How Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Avoids Breaking Canon With A Classic TOS Episode

This article contains mild spoilers for the "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" episode "Wedding Bell Blues." 

In the "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" episode "Wedding Bell Blues," Spock (Ethan Peck) finds himself growing despondent over the fact that he and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) may not be destined to date. Spock and Chapel spend several months apart, only for her to return with a new boyfriend, a charming scientist named Roger Korby (Cillian O'Sullivan). Spock is as heartbroken as a Vulcan can be. 

There is a reception in a bar thereafter, and Spock finds himself feeling jealousy watching Chapel and Korby together. He walks over to the bartender (Rhys Darby), who notices his pain. The bartender gives him a strong cocktail, and Spock retires to his quarters. When he wakes up, reality has shifted. Chapel in his bed with him, smiling happily. She mentions that today is their wedding day, and that she can't wait to get all the planning done. Spock seems to be going along with it. What just happened? 

Of course, there is a reality-shifting mystery afoot, and Spock and Korby will team up to solve it. They find that someone is mucking about with the very fabric of reality. As any good Trekkie may immediately be able to intuit, the culprit is obvious. Rhys Darby can be seen wearing a blue coat with gold trim, the same costume worn by Trelane from the original "Star Trek" episode "The Squire of Gothos" (January 12, 1967). This is clearly the same being, or at least someone similar. 

But then, Trekkies and continuity sticklers will immediately chime in on a screenwriterly conflict: Spock only met Trelane for the first time in "The Original Series," in an episode which takes place several years after "Wedding Bell Blues." Did the "Strange New Worlds" writers screw with canon?

Luckily, there is a conceit that covers for this. This version of Trelane (or whoever it is), it seems, can appear differently to different people. Spock wouldn't recognize him, because he looked different before. 

The mystical bartender's shape-shifting abilities are hinted at right away. When Spock first approached him at the bar, he made a comment that he rarely sees Vulcan bartenders. This is suspicious, however, because the Darby character is clearly not a Vulcan. He has no pointed ears, no angled eyebrows, and doesn't behave with a traditionally logical demeanor. The observation passes so quickly, one might be forgiven for assuming the "Strange New Worlds" showrunners made a mistake. 

The character's shape-shifting is confirmed later in the episode, though, when Korby mentions that he is an Andorian, a species known for its blue skin, white hair, and prominent antennae. It's also suspicious that the character, previously only a bartender, now seems to be Spock's full-blown wedding planner. Additionally, it's demonstrated pretty early on that the wedding planner can snap his fingers and cause magical things to happen. The fact that he can appear to be a Vulcan to Spock, an Andorian to Korby, and Rhys Darby to us only cements that he is using his magical abilities to disguise himself. 

So anyone concerned that Spock, when he meets Trelane several years later, doesn't yell "That guy tried to marry me to Nurse Chapel!" can rest easy. Although Spock would remember that a godlike being altered reality around him a few years prior, he wouldn't necessarily have put together that Trelane was the same godlike being (or something similar). 

Okay, maybe that's farfetched as well. If Spock had once undergone a fantasy wedding at the hands of a godlike being — and one who behaves a lot like Trelane — he would have, in "The Squire of Gothos," logically surmised that Trelane was the same being, or at least of the same species. 

Or perhaps the Rhys Darby character also managed to erase Spock's memories a few days after the fake wedding concluded. That works too.