The Squire of Gothos

__NOTOC__ST episode
name = The Squire of Gothos


Trelane toys with his captives
series = TOS
ep_num = 17
prod_num = 018
remas._num = 39
date = January 12 1967
writer = Paul Schneider
director = Don McDougall
guest = William Campbell
Richard Carlyle
Venita Wolf
Michael Barrier
Eddie Paskey
Barbara Babcock
Bartell LaRue
stardate = 2124.5
year = 2266
prev = The Galileo Seven
next = Arena

"The Squire of Gothos" is an episode of "". It was first broadcast by NBC on January 12, 1967 and repeated on June 22, 1967. It is episode #17, production #18, and was written by Paul Schneider, and directed by Don McDougall.

Overview: A powerful being torments the crew of the "Enterprise".

Plot

On stardate 2124.5, the starship USS "Enterprise", under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, is on an 8-day supply mission to Colony Beta VI. Along the journey, the ship encounters a rogue planet drifting through space. Without the time to really stop and investigate it, Kirk orders the planet to be recorded for a future exploration mission and to continue with their original heading. Suddenly, Kirk and Lt. Sulu are teleported from the bridge.

Spock believes that the two must have been taken to the mysterious planet below even though sensor readings indicate the planet's atmosphere is lethal to most forms of life. The "Enterprise" then receives a strange message on a viewscreen in blackletter writing, "Greetings and Felicitations!" followed by "Hip hip hoorah. Tallyho!" Spock orders Dr. McCoy, along with Lt. DeSalle and geophysicist Karl Jaeger, to form a landing party and conduct a search.

The landing party beams down and finds the area to be a lush and breathable environment, contradicting Jager's original scans that the world was barren and couldn't support life. They also come to what appears to be a medieval castle constructed in the middle of nowhere. They soon find Captain Kirk and Lt. Sulu, along with a brash and impetuous being who identifies himself as "General Trelane, Retired". McCoy's medical tricorder does not get any readings from Trelane and according to the scanner nothing is there. Trelane invites everyone to stay as his guests on his world he calls Gothos and discuss his favorite subject: the military history of Earth.

Spock, meanwhile, manages to locate the landing party in a minute zone of breathable atmosphere, and beams everyone, except Trelane, back to the ship by locking onto every detectable lifeform in the area. Unwilling to let his guests leave, Trelane makes an appearance on the "Enterprise's" bridge. He then brings the entire bridge crew back down to the planet. This time he includes Spock, Uhura and Yeoman Teresa Ross.

Kirk's patience begins to wear thin, especially when Trelane dances with Yeoman Ross and changes her uniform into a flowing formal ball gown. Kirk and Spock both notice that their host never strays far from a particular wall mirror where they surmise that the mirror may be the source of his powers. To test this theory, Kirk provokes Trelane into a duel and during the fight he destroys the mirror and damages some strange machinery inside. It is discovered that Trelane uses this machine to manipulate matter for his amusement. The bridge crew manages to beam back to the "Enterprise" but, as the ship warps away, Gothos keeps appearing in its path. Kirk orders the "Enterprise" into orbit and is going to beam down. As he enters the turbolift, he suddenly finds himself in a witness stand in a courtroom back on Gothos where the angry Trelane confronts him dressed in the white wig and robes of a magistrate. Trelane tells Kirk he must face a trial for "treason". Over Kirk's protests, Trelane condemns Kirk to death by hanging. However, Kirk, to stall the execution, plays off of Trelane's childish whims by presenting him with a better idea.

In order to have his ship released, Kirk offers himself as the prey for a royal hunt. Trelane gleefully accepts and the hunt begins. Just as Trelane is about to kill Kirk, two energy beings appear and put a stop to his fun. It is revealed that Trelane is the "child" of the two beings. After apologizing to Kirk for their child's misbehavior, the beings disappear along with the whining Trelane, and Kirk is allowed to return to the ship.

40th Anniversary remastering

This episode was re-mastered in 2006 and was first aired July 21, 2007 as part of the remastered 40th Anniversary original series. It was preceded one week earlier by the remastered version of "Charlie X" and followed a week later by "This Side of Paradise". Aside from remastered video and audio, and the all-CGI animation of the Enterprise that is standard among the revisions, specific changes to this episode also include:

*The planet Gothos has been given realistic detail, including flashes of thunderstorms under the cloud layer. This coincides with Trelane's welcome of the crew to his "stormy" planet.
*The glowing effect of Trelane's parent entities was cleaned up and enhanced.
*The scene where the "Enterprise" is chased down by Gothos has been reworked, with more dramatic dives and passes played out on the main viewer.

Notes

* Years later, when "" introduced The Q, a being/race with similar powers to Trelane (only more powerful), and a similar love of costumes and causing mischief for other life-forms, fans immediately began speculating that Trelane might have been a member of the Q Continuum. One novel by Peter David, "Q-Squared" featured Trelane and suggested that he was, indeed, a Q.
*It was stated that the planet was discovered 900 light years from Earth, and that everything Trelane knew came from direct observation. Since the series was set in the 23rd Century, observation should have been of events in the 14th Century and not the 19th Century. In truth, at the time the episode was made, the approximate time of the series had not yet been fixed - "Space Seed" and "Tomorrow is Yesterday" suggest 200 years from the 1990s, but in "", "Star Trek" is basically retconned to the 2260s, one hundred years prior to the Enterprise D's launch date in 2364.
*In the "Futurama" episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before", the crew meets the cast of "Star Trek:TOS" and are manipulated by a being who ends up being a child (though 34), parodying this episode.
*Barbara Babcock, who starred in two Trek episodes; "A Taste of Armageddon", and "Plato's Stepchildren", was the voice of Trelane's mother at the end of this episode. She was also the voice of Isis the cat and the Beta 5 computer in "" and the voice of Zetar in "The Lights of Zetar". James Doohan has long been credited with providing the voice of Trelane's father.
*The name of the waltz that Uhura plays on the harpsichord is "Rosen aus dem Süden" ("Roses from the South", in English). Presumably the piece was chosen by Uhura rather than Trelane, as it was composed in 1880 and Trelane's knowledge of Earth appears to stop at the Napoleonic Era.
*While romancing Yeoman Ross, Trelane quotes from Christopher Marlowe's "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus".
*One of the props seen in Trelane's home is the Salt Creature from the first season episode "The Man Trap", suggesting that the Salt Creatures were another predatory species that Trelane had "studied".
*In the episode, Trelane says to Kirk, of Uhura: "Ah, a Nubian prize. Taken on one of your raids of conquest, no doubt." During filming, William Campbell blew the line with the embarrassing blooper, "Ah, a Nubian slave!" According to Campbell, Nichelle Nichols responded, "I'll kick you in the ankle!"Fact|date=June 2008
*William Campbell also portrayed the Klingon captain Koloth in the episode The Trouble with Tribbles.
* This is one of many TOS episodes with a dystheistic theme, where a supernatural or otherwise powerful being seeks to control and enslave living beings, but where Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise fight back to stop this from happening (e.g., "Who Mourns for Adonais?", "Return of the Archons", "Day of the Dove").

External links