‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’: Ethan Peck Explains ‘Strange Sensation of Family’ With Vulcan Episode

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Episode 8 “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans.”]

The latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was a different one for Spock — and the actor who plays the Vulcan, Ethan Peck.

Things go awry for a mission. While members of the Enterprise are supposed to temporarily be Vulcans, it’s not so easy to change them back, leading to him having to deal with Vulcan versions of Pike (Anson Mount), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), La’an (Christina Chong), and Chapel (Jess Bush) — and no one is quite eager for the fix once they do come up with a plan. In the end, they do all agree to the switch back, but it takes a bit more convincing (using dance) for Spock to get through to La’an.

Below, Ethan Peck discusses filming this episode, watching a new side of Una (Rebecca Romijn) around Doug (Patton Oswalt), and more.

Talk about filming this episode because having the crew members turned into Vulcans changed the way they related to Spock and those dynamics.

Ethan Peck: It was wild to see everyone done up in Vulcan makeup because it’s just been me for the most part for so long. And to know them as their human selves suddenly transformed into Vulcans, I had this really strange sensation of family, which I was very taken aback by and surprised by. I felt suddenly more a sense of being home because they look like me suddenly, and they sort of behave like me. However, they are full Vulcan. Spock is only half Vulcan, and in Vulcan culture, being emotional is very shameful, being human is very shameful. So Spock was the butt of a lot of jokes, unfortunately.

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Yeah, they kept stressing half Vulcan. So speaking of that, which turned Vulcan crew member got on Spock’s nerves the most in this episode, would you say?

Maybe Captain Pike’s Vulcan? Yeah.

Why?

Just because he was such a stickler, he’s so fastidious as his Vulcan, and maybe it would be him.

One of the funniest parts of the season was seeing the way that Una reacted to Doug, which you got to be front and center for those scenes. How was it for Spock to see that other side of her, and was that perhaps one of the most unexpected things he’s seen so far this entire series?

Yeah, I think it was pretty wild for Spock to experience Una’s total falling apart and under the gaze of this Vulcan man who you might not expect would make her feel that way. So yeah, it was really fun to play that in the moment. And I think that she had a really fun time. I had a great time doing it. Working with Patton was incredible, and I felt that we all just had nice chemistry together in that moment.

And that ending scene with you and Patton and Spock teaching Doug about being human was hilarious.

Oh, thanks. I’m so glad you liked it. He’s a really, really funny person. I had a really hard time keeping it together. I corpsed quite a lot, which in the industry means I broke. I started laughing.

Marni Grossman / Paramount+

Why do you think dance has been such an effective communication tool for Spock and La’an this season? Because the way he turns their fight into a dance to reach her in this episode was so good.

Oh, thanks. Yeah, I’m not sure. It surprised me maybe as much as it surprises the audience that Spock becomes such a dancer in Season 3, which is obviously inspired by La’an and by Chapel’s return to the ship at the very beginning of the season. He’s hoping to have a dance with her and be more human and be better suited to her. And he ends up being better suited to La’an in this season, which is kind of wonderful. And I mean, physical touch is such a direct way to communicate. It makes perfect sense. And I think it leans very much into Spock’s human side, which I think has been the theme of this version of Spock that we’ve [developed] in Strange New Worlds.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Thursdays, Paramount+