Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Brings In Pop Culture's Greatest Nerd (And It's Perfect)

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In the "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" episode "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans," the U.S.S. Enterprise is called to a planet called Tezaar on an urgent mission. Tezaar is a pre-warp society that doesn't know the Federation exists, but, thanks to a cultural slip-up years before, are in close contact with the Vulcans. To solve a nuclear power crisis on the planet's surface, the Enterprise crew will need to beam down to make repairs, but will have to disguise themselves as Vulcans to avoid tainting the Tezaaran culture. The Tezaarans, however, are far too savvy to fall for any ordinary disguises, so Captain Pike (Anson Mount), La'an (Christina Chong), Uhura (Celia Rose-Gooding), and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) will have to undergo rapid gene therapy to literally change themselves into Vulcans. They grow pointed ears and arched eyebrows. A special chemical cocktail also alters their brains, making them cold and logical as well. 

The crisis is quickly averted, but a complication in the gene therapy prevents the crew members from turning back into humans. All of a sudden, there are four new Vulcans on board the Enterprise. The experience is most eye-opening to Spock (Ethan Peck), who is half-Vulcan, half-Human. 

In order to change them back, Spock and Una (Rebecca Romijn) seek out the help of a Vulcan spiritualuide who is expert in locating and altering Katras (a word for an individualized Vulcan consciousness). Luckily, Una used to date a Katra expert named Doug. Una is reluctant to see Doug, however, because their sexual chemistry remains explosive even after their breakup. Una and Doug simply cannot resist each other. Doug is more passionate than most Vulcans, having been raised by parents who were really into human cultures. (That also explains his human name.) 

In a fun piece of nerd casting, Doug is played by comedian Patton Oswalt, one of the most open-hearted geek celebrities out there. 

It's sweet to see Una, an ordinarily staid character, losing her cool in front of Doug. He's a genius artist, a mathematician, and a wonderful gardener. Doug has no problem staring into Una's eyes and matching her romantic energy. They're really into each other. To protect herself from flirting, however, Una quickly declares that Spock is her husband — something Spock didn't agree to. Comedic shenanigans ensue. 

Patton Oswalt is a pop culture nerd par excellence, and even wrote a book about his cinematic journeys at Los Angeles' New Beverly Cinema in his book "Silver Screen Fiend." Oswalt's standup routines are full of pop culture references; he has an extended bit about the NewSong song "Christmas Shoes," and a bit about what might happen if Jesus Christ joined the X-Men. He is frequently interviewed about sci-fi, and once said that "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" is one of the best of all sci-fi movies. He declared "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" to be one of the worst, and said that "Wrath of Khan" should have been called "Sorry About That First One." "It's beige people on a grey background in a bad mood for two-and-a-half-hours." Oswalt can certainly invent a turn of phrase. He may not be a Trekkie first and foremost, but Oswalt knows his "Star Trek." 

And Doug is a fun character. He's comedic, yes, but then "Strange New Worlds" is more comedic than it is anything else. He fits right into the world. There's also something sweet about Oswalt, who stands 5'3", being presented as a sexual and romantic dynamo for the statuesque Romijn, who stands at 5'11". He is, as the slang term goes, a true Short King. 

"Strange New Worlds" was not Oswalt's first time on "Star Trek." Fans of "Star Trek: Picard" might recall hearing his voice in the season 2 episode "Penance," where Oswalt played an artificially intelligent cartoon cat named Spot-73 who exited only inside the computer systems of Dr. Jurati (Allison Pill). Oswalt's scenes took place in an evil parallel universe where Earth had become genocidal, killing off every other species in the galaxy, and his animated character commented on how mass executions, in addition to being evil, serve no real societal function to an already-cowed populace. 

Oswalt gets to provide some context for the shift into a parallel universe, something that happened to Dr. Jurati without her knowledge. Hilariously, Oswalt throws in a few deadpan deliveries of the word "meow" throughout his scene. Incidentally, Spot-73's name is a reference to the very real cat Spot, once owned by Data (Brent Spiner) on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." 

Oswalt has appeared in multiple high-profile "nerd" projects. For the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he played Pip the Troll, the title character on "M.O.D.O.K.," and the Koenigs on "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." He was in one of the "Blade" movies (which he asserts is the worst one), and voiced characters on "The Batman," "Teen Titans Go!," and "Justice League Action." He co-hosts the intros and outros for the newest iteration of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." "Star Trek" is hardly the final frontier for Oswalt, but playing a Vulcan is certainly a feather in his already heavily feathered cap. It's a delight to see him again.