Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Teaser Fudges Canon, And That’s a Good Thing

In the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season one episode “Spock Amok,” Spock expressed his distaste for “hijinks.” But because he made that declaration while inside the body of his intended T’Pring, Spock also knows that he cannot avoid hijinks.

The first teaser for Strange New Worlds‘s third season promises further hijinks, hijinks that might irritate fans as much as they do Spock.

The teaser shows a team from the Enterprise getting ready for a secret mission on Vulcan, including Pike, Chapel, La’an, Uhura, and Pelia. Using the same treatment that changed Spock from fully human back to his normal state, the quartet gets transformed into Vulcans. All but Pelia, that is, forcing Spock to take her place.

As the transformation occurs, the four former humans fall to the ground, overwhelmed by the flood of emotions that overtake them. So far, so good, in terms of canon. As every Vulcan from Leonard Nimoy’s Spock to Zachary Quinto’s Spock to Ethan Peck’s Spock has explained, they do indeed feel emotions but have learned to suppress them.

And that’s where things go off the rails. Because, after a few seconds of moaning, the quartet stands up to reveal pointy ears and eyebrows. Moreover, all four are in perfect control of their emotions, so much so that they frequently make the logical observation that Spock is just half Vulcan, and therefore they make up “four and a half” Vulcans.

Numerous Trek stories, including the third and fourth Original Series movies Search for Spock and The Voyage Home – as well as Tuvok episodes of Voyager and T’Pol episodes of Enterprise – have shown that Vulcans must work hard to purge and control those emotions. Meditation and other mental exercises, taught from a young age within the culture, teach them how to feel emotions without letting them be controlled by them.

Absolutely none of that control or exercise appears in the Strange New Worlds clip. The episode breaks canon, something that a prequel series shouldn’t do.

And yet, it absolutely does not matter. The quick change allows the story to get the mechanics out of the way and get right to the good stuff: the hijinks of Spock having to deal with human friends who now consider themselves more Vulcan than him.

To be sure, some Trekkies share Spock’s aversion to hijinks. Silly Star Trek episodes, in which Bones chases the white rabbit planet or Q sends the Next Generation crew to Sherwood Forest, remain very divisive. Strange New Worlds has no such qualms about getting silly, as demonstrated by the fairy tale “The Elysian Kingdom” or the musical episode “Subspace Rhapsody.” The season three clip shows that Strange New Worlds will continue embracing silly Trek, even if they have to sacrifice some canon along the way.

That said, Trek has always been a bit loose with canon, and not just in The Original Series, when the Stardates were all random and meaningless. Changes in Klingons, fudging timelines, and inconsistent character moments occur again and again. While there’s some validity in complaints about changes just for the sake of changes (looking at you, Discovery‘s Klingons), canon breaks are worthwhile when they pay off with an entertaining episode, whatever one’s personal feelings about hijinks.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season Three Boldly Goes to Paramount Plus in 2025.