The first alien species to openly make contact with Earth and one of the core members of what would become the Federation, Vulcan’s started with the original series Spock just to show the alien on the bridge. Now, nearly sixty years later, Leonard Nimoy’s portrayal set the tone for decades of evolution. Despite being an easy mine for comedy, seen quite a bit in Strange New Worlds between the ‘lets mess with Spock’ episodes and now Four and a Half Vulcans bringing a full on comedic parody of Vulcan stereotypes, the nuance and layers thrown into the mix over time can be surprising and sometimes even heart-warming. So this time we’re looking back at the episodes that go beyond the stereotypical logic and delve a little deeper into the culture of Vulcan.
Sarek, The Next Generation
Sarek was introduced as the ultimate Vulcan, but over the years despite very few appearances, we saw the depth of what lay underneath the hardened shell of logic. Not even pleading Kirk to save Spock’s soul was as heart-breaking as seeing everything Sarek lived for crumble away due to illness and age in his final years.
Breaking down on his final mission, and barely patched together by his entourage, Sarek boarded the Enterprise-D with his grip on logic loosening. A mind meld with Picard allowed him balance to complete his mission, but it was a temporary fix that left Picard haunted by a life of regret, pain and misery to uphold the illusion, revealing the true depths of Vulcan emotion and the struggle to contain it all under the cold surface.
Carbon Creek, Enterprise
On April 5th 2063, Zephran Cochrane’s warp flight gets the attention of the Vulcans who, upon seeing this feat, make first contact with Earth. Or so history says. T’Pol knows better. During a Captains dinner, T’Pol tells the tale of her grandmother, who lived on Earth after being stranded in the 1950’s with her team and would end up integration into a small rural American town.
In a weird way Carbon Creek does something absolutely no other series has touched on before in Vulcan stories. Friendship. The three Vulcans were colleagues in a tough spot, but this was the only time we see a group of Vulcans socialise with each other in a non professional setting and really delve into what drives them. And the idea of a Vulcan stunned by the barriers to good education and a balanced life having such a large ripple effect showed more in 45 minutes than anything we’d seen to that point.
Lethe, Discovery
Often Discovery gets mentioned for placing Michael Burnham into Spock’s personal history. Creatively though it wasn’t Spock the show was capitalising on, it was his father, Sarek. Sarek has been an oddly emotional thread throughout Star Trek history considering he shunned his half human son, and while the prequel did give insight to that, Lethe was one of the episodes that showed there was a lot more to mine from the man who died filled with regret.
In Lethe we see Burnham save her adoptive father by means of a technological meld mind (of sorts) and break into his memories and show the complexity of who he was; on one hand he was a complete monster who saw his children as little more than experiments. On the other, we see him struggle with the choice of favouring his second born son or his adoptive daughter and the consequences of his failed attempts at integrating humans within Vulcan society. It’s a heartbreaking story that adds more depth, and in a way more darkness, to the ultimate Vulcan.
Innocence, Voyager
For decades the idea of what a Vulcan was came from Spock, a half Vulcan struggling with the balance between logic and emotion. He was seen as an oddity to his people. By the time we had another Vulcan on the regular cast, Tuvok lived up to the popular idea of Vulcans being cold and emotionless, but with a more open and mature outlook that showed he may have control over emotion, but they’re every bit as capable of the emotions Spock would deny.
While not an episode that would rank in the series top ten, Innocence ended up being one of the best examples of the Vulcan perspective. After running into a bunch of kids walking their way to a death sentence, Tuvok takes charge and begins to look after them in a typically Vulcan way. That Vulcan way is of course stoic and cold, but Tim Russ has a wonderful way of being the serious parent in such a way that shows underneath the logic is an empathy and compassion that can’t be denies no matter how hard you push back those emotions.
Amok Time, Original Series.
Possibly the most parodied episode of Star Trek ever created, Amok Time is remembered fondly for the showdown between Kirk and Spock with the now iconic score in the background as the ancient Vulcan ritual plays out to the death. Replicated in everything from Dexters Lab to The Cable Guy – and even getting a bit of a self parody revival in a Strange New Worlds dream sequence – the fight scene overshadows some of the larger additions to the Vulcan culture that would carry through multiple era’s of Star Trek.
Spock has to go home for a bit of upsy downsy with his wife. It’s a biological Vulcan law as he’s entered Pon Farr – or mating season, really – and has a wife to be awaiting for him to stop messing about in space and get on with it. The whole premise itself opened up the concept of how the emotionally repressed people handled love and relationships. Mostly by obligation and logical planning. But it also gave a lot more.
For the first time we get to see Vulcan and everything really opens up. The logical bookworms planet is seeped in ritualistic culture that hints at logic not just being a way of life, but an entire cultural identity that embraces traditions to guide and dictate them. From the desert world to the shiny gongs, everything that would define Vulcan came from Amok Time, making it one of the most important stories in Trek history thanks to it’s new perspective in showing us a fascinating peek behind the demeanour of the Enterprise science officer.
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