SNW - Four-and-a-Half Vulcans
Enterprise is about to go on shoreleave when then Vulcan High Command requests they help out with a situation on the planet Tezaar. Hundreds of years ago, the Vulcans helped out by giving the inhabitants nuclear power technology, which is now malfunctioning. Being a pre-warp civilization that's only had contact with Vulcans, only Vulcans are allowed contact due to the Prime Directive. But, despite being pre-warp, their scanning technology is very advanced, the crew can't simply look Vulcan. So Pike, Uhura, La'an and Chapel take the Kherkovian serum previously used on Spock so that they can become fully Vulcan and (because they are now super efficient Vulcans) are able to fix the reactor within minutes of beaming down. Returning to the ship, the serum to restore them to human doesn't work. The Enterprise returns to Purmantee III for shoreleave, while Pike, Uhura, Chapel and La'an remain on the ship until Chapel can fix the serum. Only, even once the serum is ready, they all decide to remain Vulcan. Una calls in an ex of hers, a Vulcan katra expert named Doug. Pike, Uhura and Chapel are all restored, but La'an needs a little extra convincing from Spock.
What happened to this season? It feels like they turned this show into a bad parody of Star Trek. Obviously, the writers were going for yet another silly episode here, but it completely missed the target IMO.
The situation on Tezaar doesn't make any sense. Even prior to the Federation and the Prime Directive, the Vulcans had rules not to make contact with pre-warp civilizations. So why did they with Tezaar? Why would they give a pre-warp civilization technology? That runs counter to everything we saw in Enterprise. Why were Vulcans the only ones allowed to visit? They've never had a clause in the Prime Directive that said a civilization can only meet one alien species at a time. Most of the time, Starfleet crews have multiple races part of the team. Ultimately, it didn't even matter to the plot, seeing as they fixed it in literally seconds. It was just a convoluted method to turn several of the crew into Vulcans.
Thing is... they come off as caricatures of Vulcans. Well, except for La'an, who for some reason they made a Romulan. Something she and Pike even point out, but then refuse to talk about it because their knowledge of Romulans came from time travel. I could go into length about all the problems here, but Pike I'd say was the worst portrayal of the group. For some examples, he had a habit of talking too loud, or robotic, or getting right up in someone's face to talk to them, none of which are traits that Vulcans do. He also took a lirpa down to Tezaar with him for no reason... They try to hand wave their behavior with a line that the serum was based on Spock's "perceived experiences". How does a serum to alter someone's genetics also give them the "perceived experiences"? Vulcan's aren't like the Goa'uld from the Stargate franchise whose memories can be transferred genetically.
James Kirk visits the Enterprise, yet again, saying the Farragut is still under repair nearby. As first officer, shouldn't he be overseeing the repairs? Felt totally unnecessary for him to be on the Enterprise in this episode. He introduces Scotty to scotch. As I've said before I hate this sort of prequel writing. Do we need the origin story for Scotty's drink of choice? Why can't he simply be a Scotsman who enjoys his scotch? I appreciate we get to Kirk him forming his friendships with his future crew, but while this is somewhat more natural than how the 2009 film handled it, this still feels somewhat forced.
I liked Patton Oswalt as the Vulcan named Doug. But again, I don't think the writers understood Vulcans enough to write this character. His past (current?) relationship with Una seemed forced and over the top. For his family being obsessed with humans and their culture, hence the human name, he doesn't seem to know much about humans. He tells Spock he wished he was half human like him, despite Spock saying Vulcans see it as only logical to be Vulcan, hence why the crew didn't want to be human again. Doug says as a full Vulcan he's incapable of lies, even though we know that's not true. Spock tries to teach him contractions in a post-credits scene, even though Data is the only character that had trouble with contractions...
Not sure why they needed a katra expert to help convince the crew to become human again, I would have thought reconnecting to their humanity would have been the key, not messing around with their Vulcan soul. Not sure the writers knew how to backpaddle this either, because it's handled almost entirely off screen. Pike, Uhura and Chapel all get convinced to become human again, we don't see any of it. All we see is a little bit of La'an talking with Spock, which turns into a fight, which becomes a dance, and somehow that's what convinces her to turn human again.