I do love my gay magic pirate, spoilers for another show, I guess. Returning from last season’s 5th episode, “Charades,” Jordan Canning makes her second of three runs out as director for Strange New Worlds. While the writing credits are something I’m split on, as Picard co-creator and writer of “Stardust City Rags,” Kirsten Beyer returns, while I’m retroactively looking back on “Lost in Translation” and “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” in a slightly brighter light. Both of those episodes were written or co-written by David Reed, who’s better known for The Magicians and The Boys.

Three months on from our Gorn-based mess last time out, everyone has had time to rest, heal up, fix the ship, and sort of relax. If you’re a long-time reader of these reviews, you’ll be excited (or annoyed with me) to find it is a Spock episode, a Spock episode where we’re talking about love and interest, and generally a bit of the crew’s downtime. If you listen closely, I think you can hear my editor banging his head against a shotgun. I’m not the nicest or concise with Spock episodes, and mostly moan about why we’re trying to add human emotions onto him.

Not only is it a Spock episode and one that’s focused on his feelings, but it is also a camp one. With the wonderful Angus Nutsford from The Boat That Rocked, Murray Hewitt from Flight of the Conchords, and, of course, Stede Bonnet from Our Flag Means Death, alongside the many others who are lovely. Otherwise known as Rhys Darby. It goes almost without saying that maybe, just maybe, the weird and camp stuff happens because of the guest star this week. I won’t say who he plays by name (just title), but it is obvious if you know Star Trek.

The basic concept of “Wedding Bell Blues” is that the Enterprise has been docked at Starbase 1 for 3 months, and it is now the Centenary of Starfleet. Which will later be called Federation Day, but we’re not there yet. It has also been three months since we last saw the crew, which means we’re not getting a massive gap of Nurse Chapel being away from us. She just so happens to bring back something special for Spock, as he wants to give her a gift. He wants to give her a very special book, and Chapel brings Roger Korby on board, because those two are banging like a wobbly dryer.

I’ll cut off a bit of awkward setup and simply say, the crew is in the ship’s bar when Chapel tells the story of Roger being so sweet. Only for Spock to take a drink from a strange new person manning the bar, that person being played by Rhys Darby. The one thing I’ve avoided thus far is the mention of Scotty’s work in the transporter room, where he sees something odd around the ship on the sensors. Then we see a ghostly face looking in the window of Spock’s cabin after Chapel comes to have a chat.

This quite possibly might shock everyone who’s heard me talk about Spock episodes, but I quite like this one, because it’s really camp and really stupid. I’ll come back to the stories that are rather binned off because we’re focused on Spock and Chapel for so long, but I will get to them. So, as it turns out, Rhys Darby libates Spock with a tasty beverage that makes his wildest dreams come true: He’s going to marry Nurse Chapel on the centenary of Starfleet, and everyone but Roger believes this reality to be true.

Is “Wedding Bell Blues” a great episode from a technical point of view? Is it very-serious Star Trek about the philosophy of man? Then, probably another five questions to make this joke actually work: No, no, no, no, no, no, and no, but at least they aren’t singing about Mamma Mia. It is actually a bit crap, as most second episodes of the season are by default. I think leaning into that and making episode two the “let’s have fun” episode that’s quite camp and “silly” makes up for that, at least as long as you aren’t a grumpy misery guts.

With the crew in dreamland, as spawned up by this weird character that Darby plays, mostly being referred to as The Wedding Planner, it’s all a bit fun. We get Spock learning how to be more relaxed, be more human-like, and generally be happy with Chapel. Any other time we’ve had this sort of episode, I’ve happily bemoaned it and been rather aggressive(?) with my opinion. So what’s different? Not only have we had those types of episodes showing the characters we’ve got, but it is one of those trickster episodes.

Not someone necessarily who is trying to kill the crew or harm them, but to play with them like toys. To use them as their own bit of entertainment. I’m not saying it lets you do away with the characters, but it lets you say, much like they “needed” to do in the ’60s for the Uhura-Kirk kiss, that there is some sort of influence. For Spock, it is getting the thing he wants most right now, Chapel. For everyone else, it is The Wedding Planner. That and I’m a touch more forgiving when things are fun.

So as the happy couple plan their nuptials, Darby’s Planner can tell that Korby isn’t under his influence. Korby is trying to foil the wedding from happening, and The Wedding Planner is using his magic to counteract that. You know what it is, it is that fun you get from watching 90s/2000s comedy films that are aimed at the family, like Mouse Hunt or The Borrowers. It has moments that are a bit weird and “silly,” a word I hate using, but the fact that it’s irreverent is used to explore characters, giving us a different perspective on them.

Take Korby, for example: when he shows up, I just can’t be bothered because if you know the original series – which we’ll talk about here in a second – then the accent is probably annoying. I say it all the time, accents that are “out of place” or played with bother me, as I’m sure Miranda Raison’s Tallulah from Doctor Who did for Americans and New Yorkers. Korby’s newly found Irish accent that’s slightly played with and his “aren’t I so smart, brilliant, and conventionally attractive” attitude is a bit grating. He’s supposed to be; we’re siding with Spock this time out.

Yes, even I’m siding with Spock for “Wedding Bell Blues.” An episode that is very heavily dependent on two episodes of TOS, which are crap by modern standards, but give you a lot of context. One of them is, of course, “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” an episode title that I’m sure, if it were written today, we’d be checking the flight logs against the writer’s name. The other is a much later episode of season 1, and I’ll leave that there if you haven’t worked it out by now.

I won’t say I’ve looked at anyone’s opinions in-depth, but stumbling across them as I wrote and researched this time around, I noticed something. People seem not to like having to do homework on a show that’s nearly 60 years old. What they want is the high drama of Discovery, and/or, they think TNG was always “The Best of Both Worlds.” I even saw a couple complaining that we don’t have time to do this sort of fun episode anymore because there are only 15 more episodes, something I moaned about in a different way during “Hegemony, Part II.”

The difference being, as I’d argue it, is that what I’m complaining about is drawing out character beats for later episodes when something was right there. Is there a ticking clock element to Strange New Worlds from now on? Yes, but the fact of the matter is that episodes like this are in every season of Star Trek, and just be thankful it is here and not episode 6 or 7, “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail” or “What is Starfleet?” I would like a more serious episode, but I’d have hated “Wedding Bell Blues” if it were played like a funeral.

What I think surprises me the most about “Wedding Bell Blues” is the fact that it is played up as an episode that is aimed at so much fan-service of classic TOS moments or connected parts. I keep saying it: the only thing that will make me care about a TOS reveal is to find out that Spock and Kirk were secretly banging in one of the Jeffries Tubes. Otherwise, my attention and care for TOS start and end at Uhura. Somehow, the fan service, which I’m trying to avoid with a ten-foot barge pool with spoilers on the end, is totally working on me.

The only thing I will spoil is that at the end of the episode, Pike offers an Edosian a spot to work in the ship’s bar. If you don’t know why that’s significant, it’s simply because this is the first time we’ve ever seen an Edosian in live-action Star Trek. The first time we really saw an Edosian was Arex, the navigation officer in The Animated Series. Now we’ve got, about 9 years earlier on the ship, Kelzing in the bar mixing drinks and serving with her three hands. Finally, a non-white humanoid alien on the Enterprise.

Speaking of Uhura and banging, Erica’s little brother is on board helping his sister train physically after the Gorn business last time out. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, mostly because it is a nothing story at this point. A lot of the episode focuses on Spock, Korby, Chapel, and that storyline with The Wedding Planner, so we don’t get more than a couple of scenes. Do I care about Beto and Nyota having a relationship? Not really, there is nothing there yet to care about, and it didn’t bother me that she didn’t have a romantic interest either.

Is “Wedding Bell Blues” the best episode of Star Trek? Hell no, far from it, and even distant in terms of the funny ones where weird things happen. Have I avoided talking about the resolution and the other guest star, or even hinting at the name of Darby’s character? Totally. I went in knowing absolutely nothing, and I wish you could have done so too, because that fan service-y ending and the light-fun tone is exactly what we need after the weight of both “Hegemony” parts.

Some parts are a bit “ugh!,” and things I noticed that might otherwise not be, but they don’t destroy the episode. The scene in Spock’s quarters after he’s drunk love potion number nine, the one where we’re supposed to see the transition in real time, you can tell that’s done practically. Basically, it is the standard one-shot of the lighting changing, move the camera so we don’t see Jess Bush climb into bed, then the surprise, but if you look closely, you see the off-camera work being done. Maybe that’s just me seeing what they were doing beforehand, but it took me out of the moment.

Ultimately, from a writing aspect, “Wedding Bell Blues” is fine and does hit the spots it is supposed to for structure, it has a couple of “meh” lines, and is a little heavily weighted on the A-plot. If you’re looking for a serious, grumpy episode about philosophy, then you’re out of luck. Suppose you want a gay pirate wedding planner playing with Spock’s emotions to a massive bit of fan service. Then, my sweet summer child, you have hit the jackpot! It’s a fun episode, and I like it for what it is, not for what it isn’t.

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SNW “Wedding Bell Blues”

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• By jove! A Spock episode I like.
• Rhys Darby.
• Mawage!

Cons

• Roger is a bit, "eh, I could take it or leave it."
• A little too heavily weighted on the A plot, somewhat.