Warning! The following contains spoilers for the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode “Spock Amok.” Read at your own risk!
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds recently premiered its latest episode for Paramount+ subscribers, and for some, it might’ve been quite the unexpected journey. “Spock Amok” is a comedic episode, and that’s not a genre Trek tackles often unless we’re talking about Star Trek: Lower Decks, which would have been fitting given the title's riff on the Looney Tunes classic "Duck Amuck." That particular tonal shift won’t be the only time the sci-fi series hops into less familiar territory either, as co-showrunner Henry Alonso Myers exclusively revealed to CinemaBlend a glimpse of what’s ahead in Season 1.
I spoke to Henry Alonso Myers ahead of the series premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and while talking about “Spock Amok,” learned about the process the writing team takes when writing episodes. Myers talked about what he and the team go through, and teased two exciting and atypical episodes that fans have yet to see:
One of the things we would do when conceiving every episode is we would kind of look for a model and be like, ‘Well, where have they tried this in Star Trek?’ Then we would try to do our version of that. Sometimes we would then take it and see how far can we push it. Can we make it bigger? Can we make it crazier? I hope that our funny version of Star Trek would be extra funny. There’s an episode coming up that is extremely scary. I’m hoping that our scary episode, our horror episode, is extremely terrifying.
Star Trek has certainly dabbled in using horror elements on the TV side of things, and even embraced some truly gruesome body horror-esque visuals for The Next Generation’s “Conspiracy.” Strange New Worlds tackling horror has me thinking that it will be another episode involving the Gorn, which we learned from Christina Chong is coming.
We have a big adventure romp come up, and it is like a really different interesting tone, but it is absolutely a hundred percent Star Trek, and I think anyone who watches the original series would watch that and be like, ‘Yeah, I could see how they could do that. That makes perfect sense.’ The goal is we’re trying to do a version of it that you wouldn't have seen back then.
I’m also incredibly excited for anything that falls under the “adventure romp” umbrella within the Star Trek universe. I can only imagine what it entails with only that as a description, but it'll likely be as playful as these episodes come. I'm pretty sure a non-playful romp is a scientific impossibility.
“Spock Amok” is a great example of Trek's quirky nature and ability to adhere to any kind of storytelling that one can apply. While comedic bents haven’t been utilized very much in live-action Trek as of late, genre-atypical episodes still have a solid place in the franchise. Myers mentioned some other examples of comedic episodes while touching on one of the things he thinks is wonderful about the franchise as a whole:
If you look at ‘Trouble With Tribbles’ or DS9, they have that episode “Looking For par'Mach In All the Wrong Places.’ Those are really funny episodes. They’re written for that time in that way, but they’re funny and one of the things that I think is wonderful about Trek is it is malleable. It can be used to explore so many different genres.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has already explored many different genres in Season 1 and will continue to do so throughout the rest of the season and into the future. It’s good to hear Henry Alonso Myers and others on the creative team view the franchise as being so malleable, as it may encourage them to push further to see what other unexpected premises Trek can tackle.
When speaking about “Spock Amok” specifically, Henry Alonso Myers noted there was a very specific reason behind wanting to do this episode at this time. Myers explained the purpose beyond delivering a comedic episode and how it sends a message to viewers:
It was very important to me personally–and I co-wrote that one–to do a comedy episode because, you know, especially after the episode that preceded it, which is a very dark, very like running and gunning, upsetting episode. People died. We kind of wanted to show the breadth of what we were trying to do, and you’ll see in the back half of the season we continue to do that. It goes in lots of different directions, but all of them feel like Star Trek to us.
Preach it to the stars, Henry Alonso Myers! Even if one doesn't like horror, or comedy, or romps, it's still Star Trek through and through.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds just passed the halfway point of Season 1. The good news is that while there may not be many episodes left, Season 2 is already in production, and will bring even more excitement with Paul Wesley coming in as James T. Kirk. Until then, there’s plenty to be excited about in the coming weeks, as the show continues to prove it's a great entry point for others.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premieres new episodes on Paramount+ on Thursdays. Once Season 1 ends, that subscription will be key to streaming the many other Trek shows that are on the way in 2022 and beyond.
