The fun of a prequel series is that we know what comes next when the characters don’t. But the horror of a prequel series is that we know what comes next when the characters don’t too. While Star Trek: Strange New Worlds mostly embraces the former as its main tone, this week mixes things up by leaning into the latter instead. For all the joy that’s to come in The Original Series, there’s a whole lot of harrowing stuff in store for these characters too—more so than you might realize when you include the scattered canon of the movies and the fates of minor characters who have now been made much more central on Strange New Worlds. On the surface, “The Griffin Incident” gets its thrills from a level of R-rated horror I’m kind of shocked Paramount agreed to. Yet the real horror is how much it forces us to think about the futures of characters we’re hanging out with in their present.
That starts with the welcome return of Paul Wesley’s James T. Kirk—a much-needed third leg of what has become, to me, a fairly disastrous Spock/La’An romance subplot. Ethan Peck and Christina Chong are strong actors individually who don’t gain anything when they’re paired together; especially when the show is so weirdly committed to keeping Spock and La’An in an ill-defined “casual” relationship. On the other hand, the Kirk/La’An pairing does bring out new layers for both characters (and both actors) in a way that makes it much more engaging to watch—even if we know that Kirk and Spock are the only components of this love triangle who are actually going to have a meaningful relationship moving forward.
As the episode opens, all three are returning from a Future Federation Leaders Retreat, and the vibes are somber from the start. While Kirk is excited to check out a mysterious signal in an uncharted region of space, he’s also keenly aware that the extended mission is going to eat into even more of the time he was supposed to have with his young son David—who he already blew off to attend the retreat in the first place. Still, what Starfleet officer could resist the excitement of discovering the USS Griffin, a ship that mysteriously went missing nine years ago, leaving behind a laundry list of theories about what might have happened to it?
For those not steeped in Trek canon, “The Griffin Incident” delivers the simple thrills of a creepy, open-ended haunted house story. Our central trio soon discover the ghost (sorry, “negatively charged ions”) of security officer Rose Harper (Sorika Wolf) wandering the ship, looking to seduce La’An towards the same madness that caused Rose to transport 287 crewmembers into open space while they were still alive. Elsewhere, sickbay body bags suddenly fill with blood while Slender Man-esque figures lumber down hallways. The body horror is turned up to 11 as La’An, Kirk, and Spock begin imagining visions of their friends and family in gruesome scenarios involving scalpels, scissors, shards of viewscreen glass, and kitchen knives. This is the kind of episode that’s almost certainly going to traumatize an entire generation of young Trek viewers.
For older viewers, however, the real horror of this episode comes from how it plays around with our knowledge of future events in the Trek timeline. I gasped when Kirk half-jokes that he and Carol Marcus broke up because his Starfleet career meant she feared he was doomed to die alone somewhere in unknown space,” which is basically what happens to him in Star Trek: Generations. But that’s nothing compared to the way mind-warped La’An tells Kirk, “Your little boy is going to die just like you. At the end of a blade, bleeding out in a dark corner of space.” That’s exactly what happens to David in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock.
Because of the piecemeal way Star Trek was created (and because grown-up David kind of sucks as a character), it’s easy to forget that the Kirk of The Original Series is an absentee dad whose biggest contribution to his son’s life will be inspiring him to die trying to be a hero. But Strange New Worlds boldly weaves all that canon together, emphasizing that, like his own father, Kirk actively prioritized his own career and achievements over being there for his kid. And that’s not the end of the Kirk-themed horrors either. While Kirk’s vision of his brother Sam initially seems to serve as a foil for his lackluster parenting, hardcore fans know Sam is slated to meet a brutal end of his own on a Federation colony in the TOS episode “Operation – Annihilate!” That gives an eerie double meaning to the moment the vision of Sam tells his brother, “You can’t save everyone. You have to make peace with that, Jim,” before getting sucked into space through a cracked viewscreen.
That sense of foreboding also hangs over the unexpected return of Spock’s former fiancée T’Pring (Gia Sandhu), who was last seen in the season two episode “Charades” way back in 2023. While this hour didn’t fool me with the fake Enterprise crew who beam aboard mid-episode, I was willing to believe that Spock might actually be cross-space mind-melding with the real T’Pring somehow. The intimacy with which she tells Spock that their engagement ended because she didn’t love him the way he deserved to be loved only makes it that much more shocking when she pins him down in sickbay and starts cutting off his ears to make him more human. Again, it’s a storyline that ties into our future knowledge that Spock and T’Pring do wind up reconnecting and that it’s not exactly smooth sailing for them once they do.
Without any established future canon to pull from, La’An’s story operates differently this week. Her fears are rooted in her ancestral past—namely the idea that her recessive augmented DNA has started activating. It’s a fear that seems a little less unfounded after she brutally stabs Kirk just before the real Enterprise rescues them (not the last time he’ll tussle with a Noonien-Singh!), although it’s hard to know how seriously to take her actions given how easily Pike handwaves them away as a supernatural experience beyond her control. (To her credit, Chong really nails the creepy possessed horror villain smile.) I’m still mostly in “wait and see” mode with this whole augmented DNA storyline, but, regardless, the relative simplicity of La’An’s throughline and the open-endedness about where she goes from here emphasizes just how unique the rest of this episode is.
If this weren’t a prequel series, we could hope that this experience might inspire Kirk to see the error of his ways and put David first or that this is the start of a beautiful, logical reconnection between Spock and T’Pring. As is, however, the uneasy feeling Kirk, Spock, and La’An are left with after their still unexplained experience on the Griffin mirrors our own uneasy feeling about their canonical futures. For as relieved as Kirk is to learn Sam is alive and well, we know the Kirk brothers are on borrowed time in a way they don’t, just as we know Carol is never going to answer those long-distance calls Kirk decides to commit to. Considering Strange New Worlds’ usual sunniness, acknowledging all that impending darkness truly feels like boldly going where this show has never gone before.
Stray observations
- • The Doctor Who vibes continue this week! This episode reminded me of eerie horror installments like “Listen,” “Wild Blue Yonder,” and “The Well.”
- • After a tossed off reference to “Division 12” back in last season’s “Terrarium,” we learn a little more about the X-Files-y group of Starfleet analysts who investigate unexplained phenomena. Pike has sent them six cases before the Griffin. Four were resolved with scientific or alien explanations and the rest, well, better not to ask.
- • I’m always excited when my screeners come with production codes! Apparently, this was the fourth episode they shot, even though it’s airing as the second episode of the season.
- • Spock and La’An casually kissing mid-mission felt insane to me?!?
- • When I list my favorite Vulcan performances, I tend to highlight Leonard Nimoy (obviously), Mark Lenard, Tim Russ, Kim Cattrall, and Tara Rosling. But I’m officially extending that list to include Gia Sandhu as well! She nails the “inquisitive but not inherently judgmental” thing—even as a fake version of T’Pring.
- • The scene of Chapel paying Spock a housecall to fix his ears and open up about her own Klingon War trauma is really nice. Spock’s recommitment to logic and her slight sense of yearning brings them closer to their status quo on The Original Series, making it yet another forward-looking moment in the episode.
- • Of all the gnarly stuff this week, that shot of Pike slicing his own fingers like carrots is certainly going to linger. (Shades of Deanna Troi as a cake!) At least it’s offset by how much fun Anson Mount is clearly having as Evil Pike.
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