Well, folks, we’ve got a real fun one today.

I should probably point out that I’m not being sarcastic; this episode really is a lot of fun.

We begin with the Enterprise making its way to a colony to deliver some vague supplies. To get there, they have to go through a “star desert,” which is basically what it sounds like: a region of space with no stars or planets. The sensors confirm there’s nothing there, so Kirk has Sulu speed up.

McCoy and Kirk talk about the word desert, and how it makes them think of palm trees and oases and whatnot. Spock is confused that they’re romanticizing horrible, barren wastelands.

This little reverie is interrupted when Spock notices an odd reading, which the navigator, Desalle, confirms. Kirk tells him to throw it up on the viewscreen, and it turns out to be a planet. Which is something that’s not supposed to be there.

Kirk says they don’t really have the time to investigate this, which I find weird, considering the previous in  episode. He tells Uhura to send a message saying what they’ve discovered, which doesn’t work, because the planet is putting out a lot of interference. Kirk tells Sulu to get out of the planet’s range.

And then Sulu disappears.

Kirk goes to investigate, and then he disappears. Desalle tells Spock what happened, and

After the credits and a brief acting captain’s log during which we learn they’ve been searching for four hours, Scotty and Desalle each report that there’s nothing there, but Spock tells them to keep searching.

Uhura  says they aren’t getting any communications from the planet. Desalle thinks that they should beam down to the planet and look for them, a decision that McCoy seconds. A science officer named Jaeger, however, explains why this is a terrible idea: the atmosphere is not breathable, the whole planet is rife with horrific storms, and is ludicrously volcanic.

Basically, anything alive on the planet without any kind of life support equipment wouldn’t be alive for very long. So that’s encouraging.

Uhura then calls out to Spock, because one of the monitors currently bears a message

He has Uhura send a message to whoever’s on the planet asking them to identify themselves, which is followed by another message: “hip hip hoorah, tallyho!”

McCoy astutely observes that this means something is living on the planet, and Spock agrees. He tells the transporter room to get ready to beam down a party. that party consisting of McCoy, Desalle, and Jaeger.

In the transporter room,  Uhura reports (via intercom) that they’ve got a lock on where the messages are coming from. He tells her to get the coordinates to Scotty so he can beam them down. McCoy, Desalle, and Jaeger, decked out with life support gear, take their places on the platform.

Spock tells them to make contact as soon as they’re on the planet, and gives them a beacon just in case. Scotty beams the three of them down to the planet, and they quickly find that it’s a lot more green and calm than they were expecting. Also, Jaeger scans and finds that the atmosphere is, in fact, breathable.

They take off their oxygen masks, and Desalle attempts to contact the ship. Naturally, they don’t get a response because something is cutting off their communications. Something always cuts off their communications. They try the beacon, but that doesn’t work either. Desalle moves away to try again from a different position, then calls out to Jaeger and McCoy upon seeing something really weird.

A whole-ass medieval European castle.

They enter, and find more weird shit, including one of the monsters seen in the episode The Man Trap, though it’s completely immobilized. They also find Kirk and Sulu, also immobilized. McCoy scans them and says they might as well be wax figures for all he’s getting.

Then they hear harpsichord music, and see a man in very old-fashioned garb playing the harpsichord.

He says he’s happy to continue displaying them, but he realizes they want their comrades back. He waves a hand, rendering the two mobile again. They, of course, have no clue what the hell is going on, and Sulu asks where they are. The harpsichord dude responds by welcoming them to the planet, which is called Gothos.

Kirk has McCoy fill him in on what’s happened since their disappearance, and the dude apologizes for whisking them away like he did. Turns out, based on his dress and choice of decor, that he’s a bit of an Earth connoisseur.

Kirk introduces himself, and the other guy responds in kind. Turns out that he’s General Trelane, retired, but you can call him Squire Trelane. Hence the title of the episode. He seems very welcoming as he goes back to play.

Desalle tells the captain they’ve lost contact with the Enterprise as Trelane goes on to tell them how happy he is that they’ve come to visit, though he’s confused as to how they got there, since he didn’t think humans to be capable of space travel.

See, it turns out that Gothos is 900 light years away from Earth, so any information Trelane has is 900 years out of date. This bugs the shit out of me. Trelane’s style of dress, as well as  the references he makes, are all from the late 18th to early 19th centuries. Star Trek takes place in the 2260s. So the information he as is, at most, 450-500 years out of date.

Admittedly, I’m not an astrophysicist, so I might just be missing something. At any rate, back to the episode.

Kirk points this out to him, and Trelane asks if he made an error, commenting, “How fallible of me.” Kirk gets to the point: he wants to know why Trelane has imprisoned them  here.

Trelane takes some umbrage at this, saying that they’re not prisoners, but rather honored guests. He then starts asking them about all their battles and conquests, which he seems to be a little too interested in. Kirk tells him their mission is a peaceful one, and that they only fight if there’s no other option. Trelane doesn’t buy this.

Kirk tells him again to let them go back to their ship, but Trelane insists that they stay for dinner and tell them all about, you know, wars and stuff. While he’s going on about this, McCoy takes out a tricorder and starts scanning him.

Trelane wanders off, and Kirk goes back to his men. He sees Desalle move to draw his phaser, but tells him to wait and put it on stun. Trelane notices the name Desalle, and asks him if he’s French, in French. Desalle responds, in English, that he does have French ancestry, and Trelane says something else in French. He then adds, in English, that he’s a pretty big fan of Napoleon.

Kirk introduces the others, and Trelane welcomes them to his home. For Sulu, he bows to him and calls him “honorable sir.” Sulu’s reaction is to ask if Trelane is kidding. Yeah, there’s a couple racial references that didn’t age well in this episode.

He speaks German to Jaeger while marching around. Jaeger responds that he’s not a soldier, he’s a scientist. Desalle, in the meantime, positions himself to try and get a clear shot at Trelane.

He doesn’t get very far, though, because there’s a mirror directly behind Trelane, and he can see his reflection. Desalle is frozen,and Trelane takes a great deal of interest in his phaser. He figures it out pretty quickly, and joyfully vaporizes a number of items in the room before Kirk gets the phaser from him.

Kirk asks Trelane if he plans to kill them, and Trelane calls his suspicions typically human. He then guesses Kirk wants to know how he managed all the things that they’re looking at right now. Long story short, he has technology that can convert energy to matter, and vice versa, which he used to build everything.

Trelane is bored with Kirk’s questions, and tells the others to just  chill with him for a while. The captain, however, is not interested in chilling, and tells the others that they’re leaving. Trelane tells them they’re being rude, and that they’re not leaving. Then, to demonstrate who’s really in charge here, he teleports Kirk to the part of the planet he doesn’t have control over.

So, that’s not fun for Kirk, but Trelane brings him back before he dies. He tells the captain that he’d better be nice to him, or he’s going to get really pissed off. Seeing as how he’s already pretty pissed, going along with it is probably for the best.

On the Enterprise, they’ve managed to locate a stable region. Scotty asks how Spock would explain that, but Spock points out that he can’t, it just exists. He adds that if the crew are still alive, they’d be in that small area, and tells Scotty to beam up any life in that region.

At the castle  Trelane shows off his collection of battle flags, gushing over armies marching to their deaths. The Enterprise crew, however, is not relaly paying attention, as Sulu asks who Trelane is and where he came from.

McCoy tells them he scanned Trelane, and that he shouldn’t exist. Desalle notices that the fire isn’t giving off any heat. Kirk takes this information and concludes Trelane is not omnipotent.

Trelane notices their discussion and seems amused that they’re plotting behind his back. Kirk tells him that they’re not planning anything, but Trelane hushes him, saying that he admires humanity’s capability for deception.

Kirk tries to appeal to Trelane’s sense of duty, saying that they have tasks they need to get back to on the ship, but joke’s on him; Trelane has no sense of duty. He tells the captain that they all have to stay because he’s bored.

The captain tries, again, to tell him that they need to go back, and that there are 400 men and women aboard the ship that they need to get back to. Trelane’s ears perk up at Kirk mentioning that there are women in the crew. And then tells Kirk that he’s going to bring them down to the planet.

The captain is less than charmed by this, and tells him that they’re personnel aboard the ship that have very important jobs to do. Trelane, as you can imagine, is not thrilled at being told no.

At this point, McCoy’s communicator starts beeping because he’s getting a transporter signal. Trelane asks what that means, and Kirk responds that it means “the party’s over, thanks to Mr. Spock.” Then the five are beamed back up to the ship, to Trelane’s protests.

Spock meets them in the transporter room, and Kirk asks how they were able to find them, with the radiation clogging up the sensors. Spock tells him about his plan, and McCoy says that means Trelane isn’t a life form, since he’s not with them now.

Kirk, however, has had enough of this, and tells them to get the ship the fuck out of there at top speed.

On the bridge,  Uhura asks McCoy what was on the planet, but McCoy can’t really give her an answer due to how fucking weird the whole situation was. Then the yeoman, whose name is Ross, notices something.

That something is Trelane, standing on the bridge, with a smug-ass look on his face.

He asks  which one of the crew is Spock, as he’s not happy with the first officer for beaming away his guests. Spock tells him who he is, and Trelane scoffs that he can’t be an officer, seeing as how he’s not human. Racist.

Spock, who already doesn’t like Trelane, tells him his father is from Vulcan. Trelane responds by asking if Vulcans are predatory. Spock responds, “Not generally, but there have been exceptions.”

Yeah, Spock’s about to throw hands.

Trelane demands that Kirk punish Spock, but Kirk’s like, um, no. He tells Trelane to GTFO, but Trelane decides nope, he’s going to bring the whole bridge crew back to the planet with him.

Which he does. He then asks if they agree that his drawing room is more appealing than the bridge of the Enterprise. Sulu says nope, and Trelane says it’s more fitting before bowing and calling him “honorable sir” again.

Desalle thinks so too and gets up to accost him, but gets frozen for his trouble. Trelane, though, is amused, as he is by most of the things the crew has done so far except trying to leave. Kirk tells Trelane to release him, which he does.

Trelane decides that it’s not a good idea to freak them out too much, but reminds them that provoking him is also not a good idea. He invites them all to sit, eat, and chat with him for a while. Not really having much of a choice, the crew complies.

Trelane then notices Ross and Uhura, and demands that Kirk introduce them to him. He does, and Trelane refers to Uhura as “a nubian prize,” bending to kiss her hand. He adds that she must have been taken on a raid, which Uhura is clearly not too happy about.

Which, honestly, big fucking mood.

He turns to Ross and compares her to Helen of Troy, before leaning in to kiss her. Kirk puts a stop to that  and pulls him away towards Spock to give him a more formal introduction.

Trelane tells Spock that it’s “in deference to the captain” that he brought Spock with because, again, he doesn’t like Spock much. Spock’s like, OK, and Trelane tells him that he’s not fond of his tone, taking it as a challenge.

Spock then replies with a truly Vulcan burn: “I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline. I object to power without constructive purpose.” Trelane then decides that Spock doesn’t have very good manners, and he’s actually amused by this.

He demands that Ross dances with him, and Uhura to play for them. Uhura objects that she doesn’t know how to play the harpsichord, but Trelane fixes this with a wave of the hand.

While Ross and Trelane are dancing Sulu asks the captain how long they’re supposed to play along. Kirk tells him until they figure out how to get out this mess. As Sulu goes to leave, McCoy reveals that nothing their eating has any actual flavor. Which seems to go with the fire not giving off any heat.

Spock says that this is logical, but not unexpected. Kirk asks how, and Spock says he doesn’t find it odd that Trelane, having not actually been to Earth, would know what things from the planet should look like, but nothing else. Kirk repeats the point that Trelane is clearly not all powerful, and that he must have some kind of device that’s doing all this.

At this point, Trelane decides that Ross’s uniform isn’t appropriate for the situation, and changes it for a very brightly colored, Pride And Prejudice-ass dress.

That’s certainly a look.

Kirk notices that Trelane never goes far from the mirror, and Spock deduces that the mirror clearly has something to do with this. They then think for a moment about what kind of machine would do all that, and Kirk decides that he might be able to turn off the part that’s making all this stuff while leaving the part that lets them breathe intact.

He then puts on a show of insulting Trelane, calling him immature and demanding Ross stop dancing with him. This causes Trelane to decide that Kirk is jealous, and it escalates to Kirk challenging him to a duel.

A whole-ass, Aaron-Burr-killing-Alexander-Hamilton duel. Complete with Kirk slapping Trelane with a glove.

Trelane is actually excited about this. Kirk moves to shoot first, but Trelane wants the first shot. Kirk tells them they’ll do it at the same time, but relents when he threatens to shoot Spock instead. Trelane, however, doesn’t actually shoot the captain; he shoots the ceiling.

This proves to be a mistake, however, because Kirk  uses his pistol to shoot out the mirror, and the device behind it.

This causes everything to go wonky. to Trelane’s extreme displeasure. However, it also allows the interference to clear up, so they can contact the ship and leave. Kirk tells Trelane that it’s over.

Trelane tells them to go back, but it doesn’t matter: they’re all dead, especially Kirk. Trelane then moves to a wall and disappears. Kirk has had enough of his shenanigans, and has the ship beam them back up.

Back aboard the ship, They prepare to head out, and there’s a kind of funny moment where Ross, still in her dress, asks the captain if it’s OK for her to go change. He tells her that’s fine, adding, “Turn in your glass slippers. The ball is over.” I just thought that was cute.

They’re all ready to go, but there’s a bit of an issue: no matter how fast they go, or which direction their headed in, the planet is still there. Trelane really, really doesn’t want them to leave.

The captain seems to come to a revelation, and decides that he’s beaming back down, against McCoy’s advice. Basically, he’s going down to see Trelane to try and get him to release his old on the ship. He leaves, telling them that if he’s not back within an hour to leave.

On the planet, Kirk enters a courtroom, with Trelane as the judge. Trelane says breaking his stuff won’t work this time, and Kirk just tells him he’s done with this bullshit.

Trelane, though, is not, and tells Kirk that he’s being put on trial for treason, as well conspiracy and insurrection. Kirk tells Trelane he just wants control of his ship back, and that he should take out his anger on him, not his crew.

Trelane isn’t particularly willing to listen to Kirk, and sentences him to death by hanging. After this, though, Trelane expresses delight at having actually experienced true anger. He’s still going to hang Kirk, but at least he’s having fun.

Kirk, however, has a plan. He plays on Trelane’s boredom, telling him that just hanging him wouldn’t be any fun, and suggests that Trelane hunt him instead. He’ll play along as long as Trelane lets the ship go. Trelane thinks that this is a fine idea.

Trelane teleports Kirk outside, and Kirk calls up to the ship to tell them to get as far away as they can, and that he’s buying them time. It does not go through. Trelane then pops in and chases Kirk, taunting him as he keeps trying to reach the Enterprise. He catches up, and Kirk manages to get Trelane’s sword from him.

Kirk strikes, but Trelane teleports out of the way, commending him for his first strike. Trelane takes his sword back, and the fight begins again, Kirk eventually trying to fight him off with a tree branch. Kirk makes it back to the castle, only to find it locked.

Trelane catches up, and manages to trap Kirk. Kirk reminds him of his promise, but Trelane wants to bring the whole crew down to the planet to play with. He tries to get the captain to submit, but he won’t, to Trelane’s intense displeasure.

Kirk then grabs and breaks Trelane’s sword, telling him he has a lot to learn before slapping him in the face. Trelane accuses him of cheating, and then the weirdest part of the episode happens.

Trelanes parents show up. And Trelane’s parents are floating orbs of green light.

They chastise him for being a little asshole, and tell him that it’s time to come home. Trelane argues with them childishly (because, if you couldn’t tell, he’s actually a child), but they won’t be swayed and teleport him away from the planet. Then they apologize to Kirk for the trouble Trelane caused him, and that they’re going to keep the life support in this area up until he can return to his ship.

Kirk’s expression basically screams “what the fuck just happened.”

Anyway, he calls the ship, and is able to get through this time. They beam him up, and, back on the ship, Uhura tells him that they’re near their original destination, colony Beta 6. Spock comes up to the captain, and asks him how he would best describe Trelane, giving a bunch of options for what he was and that they need some kind of classification for him.

Kirk says he should be classified as a “god of war,” which Spock doesn’t really find appropriate. Kirk responds that if that’s not the case, then he should be classified as a young mischievous boy, albeit a strange one. He amends that, and says that Trelane’s behavior probably isn’t all that different from pranks Spock may have pulled as a child.

Spock, of course, has no idea what the captain’s talking about. He starts giving examples, but stops at Spock’s mildly horrified look. He then asks Spock to forgive him, which Spock does. The episode ends with Spock looking a bit perturbed.

So that was “The Squire of Gothos.” I think, thus far, this episode is probably my favorite. William Campbell, the actor who played Trelane, gives an excellent performance, and as I mentioned above, it’s just fun. It has a lot of humorous moments, and features Spock as his sassiest.

It does leave the question of what Trelane and his parents are unanswered, but that isn’t particularly important to the episode. I should note, however, that there is a Star Trek novel called Q-Squared in which it’s revealed that Trelane is actually a Q, a race of omnipotent beings introduced in The Next Generation. The novels, however, are considered non-canonical, and the Q Continuum didn’t exist, so that probably didn’t stick.

It is interesting, though, that Trelane may have influenced the Q that we see most often in Next Generation, Voyager and one memorable episode of Deep Space Nine, played by John DeLancie. They do have a number of personality traits in common, particularly an interest in humans, as well as liking to torment them for his own amusement.

Also, I just realized that no one actually died in this episode. So, there’s that.

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