1x17 The Squire of Gothos

[7.9/10.] I grew up with The Next Generation as my entrée into the Star Trek Universe, and many of my favorite episodes centered around Q, the pain-in-the-ass, mischievous, seemingly all-powerful being who returned time after time to liven up things around the enterprise while being a considerable thorn in Captain Picard’s side. So the “Squire of Gothos” which features Trelane, a similarly omnipotent and similarly impish foil for Captain Kirk and his crew, has the ring of pleasant familiarity, and is squarely in my wheelhouse.

These extra-dimensional troublemakers like Q, Trelane, and Superman’s Mister Mxyzptlk are so much fun because they bring an air of possibility and enjoyable lunacy every time they show up. While Captain Kirk is not quite the vision of dignity his TNG successor was, Starfleet can still be a fairly stuffy bunch. The presence of someone who introduces a bit more whimsy into the equation and who cannot, like the similarly colorful Harry Mudd, simply be corralled by the security team, creates a funny and challenging problem for our heroes.

That problem arises when the crew of the Enterprise runs into the planet Gothos in what’s supposed to be a “space desert.” After Kirk and Sulu disappear, Spock sends a search party down to the planet, who encounter the spritely Trelane. A being of immense power, “General Trelane (retired)” has a fascination with Earth’s predators, and has replicated the form, if not the substance, of Earth’s past culture in an estate where he’s holding the Enterprise’s Captain and its helmsmen. The attempts to return to the ship and to escape Trelane’s dangerous abilities make up the bulk of the episode’s adventures.

What makes “Squire of Gothos” so entertaining, in contrast to some other “weird powerful being of the week” episodes is how much damn fun Trelane is. William Campbell is a delight as Trelane, whose boisterous but playful bravado is one part John Delancey, one part Bruce Campbell, and one part Kenneth Branagh. One of the elements that always made the Q/Picard pairing work is the contrast between Picard’s stoicism and Q’s outsized demeanor. “Gothos” hits the same mark here with Kirk and Trelane. Kirk is toned down a bit, reserving his smiles and humor for a creepy leer at his yeoman and a ribbing of Spock, which makes the exaggerated qualities of Trelane stand out.

It also helps that “Gothos” lets Trelane bounce off of Spock a bit, with the placid Vulcan clearly perturbed by the incorrigible trickster god. Text cannot capture the great delivery of Leonard Nimoy when Trelane asks if Vulcans are a predatory species and Spock replies, “Not generally -- but there have been exceptions.” Spock is so reserved that when he intimates a threat, he comes off as a complete and total badass.

The same goes for the delightful exchange where Trelane essentially asks what Spock’s problem is; Spock replies, “I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline. I object to power without constructive purpose,” and Trelane retorts, “Oh, Mister Spock, you do have one saving grace after all. You're ill-mannered.” Spock’s statement has an unanticipated resonance fifty years later, and the exchange speaks to the conflicting personalities, philosophies, and temperaments that make the two characters such interesting foils for one another.

But those sorts of character clashes are only half of what makes episodes like “Squire of Gothos” interesting. The other half is one of the aspects of Star Trek that’s hard-coded into the franchise’s DNA – creative problem solving. The prospect of an antagonist who is nearly omnipotent, so he can’t be overpowered; so advanced and patronizing to humans that he can’t be reasoned with, and so committed to toying with others and entertaining themselves that they can’t be appealed to creates a particularly unique challenge for the crew of the Enterprise.

It essentially requires Kirk, Spock, and the others to have to trick a god. And trick they do! Kirk uses Trelane’s desire to have the human experience, to emulate these “predators,” to give him the upper hand and allow his ship to escape. It’s indulging Trelane in a duel that allows Kirk to shoot the mirror that (maybe?) powers Trelane’s estate, and it’s the promise of a hunt and a sharper version of that experience that lets Kirk try to allow the rest of the Enterprise crew to leave and eventually buys him enough time to be rescued.

The (nigh-literal) deus ex machina ending takes some of the wind out of the sails of these schemes. There’s something to be said for the idea that it’s Kirk’s cleverness that keeps Trelane occupied long enough for his parents to notice. But for the most part, it’s just the arrival of some even more powerful beings that saves the Enterprise’s bacon. It works in one of those “aint the galaxy weird?” ways that Star Trek is fond off, but it takes away some of the agency of the characters.

By the same token, the reveal that Trelane is actually just a child in his species is one of those sci-fi twists that is cool enough in principle, but which has been played out in parodies and homages (most notably Futurama’s) and by cultural osmosis that it’s hard for it to have any real meaning or impact. The idea of dealing with a being with the powers of a god and the temperament of a child is a solid premise (and a scary one for those of us here in January 2017), and it recontextualizes the events of the prior hour nicely, but it’s not as novel anymore.

Still, “Squire of Gothos” stands out for being tons of fun regardless of its twists or resolution. There’s some of the same issues of not having enough plot to fill the hour that it, like many episodes in Star Trek’s early going, are guilty of. But on the whole, the episode is an enjoyable romp from the minute Trelane shows up on screen, presenting a colorful figure and unique problem for our heroes to solve. For someone who grew up with Q, “Squire of Gothos” with its prankster deity putting the captain of the Enterprise on trial, made me feel right at home.