The USS Enterprise is dispatched to the edge of Federation space to help some colonists who are being besieged by pirates: their advocate, Dr. Aspen, lays the blame at the door of the Serene Squall (Title Drop!), a ship of Space Pirates. Meanwhile, T'Pring is back on Vulcan, continuing her work in rehabilitating Vulcan criminals; she mentions that she has been learning about "human sex" in an effort to bond more with her Half-Human Hybrid fiance. Spock is troubled about this, as he has never been 100% comfortable with his human side.
The Enterprise finds the wreckage of two of the colony ships, with no lifesigns. Since pirates are often Human Traffickers, Pike smells a sapient-rights violation in progress, and takes the Enterprise in pursuit. They find the Serene Squall with some 200 lifesigns — approximately the number of colonists — in the cargo hold, and 30 more spread throughout. Pike, La'an, and some extras beam over to investigate... but while they do, pirates board the Enterprise. Number One and Ortegas fight a delaying action on the bridge while Spock and Dr. Aspen escape.
The Enterprise crew are, by and large, captured and herded into the Serene Squall's holding bay. However, Una succeeded at locking down the ship's systems, and Remy, the Orion in charge of the pirates, attempts to Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique the command codes out of Pike. Pike, struck by an errant bit of gruel, plays his best card: Real Men Can Cook, and Remy is more of a Cordon Bleugh Chef. Whilst feeding the pirates, Pike gets a chance to talk to Remy about his plans, which involve selling the captive Starfleet crew to the Klingons. Remy loves the idea; it is not popular with the rest of the crew, who have noticed that pirates rarely live through their dealings with Klingons. Pike, returned to his imprisoned bridge crew, announces that he has successfully planted the seeds for an "Alpha Braga IV": they're going to encourage the pirates to commit mutiny.
Spock recreates another classic Trek trope: "Die Hard" on an X, where "X" is the show's ship. He and Dr. Aspen make for Engineering, where they hope to regain control of the ship; Dr. Aspen admits that their husband, a Vulcan, met an unspecified but unpleasant end while opposing the pirates of the Serene Squall. Spock arms the widow with phasers for the trip. There, the two meet Nurse Chapel, who — despite having nothing to hand but a hypospray — has managed to Instant Sedation her way down. Spock successfully unlocks the ship... only for Dr. Aspen to perform their sudden but inevitable betrayal. They are actually Angel, leader of the pirates and captain of the Serene Squall.
Angel and crew take the bridge and reveal that they have not come for the Enterprise, but rather Spock himself. They then contact... T'Pring, who has Angel's husband, a Vulcan named Xaverius. Angel wants to conduct a "I Have Your Wife" hostage trade. T'Pring arrives and prepares to make the trade, caught in a Sadistic Choice: she can abdicate her duties and face criminal charges for letting Xaverius go, or she can face social disgrace for allowing Spock, son of the renowned Ambassador Sarek, to be killed. Spock figures out how to Take a Third Option: grabbing Christine Chapel and claiming that the two of them are secretly in love. He sells it with a Big Damn Kiss. T'Pring formally un-betrothes herself from Spock and leaves. Angel, infuriated, gives the commands to fire on T'Pring's ship... but the pirates are locked out: The Cavalry arrives in the form of the Serene Squall, now under command of Captain Christopher Pike; Number One broadcasts the remote override codes, rendering the ship dead in the water, and Ortegas takes out her impulse engines with precise fire. Angel pulls a Screw This, I'm Outta Here, beaming themself onto a private ship and escaping alone, while their pirates surrender to the crew of the Enterprise. (Pike then requests exfiltration, as his mutiny is still in progress behind him.)
T'Pring meets with Spock and accepts his apology, having seen the ruse for what it was. She compliments Spock's human half and human passions, which were the only reason he could've sold the kiss to Angel. She also suggests the two of them celebrate their re-established engagement, which they do. Spock then apologizes to Nurse Chapel, who agrees that they are Just Friends. (Curiously, Spock does not pick up on the Blatant Lies, or at least gives no obvious sign.) Spock then discusses the "Eureka!" Moment he had whilst Angel was negotiating for the release of "Xaverius," which Spock now believes is an assumed name for someone he was told to stay away from: the first-born, sired-out-of-wedlock son of Ambassador Sarek.
Tropes:
- All Love Is Unrequited: The fact that Christine Chapel is, as seen in The Original Series, in deep and unrequited love with Spock, is truly kindled in this episode.
- Apple of Discord: Pike manipulates Remy's crew into staging a mutiny by warning of the danger of dealing with the Klingons.
- Badass Pacifist: Nurse Chapel manages to knock out half a dozen armed pirates with nothing but a hypospray.
- Bad Boss: Angel ditches their crew when things go south.
- Big Damn Heroes: Angel tries to spitefully blow up T'Pring when T'Pring and Spock outwit them, only for Pike to warp in on the Squall, remotely disabling Enterprise's shields and weapons so that Angel has no choice but to flee.
- Call-Forward:
- One of T'Pring's coworkers at the Ankeshtan K'til Retreat is a fellow named Stonn. In a decade, T'Pring is going to dump Spock for him.
- Angel believes that there's more to life than logic. Spock himself will later say "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end."
- Angel's lover whom they're attempting to get released from prison is Spock's paternal half-brother Sybok from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
- Captain's Log: T'Pring shows that Starfleeters aren't the only ones who keep logs.T'Pring: Personal log, stardate 1997.9. My last few weeks of service at the Ankeshtan K'til Retreat have been productive. It is difficult to guide those who once walked a destructive path back to civilized society. Helping them purge the emotions that led to thievery, abuse, even murder. Most challenging has been stealing time for Spock and myself. We are making the most of our long-distance endeavor, but I sense in Spock a desire to explore his Human side. So I've been attempting to introduce experimentation into our relationship in an effort to – as Humans are apparently fond of saying – 'spice things up'.
- Central Theme: Duality, and specifically the idea of false binaries. Angel is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, and is able to play Spock — the half-Vulcan, Half-Human Hybrid — like a fiddle by preying on his emotions. In the end, Angel reminds Spock that he does not have to choose between being only human or Vulcan, but can rather be something that is both and in-between — someone who treats his species as a spectrum, much as Angel treats their gender."Aspen": Spock. You know, all species put things into boxes. It's like you're either this, or you're that. And... sometimes we act a certain way to fit people's expectations, but that's not necessarily who we are. And sometimes, like on the bridge just now... it can limit us.
Spock: You are proposing I better balance my human and Vulcan natures.
"Aspen": I'm saying... maybe you're neither.- Also seen when T'Pring name drops her reading list on human sexuality. Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer has a focus on the male experience. Erica Jong's Fear of Flying focuses on the female experience, and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts
centers the Trans experience of sexuality.
- Also seen when T'Pring name drops her reading list on human sexuality. Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer has a focus on the male experience. Erica Jong's Fear of Flying focuses on the female experience, and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts
- Chekhov's Gun: After the laser grid trap, a small ship begins following Enterprise from behind an asteroid. It doesn't reappear until the climax, where it's revealed to be Angel's escape vessel in case things go south.
- Continuity Nod:
- In the fourth season of Star Trek: Discovery, Qowat Milat criminal J'Vini was sentenced to rehabilitation on one of the moons of Ni'Var (Vulcan)note Here, we see the Ankeshtan K'til Retreat is in fact an entire prison on the moon, albeit a fairly nice one.
- The override codes Pike uses to disable the Enterprise are a reference to the "prefix number" used many years later In-Universe by the Enterprise herself to disable the Reliant.
- Depraved Homosexual: It's not explicit, but there's an unusual amount of emphasis on Remy's preoccupation with Pike's good looks, particularly his jawline. (Compare the portrayal of Angel — they're the baddie, but not in a particularly stereotypical way.)
- Early-Bird Cameo:
- Sybok, seen at the end.
- T'Pring's future lover Stonn, for whom she'd leave Spock in "Amok Time", appears here as her assistant.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Angel starts negotiating the Prisoner Exchange with T'Pring, Spock realizes who Xaverius really is, as he later explains to Chapel.
- Evil Is Hammy: Captain Angel opens up some freshly-baked ham after taking control of Enterprise, especially while mocking Spock for believing the story about missing colonists.
- Exact Words:
- When Spock accuses them of lying, Angel replies they "may have fudged a few details" but they were telling the truth about losing the man they loved. It was just to a Vulcan prison, not killed by pirates.
- When ordered to drop her weapon, Chapel tells the pirates that she doesn't have a weapon. She didn't say she didn't have a hypospray tucked up her sleeve, though.
- Fake-Out Make-Out: To convince Angel that Spock and Chapel are in a relationship, in front of T'Pring, they start kissing passionately on the bridge. Later, T'Pring tells Spock that while she knew it was fake: his human side accounted for the feeling he was able to convey.
- Fake Shemp: The reveal shows Sybok at the rehab colony, but only from the back, with full beard and long-ish hair similar to when Laurence Luckinbill played him.
- Internal Reveal: Spock tells Chapel about his half-brother Sybok.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: After Angel teleports away and flees, the rest of the pirates on the Enterprise wisely choose to surrender.
- Lured into a Trap:
- Enterprise tracks a distress signal that ends up luring them into an energy web that begins to collapse in on them, similar to the Tholian web though not explicitly related. Enterprise escapes by blowing up the power source.
- A broader example is the colony ship itself, as that was just a tale Captain Angel spun to lure in Enterprise as hostage material to get leverage over T'Pring.
- Luxury Prison Suite: The Ankeshtan K'til Retreat looks somewhat foreboding at a distance, being suspended over a giant chasm, but the facility itself is is actually pretty nice, being geared entirely to the rehabilitation of even the worst prisoners.
- The Mole: Captain Angel masquerades as Dr. Aspen to gain Spock's trust as part of their gambit to take over Enterprise, knowing Spock has the authority to override the security lockdown.
- Multi-Gendered Outfit: Captain Angel wears an embroidered black bodystocking and combat boots. They have a couple significant conversations with Spock about his being a Half-Human Hybrid, suggesting he view being half-Vulcan, half-human as a point on a spectrum instead of trying to fully be one or the other.
- Mythology Gag: The ship is overrun by a surprise attack and Number One only has a few seconds to lock out the main computer before the bridge is captured, which prevents the attackers from having an instant victory. Riker did the same thing in the TNG episode "Rascals".
- Noodle Incident: Alpha Braga IV is added to the list of sly place name references between Pike and Una. We don't know anything about it besides that it involved fomenting a mutiny.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Between Pike suggesting a mutiny and the events on Enterprise, his small party has somehow seized the bridge.
- Override Command: Pike's command codes allow him to remotely disable Enterprise from the Serene Squall.
- Poisonous Captive: Keeping a clever and charming man like Pike captive is a bad idea, as he creates a mutiny.
- Refuge in Audacity: Pike's entire plan to escape from Remy and the Serene Squall rests on the trope. First he manages to convince the pirates to feed his people and talk himself out of getting beaten up by offering to cook a proper meal for them, since Remy's food leaves something to be desired. Once he's pulled that off, he starts planting seeds of doubt in the other pirates' minds by casually mentioning how stupid Remy is for wanting to sell the Starfleet crew to the Klingons, since it'll likely result in most or all of the pirates getting killed. Once those seeds have well and truly taken root, he smooth-talks one of the pirates into triggering a full-scale mutiny, then proceeds to break out and hijack the ship while the mutiny is still underway, showing up just in time to stop T'Pring's ship from being destroyed. Sheer audacity, thy name is Christopher Pike.note
- Rewatch Bonus: Several of Aspen's actions, such as being phaser-stunned but not incapacitated and suggesting that Spock Abandon Ship, make far more sense once Aspen is revealed to be Angel.
- Sadistic Choice: Angel gives T'Pring a choice between losing her career and being disgraced for allowing a prisoner to go free, and allowing her bondmate Spock, the son of the illustrious Sarek, to die, which would bring her equal shame. T'Pring chooses Spock, but Spock decides to get her to end their bond in order to free her from the choice.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Pike is ready to take back the ship, Angel transports away to an escape vessel, leaving the rest of their crew to be captured by Starfleet.
- She's a Man in Japan: In English, Aspen/Angel uses they/them pronouns. In the French dub, these are changed to she/her pronouns. Weirdly, when the same company produced the French dub of Star Trek: Discovery, they had no trouble translating Adira's they/them pronouns with iel, a neologism that is increasingly widely used by Real Life non-binary Francophones.
- Ship Tease: Spock gets a lot of it.
- Even though we know from "Amok Time" that, by 2267, the relationship between Spock and T'Pring can be generously described as "Dead Sparks," Strange New Worlds depicts them as Happily Married (or at least affianced), facing challenges as any couple does but overcoming them via cooperation and empathy. This despite the fact that SNW also keeps dangling potential fights which could cause their relationship to sour into what we saw in TOS. That's the "Tease" in this case: whatever breaks the two of them up is going to be pretty significant.
- Spock also gets it with Christine Chapel, who loves him (and Everyone Can See It). Some of it is dropped by Spock himself: after he and T'Pring reconcile, he says, "You know me well," which he also says to Chapel while apologizing to her. That said, Chapel has already resigned herself to pining in silence; she knows Spock would never do that to his betrothed (whom he does share a very real bond with, even if it doesn't look like what humans would call "love"), and Christine would never ask him to.
- Shout-Out:
- T'Pring has read Tropic of Cancer, Fear of Flying, and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts. Spock has not.
- "Alpha Braga IV" refers to Trek writer/director/producer Brannon Braga.
- Pike's plotline loosely follows Long John Silver's from Treasure Island, as the cook who led a Pirate Mutiny.
- T'Pring has read Tropic of Cancer, Fear of Flying, and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts
- Sore Loser: After Angel's plan is foiled by Spock and T'Pring ending their bond, they order their crew to destroy T'Pring's ship, but T'Pring is saved by the timely arrival of the Serene Squall under Pike's command and Una using the backdoor command codes to disable the Enterprise.
- Smug Snake: It's not surprising that Angel is a sore loser (see above) as once they reveal themselves, they take the gloating and self-satisfaction up to eleven.
- Spit Take: Downplayed, but Spock almost chokes on whatever he's drinking when T'Pring casually mentions her reading material.
- Take a Third Option: T'Pring is given two options by Angel: either free Xaverius, destroying her career, or allow Spock to die, sacrificing her bondmate and destroying her reputation another way. Spock fakes an affair with Nurse Chapel so he and T'Pring can end their bond, allowing her to let him go without shaming herself.
- Talk Like a Pirate: Pike does this in the denouement, suggesting they make Angel walk the plank if they catch them.Pike: Argh, me mateys. If we ever catch Angel, we should make them walk the plank. Argh.
Una: Please stop. - Through His Stomach: Remy's terrible cooking contrasted with Pike being a Supreme Chef is enough to help him start a mutiny.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Once foiled, Angel teleports off the ship to their own shuttle and escapes.
- Watch the Paint Job: Pike has to fire upon the Enterprise to force Angel to retreat, but isn't happy about it, requesting Ortegas fire upon her gently.Pike: I said gently.
Ortegas: What does "fire gently" even mean? - Wham Line: Spock, having deduced that "Xaverius" is an alias, informs Chapel of who he suspects the man to truly be:Spock: My half-brother, Sybok.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: It's not mentioned what happened to the real Dr. Aspen after Angel is exposed and outwitted; Angel states that they dumped Aspen on an uncharted planet, but it's never mentioned whether the Enterprise found them or not.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The Serene Squall pretends to be a colony ship to lure Enterprise in. When Pike beams over with an away team, the Squall sends over their own at the same moment to seize the Enterprise.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Angel mutters a frustrated "Are you kidding me?" when Spock and T'Pring "divorce" each other, ruining the Prisoner Exchange.
