Wedding Bell Blues
Series: | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds |
---|---|
Medium: | Live Action Television Episode |
Episode Number: | 302 |
Production Number: | 122 |
Original Air Date: | |
Directed By: | Jordan Canning |
Written By: | Kirsten Beyer, and David Reed |
Casting Type | Actor | Character |
---|---|---|
Guest Star | Cillian O'Sullivan | Roger Korby |
Guest Star | Rhys Darby | Wedding Planner (Trelane) |
Recurring | Melanie Scrofano | Marie Batel |
Recurring | Dan Jeannotte | George Samuel Kirk |
Guest Star | Mynor Luken | Beto Ortegas |
Guest Star | Chris Myers | Gamble |
Special Guest Star | John de Lancie | Wedding Planner's father (Q) |
Guest Star | Kira Guloien | Kelzing |
While neither character is named in the episode, the Wedding Planner is rather directly implied to be Trelane, the god-like "child" being from The Squire of Gothos (TOS), and the Wedding Planner's "dad" is heavily implied (by the nature of being voiced by John de Lancie) as being Q.
This connection between the two characters has long been theorized by fans, even making it into the recently deceased Peter David's excellent book Q-Squared. There was also a slight hint that this was canon in last season's Those Old Scientists episode in a brief exchange between Mariner and Boimler, but it has never been explicitly stated that Trelane was a Q in canon. Since it isn't even 100% confirmed that Darby is playing Trelane in this episode, nor is it confirmed that de Lancie is actually playing Q in this episode, it is still not confirmed that Trelane is a Q, but I think that's what we are supposed to get from this episode.
Yes, Trelane is a young Q, which brings up some very interesting implications. If de Lancie's Q is the specific Q who is Trelane's father, does that mean Trelane is Q's son from the Voyager Episodes The Q and the Grey, and Q2? That seems to be the implication. It is worth noting that Q-Squared does not indicate a familiar relationship between Trelane and Q, but Q-Squared is not canon, this episode is.
Trelane also mentions in this episode that his motivation for wrecking havoc in this episode is because he "spotted him digging in the dirt on the old homeworld" which implies that the original homeworld of the Q when they were a coporial race was located in Federation space, and Roger Korby has done archeological digs on that world. It is implied, though not explicitly stated, that this "old homeworld" might be on Vadia IX, as Sam mentioned earlier in the episode that Korby's "latest dig was on Vadia IX". Might this mean that Vadia IX is the original Q Homeworld?
Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. God-like beings acting like children and using their power to treat our main characters like play-things is a staple trope in Star Trek (all the way back to The Squire of Gothos where Trelane was introduced) and it works exceedingly well here.
The idea that at first Korby is the only person to remember the original reality is interesting, it is unclear if it is because of the strong emotional tie, or because Trelane wants Korby to suffer. Even more interesting is how when Spock has an emotional outburst (punching Korby), he remembers the actual reality as well, and then, despite the fact that he has very clear emotions for Chapel, he spends the rest of the episode working with Korby to set reality right.
The emotional "vows" speech he gives at the wedding, which snaps Chapel out of it, was well done. The speech could easily have been vows, but the strong connection with Chapel and Korby's romance is enough to make her real feelings come through.
One minor thing that is worth a mention here, this episode appears to be the first ever live-action appearance of an Edosian, the bartender at the party at the end. Edosians were a species with 3 arms created for The Animated Series, and the only other appearance of an Edosian was also animated in Lower Decks, so it is fun to see one here in live action. Also an Edosian bartender (Kelzing) just seems perfect, 3 arms would be very useful when mixing drinks. As Pike and Una offer Kelzing a job on the Enterprise, and she accepted, it looks like we'll see more of Kelzing in the future, and I'm delighted. I can't wait to see Trekculture's Ups and Downs for this episode, I'm certain Kelzing is getting an up.
This is decidedly A-Tier Star Trek, I rate Wedding Bell Blues: Commander on our rating scale.
HD3 Episode Rank:
Commander
(A Tier)