“When the Enterprise is captured on a planet ruled by a childish alien who is fascinated with Napoleon, Kirk offers his life for his crew’s freedom.”
We open with a blonde yeoman handing out coffee on the bridge. Why was there no coffee on the bridge of the Enterprise-D?
Bones compares the void they’re flying through to a desert. Because stardust? I don’t know. Spock says he isn’t sure why they would romanticize a waterless wasteland, and Bones attempts to insult him by saying his brainwaves are mathematically perfect. Spock takes this as a complement instead. Space racism!
And they’ve found a previously- undiscovered mystery planet! They can’t report it due to subspace interference. When they try to go around, Sulu disappears, followed quickly by Kirk. Dramatic cut to opening credits!
***
The Enterprise scans the planet and determined two unprotected humans would die quickly on the surface. Navigator DeSalle wants to beam down anyway, but Spock says it’s his decision and he needs more information. Suddenly, a message pops up on Uhura’s viewscreen, reading “Greetings and Felicitations” in olde-English font. Spock asks the sender to identify themself, and gets a response of “Hip-hip-hoorah. Tallyho!”
Spock sends DeSalle, geologist Jaeger, and Bones to the surface. They beam down to a perfectly nice soundstage, where McCoy mispronounces Jaeger’s name with a hard “j.” Their communicators and laser beacon don’t work, and now DeSalle is mispronouncing Jaeger’s name too. They find a castle and enter.
***
One of the castle’s decorations is a taxidermied salt vampire.
***
Kirk and Sulu are frozen in green light. The tricorder doesn’t pick up life signs. Suddenly, a dandy fop appears playing a harpsichord, says Kirk and Sulu make great decorations but the crew must want them back, and reanimates them. He introduces himself as General Trelane, retired, and invites them to stay.
Evidently he’s been observing Earth of 900 years prior, which doesn’t quite line up with the TOS timeline, but ok.
Kirk asks why they’ve been imprisoned but Trelane tells them they aren’t prisoners, they’re guests, and he wants to know what they think of war and killing. Then he overheard Kirk saying DeSalle’s last name and starts speaking French to him. Kirk introduces the rest of the crew, pronouncing Jaeger’s name correctly by declaring him to be a meteorologist, because it’s the 60s so fuck your field. Jaeger doesn’t object any more than to having his name repeatedly mispronounced.
Trelane makes fun of Jaeger for being German, and then freezes DeSalle when he tries to stun him with his phaser. Trelane gets the phaser and starts shooting stuff, and is delighted that it could potentially kill millions.
Turns out Trelane can turn matter into energy and back again, and alter its shape whenever he wants, because of course he can.
Kirk says it’s time to go, but Trelane says he’s being rude, and to demonstrate his authority, sends temporarily Kirk out of the protected space of the castle and into the unlivable environment of the rest of the planet.
***
On the Enterprise, the search is ongoing. They’ve diverted impulse power to the sense-ors and seem to have found Trelane’s area. Continuing along the theme of weird or straight-up wrong pronunciation, Spock refers to Scotty as “Mr. Scat.”
They’ve determined that if Kirk and the crew are alive, they have to be in the one stable region. The plan now is to beam up any life forms they detect. We know it’ll be the right people, but they don’t, which makes it a very sketchy plan.
***
Trelane is showing off his collection of six mostly-European flags and declaring them to represent Earth’s battle flags an pennants, dating back to Hannibal. I see two modern French flags, one Italian, one Armenian, one that looks possibly Austrian, and one that I swear is Jamaican. All are modern. He’s very into the idea of people dying in battle, abc goes back to his harpsichord.
McCoy says he can’t read Trelane in his tricorder at all. Jaeger also points out that the fire in the fireplace isn’t giving off heat.
Kirk tried to convince Trelane that they need to return to the Enterprise because of their duty. Trelane says they have to stay because he’s bored. Kirk makes the mistake of saying they have 400 men and women aboard, and Trelane gets super excited that there are women.
McCoy gets a signal from the Enterprise and the crew is beamed aboard. They attempt to warp away, but Trelane appears on the bridge. He calls out Spock and says he doesn’t like him. Then he transports everyone from before, plus Spock, Uhura, and a yeoman, back to the surface.
He also keeps bowing to Sulu and calling him “honorable sir,” which seems to irritate Sulu (it coming across as mildly racist and all)
Trelane then introduces himself to the female crew members. He declares Uhura to be a “Nubian prize,” taken on a raid of conquest. This does not go over well. Uhura gives him SUCH a look.
He then compares Yeoman Ross to Helen of Troy and moves to kiss her, but Kirk holds him back.
He then goes to Spock and declares his tone to be “challenging.” Spock calmly states that he objects to Trelane. He objects to intellect without discipline, and power without constructive purpose. This is a really great line and very much on brand for Spock.
Trelane then makes Uhura able to play the harpsichord so he can dance with Ross. He changes Ross’s uniform into an actually pretty darn cute, lavender, empire-waist dress with a train and feathery hair clip.
Spock determines that the mirror might be the source of Trelane’s power. Kirk begins to hatch a plan.
Kirk starts acting jealous of Trelane dancing with Ross, and challenges him to a duel. Trelane gets all excited and brings out a pair of matching pistols to fight with. Kirk shoots the mirror and everything goes haywire. Trelane tells them to go back to the Enterprise and prepare to die.
***
Back aboard the Enterprise, they prepare to go to warp to escape the planet. Uhura asks if she should send a report to “Space Fleet Command,” but Kirk says to wait until they’re clear. Ross asks permission to get back into uniform.
Suddenly, the planet appears in front of them. They change course and the planet appears in front of them again. This happens a few times until Kirk decides to go into orbit and beam down. He tells Spock that if he doesn’t return in an hour to leave without him.
Kirk appears in a courtroom with Trelane as the bewigged judge. He agrees to plead guilty if Trelane will let the Enterprise go. Trelane sentences him to death by hanging. Kirk tells him it isn’t sporting and convinces him to play a violent version of hide and seek instead. Eventually Trelane captures him but refuses to let the Enterprise go. Kirk realizes Trelane is basically a child, breaks his sword, and slaps him. Then Trelane’s parents appear as green lights and tell him it’s time to come in, then apologize effusively to Kirk and tell him he’s free to go.
***
Back on the Enterprise, Spock asks Kirk how to classify Trelane. He ultimately says he was a naughty small boy. Spock says he was very strange, and Kirk says what he did was comparable to dipping little girls’ curls in inkwells or tying cans to cats’ tails. Spock looks genuinely horrified at this, as should we all.
***
Overall I really liked this one. It was goofy, but fun. And the idea of an alien species developing at a different rate than humans fits Star Trek very well. It would have been interesting if Q had turned out to be a small child of his species, honestly.
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