Last week’s episode of Strange New Worlds took things into a spooky direction with the horror-themed episode “The Griffin Incident.” The episode was directed by Axelle Carolyn who has an extensive background in directing horror and show spoke to the hosts of TrekMovie’s All Access Star Trek podcast after the episode dropped, giving us some insight into the making of this latest genre swing.

The mystery of the Griffin

One surprise for “The Griffin Incident” was hope the mystery behind the USS Griffin was left somewhat vague, with enigmatic “Division 12” (essentially Starfleet’s X-Files division) left to sort out the haunted ghost ship. Speaking to TrekMovie, Axelle Carolyn explained why this mystery was by design:

“I understand the criticism about the answers not being given at the end, like the scientific explanation… That was also something we discussed, and I felt like I understand that one of the tenets of Star Trek is we can explore the universe, and science would always bring us home and help us understand what’s going on. But I don’t think that it’s saying that by the 23rd century, two humans and a half Vulcan will be able to solve every mystery within the space of 50 minutes, and I really like that there are things that are still mysterious, and they’re not saying, ‘Hey, this is a this is not going to have a scientific explanation.’ Of course, it’s going to have a scientific explanation. They’re just saying, within the scope of our investigation right now, we can’t solve it.” … I can see how it’s it breaks the mold of a lot of Star Trek episodes, but every once in a while, just thinking there are mysteries that are bigger than us and things that are not quite explained yet, I kind of find that good.”

Christina Chong as La’an Noonien-Singh in season 4, episode 2, of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streaming on Paramount+, 2026. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+

While the mystery wasn’t fully laid out for the audience, the director had answers in mind as she helmed the episode. For example, she talks about how the ship itself is changing people’s perceptions as she discusses the scene in the sickbay when Spock uses logic to stop hallucinating, noting “There’s the Griffin that the ship wants you to see, and then there’s the Griffin in the in the shape that it actually is, which is what is revealed when [Spock] wakes up.”

When pressed on this point, Carolyn gave a more detailed explaination of the mystery of the USS Griffin:

“I took it as: it’s ghosts. It’s not ghosts because it’s Star Trek, and it has to have an explanation. And even if the explanation is there are ghosts, but this is what it is. There’s got to be something. But I just took it as – for me personally to make it work and to kind of work the the technicalities of making it what it should be – I shot it like a ghost ship.”

(L-R): Ethan Peck as Spock and Gia Sandhu as T’Pring in season 4, episode 2, of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streaming on Paramount+, 2026. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+

The director acknowledged that this episode paid homage to horror classics, and she drew a specific parallel to explain the mystery:

“It’s kind of like The Shining. They’re trying to overtake La’an and make her want to stay and kill everybody around her. And and then it just becomes an exercise in horror on the one hand, on tension building and and building scares.”

But she also notes how what was haunting Kirk, Spock, and La’an was mostly about providing insight into each character:

“In character development and seeing those three people confront the things that they’re most scared of, and where it’s going to lead them. And then there were moments that were really fun to discuss. There’s logic moments we got away with, because we could go with just ‘Well, it’s in their minds.’ But there’s also things about the characters, like when Pike shows up or when Sam shows up. Pike definitely does not behave the way that he usually would, but moments that reveal the way that Spock looks at him, or the way that one of the fears that Spock would have is to see Pike loses s–t, and I thought that was really interesting. We explore his Vulcan side a lot, but there’s clearly a big side of him that’s also ‘What if I become someone who works on the ship of a captain who’s completely lost his mind?’ And that was kind of fun, and that gave Anson a lot of freedom to play with the character to try to make it way larger than life and and way more playful because that’s just a figment of Spock’s imagination. And in the same way you could have Sam point out James’s weaknesses because that’s what James knows is his weakness. You can’t save everybody. That’s that’s one of his biggest fears.”

(L-R): Anson Mount as Captain Pike, Dan Jeannotte as Sam Kirk, and Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk in season 4, episode 2, of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streaming on Paramount+, 2026. Photo Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+

A bloody ghost ship in Star Trek was a dream.

Directing for Star Trek was a dream come true for Axelle Carolyn, telling the TrekMovie podcasters how much she enjoyed blending her love of Trek and horror together:

“I’ve been a Star Trek fan since I was a teenager, and let me tell you, I would have loved to see an episode like “The Griffin Incident.” It’s it’s always been my dream. If you’d ask me when I was 18, as a horror fan and a Star Trek fan, what I would have liked to see, I would have said Spock and Kirk on a ghost ship. And when I got the call to make this, it was like I cannot believe this. This is 30 years of dreaming of it.”

While it is hard to quantify these things, “The Griffin Incident,” may have been the goriest episode of Star Trek. The director talked about how these elements were calibrated:

“Every effect was discussed, so we knew how much we could show and how far we could. And I think [co-showrunner] Akiva [Goldsman] and I were both seen as very bloodthirsty because we would have meetings about how to cut Pike’s fingers, and we would laugh through the entire thing.”

Behind the scenes with director Axelle Carolyn (Photo: Axelle Carolyn/IG)

Axelle talked about how her first love for Star Trek came with the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact, which certainly had some horror themes, with the Borg invading the USS Enterpirse-E like a horde of zombies. The director talked about how she hoped that her episode can bring in more horror fans to the franchise:

“As much as you can have gateway horror, like maybe this will take some Trekkies towards horror. But I would really like it if horror fans came to Star Trek, because it can work as a standalone episode for people who haven’t necessarily seen all of Strange New Worldsor are not familiar with Star Trek. Generally, I would love it if they heard there’s a scary episode and you should watch it and you can watch it on your own and then that makes them excited about Star Trek, just like I had with FirstContact. You know, just like that was my gateway.”

Director Axelle Carolyn, actress Christina Chong, writer Robbie Thompson, and background actors do the “Thriller” zombie dance on set of “The Griffin Incident” (Photo: Paramount)

Listen to full interview

Our entire interview with Axelle was released as a special supplemental episode, which you can listen to below. And for more behind the scenes, follow Axelle on Instagram.

 

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