Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘s “The Serene Squall“

SPACE PIRATES! Jesse James Keitel guest stars in an episode that has romance, adventure, Henry Miller references, a surprise ending, and (god help us) Pike talking like a pirate. Face it, true believer, this one has it all! My review of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘s latest, “The Serene Squall.”

An excerpt:

One of the things I’m really loving about SNW so far is that they keep trolling us with regards to Spock and T’Pring. Thanks to the original series’ “Amok Time,” we know that some time in the future, Spock and T’Pring will not be anything like a regular couple. Their bond will still exist in some form, as Spock will be compelled by the pon farr to fulfill it, but T’Pring will, by the time Spock succumbs to the pon farr, have moved on to Stonn, having grown weary of being affianced to a legend. She will manipulate Spock and Kirk to get out of her marriage.

Every single time we’ve seen T’Pring on SNW, it’s been set up to appear to be where T’Pring gets fed up and walks away. We saw it writ small in “Strange New Worlds” when Spock interrupts their nookie-nookie to go rescue Number One. Both “Spock Amok” and this episode set up situations that seem tailor-made to sunder their relationship—

—and both times, it just deepens the relationship. This is, frankly, delightful, and I love how the show is messing with our expectations.