Even his body language changes. There was a moment where I swear he was channeling Nimoy.
Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x09 - "Subspace Rhapsody"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
I don't think the show is saying that. If anything, the breakup with Christine only reinforced what he had already been taught all his life on Vulcan. Being raised on a Vulcan as a Vulcan, albeit with a human mother, is still the root of Spock's persona.
The thing with Christine was an experiment that (in Spock's eyes) backfired spectacularly. And, honestly, I can buy that a young Spock, away from Vulcan, living among humans, might be tempted to explore his human side more, at least for a time.
I finally got to see it.
TL;DR: THAT WAS WONDERFUL. Go watch it again and skip the rest of the post, it might be faster.
I started listening to the album last week when it dropped. I figured I listened to Phantom of the Opera a million times before I saw it, why should this be any different?
They managed to give SOMETHING to EVERYONE. M'Benga and Ortegas get the least of it, sure. But I mean, even both of the Kirks and Pelia had things to do. You almost feel like April is the only occasional character that didn't appear. Well, and T'Pring. That would have been TOO messy.
(Sam and Jim continue to delight.)
Status Report was OK. But watching my family's reaction when they realized it was a musical was priceless.
Gotta say, kudos to Anson Mount. You're the lead of a show. You're not the strongest singer. Many of the supporting cast are amazing singers. They say "Hey, we're going to do a musical!" And you say: Hit it.
I wish the titles had been entirely a cappella. Because it just kind of sounded like my living room on a Thursday night. (YES, we sing along with the titles.)
Biggest surprise? Rebecca Romijn. Wow. As soon as I heard Connect to Your Truth I thought "Of course they gave her the one that sounds like The Sound of Music." And The Dance of the Number One's was cute. But then they also gave her Keeping Secrets and it's just lovely. No her voice isn't as good as Gooding or Chong. I love how they finally leaned a little more on the mother / daughter dynamic that Una and La'an have.
Well... Private Conversation wasn't great. But they did as good of a job writing around Mount as they could. Which is too bad. I would have loved a really great captain song. And it lead to Pike deciding to BLOW UP the zipper which was hilarious. Pike has been underused for various reasons but Mount is amazing in every scene he's in. This is no exception. (I have a bad feeling about Batel's mission.)
How can a stupid wrist watch make me cry?!? I liked La'an's scenes better than her song. I mean, don't get me wrong. Her singing is amazing. The song was good too. It was an interesting plot twist that her NOT singing was actually driven by story and character.
Ending her scene with Jim by introducing Carol was... The pacing was off. It feels like it shouldn't have been that abrupt of a stop. OTOH, Jim talking about Carol felt surprisingly real. Paul Wesley for the continuing win!
And then there is... Jess Bush somehow being Star Trek's rock star. It would probably be my favorite song and performance even if it wasn't tied to Spock's song. But it IS tied to Spock's song and the two echo back and forth over each other. (NO that's not a euphemism.) As a pair the two songs are what we showed up for, really.
I wish Spock's lyrics in I'm the X sounded more specifically like Spock. Because otherwise I freaking love that song. Although I kind of realize that some of that is driven by being a mirror of I'm Ready. But the instrumentation is just one of my favorite things. The keyboard bass sounds like "Marvin" and the bass guitar is an AMAAAAZING callback to Gerald Fried's Spock theme. (If they didn't mean it to be, don't tell me. If someone knows that they did, I want to hear all about it.)
The different reactions to the singing was good. Especially I'm the X. It's not even just "resigned". There's a LOT going on. Peck is getting closer to Nimoy levels of good. How do you do a heartbreaking emotional scene with less and less emotion?
And now the moment we've all been waiting for: Uhura's Song! (Yes, yes. Thank you.) She was wonderful. And this is the song I wanted: All character all the time. Honestly Gooding was great in the whole episode. She brings so much joy. And she's been kind of building that up from episode to episode.
I loved in the finale when Spock (logically) realizes "Oh, this is the part where I join the dance number. Like... So."
Yes, nice to see Bruce again. Hilarious Klingons are always welcome.
Including the Discovery season 1 end titles (the TOS theme) was delightful. And I'm not really sure why. But it was.
Honestly, has the engine room looked better than this in any episode? Also for the tech nerds: Look how far the Jefferies tube goes! Squee!
It's funny, because this is pretty much a "bottle" show. But unlike classic bottle shows where you just needed a camera and actors on standing sets in this case standing sets take as much special effects as anything else!
"K't'inga?" -- Arrrgh! Now they're doing it on PURPOSE.
I don't know what next week will bring, but this was kind of the curtain call for the season, I'm assuming. Which was kind of how they did last season 2. All Those Who Wander wrapped up the story for most of the cast and they did Quality of Mercy as almost a coda.
BTW, I don't know if it was here or elsewhere, but I called it the moment I saw the poster for this season with Christine in black and white and facing away from everyone else. I can only hope that this isn't Chapel really leaving the show. Although we won't find out for YEARS now.
It's one more straw on the Vulcan camel.
TL;DR: THAT WAS WONDERFUL. Go watch it again and skip the rest of the post, it might be faster.
I started listening to the album last week when it dropped. I figured I listened to Phantom of the Opera a million times before I saw it, why should this be any different?
They managed to give SOMETHING to EVERYONE. M'Benga and Ortegas get the least of it, sure. But I mean, even both of the Kirks and Pelia had things to do. You almost feel like April is the only occasional character that didn't appear. Well, and T'Pring. That would have been TOO messy.
(Sam and Jim continue to delight.)
Status Report was OK. But watching my family's reaction when they realized it was a musical was priceless.
Gotta say, kudos to Anson Mount. You're the lead of a show. You're not the strongest singer. Many of the supporting cast are amazing singers. They say "Hey, we're going to do a musical!" And you say: Hit it.
I wish the titles had been entirely a cappella. Because it just kind of sounded like my living room on a Thursday night. (YES, we sing along with the titles.)
Biggest surprise? Rebecca Romijn. Wow. As soon as I heard Connect to Your Truth I thought "Of course they gave her the one that sounds like The Sound of Music." And The Dance of the Number One's was cute. But then they also gave her Keeping Secrets and it's just lovely. No her voice isn't as good as Gooding or Chong. I love how they finally leaned a little more on the mother / daughter dynamic that Una and La'an have.
Well... Private Conversation wasn't great. But they did as good of a job writing around Mount as they could. Which is too bad. I would have loved a really great captain song. And it lead to Pike deciding to BLOW UP the zipper which was hilarious. Pike has been underused for various reasons but Mount is amazing in every scene he's in. This is no exception. (I have a bad feeling about Batel's mission.)
How can a stupid wrist watch make me cry?!? I liked La'an's scenes better than her song. I mean, don't get me wrong. Her singing is amazing. The song was good too. It was an interesting plot twist that her NOT singing was actually driven by story and character.
Ending her scene with Jim by introducing Carol was... The pacing was off. It feels like it shouldn't have been that abrupt of a stop. OTOH, Jim talking about Carol felt surprisingly real. Paul Wesley for the continuing win!
And then there is... Jess Bush somehow being Star Trek's rock star. It would probably be my favorite song and performance even if it wasn't tied to Spock's song. But it IS tied to Spock's song and the two echo back and forth over each other. (NO that's not a euphemism.) As a pair the two songs are what we showed up for, really.
I wish Spock's lyrics in I'm the X sounded more specifically like Spock. Because otherwise I freaking love that song. Although I kind of realize that some of that is driven by being a mirror of I'm Ready. But the instrumentation is just one of my favorite things. The keyboard bass sounds like "Marvin" and the bass guitar is an AMAAAAZING callback to Gerald Fried's Spock theme. (If they didn't mean it to be, don't tell me. If someone knows that they did, I want to hear all about it.)
The different reactions to the singing was good. Especially I'm the X. It's not even just "resigned". There's a LOT going on. Peck is getting closer to Nimoy levels of good. How do you do a heartbreaking emotional scene with less and less emotion?
And now the moment we've all been waiting for: Uhura's Song! (Yes, yes. Thank you.) She was wonderful. And this is the song I wanted: All character all the time. Honestly Gooding was great in the whole episode. She brings so much joy. And she's been kind of building that up from episode to episode.
I loved in the finale when Spock (logically) realizes "Oh, this is the part where I join the dance number. Like... So."
Yes, nice to see Bruce again. Hilarious Klingons are always welcome.
Including the Discovery season 1 end titles (the TOS theme) was delightful. And I'm not really sure why. But it was.
Honestly, has the engine room looked better than this in any episode? Also for the tech nerds: Look how far the Jefferies tube goes! Squee!
It's funny, because this is pretty much a "bottle" show. But unlike classic bottle shows where you just needed a camera and actors on standing sets in this case standing sets take as much special effects as anything else!
"K't'inga?" -- Arrrgh! Now they're doing it on PURPOSE.
I don't know what next week will bring, but this was kind of the curtain call for the season, I'm assuming. Which was kind of how they did last season 2. All Those Who Wander wrapped up the story for most of the cast and they did Quality of Mercy as almost a coda.
BTW, I don't know if it was here or elsewhere, but I called it the moment I saw the poster for this season with Christine in black and white and facing away from everyone else. I can only hope that this isn't Chapel really leaving the show. Although we won't find out for YEARS now.
Of course not. We never had trouble figuring out Spock's attitude before this. And we never once said "It must have been because of a bad breakup."
It's one more straw on the Vulcan camel.
I missed that. I'm sure it was just for time. Although, it's a streaming show! Maybe they'll post an extended version? Yeah, the album version has a progression from "It's good to keep a secret" to "fools who couldn't keep a secret" to "I wish I never learned how to be so good at keeping secrets!" It destroys the progression of three! Now I'm upset!
Yeah especially since T'Pring had a lot to do with it as well.
And, as we learned even later, Sarek.
It's not the basis of his persona; it's merely a good opportunity to have shown him briefly exploring his more human side during SNW.
This is clearly Spock as a young man. We are seeing a lot of character development that you might expect to see in someone his age.
Indulge me in some psychobabble for a moment, and consider the possibility that we are watching Spock move through some of the Stages of Psychosocial Development, which were proposed by Erik Eriskon as essential steps toward the definitive development of Identity and sense of self.
The sixth stage in Erikson's paradigm is called Intimacy and Isolation, which is the Early Adult phase, and develops the virtue of Love.
Spock says this to Boimler after his surprise regarding his laughter: "It does not take an expert observer to recognize that my experiments in human emotion trouble you. Therefore, I must surmise that my future state, the one you are familiar with, must be one in which my emotions are minimized. And yet I have no choice but to stay true to the path I have chosen in this time. If you sway me, then my future will have been altered."
That's profoundly insightful. Recall of course that Spock grew up on Vulcan and he previously only ever knew human love through his mother. In S2E5, when he is "repaired" as a genetic human by the Kerkohvians, he finally discovers and understands the relationship between his mother's love and her willingness to sacrifice her own social comforts by living among Vulcans who ostracize her in order to support Sarek and Spock.
He then realizes that his instinctive move to protect Christine during the shuttle crash by diverting the shields away from himself was not "a logical decision," based on "his higher likelihood of survival due to Vulcan physiology," like he tried to tell her (and himself), but rather that it was his human heart instinctively reaching out in an act of sacrifice motivated by love.
He reconsiders his previous balance between Intimacy and Isolation. He reaches out to Christine emotionally and allows a relationship to grow that he had previously been stifling.
But with that intimacy came vulnerability, and with that vulnerability came pain. Christine learned in S2E7 that their relationship was doomed, because Boimler seemed to know Spock so well but had no idea the two of them were in a relationship. Like I said in my post above, that kind of spoiler alert would be too much for most people to handle. She was hurt and disappointed, and had trouble putting continued effort into the relationship knowing that it wouldn't and couldn't work out.
So, she started retreating and pushing Spock away. Spock, who had only just begun to truly explore human intimacy, was especially deeply hurt by this. As he laid out in his song, his Vulcan side feels emotions more deeply than a human, but his human side makes it more difficult to suppress those emotions. He's caught in a double bind.
He had chosen Intimacy with a volatile human being; the independent variable, the unpredictable Y, and "betrayed [his] core philosophy. Unbending reason must be [his] true north, lest [he] drown in this sea of pain."
This is him reconciling Intimacy vs Isolation. He is returning to a balance that lies further toward Isolation. Not completely; we know he does get married one day far in the future from this point, and we've seen how he fosters platonic intimacy with crewmates, especially Kirk. But the laughing with crewmates in bars and romantic pursuit of human women stops here.
So to return to your original statement, I too "reject the notion that Christine Chapel and her relationship with Spock is the basis of Spock's whole persona as seen in TOS."
The basis has been laid by all of his previous experiences, as emphasized in SNW itself. She merely presents an opportunity during his Young Adult phase to challenge his existing balance between Intimacy and Isolation, helps him reconcile them as he develops the virtue of Love, and incorporates them into his process of definitive Identity Formation.
The TLDR version might be to say, "Hey, everyone experiments in College. Fooling around with a dude and realizing it didn't work for you isn't what made you heterosexual, it just helped you understand yourself better."
Any reference to Erikson gets an automatic like in my book.
We'll get along well, I suspect.
Probably so.
And I don't just like Erikson because he has my name (spelled differently) twice
Kudos indeed.
In fact, kudos to the writers, the producers and everyone involved with coming up with the idea of a musical episode and bringing it to life. SNW in season 1 has been accused by some of being “comfort food Trek”, but for season 2 this couldn’t be far from the truth. This is now a show that is not afraid of taking risks and break boundaries, the last few episodes especially so.
Moreover, kudos to the whole Trek fan community: the episode has been surprisingly well received by the vast majority and even those who didn’t like it mostly praised the idea. The “no real Trek” folks have been a very sparute, almost inexistent minority, a refreshing change from the past few years. I don’t think it’s a change that will last but I’d be glad if it did.
It’s technically a bottle show but not one done to save budget, more or less Picard season 3 has been a bottle show to budget for the D bridge recreation.
Her stint is supposed to last a few months only, we could well see her leaving tomorrow and coming back in the first episode of season 3, whenever that ends up getting released.
In fact, keeping this in mind all the drama about her leaving feels a bit overblown…I mean, my fiancé is pretty much away all summer this year but we’re definitely not breaking up for that!
Yeah, they could play this almost exactly like they did with La'an and Una. Gone for an ep or two, or perhaps even none at all. Maybe the opening sequence of the next season is the gang welcoming Chapel back aboard.
Cool. I will look that up. Give us a reminder when it comes out Greg. It's sounds really interesting. I love the title!
I wonder if they just kissed only. Since they never talked about it on TOS I'm guessing that's as far as it got.
Thanks! Rest assured I'll be plugging the book on the TrekLit board when it goes on sale. My story is titled "Bigfoot Gorge," btw, although an early typo in the Table of Contents briefly rendered it "Bigfoot George."
In the meantime, I'm pretty sure I have a TOS story scheduled for issue #9 of STAR TREK EXPLORER magazine.
Thanks! Rest assured I'll be plugging the book on the TrekLit board when it goes on sale. My story is titled "Bigfoot Gorge," btw, although an early typo in the Table of Contents briefly rendered it "Bigfoot George."
In the meantime, I'm pretty sure I have a TOS story scheduled for issue #9 of STAR TREK EXPLORER magazine.
Maybe you can write a kids tale called Bigfoot George. Lol
Reminds me of Nimoy giving Spock a peculiar accent/intonation on the theory that English was his second language, and he would've learned it primarily from computers and recordings (hence "sense-ores," most infamously).
Interesting since Nimoy was speaking English as HIS second language. Since he was from Boston.
Nobody talked openly about sex on TOS. We had to make assumptions based on the visual cues. Like fade to black, or guy on bed putting on boots while girl combs hair in mirror, and now, in the case of Spock/Christine in Charades - they kiss, he asks what it means, she tells him to shut up and kisses him again, they fall out of frame. SEX.
You like apples?