Strange New Worlds brings Sybok back

In episode 7, Strange New Worlds finally brings Sybok back. “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” reunites Spock's estranged half-brother with the crew, except the version who shows up isn't quite the real thing.

In episode 7, Strange New Worlds finally brings Sybok back. “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass” reunites Spock’s estranged half-brother with the crew, except the version who shows up isn’t quite the real thing.

This episode presents the Enterprise in the middle of an outright soap opera pastiche, thanks to the returning trickster, Trelane (Rhys Darby), complete with haze filters and overstated pauses.

Captain Pike wakes up with memory loss, Uhura learns that her mother was someone else, and Spock is on his deathbed because he needs a heart transplant. The episode is a serial drama, but it has been carefully planned.

For Spock’s treatment, La’an breaks into a prison cell and releases Sybok. Sybok impersonates Spock and takes up this new character. Sybok uses a wig and open shirt for this role, playing this soap villain to the fullest. He lies to La’an and attempts to tempt her before being found.

Spock tells La’an that he and Sybok are not actually twins, implying that the entire soap opera scenario was fabricated based on the memories of Spock and the imagination of La’an.

This is the way of casting Peck in this role, especially in “The Serene Squall”, where Sybok appears briefly from behind a prison window in Vulcan.

Sybok has only appeared once in Star Trek canon before this episode, played by Laurence Luckinbill in 1989’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and the franchise largely dropped the character afterward.

Strange New Worlds has now teased him twice without delivering the real reunion between Sarek’s two sons, leaving the door open, deliberately or not, for a future episode to continue what “The Serene Squall” started.