There’s no evidence of that.
Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x08 - "Four-And-A-Half Vulcans"
Yeah, that episode made me laugh several times but the hair thing....
sigh.
sigh.
I actually enjoyed “Four and a half Vulcans.”
Okay, okay, they should not have been immediately more logical than Spock.
It would have made more sense for them to be much more emotional than Spock at first.
Perhaps he could have calmed them down with a mind-meld.
Doug is just very curious about Humans.
The whole thing is done very tongue-in-cheek, and a bit absurd. I liked Doug anyway.
As for La’an, perhaps the Vulcan DNA switched on some dormant gene that re-activated her father’s DNA.
Okay, okay, they should not have been immediately more logical than Spock.
It would have made more sense for them to be much more emotional than Spock at first.
Perhaps he could have calmed them down with a mind-meld.
Doug is just very curious about Humans.
The whole thing is done very tongue-in-cheek, and a bit absurd. I liked Doug anyway.
As for La’an, perhaps the Vulcan DNA switched on some dormant gene that re-activated her father’s DNA.
The process was derived from the Kervorkian tech than made Spock human in "Charades." You'll note Spock was stripped of his Vulcan training and control, becoming a "hyper-human" in that episode.
La'An's several times great grandfather.
Yeah, this episode…
The Doug/Una/Spock stuff was fine…even good. Oswalt was really well cast (I’m glad he’s coming back in S4/5). Pelia was fun as always. Pretty much everything else was bad. Why was Pike yelling everything? Another “why are you always on my ship” appearance from Kirk. Uhura basically assaulting Beto is waived away as an oopsie. La’an was totally an Romulan. Oof.
The Doug/Una/Spock stuff was fine…even good. Oswalt was really well cast (I’m glad he’s coming back in S4/5). Pelia was fun as always. Pretty much everything else was bad. Why was Pike yelling everything? Another “why are you always on my ship” appearance from Kirk. Uhura basically assaulting Beto is waived away as an oopsie. La’an was totally an Romulan. Oof.
Kerkhovian. But I hate this episode, so I wish the process actually was Kevorkian.
We still need more giant Vulcan clones or the Keniculans.
Kerkhovian. But I hate this episode, so I wish the process actually was Kevorkian.
Stream of consciousness
During the mission briefing, Pelia is funny but also annoying. Did they put a 10-year-old on the script team?
Using Vulcans for humor: spot on. Amusing walking down the hallway montage, awesome. Lirpas?! Squeeee.
Sketchy tech that they can't undo, leaving them in an amusing state? Also spot-on for Star Trek.
[long and confusing]
Cetacean ops! (In her mind palace). Oh, an apache dance. I don't get to use that expression very often. Her mind is weird.
I didn't understand the La'an problems with Spock. Or Una's problems with Patton Oswalt. Maybe it's funny to people? I don't mind it, but I didn't get it.
I enjoyed the Vulcan-ness of everybody, except La'an. That didn't seem to fit, but maybe they explained it in the show? It was confusing.
Unfortunately, I found Anson Mount's portrayal of a Vulcan as pretty weak. I thought he did the worst job of sounding like a Vulcan. Why was he yell-y? La'an's problem was the way her character was written, not the way she delivered lines. Uhura was decent. Chapel was spot-on.
Overall, 5/10. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. Was pretty confusing.
During the mission briefing, Pelia is funny but also annoying. Did they put a 10-year-old on the script team?
Using Vulcans for humor: spot on. Amusing walking down the hallway montage, awesome. Lirpas?! Squeeee.
Sketchy tech that they can't undo, leaving them in an amusing state? Also spot-on for Star Trek.
[long and confusing]
Cetacean ops! (In her mind palace). Oh, an apache dance. I don't get to use that expression very often. Her mind is weird.
I didn't understand the La'an problems with Spock. Or Una's problems with Patton Oswalt. Maybe it's funny to people? I don't mind it, but I didn't get it.
I enjoyed the Vulcan-ness of everybody, except La'an. That didn't seem to fit, but maybe they explained it in the show? It was confusing.
Unfortunately, I found Anson Mount's portrayal of a Vulcan as pretty weak. I thought he did the worst job of sounding like a Vulcan. Why was he yell-y? La'an's problem was the way her character was written, not the way she delivered lines. Uhura was decent. Chapel was spot-on.
Overall, 5/10. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. Was pretty confusing.
This episode had Anson Mount’s worst performance of the series. He sounded like a Conehead and not a Vulcan. The director should have told him to tone it down. Otherwise I liked this episode.
Yeah, I think suppressing DNA you already have feels more plausible than changing into a species with completely different blood chemistry. Does the serum instantaneously change all your blood from iron based to copper based? It makes no scientific sense. They pushed a step too far because their own writers wrote themselves into that silly corner. Give the aliens superior medical scans and use a combination of tech to fool them and the serum as the icing on the cake for surface physiological appearance.
Although I didn't comment at the time, I had given this episode a 4 after watching it when it originally aired. But after watching S4E3 last night (and found it hilarious) I rewatched a few previous episodes for fun and to see how my perceptions changed.
I would still give this one a 4. Mostly because of the unforced errors, like the crew standing up with not only their features but also their hair completely different. As has been commented by so many: hair style isn't in ones DNA. And since they obviously had to do a costume change, there was no reason to leave the hair a as a reveal during the hallway walk scene.
But also, I'm beginning to suspect the writers are losing site of what being a Vulcan means. For some reason, the shorthand for being a Vulcan (that isn't Spock) just means "be as rude af and your good to go.) No. Sure, Spock wasn't treated that well by his peers when he was a child. That doesn' t mean that in perpetuity any Vulcan would behave like a 12 year old bully Vulcan any time they crossed paths with someone else. They're basically space stoics, and use meditation and logic to rein in their emotions, because as a species they make very bad choices when they don't, and that's almost lead to them destroying their entire civilization. The idea that it means Vulcan's must then experience emotions so much more deeply than a human doesn't make any sense and I just don't think a person would end up crawling around on the floor because Vulcan emotions are just that much more difficult to handle. How does that even work?
And as much as I do love Patton Oswald, (he was one of my all time favorite reccuring character(s) on Agents of SHIELD), his character was a bit... much in this episode.
However, I think something got lost in translation regarding the episode and that is, they aren't actually Vulcan's. Sure their DNA was changed. And I guess they should have argued in the episode that they were fast tracked to being able to contain their emotions via residual katra of the host Vulcan whose DNA they recieved or something. But it was basic programming they got.
I think the whole point of the episode is that they are NOT Vulcans, actually. They're humans who think they've found a cheat code to success and using now "being Vulcan" as the tool to look down on everyone else. But because they themselves didn't earn it, I think that's why they all failed so spectacularly at *being* Vulcan.
Pike becomes an unbearable asshole who keeps changing SOP and pissing off his entire crew, while also exhausting them all and if they'd run into an actual emergency probably would have failed completely. And then he undermines Batel at a job interview until she has to tell him off.
Uhura, the Communications officer, basically brainwashed her boyfriend because she was frustrated by his tardiness and lack of planning.
Chapel became a workaholic and destroyed all her friendships and even broke off her engagement to focus solely on only one thing in her life. That's just not healthy or sustainable.
And La'an was succumbing to her more violent tendencies and if she hadn't been stopped might have ended up starting another war.
They were not Vulcans. They were not "superior" or even good people. But they were all deluded into thinking they were because they had tech their disposal.
It felt basically like allegory for the Chat GPT loving techbros or CEOs who think they can replace people with AI and are finding out now that it's a bad idea because you also need the element of experience and having made the journey oneself to know how to apply the skills appropriately.
I still didn't like it though, because I just don't think they did it well enough and/or the character assassination of an entire species just irks me, even if they are fake.
I would still give this one a 4. Mostly because of the unforced errors, like the crew standing up with not only their features but also their hair completely different. As has been commented by so many: hair style isn't in ones DNA. And since they obviously had to do a costume change, there was no reason to leave the hair a as a reveal during the hallway walk scene.
But also, I'm beginning to suspect the writers are losing site of what being a Vulcan means. For some reason, the shorthand for being a Vulcan (that isn't Spock) just means "be as rude af and your good to go.) No. Sure, Spock wasn't treated that well by his peers when he was a child. That doesn' t mean that in perpetuity any Vulcan would behave like a 12 year old bully Vulcan any time they crossed paths with someone else. They're basically space stoics, and use meditation and logic to rein in their emotions, because as a species they make very bad choices when they don't, and that's almost lead to them destroying their entire civilization. The idea that it means Vulcan's must then experience emotions so much more deeply than a human doesn't make any sense and I just don't think a person would end up crawling around on the floor because Vulcan emotions are just that much more difficult to handle. How does that even work?
And as much as I do love Patton Oswald, (he was one of my all time favorite reccuring character(s) on Agents of SHIELD), his character was a bit... much in this episode.
However, I think something got lost in translation regarding the episode and that is, they aren't actually Vulcan's. Sure their DNA was changed. And I guess they should have argued in the episode that they were fast tracked to being able to contain their emotions via residual katra of the host Vulcan whose DNA they recieved or something. But it was basic programming they got.
I think the whole point of the episode is that they are NOT Vulcans, actually. They're humans who think they've found a cheat code to success and using now "being Vulcan" as the tool to look down on everyone else. But because they themselves didn't earn it, I think that's why they all failed so spectacularly at *being* Vulcan.
Pike becomes an unbearable asshole who keeps changing SOP and pissing off his entire crew, while also exhausting them all and if they'd run into an actual emergency probably would have failed completely. And then he undermines Batel at a job interview until she has to tell him off.
Uhura, the Communications officer, basically brainwashed her boyfriend because she was frustrated by his tardiness and lack of planning.
Chapel became a workaholic and destroyed all her friendships and even broke off her engagement to focus solely on only one thing in her life. That's just not healthy or sustainable.
And La'an was succumbing to her more violent tendencies and if she hadn't been stopped might have ended up starting another war.
They were not Vulcans. They were not "superior" or even good people. But they were all deluded into thinking they were because they had tech their disposal.
It felt basically like allegory for the Chat GPT loving techbros or CEOs who think they can replace people with AI and are finding out now that it's a bad idea because you also need the element of experience and having made the journey oneself to know how to apply the skills appropriately.
I still didn't like it though, because I just don't think they did it well enough and/or the character assassination of an entire species just irks me, even if they are fake.
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