Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Cut A Hilarious Scene From Spock's Time As A Human
The fifth episode of the second season of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" was called "Charades," and featured a plot that would be at home in a modern-day farce. Spock (Ethan Speck) and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), while on a shuttlecraft mission together, were grievously injured in an accident. Fortunately, a species of non-corporeal aliens happened to be nearby, and their medical technology allowed them to handily repair any damage done to Spock and Chapel. Unfortunately, the aliens didn't quite understand why Spock had both human and Vulcan DNA, so they reconstructed him using Nurse Chapel as a model, transforming Spock into a full-blooded human.
The episode that follows is a comedy about Spock's newfound loss of control. As a human, he smiles more easily, is quick to anger, admits to having a supercharged libido (they compare his transformation to puberty), and is terrified that his future in-laws might find out. And, wouldn't you know it, the in-laws are coming to the Enterprise for a pre-wedding dinner! Can Spock masquerade as his old Vulcan self and fool his future in-laws? Yuks ensue.
Much of the episode's runtime was devoted to comedic scenes of Spock behaving out of character. He eats bacon, for one (Vulcans are vegetarians). He also can't stop giggling at crewmates' jokes, understanding humor for the very first time. There was also a scene in the script of Spock trying out new food combinations that, well, didn't work out too well for him. The episode's director, Jordan Canning, recently spoke to Trekcore about that scene, and how there was one joke over the line. It seems that watching Spock try chewing gum for the first time was a little too silly.
Spock and gum
Canning related that the scene in question took place in the Enterprise's mess hall, when Spock was seen drinking alcohol (or perhaps merely synthehol) and laughing with the crew. It was in that scene that someone suggested that he try chewing gum for the first time. Audiences knew gum was common on the Enterprise thanks to a sequence from an earlier episode wherein Lieutenant Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) and Commander Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) were able to use the transporters to "re-up" their gum's flavor. The scene, it seems, was the idea of Peck and Romijn. Canning said:
"We even had this scene — it didn't make it in the cut — but we were having so much fun on set. We were in the bar set and we had a little extra time, remarkably, and Ethan and Rebecca had, like, worked out this thing. They were like, 'Okay, can we just try this where, like, I've got gum, and Spock wants to try the gum and doesn't understand what gum is for?' And I was like, 'Okay, great. Set up the camera.'"
The actors improvised the scene, and it seems they were unable to keep from making it kind of disgusting. Anyone who's eaten food while chewing gum would have a visceral reaction to the scene. Canning loved it, anyway. She said:
"The two of them, they did this whole routine where he tries gum and he's like, 'Oh, maybe I should try nuts with it.' And they're like, 'No, no.' And then he is like, 'How about a pickle?' It's just, I mean, it was so silly and funny. Just finding ways for us to see Spock experiencing the world through human eyes and the foibles around that."
Sadly, it was cut.
Having writers on set
Canning also pointed out how grateful she was to have one of the episode's writers on set so that entirely improvised scenes could be included. Kathryn Lyn wrote the episode with one of the show's producers, Henry Alonso Myers. Having a writer on set allowed quick re-workings of scenes that might not be working, as well as providing a conduit to actors who may have a good idea for a scene or insight into their character a writer might not have considered. Having a writer on set makes entire productions more creatively nimble. Canning said:
"Kathryn Lyn, who wrote the script with Henry, was always on the set. I love Kathryn, we had so much fun. And so there was always someone there, you know, so it would be like, 'This isn't quite working. Can we try this?' And she'd be like, 'Great. How bout this?' Or 'Do you like this improv? Great. I'm gonna get them to keep doing that.' So it was great to have her there to bounce ideas off of."
These statements ring particularly loudly because, as of the writing of this post, an ongoing WGA strike is still in effect. Writing, it should be stated out loud, is an ongoing and collaborative process on most major productions; it's rare-to-impossible that a writer will turn in a script and the filmmakers will immediately shoot directly from said script without any alteration. Writers are an active part of the production, and allowing them to rewrite on the fly is common and always makes shows and movies better.
May the strike come to a fast and satisfying conclusion.