It is nothing new with Strange New Worlds and continuity another perfect example are the Gorn.
I am glad that the Writers responsible for this garbage are on strike right now and can not commit other crimes like this for the time.

[Brunocsf]

To be honest SNW lost a lot of quality compared to the first season I believe. This episode is just one of many that made this season rather disappointing. This episode messed up the canon very badly(again), unless they find a way to explain this Spock and Chapel romance which I doubt.

[Morris]

I have to agree with Stormy, Bridger, and Brunocsf. Canon is getting trounced in SNW. I'm not angry about it though. After years of being angry about what Discovery, the 1st 2 seasons of Picard, and SNW have been putting forward as Star Trek, I've decided to partition these shows away from canon Star Trek...as YA Star Trek 'fan' (I use the term fan loosely here) fiction. Just in this episode, making Spock human was fine, but he should not have lost his lifetime of training and discipline. He was raised Vulcan. His personality, his behavior should have remained unchanged. MAYBE it would be more difficult for Spock to understand and control the emotions that he was feeling, but SNW should have emphasized his struggle with that, and not made him 'funny' because he is human now. There is a tendency for this writing team to portray Spock as immature, and frankly, not so smart. He seems to be the butt of a lot of jokes, or at the very least, 'humorous' situations. This is not Spock! The writers are going for the low hanging fruit, disrespecting Spock as a character, and us as fans. They totally ignore the Nature vs Nurture aspect. They thought that it would be funny to make Spock human, acting human, forgetting his entire upbringing, at the same time that they present us with a contrived engagement ceremony. This is childish...but I'm not angry. It's not Star Trek, it's YA Star Trek 'fan' fic...the same as so much else in the entertainment landscape today, but dressed up to look something like Star Trek. I won't even address the whole Nurse Chapel of it all. Mentioned User Stormy did a fine job with that.

Just for some background...I'm 55 years old. My 1st experience with Star Trek was TOS reruns, and TOS: The Animated Series. Star Trek fostered my love of science fiction in general. I saw all of the TMP era movies in the theater on opening day! My parents loved Star Trek as well, so getting them to take me was easy. TNG didn't arrive on the scene until I was in university. TNG was a difficult adjustment. The aesthetic was so different, the uniforms, and the Enterprise!!!...but I still recognized it as Star Trek. The writing was excellent, and 'mostly' adhered to Roddenberry's vision, which was good enough for me. Plus, they fixed the uniforms, lol! DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise evolved into darker areas of Star Trek, but they never felt alien to what I knew Star Trek to be. Star Trek always had an optimistic future for humanity. Star Trek tried to teach us lessons about how to achieve that future, through humanity's interactions with alien civilizations who were facing challenges that humanity had long overcome. Since the end of Enterprise, Star Trek has been handled by people who don't understand what Star Trek is. They are reflecting humanity's current day challenges onto the Star Trek future they are writing. The optimistic future is gone. Humanity never changes, just our technology evolves. The current writers and producers of Star Trek have made it their own thing. If you're going to make your own thing...MAKE YOUR OWN THING!!! Stop corrupting existing properties, just to coopt the property's name recognition, making what you wanted to make in a Star Trek skin! I understand that for many of you, this is the Star Trek that you grew up with...or some version of it, and I don't begrudge you your enjoyment of it. This post is meant to briefly explain why so many of us...mostly the older many of us...don't enjoy, and sometimes get angry at what Star Trek has become today.

[darthnovawave]

I've come to accept that canon almost always breaks down as a given storytelling universe expands. Before Disney bought Lucasfilm, there were countless canon books over the span of a few decades jumping across and around the movie timelines, and grew plenty of inconsistencies of its own. Disney completely nuked all that once they took over, which made creative sense since they had no room in the timeline to create original stories (opinions on the quality of those decisions aside...).

Star Trek is working themselves into the same trap now. TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY dodged this problem largely because they were somewhat isolated in when and where they took place (TNG's Enterprise wasn't on the Dominion War front lines of DS9, Voyager was thousands of light years from everything else), so canon issues weren't a big deal. Enterprise struggled a bit with this as a prequel at times, but still had decades of space to expand canon. Canon started breaking down with the JJverse (leading to the oft confusing Kelvin timeline argument to retcon inconsistencies), but from Disco on we've been largely interweaving into the heart of existing canon, introducing more and more chances for inconsistencies to crop up.

I personally try to keep an open mind and judge episodes on their own merits and not get overly fussed with my understanding of Trek canon or my interpretation of Roddenberry's vision. Canon is an impossible standard to live up to in the long run and Gene isn't around to vet whether a given creative decision made today aligns to his original vision (or what it might have evolved to had he lived this long). Thus, I can either create my own fanfics and envision the original actors or my own original characters playing them out, watch reruns of the older stuff, or I can let someone else write their own fanfics, spend millions to hire actors and FX, and accept that their fanfic is probably different than what I would have wrote.

In the end, I choose to do a bit of all of the above, coming up with backstories for my STO toons and occasional "what if?" ponderings, which probably violates its own share of canon, I routinely rewatch all the old (and new) Trek among my streaming habits, and I watch the new shows as they come out.

This week, I liked the humor of Peck's performance, but I also acknowledge that we probably would never have seen Nimoy's Spock ever do this script, nor would I expect a post-breakup booty call to ever have been a thing in 1960's era US network TV, Trek or otherwise. I can understand and respect why that bothers some longtime fans, but I also acknowledge that standards for 60s or even 80s and 90s television shows might struggle to attract newer viewers today. I don't expect every episode to be a home run with me, but I also respect that I'm not the only audience and if my displeasure at minor plot points makes room for someone's enjoyment out there, so be it. I doubt this episode will become one of my all-time favorite episodes, but it is also far from making any "worst Trek" lists, which for me would probably include its share of cringe-inducing episodes from the old shows too.