Star Trek

I think the point we are supposed to take away is that he’s very young, relatively speaking, to the Spock we know and love from the movies and TNG. He’s a work in progress on his way to becoming that person

The first episode of the season had Spock discussing with Doctor M’Benga the fact that embracing his anger to help him fight the Gorn last season in “All Those Who Wander” broke down his mental conditioning. It’s also been shown in three of four recaps at the beginning of episodes this season. I would assume they’re building towards something.

As for Spock “never” having emotions, I’d suggest rewatching some TOS. His wry enjoyment when Uhura teases him with her song in “Charlie X”, his outburst at seeing Kirk alive at the end of “Amok Time”, and just how ridiculously horny he is in “The Cloud Minders” all come to mind, never mind those instances when he’s affected by some outside force suppressing his conditioning.

Yeah, it's weird how they're embracing this...foundational aspect of the character.

He is certainly spending a lot less time expressing emotions than he did in season 2 of Discovery.

There seem to be two major camps of thought about his portrayal in SNW:

1. He is way too different in SNW than he is in TOS, thus breaking canon. These must be people who really enjoyed the nobody-ever-experiences-personal-growth-except-for-Seven-of-Nine aspect of VOY.

2. Personal growth is okay, but his current trajectory is veering off too far from where he needs to land in TOS. This is the nobody-ever-makes-the-same-mistakes-twice camp.

Here's what we know for sure, chronologically:

• Spock smiles at plants in The Cage and seems stable.
• Spock is a mental and emotional wreck in DIS season 2, but he pulls it together in the end.
• Spock is back in control in early SNW season 1, but he has overcorrected after the events of DIS to a place where he is much more stoic than he was in The Cage.
• Spock opens back up the emotional can of worms in SNW season 1 to fight an adversary, and he is having a difficult time closing it back up. But he seems to be trying to make the best of it.
• Spock is about to lose all his Vulcan DNA in this week's upcoming episode. Hijinks will ensue with T'Pring's family.

That last one may lead to more overcorrection in the future. Or maybe it won't. Who knows?

Maybe he'll undergo Kolinahr at some point before TOS. Maybe it doesn't work twice, and that's why he fails in TMP.

But you can't tell me you've never met anyone in real life whose emotional state of being sways back and forth like a pendulum swing over time.

100%

So much so that I’m at the point where I’m wondering if this show is still canon.

I really like Strange New Worlds. The episodic nature with overarching storylines is the right direction for Star Trek, but really wish they had used this cast to make a show with a new crew in a new ship set post-DS9.

That episode is forever known as the "Enterprise Bingo" episode. I absolutely loved the sub-plot with Una and La'an. It's one of my favorite episodes of Season 1.

So we might be in for more hijinks?

Probably a smart and distinctly SNW move to use all the Vulcan stuff for comedy.

Trek Culture referenced in their last video that Spock has become the comic relief, this series.

I was not a fan of introducing legacy characters like Spock, Kirk - and even lesser-explored characters like Pike, Chapel, Number One and M'Benga to an extent - in DIS/SNW. Introduce new characters I say, that aren't hamstrung by what's already been established - something that I think is even more important in a show that's set in the "past".

That said, if we were to have a pre-TOS Spock, I wanted to see a Spock who would credibly grin at a plant or exclaim "The women!". I think SNW has given us that.

However, you're absolutely right. The destination for the character in SNW is for him to choose his Vulcan half over his human half. Hopefully the writers have planned this out. There's potential for a poignant story arc here, not just for Spock but also Chapel and T'Pring.

This episode seems like it's going to be light-hearted. Faces was, uh... not.

Wow! I had completely forgotten about that

Strange New Worlds is pretty light hearted, this is a perfectly reasonable possibility for them

It's great. Apart from Picard S3, this is the best Star Trek we've had since the 90s.

My partner describes it as like TNG with the weak episodes taken out. They're great, good, or neutral.