Logline
A shuttle accident leads to Spock’s Vulcan DNA being removed by aliens, making him fully human and completely unprepared to face T’Pring’s family during an important ceremonial dinner.
Written by Kathryn Lyn & Henry Alonso Myers
Directed by Jordan Canning
“This is irregular. A complaint outside the response period.” - those aliens are Germans. 😄
Great episode. Just the right amount of whackiness to not make it too ludicrous. And it wasn’t just comedy, at its core this episode had a human heart - no pun intended - with Spock connecting to his mother’s burden.
One thing that I realized, once again, is that I don’t really know what Una’s job on the Enterprise really is. She’s barely doing anything. You’d expect her to accompany the away team at the end of the episode (or did they steal the shuttle, now that they know how to steal the Enterprise). For an XO she’s barely noticeable. This isn’t a complaint about this episode, it’s a thread that runs throughout the series.
To end on a positive note: can those costume designers finally get an award please? The outfits on this show are always so stunning.
Edit: I just realized that the episode was written by Kathryn Lyn who also wrote one of Lower Decks’ funniest episodes, “wej Duj”. She seems to become Star Trek’s go-to gal for comedy.
The most XO thing that Una has done throughout the entire series run is question junior officers about Enterprise Bingo.
Seriously though as a former sailor I can verify that an XO’s job is tedious and boring. It’s all paperwork, inspections, and disciplinary crap outside of Captain’s Mast (yet an XO does most the work for that before a CO sees anything). The bulk of Una storytelling that we’ve seen is pretty great. Ortega is the one who needs to shine at this point. She hasn’t had much story development.
Makes perfect sense when you realize that T’Lyn (named after her) was another passive aggressive Vulcan that provides comic relief was introduced in “wej Duj”.