Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Knows That Vulcans Are Not Robots [Exclusive]

As it happens, transforming Spock into a full human only helps us understand Vulcans that much more. In his interview with “Strange New Worlds” director Jordan Canning, /Film’s Jacob Hall asked the filmmaker about the intricate balance involved in directing actors to embody the emotionally-suppressed subtleties necessary in bringing several different Vulcans to life. Canning, naturally, pointed to the central spectacle of seeing Spock wilting under the harsh gaze of T’Pring’s disapproving mother T’Pril (Ellora Patnaik) at the tense dinner:

“I think what was such a great example of that in this [episode] obviously is when you get all the Vulcans together for dinner and just how different they all are despite all being Vulcans. Spock is doing a bunch of different levels of suppressing different things. But you’ve got T’Pril, who is just such an intense presence and Vulcan or not, she would be intimidating. She walks into a room and just, she’s a Miranda Priestly kind of character. You’re like, ‘Oh my God, okay, I don’t want to get on this woman’s bad side.’

And then you have her husband [Sevet, played by Michael Benyaer] who is just this lovely beta guy who has found his place. He knows how to be around his wife and he knows how to not get in trouble with his wife, but he’s also sweet and he has just so many different … he’s such a different energy, obviously, than T’Pril. And then T’Pring is stuck in the middle — she’s been reduced down to her teenage version stuck between her parents and her boyfriend in this awkward dinner.”

Although Vulcans are commonly misattributed as being total blank slates, there’s a ton of emotionally fraught dynamics running throughout this one scene.

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