Star Trek TOS S01E17 – The Squire of Gothos

Dir. Don McDougall, Wri. Paul Schneider

The Summary: The Enterprise has to deal with yet another godlike being, and this one has a weird Napoleonic thing going on.

The Good: The early going has a good sense of mystery as to what’s going on, with a good build to the eventual revelation. For some reason I love that the salt sucker from “The Man Cage” is back as a background prop. The period piece stuff is pretty fun here (especially as opposed to some of the weaker instances throughout the series). Spock is so so good in this—his “I object to you,” speech is awesome and makes me love the character. Kirk does some good manipulation once he understands what’s going on, and caps it off with a slightly above average Kirk speech. Not one for the history books, but suitably stirring.

The Bad: The plot is largely based on coincidence, which is always frustrating. Our antagonist is really just a poor-man’s Q. If you’ve never seen Next Generation this might not bother you as much as it did me, but it’s a really obvious parallel if you have. Uhura is way too chill about both 18th Century racism and being a music slave. It feels wrong both from the perspective of a utopian society and from the perspective of her basic humanity. Good lord, the sound effects when the computer breaks are the worst thing ever. The tone in this episode seesaws wildly back and forth in almost every scene. It’s incredibly hard to tell if they meant for this one to be comical or serious, and it doesn’t really pull either tone off perfectly because of that. The guest star pulls off charming well, but when he tries to be threatening he comes off as silly. It’s tricky to walk that fine line between suave and monstrous, and this guy is no John de Lancie.

The Review: More than anything else, this episode feels like they decided to give the “Charlie X” idea another shot. We’re still dealing with a child (William Campbell) with Godlike powers of material manipulation, and we get pretty much the exact same conclusion. This time the child’s name is Trelane, and he looks less childlike and has a Napoleon fetish, but other than that it’s second verse same as the first. They did better this time, for sure, but a lot of the same weaknesses still apply. “Better than Charlie X” may be an incredibly low bar, but I’m glad it went this direction as opposed to the contrary.

One of the biggest improvements they make to the basic formula is that Kirk has more agency this time. William Shatner is a constantly underrated actor because of how history eventually treated him, but he’s more than capable of excellent drama when given a script to work with. Most of the crew, in fact, acquit themselves well with the material. Particular kudos as well to Nimoy, who really sells Spock’s conflict and eventual anger here. No, the problem is with Trelane, who has a really difficult time with a script that admittedly makes it no easier for him. It’s clear that he’s going for the moodiness and quickly changing tempers of a child in adult form, but the teleplay just has him come off as weird. He does better in the early going, where he’s still being suave and inviting, but the further the episode goes the more quickly and violently his mood changes, and it all just kind of falls apart.

On the more disappointing side of things, we still have a plot that is resolved by the main characters being saved by outside forces, which is always disappointing. It makes it feel like all of the proceeding drama and strife was for basically nothing when another godlike being just swoops in to save the day at the end. It’s a general problem with this type of episode in general, and they really haven’t solved it yet. There is an episode down the line where I think they finally get the formula right, but that’s a story for another day. For now, they’re getting closer with this general idea, but aren’t there yet. Ultimately, this is an easy recommendation for fans of the series. There are more than enough great character moments from both Kirk and Spock to see a fan of the material through to the end. Someone outside of that fandom, though, would probably have a much tougher time of it. The villain is too weird and inconsistent to hold your attention unless you have something else to get you through. First time viewers might want to catch this one just to see the evolution of the godlike being plotline into something closer to where they will eventually take the idea. A mild recommendation.

The Score: