Editor's note: The below article contains spoilers for the first five episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Five episodes into its debut season, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has proven itself willing to dive headfirst into the classic Trek formula which originated with the original series: standalone, self-contained adventures with lightly serialized character development. The journeys of the Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) set roughly a decade before Kirk's turn in the chair, begin on the heels of the disappearance of Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the Discovery, at the end of that show's second season.
Pike, still reeling from the knowledge that he will be horribly crippled and disfigured during a training accident at some point in the future, has to be coaxed back to commanding the Federation's flagship. Pike continues to struggle with this foreknowledge of his fate but finds a balance between these worries and his confidence as captain. Season 1 Episode 5, "Spock Amok," focuses on Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck), for another satisfying riff on a Trek deep cut, referencing a classic Original Series episode as it sets up the conflict that will (within accepted Trek canon, anyway) eventually bring Kirk and Spock to blows.
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Spock vs. Spock
"Spock Amok" opens with perhaps the most direct callback to The Original Series that Strange New Worlds has conjured thus far. In a dream sequence, Spock finds himself back on Vulcan and about to complete a ritual ceremony to wed his betrothed, T'Pring (Gia Sandhu). Trekkies of several generations will recognize the setting as an updated version of the altar where Spock was forced to fight Kirk to the "death" in the classic TOS episode "Amok Time." In that episode, which was the opener for the show's second (and arguably best) season, we first learn about the pon farr, a period where Vulcans must mate or die. Kirk disobeys orders and ditches a diplomatic function on Altair IV in order to get Spock back to Vulcan before the intense pressure of pon farr kills him.
"Spock Amok" reenacts the iconic sequence which finds Kirk and Spock forced to fight each other. In the dream, however, Spock's ears suddenly become human, prompting T'Pring to invoke her right of kal-if-fee, or ritual combat. Her champion: a fully Vulcan Spock. Forced to fight his own nature, Spock snaps awake just as his Vulcan half is about to deliver the killing blow. Canonically speaking, Spock will eventually come to accept and embrace his human half, but here, Spock's struggle to find a balance plays out dramatically, and is explored in interesting ways in this episodes fun body-swap plot.
For all of "Spock Amok's" playfulness, it nevertheless highlights the rift between Spock and T'Pring, which we glimpsed in the show's pilot. "Amok Time" sees this conflict's resolution, but it seems that Strange New Worlds will chronicle the disintegration of Spock's relationship.
Loyalty Run Amok
The "Amok Time" episode was directed by Joseph Pevney and written by Theodore Sturgeon, who was a contemporary of sci-fi legends Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov. Sturgeon was a prominent sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writer of the 1950s and '60s, as well as a prolific critic and essayist. His most celebrated work is a novel called More Than Human, which follows a group of telepaths who have the ability to merge their powers and act as one organism. Themes of disassociation recur in Sturgeon's work and deeply inform his script for "Amok Time," which regularly tops fan and critic "best of" lists for The Original Series. The episode also stands as one of the most important when it comes to the culture and psychology of Vulcans.
"Amok Time" gave fans their first look at the planet Vulcan, along with establishing the Vulcan hand salute, the "Live long and prosper" phrase, and presented the first female Vulcan character in T'Pring (played by Arlene Martel in "Amok Time"). It also provides the earliest look at the pressure Spock has always been under. Every incarnation of Spock explores his problems balancing his human and Vulcan halves, but Strange New Worlds focuses on an origin story of sorts for this struggle.
For one of the first real times in The Original Series, Kirk's loyalty to Spock is put to the test, and vice-versa. The seeds of Spock's eventual disloyalty find their beginning in Strange New Worlds' examination of his relationship with T'Pring. The plot of "Spock Amok" veers into an entertaining body-swap story when Spock and T'Pring attempt to share either other's consciousness for a brief time. This naturally goes sideways, leaving them trapped in each other's body during the course of an important diplomatic mission for Spock. They each come away from the experience understanding the other a bit more, but whoever has seen "Amok Time" will know that this relationship will eventually splinter.
Knowing what lies in store for a certain group of characters — in the case of Strange New Worlds, this means Pike, Spock, and Uhura — does not necessarily render their story obsolete. Spock is perhaps less committed to Starfleet as a lieutenant than he eventually will be as the Enterprise's first officer under Kirk. Still, his journey to that point promises to unearth plenty of folds and contradictions for one of our most beloved sci-fi characters, even if it means charting the disintigration of his relationship to T'Pring.
