Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 3 – “Human Best Friend”Spock’s (Ethan Peck) weirdest Vulcan mind-meld happened in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s The Hangover-inspired comedy. Directed by Yana Gorskaya and written by Kathryn Lyn, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 3, “Human Best Friend,” paired up hungover Lieutenants Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) and Scotty (Martin Quinn) to find their missing shuttle.

Spock and his “human best friend,” James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley), carried Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 3‘s B-story. “Quite incapacitated” from the resort planet Cesnar’s intoxicating atmosphere, Spock spent his shore leave in the belief that he was hallucinating James Kirk. This didn’t stop the Vulcan from playing board games and getting hugs from Kirk.

The twist, however, was that Kirk was really with Spock on Cesnar, and then back aboard the USS Enterprise, the entire time. Kirk let Spock think he would “fade away,” enjoying the time he spent with his Vulcan bestie, who confided his “fears, hopes, and dreams.” Kirk learned “everything” from Spock, more than when they shared a mind-meld in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3’s finale.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Gave Spock His Weirdest Mind Meld Ever

Spock mind-melded with a plant in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 3, and it was weird. Ortegas and Scotty recruited the Vulcan Science Officer to hack into a computer and find their missing shuttle. Instead of a computer terminal, however, the Starfleet Officers found a ficus plant made from advanced botanical technology, which Spock mind-melded with, bizarre as it was.

“My mind to your leaves, my thoughts to your root system,” Spock said as his psychic connection with Cesnar’s security apparatus worked, revealing the location of Scotty and Ortegas’ lost shuttle. Yes, it was strange, and yes, it happened so fast and yielded the results necessary to move Erica and Scotty to their next stop in their wacky quest that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds asks the audience to just go with it, like the characters do.

Spock mind-melding with a plant may raise alarms for Star Trek canon purists, but the ficus wasn’t really a plant. It was, in fact, technology. Star Trek: The Original Series has examples of Spock psychically interfacing with machines; however, previous mind-melds were with technology that possessed consciousness. Then again, who’s to say Cesnar’s computer network isn’t ‘alive?’ It’s a weird planet.

It was worth considering the possibility that Spock, in his “incapacitated” state, only saw a plant, just as he saw Scotty and Ortegas as plants. Yet the other two Starfleet Officers also saw a plant. Regardless, it is now established by Star Trek that Spock, and presumably other Vulcans with psychic abilities, can mind-meld with computer networks and communicate with operating systems, at least to glean basic information.

Spock Has Had Weird Mind Melds Throughout Star Trek

Spock’s Vulcan mind-melds veered away from being strictly with humans and humanoid species fairly early in Star Trek: The Original Series. William Shatner’s favorite Star Trek episode, season 1’s “The Devil in the Dark,” saw Spock (Leonard Nimoy) mind-meld with the Horta to learn that the silicon-based lifeform wasn’t a monster, but a mother trying to protect its eggs being destroyed by unsuspecting miners.

In Star Trek: The Original Series, Mr. Spock mind-melded with Nomad, a sentient machine searching for its creator. Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was a big-screen version of “The Changeling’s” basic story, saw Spock mind-meld with V’Ger, after the Vulcan felt a psychic connection with the massive sentient starship that was also seeking answers from its creator.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home established that Spock can mind-meld with 20th century humpback whales, and communicate to the point of learning one of them was pregnant, and that the whales liked their caretaker, Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks). Spock’s most controversial mind-meld turned out to be in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, when he tore information from the mind of his treasonous protégé, Lieutenant Valeris (Kim Cattrall).

In truth, Spock can mind-meld with whatever a Star Trek episode or movie’s plot needs him to mind-meld with. This now includes plants comprised of photosynthetic technology in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. After all, Vulcans aren’t real, and Star Trek hasn’t strictly defined the logic and parameters of mind-melds, so that they can have Spock perform weird feats like psychically connect to a plant.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4’s new episodes premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.

Release Date

2022 – 2027-00-00

Network

Paramount+

Showrunner

Henry Alonso Myers, Akiva Goldsman

Directors

Dan Liu, Amanda Row, Maja Vrvilo, Akiva Goldsman, Dermott Downs, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Jonathan Frakes, Jordan Canning, Leslie Hope, Valerie Weiss, Sydney Freeland, Christopher J. Byrne, Rachel Leiterman

Writers

Onitra Johnson