Strange New Worlds Season 3's New Romantic Subplot Had To Happen Thanks To Star Trek Canon

This article contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 3, episode 4, "A Space Adventure Hour." 

As of "A Space Adventure Hour," Spock (Ethan Peck) and La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) are the newest power couple on the Enterprise. As the two hottest members of the Enterprise bridge crew, it is only logical that they hook up. 

Joking aside, this pairing actually does make sense, and there's been build-up if you look back to past episodes. Both Spock and La'an are repressed people who hold their emotions close to their chest. La'an's song back in the musical episode "Subspace Rhapsody" was called "How Would That Feel?", and was all about her imagining what it would be like to open up to people. She's now doing it with someone who's shared a similar struggle.

Back in season 1's "Memento Mori," they shared a mind meld. La'an has to confront an evil from her past (the Gorn), so Spock used the Vulcan technique to help her tear down the trauma blocks she put up. In season 2's "Charades," when Spock was briefly turned into a human, La'an helped him like he'd helped her, and gave him advice on impulse control. One sign of human-Spock being unable to rein in his emotions was him leering at La'an with a smile and wide eyes, the way a smitten teenager does, leading to some mutual embarrassment between them.

As of "Wedding Bell Blues" earlier this season, La'an has been coaching Spock in how to dance. Here, they take a break so La'an can solve a murder mystery on the prototype holodeck; the killer turns out to be a holographic Spock simulacrum, who La'an thought was the real thing helping her. The computer knew she'd never suspect Spock and so used him to hide her culprit in plain sight.

At the end of this episode, they resume their slow dance lesson. La'an walks Spock through the moves and the way the holodeck showed her how much he means to her. 

"I know the feel of your arms as we dance, I know the way that we look into each other's eyes... [the holographic Spock] didn't look at me like that." They both sensed their mutual attraction but neither was sure enough to act on it ... until the end of this episode, when they kiss. 

While Spock and La'an's connection has been forming, I hadn't expected the show would build this up into an out-and-out romance until now. Spock has plenty on his plate already with the love triangle between himself, his ex Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), and his Vulcan fiancée T'Pring (Gia Sandhu). But "Strange New Worlds" is a prequel, so we knew neither of those options would work out. Unlike those characters, La'an's fate is not carved in stone.

Chapel (played by Majel Barrett) was a recurring character on the original "Star Trek." In her very first appearance, "The Naked Time," the crew of the Enterprise lose their inhibitions. Chapel confesses to Spock (Leonard Nimoy) that she's in love with him, both for his human and Vulcan halves, and has been for years. Spock, unwilling to compromise his strict emotional control, tries to keep it professional.

The next episode with Chapel, "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", contradicted her buried love for Spock. She'd joined Starfleet, this episode said, to search for her missing fiancé Dr. Roger Korby (Michael Strong, and recently introduced onto "Strange New Worlds" played by Cillian O'Sullivan). Never throughout "TOS" did Spock and Chapel actually get together. Them sharing a romantic history, even a brief one, in "Strange New Worlds" doesn't quite line up with "The Naked Time" either, which implies they'd never even talked about their attraction before. But hey, the "Strange New Worlds" team has shown before that it'll play loose with canon.

As for T'Pring, her character goes back to "TOS" episode "Amok Time." Spock returns to Vulcan to wed T'Pring (Arlene Martel), but she manipulates a duel between him and Kirk (William Shatner). "Strange New Worlds" is intent on fleshing out, if not redeeming, T'Pring's character to understand how her bond with Spock turned sour.

We know from "Amok Time" that Spock and T'Pring's engagement will eventually get back on track ... and so, presumably, his relationship with La'an can't last, either. Though La'an is related to an infamous "Star Trek" character, she's an original creation of "Strange New Worlds." She's nowhere to be seen in "TOS," so it's unlikely she and Spock are the endgame any more than Spock & Chapel were. We all know who Spock's true love is anyway, and based on her own fling with Jim back in season 2's "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow," I'm sure La'an would understand him falling for Kirk.

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" streams on Paramount+, with new episodes arriving on Thursdays.