Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has made no bones about its genre-tasting style. From musicals to costumed fantasy to animation, it’s tried a bit of everything.
So why not body horror?
With “The Griffin Incident,” the series paid homage to 1997’s cult hit space horror film Event Horizon and, based on audience reaction, nailed it.
Like any effective horror story, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 2 built atmospheric tension primarily through insidious ghost voices, echoing drips, and well-timed jump scares.
But there were also scripted lines of dialogue that contributed to the growing unease aboard The Griffin as La’an, Jim Kirk, and Spock confronted their deepest fears.
For your consideration, we’ve compiled some of the best lines and exchanges that conveyed the characters’ apprehension and hinted at supernatural unpinnings to The Griffin’s intelligence.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds “The Griffin Incident”
Like the Event Horizon ship in the 1997 movie, the USS Griffin was presumed lost under mysterious circumstances for many years.
When La’an, Jim Kirk, and Spock detect its distress signal, things immediately flag as strange.
Spock: Curious. The signal is being broadcast over an old Federation frequency.
La’an: Spock, no one likes a backseat sensor reader.
Everyone knows that in horror movies, no one ever pays attention to the weird until it’s too late.
Once aboard, nothing is as expected. It’s the uncanny valley starship-style.
La’an: Why aren’t we floating?
Spock: There is no scientific reason this ship should have gravity. And yet…
Kirk: Well, that’s unnerving with a side of unsettling.
La’an: I don’t understand. It’s like everyone took a coffee break.
Spock: And never returned.
With each of the Starfleet divisions — Science, Ops, and Command — represented in the trio, they each bring their specialized attention to the situation and agree that it’s all very unusual.
Spock: Readings show no signs of radiation, virus, parasite, or unusual anomalies of any kind. For all intents and purposes, this ship is perfectly safe.
Kirk: Right. Show of hands for anyone who feels “safe” on the Griffin.
Attempts at humor to lighten the mood are Kirk’s wheelhouse. Not that it’s effective here.
After their first sighting of Rose Harper, he’s the first to jump to conclusions — albeit mostly correct ones — about their circumstances.
Spock: Readings show no signs of any transmitted material. However, there are faint traces of negatively charged ions.
Kirk: You mean a ghost?
Spock: I mean negatively charged ions.
While they’re together, they can depend on each other’s senses to confirm their experiences.
La’an: Those markings. They’re from phasers. These are Starfleet. And those are Klingon.
Spock: And these, Vulcan. I am beginning to suspect we’re not the first party to board the Griffin.
Kirk: One party tried to seal someone in. Another tried to blast them out. So what’s behind those doors?
They can collaborate and form plans based on the information they have.
La’an: We only have 20 minutes of life support left, James.
Kirk: Don’t forget the Griffin’s escape pods and shuttles are gone, and we also have a psychopath who can walk through walls on board.
So what do they do? They split up. #FacePalm
Why T’Pring?
Left alone in the medbay to research the computer’s personnel files, Spock finds that he is not alone. A body bag sits up, unzips, and reveals his ex-fiancée, T’Pring.
T’Pring: This is deeply unsettling.
Spock: On that, we are in agreement.
Spock isn’t buying it. His logic insists that T’Pring could not be physically with him on The Griffin.
T’Pring: Why am I on a missing Federation ship?
Spock: You are not.
T’Pring: Spock, I am not an illusion.
Spock: Then what are you?
Unfortunately, as a figment of his mind, T’Pring spars with him verbally with equally cool logic.
T’Pring: Why me? Your theory is that I am a hallucination, correct? If that is true, then why did whatever looked into your mind choose me to conjure?
The conflict between Spock’s logic and his senses must have been exhausting, and he lets his guard down, allowing T’Pring close enough to assist with a mechanical repair.
Big mistake.
T’Pring: I could not see it clearly until we were parted. Your humanity is not your weakness. It is your biggest strength. What has held you back in your relationships and even your beloved Starfleet is your Vulcan side. But here, on the Griffin, we can fix that, Spock… We can set you free.
Psychologically speaking, her presence represents the conflict within Spock.
With the Griffin’s influence, her proposed strategies to reconcile the conflict are… extreme.
T’Pring: Our love died because your heart was not in the right place. Let’s change that, shall we?
When T’Pring proposes a knives-out approach, she’s quite literal.
However, T’Pring’s presence reaches into other corners of Spock’s mind. He finds something in her to save himself.
T’Pring: Ever so noble. Ever so logical. But logic has no place here.
Spock: And yet, that is what you have inadvertently brought to me.
We also see how it plays into his perceived relationship with Una and Pike, even though they are hallucinations as well.
Spock: T’Pring. She tied me down.
Pike: T’Pring? As in your ex, T’Pring?
Spock: She is dangerous.
Una: Y’know, I never liked her.
Even back aboard the Enterprise, the question of why the Griffin chose her to be his crucible remains.
Chapel: Why T’Pring?
Spock: I believe whatever probed my mind selected her to extract the most emotional response it could. But the illusion was powered by my own memories, my own beliefs. That anchored me, brought me back.
Chapel: To her.
Spock: To logic.
Although he survived the ordeal and used logic to save himself, La’an, and Jim Kirk, I can’t imagine his next encounter with the real T’Pring will be a good experience.
One of Them
As the descendant of Khan Noonien Singh, born with Augment genetics, La’an has lived her life viewed with distrust and fear.
In Starfleet, she found a place to belong, a family to defend, a reason to become her best self.
On board the Griffin, she faces the reality of Rose Harper, her counterpart Chief Security Officer, who failed to save her crew.
Although all three of the boarding party see Harper initially, it’s La’an whom Harper haunts directly.
The ship actively guides La’an to Deck 17, where Harper awaits her, not sparing the snark.
La’an: Bridge.
Computer: Deck 17.
La’an: Let’s try that again, shall we? Bridge.
Computer: Deck 17.
La’an: Computer, Bridge.
Computer: Deck 17. La’an.
Just as T’Pring personifies Spock’s anxieties about himself, Harper reflects La’an’s apprehension and amplifies it.
Rose Harper: That itch that’s been gnawing in you for months. That feeling that something is wrong with you. La’an Noonien Singh. You are not a Khan. You are not a Romulan. And you are not a monster. You are one of us.
To stoke La’an’s emotions to a tipping point, the Griffin provides her with Uhura and Ortegas, fellow Enterprise crew members, her family, to gaslight her worst fears.
Ortegas: Whatever happened here must be really bad if you’re hugging.
La’an: Let’s get the hell out of here.
After Uhura is forced to save Ortegas by storing her in the transporter buffer, she flees La’an only to be cornered by Harper.
When La’an merges with the Harper entity, she gives herself over to the Griffin’s vision.
With Spock about to do himself terrible harm, it’s up to La’an to dispatch James.
Kirk’s Path
James T. Kirk has the most fleshed-out past and future of any of the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds characters.
His adventure aboard the Griffin is seeded with eerily prescient moments of events that Star Trek canon has established as his destiny.
As they begin their exploration of the Griffin, he mentions to La’an his complicated relationship with Carol Marcus, the mother of his son, David.
Kirk: She was never a fan of Starfleet. Always worried I would die alone somewhere in unknown space. No idea what would give her that impression.
If dying alone somewhere in unknown space doesn’t describe Kirk’s life in the Nexus before Picard found him in Star Trek: Generations, I’ll eat my tricorder.
Once La’an has given in to the Griffin, she gravely injures James. Before delivering the deathblow, she prophesies his son’s future.
La’an: Your little boy is going to die just like you. At the end of a blade. Bleeding out in a dark corner of space.
As Trek fans know, David Marcus, Kirk’s son, will die on the Genesis Planet, stabbed by a Klingon commander.
How the Griffin could know this is squarely a Division 12 concern.
What Kirks Were Born To Do
Jim Kirk really gets a double dose of Griffin gore. Before La’an’s climactic attack, he must endure watching his beloved brother sucked out into space in the most gruesome manner possible.
Their reunion on the Griffin’s bridge begins with some brotherly advice about fatherhood.
Kirk: How do you do it, Sam? How do you balance Starfleet and family?
Sam: Well, I… I don’t. But I get home as often as I can. And every night, I call my boys, sign off with the same thing, “Goodnight, I love you, and I’ll see you in your dreams.”
They commiserate about their father’s neglect, silently wondering if they are doomed to become him.
Sam: Who’s this little guy? Reminds me of the chochkies Dad used to bring home when he was home on leave like some kind of… I don’t know…
Kirk: Apology for not being around.
Sam: I have more of these crappy little things in a box somewhere than I have memories of playing with Dad. I mean when was the last time you heard from the old man?
Both: Birthday.
Sam: Right.
But soon, Griffin’s Sam’s thoughts turn dark. He gives in to despair, encouraging Jim to admit they can never be better than what they were born to be.
Sam: We’re never getting off this ship, are we? We’re gonna die. Out here. In space. Alone. Like Kirks were born to do.
Again, this is how the Griffin breaks its victims, using externalized hallucinatory figures to voice their most dreadful ideations.
Before being drawn bodily through the bridge’s screen into the vacuum of space, Sam tries to convince Jim one last time that the Griffin’s way is best.
Sam: My brother, always the hero. But you can’t save everyone. You have to make peace with that, Jim. Until you accept that, you will never be free. But don’t worry, the Griffin is going to show you the way.
With those words ringing in his ears, it’s anyone’s guess how they will shape the man and father James T. Kirk will become.
The Aftermath
Something that seems to have stuck in some viewers’ craws is how open-ended they left the conclusion of “The Griffin Incident.”
Rather than attempting to explain the phenomenon, Pike had Division 12 take custody of the Griffin.
M’Benga: So what will become of the Griffin?
Pike: Well, the USS Thor has arrived to tow the ship back to wherever the hell Division 12’s base of operations is located.
M’Benga: How many cases have you referred to them in your career, Chris?
Pike: Six. Four were resolved with scientific or alien explanations.
M’Benga: And the other two?
Pike: I’ll let you know when I find out.
As the X-Files department of Starfleet, Division 12 gets all the spooky.
But, in debriefing La’an on his mission report, Pike reminds her that sometimes space keeps its secrets because it’s beyond humanoid comprehension.
Pike: Space is limitless in its beauty. And its terror.
So, what did you think, Fanatics? Was “The Griffin Incident” creepy, crazy awesome, or 100% not to your taste?
Which Griffin version of a character freaked you out most? Whose death can you never unsee?
Vent your boots and salutes in our comment section and vote on who had the best line in the poll below!
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Check out our list of the best lines from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds “The Griffin Incident,” Trek’s first foray into the space horror genre
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