By Joshua Tyler
| Published
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has returned for its third season and, along the way, answered a question fans have asked since the earliest days of Star Trek: The Next Generation back in the 1980s. That question is: Was Trelane a Q? The answer, it turns out, is yes.
Trelane (played by William Campbell) was the featured alien in the original Star Trek episode “The Squire of Gothos”. He was a seemingly omnipotent being with a troublesome sense of humor and a weird obsession with human beings.
Though seemingly omnipotent, Trelane turned out to be nothing but a child, and his even more omnipotent parents soon showed up to teach their son some manners. Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew were saved in the process.
Since the appearance of Q on Star Trek: The Next Generation, fans have long speculated that Trelane might have been a Q. That’s never been confirmed in canon—until now.
In the second episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ third season, titled “Wedding Bell Blues,” a being nearly identical to Trelane (played by Rhys Darby) shows up to cause similar mischief. Sure, they don’t actually call him Trelane, but the outfit and the attitude are a dead giveaway.
However, this Trelane snaps his fingers to use his powers, a move identical to the one used by Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Q entities. That’s not something Trelane did in Star Trek: The Original Seriesleading to fan uncertainty over his species.
It’s not until the end of the episode that this version of Trelane is confirmed to be a Q. It happens when his father shows up. Though his father appears only as a gaseous ball of energy, his voice should sound immediately familiar to Trek fans. Trelane’s Dad is voiced by John De Lancie, the actor best known for playing Q.
So not only is Trelane a Q, he’s THE Q’s son. If you’re thinking that makes no sense given that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds takes place before the original series, then you’re probably not thinking fourth dimensionally.
These events took place in Captain Kirk and Captain Picard’s past, but that doesn’t mean they happened in Trelane and Q’s past. The members of the Q continuum exist outside of time, and things for them don’t always happen in linear order.
It’s entirely possible, even likely, that the events of “Wedding Bell Blues” take place after the events of “The Squire of Gothos” from Trelane’s point of view. That would explain why Trelane no longer needs a machine to amplify his powers and can now simply snap his fingers to make his desires a reality. He’s gotten older, and his powers have grown.
“Wedding Bell Blues” may even take place after the events of Star Trek: Picard season 3, from the perspective of Q. Picard season 3, by the way, is the last time we saw John De Lancie on screen as his iconic, god-like character.
The only remaining question is: Why doesn’t Spock remember Trelane when he encounters him with Captain Kirk in “The Squire of Gothos”? Star Trek: Strange New Worlds gave us an answer for that, too.
Though to us, the viewers, this Trelane always appears as a human dressed in a high-collared coat, that’s not what the crew of the Enterprise sees. The first time Spock (Ethan Peck) encounters him, behind the bar in the Enterprise lounge, he notes that he didn’t know there was a Vulcan bartender on board.
Later in the episode, people remark on Trelane’s blue skin and repeatedly refer to him as an Andorian. Spock, too, now sees an Andorian.
So while we saw Trelane, Spock saw someone very different. Years later, he wouldn’t have recognized him as the same godchild.
The original series version of Spock (Leonard Nimoy) still should have noticed the similarities between the two situations. He didn’t, and there’s really no explanation except to say that the Strange New Worlds writing team wanted to do a Trelane episode. So they did it, with only a certain level of regard to whether or not they were stretching the credulity of established canon.