Kirk, Spock, and La’an confront their deepest fears aboard a haunted Starfleet vessel in a brutal, psychologically unsettling episode.
Star Trek meets Event Horizon as James T. Kirk, La’an Noonien-Singh, and Spock stumble across a ghost ship that brings to life their deepest, most personal demons.
On their way home from a Starfleet leadership retreat, James Kirk (Paul Wesley), Spock (Ethan Peck), and La’an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) stumble across the wreckage of the U.S.S. Griffin, a Starfleet ship that inexplicably disappeared nine years ago. Upon beaming over, there is no sign of the crew — indeed, no sign that anything is wrong at all — except a creepy, ghostly woman who disappears as mysteriously as she arrived.
As Spock investigates the ship’s computer, La’an and Kirk head to the bridge; this is when the away team starts to experience individualized trauma associated with their respective demons. Kirk hears a baby’s cry, symbolizing his absence from his son, David, which the man was lamenting before they arrived on the Griffin. Spock comes face-to-face with T’Pring, his ex-fiance, who makes him reckon with his human half via gruesome torture. And La’an keeps seeing visions of one of the Griffin’s last remaining crew members, Chief Security Officer Rose Harper (Sorika Wolf), who asserts her Enterprise counterpart should finally come to peace with her destructive augment half and let it run wild.
“There are faint traces of negatively charged ions.”
“You mean a ghost?”
“I mean negatively charged ions.”
– Spock and Kirk after encountering the “ghost” on the Griffin.
It’s clear a ghastly phenomena has exerted control of the ship and its former crew, and our protagonists’ most personal insecurities are vulnerable to exploitation. The situation seems to improve when members of the Enterprise crew, including Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia), and Sam Kirk (Dan Jeannotte) arrive to help the embattled away team. But as one could predict, these people aren’t real and only serve to deepen and expand upon the emotional trauma being inflicted upon Spock, La’an, and Kirk by whatever demonic entity infests the ship.
No doubt about it — the away team goes through quite the ordeal while on the Griffin. La’an is psychologically tortured by Harper before injuring Uhura, almost killing Ortegas by beaming her into herself (that’s a new one!), and nearly killing the real James Kirk. Meanwhile, Spock cuts off the points of his ears and nearly cuts out his own heart, while Kirk is frightened for his child’s safety before witnessing his brother sucked into space.
Luckily for the away team, they are rescued by the Enterprise, but not before it’s clear real damage has been done to their individual psyches. As much as he doesn’t let on, Spock is troubled by the convincing torture he received at the hands of the imagined T’Pring; La’an is more worried than ever that her augment genes will take hold soon; and James Kirk has realized, perhaps too late, that he chose the wrong priorities in his life.
Anatomy of a Nightmare
This bottle show— which clearly takes heavy inspiration from the awesome sci-fi cult classic Event Horizon (RIP Sam Neill) — serves as a fascinating psychological study of La’an, Spock, and Kirk; for that reason, it’s a particularly good episode to watch a second time.
Every imagined person these people interact with on the Griffin represent an inner demon. For example, Spock sees T’Pring because she is an important tie to his Vulcan heritage, but he also sees Pike and Una because they represent the life he has made for himself in Starfleet. La’an not only sees Harper, who is a representation of her genetics-related turmoil, but Uhura and Ortegas, friends who she hurts as her recessed, aggressive nature takes hold. Sam Kirk’s presence, what with his and Jim’s discussion about not only Sam’s kid, but their father, illustrates to Kirk how badly he has screwed up his own family life.
Considering what we know about Carol Marcus and David from Star Trek II and Star Trek III, Kirk’s storyline in “The Griffin Incident” is particularly interesting. Here, Kirk grapples with being away from his family — which we know ultimately leads to him and Carol splitting and him not seeing his son, David. James even has a heart-to-heart with his imagined brother because Sam does seem to handle the work-life balance better. While the events on the Griffin do lead Kirk to want to see his family more, his final scene of this episode points to it being too late to repair his strained relationship with Carol. The rest is history.
“You can’t save everyone. You have to make peace with that, Jim. Until you accept that, you will never be free. Don’t worry, the Griffin will show you the way.”
– Sam Kirk to Jim.
Uncompromising and deeply unsettling, “The Griffin Incident” easily ranks as the most effective horror episode Star Trek has ever produced. The installment excels not only in visceral body horror — such as the shocking moment Pike cuts through his own fingers — but also in its profound psychological execution.
Director Axelle Carolyn intentionally allows shots to breathe, amplifying the tension in key scenes, such as when La’an speaks to a ghost in engineering mistakenly believing it is Spock, or when T’Pring rises from a body bag in sickbay, or even as a ghost glides through the background while Kirk and La’an walk down a corridor. This atmosphere is especially elevated in Spock’s storyline, where the clever use of bloom, diffusion, and high-contrast lighting transforms sickbay into a dreamlike, hallucinatory nightmare.
We doubt we’ll ever know what happened to the Griffin and what entity exerted control over the ship, but that’s okay; we prefer the mystery. That investigation is in the hands of Division 12, a part of Starfleet that handles unexplained phenomena. As it stands, this episode is notable for its examination of our protagonists’ personal trauma, which we’re sure will resurface across this season.
Stray Thoughts:
- Why doesn’t Kirk report hearing the baby crying when La’an asks him what’s wrong
- Shouldn’t he have known better after encountering the disappearing “ghost?”
- Kirk references Carol just getting approval for her “dream project.” This must be a reference to the Genesis Project we see in the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
- We know the Griffin adversely impacted La’an’s personality and perception, but why does she assume the person with her in engineering was Spock? It would have been enormously out of character for him to enter the room and stay silent, especially when she addressed him directly.
- After stabbing Kirk, La’an foreshadows David Marcus’ death at the hands of Klingons in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. And because La’an, under the influence of the ship, knows this, does that mean the demonic entity that controls the Griffin is some kind of time traveler?
- Why doesn’t anyone call for medical assistance once the away team is beamed back to Enterprise and Jim Kirk is lying on the pad bleeding out?
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SJ
July 30, 2026 at 10:06 pm
I’m sorry: Captain TAGGART? Is this a crossover with Galaxy Quest? Is the ship called the Griffin because there’s a connection with Family Guy?