TOS - The Squire of Gothos

[cdrood]

I think some actors just love doing over the top silly every once in a while. Just hamming it up to the max. It can work if the role and the story allow for it. William Campbell did a great job of playing a child pretending to be a grown up. He's seen the behaviors, but doesn't have emotional maturity to pull it off when things go off script.

[Yukaphile]

It's a classic.

[MerelyAFan]

Getting to Chuck's point about pulling managing a threatening villain without necessarily needing a big body count to do it, I think Trelane does remind me of another TNG antagonist in that regard with Kivas Fajo.

Both characters are childish in certain aspects, have fascinations with items/cultures which drive their personalities, and kidnap a member of the Enterprise crew for their personal entertainment. Neither immediately seems like an outright threat given their vibes, but slowly demonstrates the danger as the story goes on.

Admittedly, TNG plays up Fajo's genuine menace a bit more and does have him executing Varria within the last five minutes of the episode. However its not hard to imagine a version of Squire of Gothos where Trelane does kill someone like a redshirt to see what its like, and how that would intensify his hunt of Kirk. The story doesn't need that, but the character elements were there to pull off if they had wanted to.

[Yukaphile]

Yeah, cuz Trelane can move his frickin' planet in front of them!

[Makeshift Python]

You know... I have to wonder if... When Gene Roddenberry was reworking the original "Encounter at Far Point" into a two part story by adding all the Q material he didn't originally use Trelane in the script.

That he liked the character and wanted to rehash him... but he changed the name to keep from having to pay royalties to this episode's writer, Paul Schneider.

Like how Tom Paris bears no resemblance to any character who might have appeared in "Star Trek: The Next Generation".

Money could have played a factor in why Locarno was replaced with Paris, but my understanding is that Jeri Taylor also felt that Locarno did deeds that left the character irredeemable. It's the same reason she killed off Suder when she took over from Piller. This is why there's one difference with Paris: He confessed on his own accord, apparently that makes all the difference as far as Taylor was concerned.

[MyUserName]

I did like that Chuck mentioned Q-Squared, definitely one of the best Star Trek novels. It also gave reasons for any disrepencies between Trelane and the rest of the continuum (at least in the pre-Voyager days), like the technology he uses is basically training wheels for young Q that he has outgrown by the time of TNG.

Q-Squared is definitely a fantastic novel that really stretched its science fiction premise of different universes colliding and explored Trelane on a fantastic level. I even liked how

[SPOILERS] It turns out Trelane is Q's son. Q had an affair with Trelanes mother who was already married to a high ranking Q. It adds a touch of bitter sweetness to both characters how Trelane is his fathers son, but can never truly know it and Q can never truly bond with his son the way he'd like to. [/SPOILERS]

[griffeytrek]

Star Fleet needs to be reinstroduced to the concept of a cup holder. The bridge crew is reduced to placing their coffee cups on surfaces inclined towards their laps. The scalding potential is high.

But as a positive side note, they'll still be making Solo Cups into the 23rd century. So you might want to invest in there stock!

[griffeytrek]

You know... I have to wonder if... When Gene Roddenberry was reworking the original "Encounter at Far Point" into a two part story by adding all the Q material he didn't originally use Trelane in the script.

That he liked the character and wanted to rehash him... but he changed the name to keep from having to pay royalties to this episode's writer, Paul Schneider.

Like how Tom Paris bears no resemblance to any character who might have appeared in "Star Trek: The Next Generation".

Could be. A counter to that is the simple fact that Roddenberry loved his god-like antagonists and Trek kept bringing them up in their old, overt way until he set down his reins on the franchise. After that only Q endured. Even then Q too, and others which were god-like, like the Prophets, were either used with more nuance or ceased to be antagonists.

Beyond Roddenberry's time the only real one that stood out fully as a good old fashioned god-like antagonist was the leprahcaun from early DS9, which I look on more as a symptome of early DS9 struggling to find its footing and rehashing older Trek stuff just like TNG did with the Naked Now.

I think while Rodenberry did start with Trelane as his concept for Q, he rapidly flipped things around a bit. trelane was obviously the child exploring the intricacies of humanity with a childlike wonder and enthusiasm. Q needed to be a bit more of an anthropologist dissecting humanity. I do find it interesting that you can clearly see much of the foundation of TNG in this episode. It's also one that stands the test of time better than most. It's just a good and classic SF story. A very common trope of the overwhelmingly powerful child playing with his toys, which the heroes become part of. But executed extremely well for the trope.

As for all powerful aliens after Rodenberry left? It depends on how you view the Wormhole Aliens in DS9. The Founders and the Pah Wraith? Or the Caretaker in Voyager. Granted it is interesting that after Rodenberry the non Q all powerful alien antagonists shifted from being a threat of the week, to a core foundational element of their given series, that were used more for world building than direct confrontation with the protagonists. And used as lightly as possible.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

The godlike alien was reworked often enough by Roddenberry in particular that you could probably consider it to be his favorite trope. Looking over his 16 writing credits for Trek, beings that at least appear to have godlike mental powers show up in almost half the episodes he wrote. His unproduced scripts and scripts that eventually morphed into something else deal with similar themes as well. The trial aspect in Encounter at Farpoint is seen in other Roddenberry stuff as well, in The Savage Curtain for example.

When you add on top of that the The Squire of Gothos wasn't written by Roddenberry, I'm not convinced that Roddenberry had Trelane in mind at all in writing Q. Or at least, I have my doubts that he was a conscious template.

[Beastro]

The godlike alien was reworked often enough by Roddenberry in particular that you could probably consider it to be his favorite trope. Looking over his 16 writing credits for Trek, beings that at least appear to have godlike mental powers show up in almost half the episodes he wrote. His unproduced scripts and scripts that eventually morphed into something else deal with similar themes as well. The trial aspect in Encounter at Farpoint is seen in other Roddenberry stuff as well, in The Savage Curtain for example.

The guy had theological issues, ones on the way towards the irreligious who claims to not believe in God, but talk to them along enough and you realize they do and have a bone they love to pick, though Roddenberry wasn't nearly close to that and was more in a broad sense.