Spock is coming to Star Trek TV for the first time this century

It's official: For the first time this century, Lieutenant Spock will appear in a new episode of a Star Trek TV show.

Spock appears in the second season of Star Trek Discovery, executive producer Alex Kurtzman revealed at San Diego Comic Con.

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A question mark had hung over Spock's potential appearance in the show since the end of Season 1. In its final minutes, out of nowhere, the Discovery comes across a distress signal from the USS Enterprise — commanded by Christopher Pike, the predecessor to Captain James T. Kirk.

Given Discovery's timeline — it's set 10 years before the original Star Trek series — fans immediately knew that Spock should be serving on the Enterprise at that time. The fact that Sarek, Spock's father, happened to be aboard Discovery at the time of the Enterprise cliffhanger raised a few more eyebrows.

But would the producers dare go there — or just give us an episode in which Spock happens to be on vacation from the Enterprise? (In the trailer, Pike says he's off hunting for mysterious signals. That's so Spock!)

To actually put him in the show is no easy choice. Spock is easily the most beloved character in Star Trek fandom, and was famously portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in the original series (which ended in 1969) and many subsequent movies. If not for a brief appearance in a couple of episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, this would be the first TV Spock in 50 years.

Nimoy died in 2015 at age 83.

Only one other actor has portrayed a character named Spock: Zachary Quinto, in the trio of Star Trek reboot movies from J.J. Abrams. Even then, Abrams and the writers were very careful to make clear that this was a Spock from another timeline. Nimoy was shoehorned in as a transdimensional ambassador. It was quite clearly one Spock passing the baton to another.

No such reassurance is possible in Star Trek Discovery. No announcement on casting was made in the panel, either. Either the producers try to do some young CGI version of Nimoy, pony up to get a cameo from movie star Quinto, or they go with an untested lookalike newcomer. Whichever way, they risk getting savaged by a passionate fanbase.

It's also possible that Kurtzman is merely referring to childhood Spock, seen in flashback. Lt. Michael Burnham, raised by Sarek, would have had ample opportunity to meet her sort-of-brother. We've already seen a few Burnham flashbacks to her childhood on Vulcan.

Director Jonathan Frakes, a.k.a. Will Riker in Next Generation, confirmed back in April we'll see flashback child Spock this season.

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Whichever Spock we're talking about, many Star Trek fans didn't have time for such questions in the midst of their sobbing ecstasy.

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We'll find out January 2019 how well the producers did. In the meantime, Kurtzman announced that a series of standalone TV movies would be released starring Discovery characters in December 2018.

Let's just hope we all live long and prosper enough to get that far.