Production has only just begun on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3, but Ethan Peck is already asking some tough questions about Spock's future. While it's a bummer we don't know exactly when we'll see the upcoming Trek series premiering its next batch of episodes, the actor is keeping fans' minds active by voicing some character-based inquiries that I've been wondering about as well.
The cast of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds participated in a Q&A in support of the SAG-AFTRA foundation, delving into the process and experiences that came with filming Season 2. For Ethan Peck, this meant conversations surrounding "Charades," which saw Spoke becoming fully human just before his fiancé T'Pring arrived with her parents. The experience ultimately broke the couple up, paired Spock with Nurse Chapel, and led to him exploring his human side more.
When co-star Rebecca Romijn asked Peck about how well Spock remembered his whole human experience going into the events of Season 3, and the actor shared his thoughts on it so far, saying:
That’s something that I’m kind of rolling around in my brain as we head into Season 3. How human is Spock now on his path to becoming Leonard Nimoy’s Spock at the beginning of The Original Series? How human is he now? I was thinking about this the other day with Chris Fisher, our directing producer. And I think he remembers all of it. But it’s like he’s taken drugs and he’s had this otherworldly experience. And so he can’t really inhabit it like he used to, but there’ll still be the information, I imagine.
Ethan Peck really enjoyed "Charades," so much so that he told CinemaBlend he was heartbroken when it was over. Given the heavy development it added to Spock's story, and the big moment with Chapel, it's easy to see why it stood out as one of his favorite experiences.
It was interesting to see Spock become human and explore that side of himself in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, but we know what Leonard Nimoy's Spock was like in the original series. The character's duality was certainly more balanced during Nimoy's run, as he could even use his Vulcan traits to service human-related goals that might occasionally need logic to be defied.
As Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues its run, it will look more and more like the Enterprise crew that James T. Kirk ultimately took over. While we know Paul Wesley's Kirk won't take over the ship while the series is still in its current form, it's an expectation characters like Spock and Uhura will develop and become closer to their idealized selves.
After seeing Ethan Peck with Zachary Quinto side by side, he doesn't have far to go to achieve the full Spock transition. What remains is bringing the character closer to the one seen in the Star Trek episodes and movies featuring Leonard Nimoy, all of which can be seen with a Paramount+ subscription. Peck takes the challenge seriously, to be sure, and even met with Nimoy's children to embody Spock better.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is officially in production, but there's a big question mark concerning when Season 3 will arrive. Between filming and the lengthy post-production process for such an effects-driven series, it's looking like the earliest we may see episodes would be very late in 2024, but with early 2025 as the most realistic timeline for release. Until then, we have nothing but time to continue to ponder questions about Spock that Ethan Peck has and maybe have a little healthy debate as well.
We will continue to search for updates on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and try to figure out when we'll get to see the exciting second part to the latest conflict with the Gorn. I'm just hoping we aren't about to lose another beloved character and that the decision to possibly do that is weighing on the writers as heavily as all of Ethan Peck's questions about Spock are weighing on him.
