TL;DR – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, but in space is a good set-up for a fun story.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ streaming service that viewed this episode. 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Review –

One of the best choices for the first season of Strange New Worlds was to delve into the relationship between Spock (Ethan Peck) and his then fiancé T’Pring (Gia Sandhu). We only got one episode of this in The Original Series, so it makes sense to shed more light on it here. This led to the amazing Spock Amok and now its follow-up Charades.

So to set the scene, the USS Enterprise is making a slow loop through the Vulcan sector as they explore a moon of the extinct Kerkhov species before visiting Vulcan, where Spock will have a V’Shal dinner. However, Spock and Chapel (Jess Bush) get sucked into a vortex while exploring the ruins. When the Enterprise found the shuttle, it had been repaired from the crash, but when they put Spock back together, they made him fully human. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.    

I loved that this episode gave everyone in the crew a chance to have a little fun with their characters. We get to spend time with the crew as they have some downtime, and it is in those moments we get to see that they are family with all the quirks that come with that. The rest of the narrative would not have worked if you did not believe those bonds. It also helps contrast the family rituals that comprise this episode’s second half. However, all the fun of this section makes T’Pring’s rebuttal at the end hits hard and true.  

The MVP of this episode is Ethan Peck, who gets to run the full gamut of emotions. In this episode, he gets to swing for the fences as he goes through all those feelings humans go through as a teenager. This is cut with some interactions with the rest of the cast as they help him find his human side and how to hide it to appear Vulcan. Every part of this story, down to them presenting actual prop ears, which are just his normal prop ears, was delightful. A shout-out to every face Anson Mount made during that final dinner and also for them remembering some lore nuggets about smell from Enterprise.

Running alongside this is the attempt to fix the problem, which was a bit more hit-and-miss. I liked that the Kerkhovs they were dealing with were basically cosmic customer support for a slightly dodgy insurance company. It was also another great use of the Volume to create that other-dimension zone with all the cast being correctly lit. However, I am not sure the romantic elements between Spock and Chapel worked here. It all felt a little more forced than I think they were going for.    

In the end, do we recommend Charades? Absolutely. The episode’s framing was sound, and I think every main cast member got a moment to shine. It is also fun to watch the cast be allowed to have a bit of fun. The actual dinner might hit a little too close to home for some, but overall I found it to be a strong outing.   

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Directed by – Jordan Canning
Written by – Kathryn Lyn & Henry Alonso Myers
Created by – Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman & Jenny Lumet
Based On – Star Trek Created by Gene Roddenberry
Production/Distribution Companies – CBS Television Studios, Roddenberry Entertainment, Secret Hideout & Paramount+
Starring – Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia, Babs Olusanmokun & Rebecca Romijn with Mia Kirshner, Michael Benyaer, Dan Jeannotte, Ellora Patnaik & Gia Sandhu and Anjuli Cain, Alex Kapp & Ryan Taerk