Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3's Big Villain Reveal Was 'Borrowed' From Fan Canon [Exclusive]
This article contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 3, episode 2, "Wedding Bell Blues."
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 3, episode 2 ("Wedding Bell Blues") brings back "The Original Series" character Trelane ("Our Flag Means Death" star Rhys Darby) from "TOS" season 1 episode "The Squire of Gothos." Originally played by William Campbell, Trelane presents himself as a dashing man who wears a Regency-era tailcoat and claims to be a general. In actuality, he's a mischievous child from a reality-bending alien species, and wields powers that resemble those of the time and energy-manipulating residents of the Q Continuum – such as the notorious "Star Trek: The Next Generation" wild card, Q (John de Lancie).
In "Wedding Bell Blues," Trelane exhibits the same powerful but immature traits. He imposes himself on the lovelorn Spock (Ethan Peck, who told /Film how his version differs from Leonard Nimoy) like a roguish genie, force-rebooting the science officer's recently-ended romance with Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) into an impending wedding and inserting himself in the story as a pushy wedding planner. This time, however, we get a confirmation about the Trelane-Q connection that fans have been wondering about for quite some time now: In the end of the episode, Trelane's father comes calling in the shape of a light orb ... voiced by none other than de Lancie.
A throwaway joke in the "Strange New Worlds" and "Star Trek: Lower Decks" crossover episode "Those Old Scientists" (season 2, episode 7) already toyed with Trelane's connection to the Q Continuum. Now, the show confirms his status as a Q beyond a shadow of doubt. In an exclusive interview with /Film's Jacob Hall, "Strange New Worlds" showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers describe the process that led to this decision.
Strange New Worlds took a great idea and ran with it
Before "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" confirmed the Q/Trelaine relationship, the idea of Trelane being a Q made its way to "Star Trek" fiction in the 1994 New York Times bestseller "Star Trek: The Next Generation: Q-Squared" by Peter David . David's book depicts Trelane as a young, out-of-control member of the Q Continuum, with the more restrained Q acting as a supervisor who's trying to stop Trelane from inadvertently destroying the universe with his timeline meddling.
While "Q-Squared" and the fandom have embraced the idea for decades, "Strange New Worlds" is the first show to confirm Trelane's Q connection in a live-action setting. When /Film asked Akiva Goldsman whether the idea for the "Strange New Worlds" Trelaine storyline was to take what people have thought for ages and fully canonize it, the co-showrunner was quick to confirm this:
"Well, literally that's exactly how we approach it, which is people thought it, it seems like a good idea, let us take everybody else's good idea and institutionalize it, right? So fundamentally, so many people put it together. And as all creatures of intellect, we could say, "Well, Roddenberry probably had those ideas for one character, and then as he got another series, those ideas came back." So you can see how the creative lens that is Roddenberry reached towards different iterations of them. Then fan base goes, "Hey, let's make it clean and attach them." We think, "Great idea. Let us reinforce your notion. It's now canon."
Trelane was a surprisingly fun character to write
Apart from clearing up the canon, Trelane's inclusion on "Strange New Worlds" works because the character simply fits the show's tone. Darby's impish and easily-frustrated take on the character is a perfect mixture of childish menace and gleeful levity, and both his devotion to his self-imposed mission to drag Spock through the wedding and his petulance toward hurdles like the half-Vulcans' inadvertent romantic rival Dr. Roger Corby (Cillian O'Sullivan) are a sight to behold. In fact, Henry Alonso Myers said that he was actually surprised by how fun it was to write Trelane:
"Mostly his dialogue is extremely fun. It's a fun way to, I was going to say, if you want to consider him a villain, he's the best kind of villain to write because he's super fun and you bring him a lot of areas that they can test and try things. And it makes us ... And as a character, it very much makes all the characters on our show think about what's going on through their life. You know what I mean? It definitely makes Spock think about his life."
It remains to be seen if Trelane's return remains a one-off for "Strange New Worlds." However, considering how well his antics suit the show and how much Myers enjoyed writing him, there's a chance that fans won't have to wait over five decades for the young Q Continuum member's next on-screen appearance.
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" streams on Paramount+. New episodes of season 3 release on Thursdays.