Stardate: 2903.9
Original Air Date: July 30, 2026
Writer: Kathryn Lyn
Director: Axelle Carolyn
“Space is limitless in its beauty and its terror.”
Kirk, La’an, and Spock are returning to their respective ships aboard a shuttlecraft following a “Future Federation Leaders” retreat. However, they are forced to detour after discovering a mysterious signal emanating from an uncharted region of space. It is being sent through an old Federation frequency. Suddenly behind an asteroid they spot a derelict ship, the remains of “The Griffin,” a Federation starship that went missing nine years ago with all three hundred souls presumed dead. Curiously, the Griffin’s last known location was lightyears from here after Captain Taggert sent a report to Starbase 1. But then the Griffin vanished. What happened? Was the Griffin attacked by a Klingon bird-of-prey? Was it struck by a stellar flare?
The three of them decide to beam over to investigate in oxygen masks (somehow, they are all able to beam over together from a shuttlecraft). They are surprised to find the ship’s gravity working, and all systems functional as if the whole crew simply left for a coffee break. But there are no shuttlecrafts nor escape pods, and no record of either being deployed. There is no sign of anything wrong. Where did the crew of the Griffin go? Spock suggests this might be a job for “Division 12,” a Starfleet analyst unit that seeks to investigate unexplained phenomena.
While walking around in the dark aboard the Griffin, a strange woman appears out of the shadows (despite there being no life signs present). When La’an tries to speak to her, the woman simply says, “I’ve been waiting for you” and disappears. As they discuss what is happening, Spock picks up faint traces of negatively charged ions. Then they spot the old remnants of phaser fire: Starfleet, Vulcan, and Klingon (i.e. Kirk, Spok, and La’an are not the first people discover the Griffin). Spock and La’an attempt to pry open a door that has been hastily barred, and Kirk hears the sound of a baby crying down a dark hallway.
Spock consults the ship’s computer and learns that all the bodies on the Griffin were transported by chief security officer Rose Harper. This was after she filed numerous reports of delusional behavior by the crew. Many were killed, 287 were transported into open space while they were still alive. Spock is then locked inside sickbay and surrounded by dead bodies, some of which are covered in blood. One comes to life and calls out to him –it is his ex-fiance T’Pring.
Meanwhile La’an receives a disturbing message seemingly from Rose Harper (who later tells La’an: “you’re one of us”), and Kirk notices onscreen that their shuttle has been destroyed. Of course, all three crew members become separated and La’an is continually possessed by the ghostly apparition of Rose Harper, while Kirk is driven mad by the sound of his infant son David, and Spock is tormented by the apparent apparition of T’Pring who tortures him and cuts the top of his pointy ears off. The body horror gets grotesque and bloody when Pike, Ortegas, Una, Uhura, and Sam Kirk beam over the Griffin after receiving Spock’s message. Are they real? Or apparitions? At first, they seem to be helping their trapped crewmen, but Pike and Una soon turn on Spock to torture him some more, while Kirk is tormented as his brother Sam is sucked out into space from the bridge (we see his entrails floating outside the ship), and La’an accidentally sets Ortegas to painfully beam into herself on the transporter. Things go awry as blood and gore and body bags abound (one of the most shocking scenes is Pike maniacally slicing off his own fingers).
After being repeatedly confronted by Rose Harper, La’an succumbs to her delusions. She grabs a large knife and stabs Kirk in the gut. As he crawls away, bleeding out on the floor, Spock escapes his entrapment with the apparent hallucination of T’Pring by reciting a Vulcan poem. But before La’an can land a final blow on Kirk, all three of them are suddenly beamed back aboard the Enterprise (Captain Pike finally received Spock’s message).
The three crewmen try to recuperate aboard the Enterprise: Spock is treated by Nurse Chapel for his ear wounds (Chapel is also curious as to why Spock’s mind selected T’Pring), Kirk contemplates sending a deep-space message to Carol and David, and Pike assures La’an that his report to Starfleet won’t mention the fact that she tried to kill Kirk. La’an watches out the window as the USS Thorn arrives to tow the Griffin back to the secret location of Division 12… and far away from her window she sees the apparition of Rose Harper who smiles ominously and puts a finger to her pursed lips as if to say “shhh.”
My Thoughts on “The Griffin Incident”
A horror episode! “The Griffin Incident” is easily one of the most terrifying, bloody, grim episodes of Star Trek I have yet encountered. Rife with all manner of jump scares and classic horror tropes, “The Griffin Incident” is a ghost story reminiscent of science fiction/horror films like Event Horizon (1997). Axelle Carolyn does a fantastic job directing this one as the aesthetic is incredibly disturbing, from scenes of Spock slicing off his own pointy ears to Pike chopping up his own fingers. If you look closely in the background of many shots, you can see shadows and bodies moving around in the frame (this is all done very well and to extraordinarily eerie effect). Throughout the episode, the characters are forced into increasingly dangerous isolated situations while I found myself wondering why they go deeper into the darkness, following creepy voices in the shadows, prying open barred doors, falling right into the traps laid before them and so on. Are the figures like T’Pring or Rose Harper corporeal? Or are they ghosts? The aesthetic of this episode is top tier, and also the psychological examination of the characters via the horror genre’s purgation of anxieties is well-accomplished (Kirk is anxious about his young son David, La’an is anxious about her identity as a Khan (she feels Starfleet is her real family), and Spock is anxious about his internal tension between human and Vulcan halfs).
But with that being said, this is still yet another Strange New Worlds episode that simply pays homage to the greater works that have come before it. Sometimes it feels as if the writers are merely checking boxes so they can draft gimmicky musical episodes, whodunnit episodes, horror episodes, and so on. And the unexplained ending to “The Griffin Incident” is unsatisfying in my view. It’s a bit convenient that Spock is seemingly the only one who can break out of the Griffin’s horrific delusion simply by repeatedly chanting a Vulcan poem and forcing himself to return to his logical half. Unfortunately, this whole incident remains entirely unexplained in the end.
What happened to the Griffin? Why did Rose Harper apparently go mad and slaughter the whole crew? Was her madness caused by the ship’s computer? Or some other force? And why would Pike leave out key details in his report to Starfleet about the incident? Wouldn’t it be helpful to for them to know the full scope of La’an’s delusion (especially the investigators in Division 12)? And can we be fully certain that La’an, Kirk, and Spock have fully recovered from this horrific misadventure? Hopefully we return to this story and the results from Division 12 again in the future. But this is decidedly one of the best episodes of Strange New Worlds I have encountered in quite some time.
Star Trek Trivia:
- The Griffin’s ship number is NCC-1067. It is a Constitution-Class starship.
- Kirk’s has a gift for his young son David in this episode and it almost looks like Robby the Robot from The Twilight Zone.
- Division 12 is described as section of Starfleet that investigates unexplained phenomena (perhaps not unlike The X Files). Pike says he has referred 6 cases to Division 12 (4 were resolved with scientific or alien explanations, the other 2 remain undetermined). Division 12 was first mentioned in the SNW Season 3 episode “Terrarium.”
- This episode has often been compared to the TNG episode “Night Terrors.” It has also drawn comparisons to the films Event Horizon (1997), The Grudge (2004), and even Alien: Resurrection (1997).
- Aside from Rose Harper, other crew members that served aboard the Griffin include Captain Taggert, Lt. Ta’ (a Vulcan)
- In this episode, Kirk mentions that his relationship with Carol Marcus is falling apart. He says she “just got approved for a dream project” (presumably the Genesis Device as portrayed in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).
- Rose Harper is played by Sorika Wolf.
- The evil hallucination of T’Pring tells a story about her “kahs-wan.” She was hiking when she experienced what humans call a “panic attack.” She centered her mind by reciting one of her favorite couplets by Vulcan poet Ka’nina. The final line is translated from Vulcan as “It will guide you home.” This is the poem Spock later recites to re-center himself, as well.
- Spock mentions a holiday trip he surprised T’Pring with on Hurk’ah.
- The novel in James Kirk’s bag is Naval classic Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian.
- During the war, Nurse Chapel was briefly stationed at the hospital Yrti but she was forced to work out of the mess hall. Hence, why she doesn’t like going into dining halls anymore. Spock now feels similarly about sickbay after being tortured in the sickbay aboard the Griffin.
- This episode was directed by Axelle Carolyn, a Belgian director who has directed other horror movies and television shows like Carrie and The Haunting of Bly Manor.