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| Liberace |
"The
Enterprise discovers a rogue planet drifting through space, inhabited by an eccentric being named Trelane who uses his apparently unlimited power over matter and form to manipulate the crew."
This is no longer Star Trek. It is the Trelane aka Squire of Gothos aka William Campell show. This guy is brash, childish, annoying and a total prick .... I absolutely love him. This character is so well written and well acted that Kirk seemed forgettable in comparison.
Upon discovering a rogue planet, Kirk and Sulu suddenly disappear from the Enterprise. An away crew is sent down to this planet to search for them and they discover a medieval castle. Here upon, everyone meets the Squire of Gothos. A wacky English aristocrat with a love for Earth Military history ... and also an alien. He is so childish and annoying, he also seemingly has unlimited powers. At some point Kirk challenges him to a duel with old timey guns, Kirk purposely shoots at a mirror in the room. This pisses off Trelane.
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| Kirk with the ever present lovely lady |
Kirk and crew escape to the ship but are chased down by the entire planet. Kirk disappears again and re-materializes in a court ... Trelane orders Kirk to be hung, or hanged or whatever the correct word is. But, the captain isn't one to be out maneuvered so he wisely plays to the Squire's weakness ... a love for mischievous fun. Kirk suggests that Trelane try and kill him with a sword. Trelane swings and misses, in the process he cuts the limb off of a tree. Then Kirk picks up a branch and sword fights with him. Sword versus tree branch ... does this at all make sense? Ha ha, of course not! Then Kirk grabs the sword out of the Squire's hand and breaks it over his knee. Really? I mean, I guess Bo Jackson used to break baseball bats.
Then out of nowhere, we see two green masses in the sky. They start chiding Trelane as if he were their child ... oh wait he is! They gave him his own planet as a gift, but now he is being a bad boy. He whines like a typical little brat and the parents apologize to Kirk. And that's about it. I like this one. An interesting side note: I've read only a few Star Trek novels, but one was "Q-Squared". In this book they say that this meeting with Trelane was Earth's first encounter with the "Q" Continuum. This would make sense, as his powers did seem to be very Q like.
ST TOS COUNTDOWN: 18 down 62 to go
2 comments:
I remember when that book came out (I was totally obsessed with Star Trek at the time), though I didn't read it. Kind of a clever idea, though, for tying this weird episode into a larger continuity and maybe giving it a more scientific explanation.
Either way, I've always liked this episode, flaws and all.
This is was one of the better novels. I guess it's "non-canon" as they say ... but I never really cared for the whole canon crap.
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