Captain's Blog pt. 57: The Squire of Gothos

Airing for the first time on January 12, 1967, the same night Dragnet aired its hilariously bad "The LSD Story" episode:

Title: 2 out of 3 pts. Nothing allusional or theme-refracting here but neither is it generic or imprecise. Plus it foreshadows the hierarchy reveal at episode's end.

Guest: 3.5 out of  3 pts. Let's start with the Squire himself:

I suppose one could argue his more memorable Trek role is that of Koloth, the Klingon captain from "The Trouble with Tribbles" and later reprised for DS9. But I prefer him as Trelane. An energetic performance that truly captures both the childlike spirit and the martial-Old-Europe-fop that the part calls for.

It's been suggested that Trelane is actually a Q. Personally, I prefer to think he's a separate entity, but it's certainly plausible enough. Obviously, no one had Q in mind when this originally aired, but if it was retconned that way, I don't think anyone could reasonably cry foul. There is a pretty good Marvel comic that has Q and Trelane playing chess and pitting Kirk and Picard against one another for their own amusement. 

Campbell was a longtime friend of Roddenberry's and Jimmy Doohan's and very active and popular at conventions, in addition to contributing many anecdotes and impressions to the original cast's memoirs. I always assumed he was the father of Billy Campbell, who came a stone's throw away from being cast as Riker in TNG. But apparently he wasn't.

The other guest star of note:

Venita Wolf as Yeoman Ross

She's neither terrific nor terrible, but she's certainly fine for a somewhat boilerplate role. She never shows up again. 

There's this one somewhat odd interaction with the Captain when they escape Trelane for the second time:

Odd mainly for the Captain's reaction.

Visual Design: 2.5 of 3 pts. Trelane's castle and drawing room are great.

It features some interesting objects, one of which I'll save for the next category. But two of note:

Nice callback to "The Man Trap." We can presume Trelane "peeked in" on Planet M-113 at some point and not that he buys his statuary from the TOS Surplus Mega-Store. (McCoy's double take as they pass it is a nice touch.)

This (screencapped a split-second before Trelane obliterates it with DeSalle's phaser) would appear to be some variation of the bird-like creature we can see briefly in the original version of "The Cage."

They enjoyed re-using props - and why not? It's cost-effective - even from whole other shows:

That text reads: "'The Humanoid Bird' from "The Cage" consisted of the long beak and facial appliances of the Megasoid from The Outer Limits episode "The Duplicate Man," and the feathered head-wig thing from the Empyrian from The Outer Limits episode "Second Chance." Image from TrekBBS.

And as always lighting is used to excellent effect during key scenes.

This image in particular has stayed with me over the years.

Incidentally, I love the way flames look in TOS.

Kirk and the Gang: 20 of 10. Everyone does good work here. Not much to say, really.

Shatner lets loose a little bit in his courtroom scene with Trelane:

His hands moved too fast for me to screencap them effectively, unfortunately,

But there's some fine gesticulation'.

Internal Logistics: 1.5 of 3 pts. For the most part, I'm happy to roll with the whole set-up. Only two things worth mentioning: 1) Trelane's mistaken ideas re: how Earthmen behave is due to the distance between Gothos and Earth. (900 light years.) Yet, he references both Napoleon and Alexander Hamilton, which would be 1800-ish.

They probably hadn't nailed down TOS in the 23rd century just yet, so maybe they were toying with the idea of the show taking place in 2700.

Just worth mentioning. Maybe.

2) I kind of like the peripheral characters who pop up from time to time, like DeSalle, but someone really needs to talk to him about how to sneak up on someone.

I find it hard to believe he doesn't know how mirrors work.

Script and Story: 7.5 / 7 (of 10/10) pts. The first draft had more of an anti-war feel to it. Paul Schneider says he got the idea watching children play war. It's still there, somewhat, but certainly not the focus of the episode. Nor does it have to be. It's a cool little story, and I've enjoyed the ending twist with the parents showing up ever since I was a kid.

The script is full of great lines. I still use "You have one saving grace; you're ill-mannered" (and Spock's comment that precipitates that, as well) on a fairly regular basis.

Let's all have some coffee.

 

"But I haven't finished studying my predators yet..."

Memorability: 3.5 of 5 pts. I'd say this one's pretty well known and referenced among Trekkies and Trekkers, but I'm amazed at how many civilians have referenced this bit to me over the years:

"And I believe it's pronounced... Tallyho."

I have no explanation. I mean, it's always been exactly what I think of when I hear either "Felicitations" or "Tallyho," but I figured that was just me.

Total Points Awarded: 47.5