Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3.8: Pike's Hair and Spock's Smile

Well, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3.8 served up the obligatory comedy of the season.  It wasn't as funny as TOS's "Trouble for Tribbles" (which got David Gerrold's career going), but it did have its moments.

[Spoilers ahead ... though it seems a bit off to warn about spoilers where laughs are involved ... ]

First, the set-up:  Pike, La-an, Chapel, and Uhura are temporarily turned into Vulcans.  But the temporary takes much longer than expected, and hence this close-to-entire episode.

Here are some of my favorite results:

1. Pike's hair looks funnier than ever as a Vulcan.  They must've applied Brylcreem to Anson Mount's hair, but he deserve credit for some fine deadpan acting as Vulcan Pike.
2. La'an (Christina Chong), on the other hand, looked great as a Vulcan, and her dancing with Spock, likely about the closest we'll see of them making love, was fun to see.
3. Speaking of Spock, the title of this episode -- "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans" -- though not a result of the change into Vulcans (because it's a title), is so good it deserves a shout-out.  The half, of course, is Spock, who's half-human, so Pike, La-an, Chapel, and Uhura = 4 + Spock (1/2) = Four and a Half, and the title itself reflects Vulcan precision with language.

Also outside the theme of this episode -- but deserving mention -- though it could be seen as a reversal of the theme (and related to the theme as per Marshall McLuhan's tetrad)* -- is Doug (played by Patton Oswalt!), a Vulcan who is fascinated by humans, and may want to become one of us.  He and Spock have a coda scene, in which Spock tries to teach Doug how to use word contractions, etc, and all of that ends with Spock's smile, a rarity and always good to see.

*See Andrey Mir's Digital Reversal for more.

See also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3.1-3.3: Gorn, Spock & Chapel, and The Walking Dead ... 3.4: Lots of Laughs and Serious Business ... 3.5: Endearing Pseudo-Science ... 3.6: Chris and Jim ... 3.7: The Medium and The Message

And see also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2.1: Nurse Chapel ... 2.2: Racism and Sexism in the Courtroom ... 2.3: Time Travel and Alternate Universes ... 2.5: Chapel and Spock ... 2.6: Jimmy Kirk ... 2.7: Pike, Spock, and Boimler ... 2.8: Ethically Wrenching ... 2.9: The Operetta ... 2.10: Young Scotty and Five Other Great Things about This Season 2 Finale

And see also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1-1.2: Great Characters, Actors, Stories ... 1.3: "Instead of terraforming planets, we modify ourselves ..." ... 1.4: The Gorn and the Wub ... 1.5 Going to the Chapel ... 1.6: Two Stories ... 1.7: The Kiss ... 1.8: Ends of the Continuum ... 1.9: Momentous! ... 1.10: Everything!