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Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x08 - "Four-And-A-Half Vulcans"

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So, Patton Oswalt lives "pretty close" to the shore leave planet and he just shows up after an act break? "Pretty close" even in warp speeds can still mean days worth of travel. Small universe strikes again!
 
Not the best episode of the series, but nowhere near as bad as it has been made out to be. The Una/Doug thing didn't quite land for me. Anson's performance could've used more work, and a strong director to encourage him to dial down the Beldar Conehead delivery. Uhura and Beto were fine. Jess Bush was good.
Unlike a number of commenters, I enjoyed the Jim/Scotty/La'An subplot - and Christina Chong's performance - the most.

It's more an "A Piece of the Action"/" I, Mudd" level Star Trek comedy than a "Tribbles" for me.

When I rewatch it . . . and I will, certainly more than "Hegemony part two" and "Through the Lens(e) of Time" . . . it will be for Christina, Celia, and Jess (and Carol).
 
Okay.... A 6. I dunno, I addressed the issues up thread.

Post-credit sequence was good but Patton Oswalt is usually good, but, "its" is, well, its own word too. Wait... Do Vulcans not use contractions?
 
Yeah, this one just didn't land for me at all. 6.

With the exception of the post credit scene, none of the humor landed and even that only worked as its own thing, separate from the episode. The science of the episode was, dare I say, illogical to say the least. For the first time in in my entire experience with the man, Anson Mount's performance was cringeworthy. Yes, even including Inhumans. The stuff with La'An had potential, but why was Kirk here again? And even the stuff with La'An boiled down to trying to make us invest in the relationship with Spock, which just isn't working for me. Doug was an interesting character but I just didn't buy into the chemistry between him and Number One, but I suppose that was supposed to be the point.

Batel telling off Pike and what's his face was a high point.
 
Yeah, no.

Apparently the DNA was enough. Totally contradictory in multiple ways. We know that Vulcans need a lot of meditation and practice to acquire that degree of logic to control their emotions. Indeed, in this episode they start out right after the injections with overwhelming emotions. Yet those magically fade in moments. Okaaaay.
It's called reverse Bendi syndrome.
 
For fan squees?
As much as I liked to see Kirk and Scotty begin their friendship, I think I would have much preferred more insight into the character through interaction with Sam or some update on his situation with Carol. Given the amount of time that's passed, one can only assume that David has already been born and even perhaps his relationship with Carol has ended.

Thinking on it, we really don't have any concrete canonical details on the the relationship between Kirk and Carol, beyond bare basic bones. When Kirk mentioned Carol in season 2, he said they were going to try and make it work. But I wonder how long that arrangement lasted? If they want to twist the knife with the audience the way they did with Spock and Christine (a relationship I was fully invested in, despite knowing it could be not last), they could make Kirk's decision to command a 5 year mission a central part of the reason it didn't work out between them.
 
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I know this episode was meant to be a silly comedy episode but it did not work for me. It felt too over the top and forced. The writing was terrible. Cringy dialogue. Terrible acting. You could have done a comedy where a virus or serum transform some of the crew into Vulcans and had more situational comedy, and explored what it means for Vulcans to control their emotions. But instead they just made Vulcans into the joke.

The scene where they first transform into Vulcans and they fall to the ground, totally overacting that scene, crawling on all fours shouting "emotions are overwhelming". WTF. That was so bad.

It was completely ridiculous stereotypes of Vulcans, literally shouting "it is logical" for everything. It is like the writers think that they have to constantly tell the audience that something is logical to sound Vulcan.

They constantly put down Spock for being half-Vulcan and act like they are real Vulcans even though they just got a magic serum that changed their biology and have only been a Vulcan for a few hours.

Also, just because a serum transforms your biology, it would not automatically give you the same culture or discipline to control your emotions which Vulcans train years to develop. They should have been more primitive, feral Vulcans and have to learn to control their emotions. That could have been an interesting exploration of what it means to be Vulcan that we have not really seen a lot in Star Trek. Instead they just instantly become over the top, overacting, stereotypical "logic" Vulcans who act like total jerks to everybody.

Imagine a show where a white person takes a serum and becomes a black person and instantly becomes an over the top stereotype of a black person from the 'hood, wearing "ghetto" clothes, talking slang and mentions basketball and fried chicken every 10 seconds. It would be insulting. And then when they transform back into a white person, they apologize to their black friends, saying that they understand the black experience, racism, segregation etc... It would be offensive. That is basically what this episode did with Vulcans. It totally insulted Vulcans, and played them for total jokes.

Lastly, I think not showing us the mission on the planet and not showing their transformation back to humans was a mistake. The episode skipped important stuff to focus on less important stuff.
 
Kirk was there to try to hook up with La'an. He as much says it.


I noted the Pike/Conehead voice. La'an doesn't have a Romulan side. Her story here came from her greater ambition for power, an augment programmed quality.
I guess Carol has shown him the door.
 
Brilliant episode, where I cheered at the TV. I loved the alternative introduction, the lengthier run time to get more story in, the fact they skipped the boring bits like the away mission to get on with the wider plot. Stellar acting. Proper Trek.
 
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