What do you get when you mix Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and deadpan comedy? It’s a question that this week’s instalment of Strange New Worlds feels hellbent on answering. Entitled “Four and a Half Vulcans”, the episode, written by Dana Horgan and Henry Alonso Myers, sees half the main cast turned into Vulcans to complete a dangerous mission.
Can the crew’s new Vulcan upgrades help them complete their mission? Will they be able to turn back? With all the stereotypical efficiencies and logical patterns of a Vulcan mind, will they even want to? And just what is Kirk doing on the Enterprise again? Find out the answers to all of these and more in my review of this week’s Star Trek adventure!
WARNING – Spoilers below for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Episode 8 “Four and a Half Vulcans”
The Serum
It was evident from the promotional pictures that this episode featured the uncomfortable clip released during San Diego Comic-Con 2024. I found it no less awkward here, and the mood lingered throughout the entire episode. It’s not just the monotone, but everyone else overcompensating in the humour department to make up for half the cast being Vulcan.
Take, for instance, early on, where the serum didn’t work on Pelia (Carol Kane). It leads to a funny joke about psychedelics, but there’s something about it that’s not Star Trek. As someone who loves Carol Kane, it’s very in-character for her. It’s as if the episode was preoccupied with trying to be funny, even if it did sacrifice the image of even vague professionalism that other crews have.
As absurd as their becoming Vulcans is from a storytelling perspective, it’s the choice to stay Vulcans that is the root of the episode. Where’s the line between identity and a biological reality? Between appropriating and embracing? The episode feels uninterested in these questions; however, it instead focuses immediately on the crew’s efforts to change them back forcibly.
Highly Illogical
The actions of the Vulcan crew are bizarre. Some jokes land, but I didn’t find the deadpan delivery half as funny as the episode clearly intended. I’m also a little mixed on a simple serum turning them into pointy-eared, logical Vulcans. Through Spock (Ethan Peck), it’s clear that these are learned behaviours, but instead, we get a species that’s been with Star Trek since inception reduced to the equivalent of a smart drug.
Not to mention, their erratic behaviour is disturbing and indicative of an emotionless state that even Vulcans do not possess. Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) brainwashes Beto (Mynor Luken) into being a better date. Chapel (Jess Bush) breaks up with Korby (Cillian O’Sullivan). Pike tries to rearrange the ship into 14 crew rotations. It’s bizarre, uncaring, and it feels like they got high and made a bunch of bad decisions.
The lengths the crew goes to ground the Vulcans brings a reading like this some legitimacy. La’an (Christina Chong) literally dances her way out of it, which, even for a dream sequence, was a bad decision, but not from the characters. It brings out the tonal whiplash of the episode, how turning the crew back and never talking about this again is the best-case scenario. Whether or not the serum made them “real” Vulcans, it’s easy to see why they never used it again.
Original Series
Perhaps it’s on me not reading the credits more carefully before jumping in, but I was surprised to see Kirk (Paul Wesley) pop up this week. Him being there to simply visit his brother, who’s not even in the episode, is not an excuse that passes the pub test. This is a season that’s had no shortage of Kirk content, his addition here reeks of desperation.
That is, a desperation for setting up what’s to come for all these characters in The Original Series. There’s 2 whole seasons after this one, yet just weeks ago we had music swell as he was called “Captain Kirk”. Here, in an episode he has flimsy reasons for appearing in in the first place, he builds on his relationship with Scotty (Martin Quinn). Them all but winking at the camera when they share a drink at the end was eyeroll inducing.
It’s even more offensive, because anyone paying attention knows this isn’t just Original Series nostalgia-baiting. The production team have made no secret of their desire to do a Star Trek: Year One series with Kirk on the Enterprise. Being a little over halfway through Strange New Worlds‘ run, it’s a mad dash to set up the next series. Worse yet, the blatant setups are increasingly SNW‘s detriment.
Comedy
Speaking of detriment, it’s this week that the show feels as if it’s having a tonal identity crisis. Just last week we were preoccupied with asking what Starfleet is, which in a season littered with actual war crimes, was a choice. But here we’re playing casual in meetings, making casual drug use references, and massively overdoing Pike’s hair. Some of it’s funny, but none of it feels like Star Trek, and it’s kind of alienating.
Also uncharacteristic of Star Trek, the episode has a mid-credits scene. It’s a glorified gag reel, but when you have comedic talent like Patton Oswalt guest starring, it’s understandable. Spock explaining human culture and mannerisms to Doug was the sort of outside observation of human behaviour that shows about aliens should do more often. It’s by far, at least in my eyes, the funniest part of the episode.
Spock’s the only alien on the ship, at least the only non human-passing one, so giving someone just as stoic to play off was glorious. Its inclusion during the episode’s end credits however is a little disarming, especially considering the comedy wouldn’t have felt out of place in the episode itself. If ever there was an episode this scene would have felt at home in, it’s this one.
Conclusion
“Four and a Half Vulcans” is a strange affair. Coming from a longtime Trek fan, it’s a disarming one as well. There’s a massive overemphasis on humour, and a monotone bit that’s not as funny as the episode seems to think. The overreliance and abundance of humour is at the expense of what could have been a real moral quandary, that’s instead fixed with a dream sequence dance number and some subpar soup.
It also repeats one of the biggest sins of the season, in giving excessive screen time to Wesley’s Kirk. As an Original Series fan, it hurts to see these relationships set up with swelling music and the actors all but winking at the camera. It’s particularly true this week, with Kirk inserted for the silliest reason. “Four and a Half Vulcans” is yet another entry in one of the most middling and bizarre seasons of Trek in recent memory.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 premiered on July 17th (2025) and will continue weekly on Paramount+ in the US, UK, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Japan. It is also available to stream on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Central and Eastern Europe.
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