“I would like the ship to go,†Spock says after assuming control of the Enterprise for an unscheduled and unauthorized mission. Then, after the briefest of pauses and the slightest lift of Ethan Peck’s eyebrow, he adds, “Now.†Encouraged by Uhura, Jenna Mitchell (Rong Fu), and Ortegas (Melissa Navia) to come up with a catchphrase to start their journey — one to match Pike’s “Hit it!†— he lands on the most Spockian possible choice, a literal (and, of course logical) declaration that it’s time to move but delivered with a hint of wryness that suggests he understands why it’s funny to others.
It’s one of many indications in “The Broken Circle†that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds hasn’t lost a beat in the transition from its successful first season to this second outing with the crew of the Pike-commanded Enterprise. Whether it can sustain that remains to be seen, of course, and the level of difficulty is quite high. The first season of Strange New Worlds had to win viewers over with new versions of familiar characters (some, like Spock and Anson Mount’s Pike introduced in Discovery) while introducing new additions and matching the more cinematic production values of Discovery and Picard. The show also had to return to the adventure-of-the-week format of classic Star Trek series past while keeping the plates spinning for several ongoing storylines. For the most part, season one made that look easy. But that doesn’t mean it was easy or will get any easier.
Some of those ongoing storylines, like the fate of M’Benga’s daughter or Uhura’s mentorship under Hemmer (RIP) and the decision to remain with Starfleet were resolved by season’s end. Others, like the could-be romance between Spock and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) and Number One’s (Rebecca Romijn) until-recently-hidden past as an Illyrian, remain very much in play. It’s the latter that’s front-and-center as “The Broken Circle†opens. With the Enterprise docked for some plan repairs, inspections, and downtime at Starbase One, Pike notices tension and a sense that “something is in the air†among Starfleet brass. That’s not his number-one concern, however. That would be, well, Number One, who’s ready to take a plea deal for her deception even though Pike is not. To that end, he decides to take a shuttle to deal with the matter himself, leaving Spock in charge of a short-staffed Enterprise.
And, with that, Pike makes his exit from the episode, a surprising development but, as it turns out, one that opens up a lot of possibilities for others on the Enterprise, Spock chief among them. But it’s not like Spock doesn’t already have a lot on his mind, even without being placed in command of the ship. A visit to Dr. M’Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) reveals signs of a human element called “stress,†a condition seemingly created by Spock letting himself go into an un-Vulcan berserker rage in order to save the Enterprise in the previous season. To receive that stress, M’Benga gives him a familiar-looking stringed instrument, which Spock immediately takes to and which immediately relaxes him. But when Chapel enters the room, the stress returns. When Spock leaves the room, Chapel announces she has plans for an even longer separation: a two-month “archeological medicine†fellowship — on Vulcan. Whatever is going on between them is not over.
Meanwhile, the bridge crew is dealing with some nosy inspectors seemingly determined to disrupt their ways of doing things. In the process, Uhura encounters something even more disruptive: a message from Cajitar 4, a dilithium mining planet on the edge of the Klingon and Federation border tied to another plot thread left dangling at the end of the first season La’an Noonien-Singh’s (Christina Chong) mission to return the Orianna (Emma Ho), the girl they rescued from the Gorn, to her family.
That mission has hit some static and Singh needs the Enterprise’s help. When Admiral April (Adrian Holmes) comes to an unexpected, if logical, conclusion, he then shares with the core crew: “We must steal the Enterprise.â€
Then, in shades of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, they set about doing just that. It proves to be surprisingly easy, requiring only the faking of a coolant leak, a trick that fools everyone. Well, almost everyone. A straggler named Commander Pelia (Carol Kane, joining the cast in a recurring role) remains, and she immediately senses their deception. She also doesn’t mind. She instinctively trusts Vulcans to make sensible choices, and, what’s more, she knows Spock’s mom. More importantly, she wants a little bit of excitement in her life again.
Pelia, it’s soon revealed, is a Lanthanite. And here’s what we know about Lanthanites: not much. Or at least nothing beyond what’s revealed in this episode, that they have distinct accents, live for centuries, and apparently lived on Earth undetected until the 22nd century, perhaps even before the planet made first contact with the wider universe. “It’s a long story,†she says. Undoubtedly we’ll get more of it, but not yet.
Speaking of throwbacks to Star Trek III, on Cajitar 4, we meet some familiar-looking Klingons, which is to say Klingons that don’t resemble those seen on Discovery but those introduced in the Star Trek film series. In their company is Singh, who proves she cannot only hold her own in a Bloodwine drinking contest, she can negotiate with the Klingons, too. Reunited with the rogue members of the Enterprise crew, she explains the crisis at hand. The easing of hostilities has decreased the demand for the dilithium mined on Cajitar 4. That’s led a group of Klingons and ex-Federation types to unite in a common cause, which only sounds like a good idea. They’re a syndicate of pirates who want to restart the war so they can get rich.
That’s, of course, unacceptable, even if our heroes don’t yet know the details of the plan. They find them out before long, however. As Singh negotiates with some Klingons looking for black market Federation weapons, M’Benga and Chapel find themselves conscripted by the pirates, who would like to avail themselves of their prisoners’ expertise. The medical duo is the first to figure out the ingenious, if evil, plan. The pirates have built their own Federation starship in a cave and plan to use it in a false flag attack that will provoke the Klingons into resuming warfare.
Without wasting much time, they inject themselves with “juice†(to use Chapel’s word) that sends them into a berserker rage of their own, a method apparently left over from the Klingon war. It proves pretty effective here, allowing them to take out a bunch of pirates and learn more details of the plan. It’s powerful stuff, but it doesn’t prevent them from being trapped aboard the ship as it takes off.
If the pirates are to be stopped it’ll be up to the rest of Enterprise’s skeleton crew. Hiding out in the rings around Cajitar 4, they intercept a signal from M’Benga and Chapel and figure out what’s going on. After taking out the false Federation ship in full view of the Klingons, they find themselves facing two problems: (1) They need to rescue M’Benga and Chapel, who’ve jumped ship before the attack, and (2) they need to calm the Klingons without starting a war themselves.
They accomplish both, but not without some drama. A visibly upset Spock — with tears in his eyes, no less — revives Chapel, who attempts to deflate the tension of the moment by saying, “Why you gotta be so rough?†(though this ends up sounding pretty flirtatious, even under those circumstances). It’s on Spock, too, to explain what’s just happened and convey that they saved the Klingons from attack while also allowing the Klingons to save face by telling their own version of the story. The solution, as always, involves driving a lot of Bloodwine. “You’re no typical Vulcan,†the Klingon captain tells him. “Indeed,†Spock replies, “it would seem I’m not.â€
One drinking session later, all is well again. What’s more, they’ve picked up a new engineer in the form of Pelia, who would vastly prefer to travel with them to the stars because she’s incredibly bored teaching instead of doing. That’s one adventure down, but a coda in which a hungover Spock talks to April reveals a hint of what’s to come after letting Spock off the hook with a warning. As the Enterprise heads back to base, and a still-emotional Spock picks up his lute, we learn what the “something in the air†Pike sensed was: there are Gorn approaching Federation space.
Hit It!
• Is this the origin story of how Spock came to play the lute? Or is M’Benga simply reuniting him with an instrument he already knew?
• Kane’s Lanthanite isn’t that different from the one she used as Simka, the woman who eventually married Andy Kaufman’s Latka Gravas on Taxi. Anyone prone to creating wild fan theories might make a connection and suggest Simka was Pelia.
• The closing dedication to Nichelle Nichols is really lovely.