Star Trek Star Explains Spock’s Many Relationships in Strange New Worlds

As a prequel, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has room to take liberties with established characters. So we expected some diversions, like Uhura being unsure about Starfleet and even Spock grinning like he does in the Original Series‘ first pilot, “The Cage.” But no one expected Strange New Worlds to devote so much time to Spock’s love life. Over the course of the series’ three 10-episode seasons, we’ve seen him paired with fellow Vulcan T’Pring, Nurse Chapel, and La’an.

Unexpected as it may be to make Spock into a romantic lead, his actor thinks it all makes sense. At a Strange New Worlds panel at NYCC (via TrekMovie), Ethan Peck described this period as “Spock’s sort of experimental years,” in which “these relationships are helping us find the Spock that we end up with in The Original Series.”

As Peck points out, Strange New Worlds takes place in the five years leading up to TOS, and shows how the characters we know and love become the characters we know and love. Thus, there’s been a lot of hedging over the season, as Spock, Uhura, and even Kirk try to figure out who they are.

It’s a tricky balance that Strange New Worlds showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers have to maintain. As storytellers writing a prequel, they have to build up to the point where Spock et al. become their iconic selves, present them as real people still figuring how to become icons. But, given the sometimes wild takes on established characters since the 2009 reboot, fans are rightly skeptical that producers will abandon core traits in pursuit of more popularity.

That’s partially why “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail” is such a standout in the show’s uneven third season. The episode shows Kirk taking his first command after an injury renders the captain of the Farragut incapacitated. For the first half of the episode, Paul Wesley plays Kirk as unsure of himself and belligerent, which fails to inspire confidence in Scotty and Uhura. But by the end of the episode, when Scotty and Uhura are joined by fellow future crewmates Spock and Chapel, Kirk finds himself, and becomes the hero we expect.

It’s no wonder that Peck points to Spock’s relationship to Kirk in the third season as the clearest example of the character building the series is attempting. “It’s so interesting because he’s had these very intimate relationships with Chapel and then La’an, and then that he will then have with Kirk,” said Peck. “And I think that these relationships will inform his relationship with Kirk in a really interesting way. I think they meet and there’s sort of this instant connection, sort of like a platonic falling in love, I like to call it.”

For those (rightfully) skeptical about Strange New Worlds after season three, Peck’s word choice is reassuring. For as much as the series has been about Peck dating various women—and as much as non-Trekkies describe Kirk as a Lothario—the most important relationship with either man’s life is with one another.

“And I’m so excited to see Paul bring his wit and his charm to this character, and to bring us closer together as Spock and Kirk,” Peck told the crowd, before jokingly adding, “Hopefully, we’ll see more of that. I don’t know if we will, but we might in season 4.”

With a sense of humor like that, how can people not fall in love with Spock?

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds seasons 1-3 are now available to stream on Paramount+.