“Wedding Bell Blues”

So Spock has met both the Gorn and Trelane before TOS, huh?

Did they swap La'an's and Erica's characters? Now Erica has Gorn PTSD and La'an is the easygoing one? At least the latter seemed like a very abrupt character development.

And can the SNW costume designers finally get an Emmy Award please? Or all the awards for that matter? The costumes in this series have been amazing since day 1, and this episode (particularly the wedding scene) is no exception.

Also, that cameo at the end was *chef's kiss*.

So, so much better than the first episode of the season, though with a few notable flaws.

Like many of the strongest SNW episodes, this lives or dies on characterization, and the episode has it in spades. Spock is the main focus here, and has a full character arc, from angry and sullen over the realization that he's lost Chapel to acceptance that he's not the one for her. The episode also introduces Korby quite well, portraying him as a guy who seems fundamentally decent, but with enough hints of flaws underneath the surface to hint at his future path.

Regarding the whole sci-fi aspect of the story, I rather like that the episode doesn't explicitly say that we're meeting Trelane again (for the first time), or that he's a baby Q, but the implication is obvious to anyone with knowledge of Star Trek. Rhys Darby also does an amazing job with the material given to him. There's other little bits which are good here.

The semi-romance that Uhura gets with Ortegas's brother is cute, if a bit underbaked. And La'an is pretty great in here as someone who built her life around a trauma fumbling with what her life is about now. Not sure what the hell that final teaser for Ortegas means, but damn if I'm not intrigued by her as a character for the first time.

One of the issues I have with the episode though, is Chapel. She's a bit underbaked as the object of affection of both men, feeling more like a passive object being passed around rather than an active character with growth across the episode. This has been a growing problem with Chapel, who has really lost agency independently of her love life.

I also thought some of the setup of the episode was a bit awkward as well, as the time skip was clearly just to give a romance time to build between Chapel and Korby, but it meant there were aspects of the setup that didn't make much sense (Enterprise stuck at starbase for three months, Pike getting briefed on Batel's medical status for the sake of the audience, etc.

The biggest issue, however, is that although the episode was charming and lighthearted, it really wasn't funny. I didn't laugh once, and barely smiled at all. SNW has done funny successfully before, in episodes like Charades and Those Old Scientists. This ain't it.

Still, there's some creativity behind the premise, and there was a bit of surprise in the way the episode rolled out. So I'm pleased overall.

I think — or hope — that wasn’t Trelane. I’m glad they didn’t mention a name. It’s enough now to know Trelane is/was a Q.
And if William Campbell was still alive, he should sue that foppish scenery-chewer who played the new Q bad boy (age 50).
Another sort of small beef: with all the actors in the world they give Korby some British/Scottish/Irish accent or whatever the guy is?

This Korby is played by Cillian O'Sullivan, who's made him just as Irish as himself. Nothing wrong with that, is there?

I enjoyed this much more than the premiere. I'll get my two main critiques out of the way first: first, inserting Trelane (and no, I don't care that the script didn't name him, the character was obviously Trelane) into SNW felt gratutitous and unnecessary. I know that the writers previously established via "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" that the Prime Timeline is being constantly re-shuffled thanks to the time wars of the future*, but I don't endorse that being used as a blanket excuse to ring in whatever characters we want into a prequel.

Second, as Karl Zimmerman noted above, the story does a disservice to Chapel's character by reducing her to her romantic choices. I hope season 3 gives her some more dimensions to explore, because otherwise it's a waste of Jess Bush.

Three, zero explanation for *why* Trelane was doing this, how his appearance here squares with TOS, etc. If you're going to put him in a story you should come up with at least a cursory attempt at a reason for doing so.

Fortunately, aside from those, there's a lot to like here. It's a good wrap-up on the Spock/Chapel relationship with a solid emotional arc for Spock, and moved along at an entertaining clip with all the great ensemble interactions we've come to expect from this show. As I've mentioned previously, though, I *really* want the show to give Ethan Peck and Spock some more weighty material to play with that doesn't use Vulcan stoicism solely as a vehicle for humour.

And I *did* laugh out loud at two of Spock's lines:

"I have of late become a student of romance." - delivered at a party with your ex and her new boyfriend. Delightfully inappropriate and awkward.

"Doctor, if one of our intellects could bestow immunity, I am quite confident it would not be yours." BURN 😂

*The way that those few lines of dialogue efficiently canonised the many, many canon violations of Disco and ENT is something I still marvel at!

Is the entity that is Trelane’s dad voiced by John deLancey???

It sure sounds like him.

Entreating episode and an improvement over Hegemony Part II. They focused on the characters which is the strength of the show. SNW is so much better when they shy away from the heavy action and let the characters do the work.

One minor complaint is that used the Enterprise trope of as long as we don't mention the character, race etc., we can use it. There's so much galaxy out there, we don't really need Trelane/Q.

My first line should read entertaining episode...

Damn Autocorrect

Disembodied energy beings chastizing their young for playing with lower lifeforms... It doesn't get much more TOS than that.

The wedding planner was Trelane in all but name only, he even uses "tally-ho!" I appreciated the John de Lancie cameo, the man's voice can make even a bit of CGI energy fluff sound imposing. All in all a decent outing.

Also, I was about to go off on the fact they ended the episode dancing to Wham! "...What is it with NuTrek's desperate attempts to be modern?! We never had that in the 90s!"

And then I realized a) Wake Me Up... was released 41 years ago... And b) that's roughly as old as all those Ratpack era songs Vic Fontaine sang on DS9.

... Oy, we're getting old.

Also, if it *is* Trelane and if he *is* a Q... Did this episode just retroactively establish that the Q are an ancient Alpha Quadrant race that simply evolved and left their homeworld behind for doctor Korby to dig up?

Talk about adding big chunk of lore... Of course, the TNG episode Transfigurations already showed that humanoid species can evolve into powerful energy forms when they reach a higher level of consciousness. But having the Q revealed as such a 'home grown species' somehow lessens them.

That's not Trelane! That's Stede Bonnet, Gentleman Pirate!*

This was really fun, though I do feel so sad for Spock. I thought those two had great chemistry.

I loved seeing the softer side of La'an, as the threat of the the Gorn has been eliminated, at least for now. And very lovely dance moves! I enjoyed seeing her friendship with Spock presented in this way.

I didn't love the John DeLancie cameo as much as I love him. The John Q did not have offspring until much later, so that threw me off.

I am not sure I understood the final scene--Erica has PTSD from the Gorn experience? I guess we'll see.

*Check out "Our Flag Means Death." Highly recommend!

When "Star Trek" first aired, the characters often didn't know rudimentary things about 20th century culture. Now they jam to Wham! Not sure if that's progress or regression.

@Karl Zimmerman May I ask how exactly you thought this episode was creative or imaginative at all since to me it seemed standard and predictable and unoriginal since we have seen Q and Trelane before..only the weddijg outfit designs to me seemed creative and original..I was hoping for a more unique and original alien life form and/or phenomenon...just wondering

And isnit better to have let Trelane be a different species separate from the Q?

Not sure and still hoping that was NOT Trelane, who was ten orders of magnitude more entertaining than this joker. Hey maybe on the Q-Planet they say "tally-ho!" a lot! Also ... there has to be more than one 'bad boy' in that civilization.

And yes, the Irish actor is certainly free to do what he wants, if the director/showrunners don't care.
Except Korby wasn't Irish, so why this casting choice? Can't they even make this simple nod to TOS viewers?
In addition Jess Bush is Australian and has no hint of an accent as Christine Chapel.

I'm on the fence. Yes, it was light-hearted and humorous, something this cast does better than any other previous Trek series. Nice little nod to TOS by having Trelane playing "games" with the crew, and another nice little nod to TNG by having John de Lancie voice the father. Was it entertaining? Yes, it was. But as I said in my last comment on the season opener, I really want this series to get back to exploring "strange new worlds". For Heaven's sake, it's IN THE TITLE OF THE SHOW! I really hope that's what we see over these next 8 episodes in Season 3, and the remaining 16 episodes over Seasons 4 and 5 to conclude the series. The early days of the Enterprise are supposed to be about explorations... Another 2.5 stars.

@TJ

The problem with calling a prequel series 'Strange New Worlds' is that it presents a bit of a paradox. There's only so strange, new stuff to explore before you hit the wall of continuity and canon.

In this pre TOS timeframe there's very few things that would feel strange or new to viewers from TNG and beyond.

Fluff episode that was charming and eye roll-inducing in equal measure – the latter because I've never been particularly interested in NuTrek's fascination for young adult romance. The former because there was an appreciable TOS vibe, and the cast did a great job (as always), and there was some genuine humour. Also the De Lancie cameo, the costume design (as someone else pointed out, this really shows up in HD), the three-armed alien bartender were all fine.

Hammy and largely harmless. Can't muster stronger critique than that.

Not the Trek we want, but the NuTrek we get.

I'm pretty disappointed in these first two episodes. They're both a lot of nothing. The two-year wait makes it worse, I suppose, but there's no real character core to either story. "Wedding Bell Blues" should have one, but it's hijacked by Trelaine and anyway neither Spock nor Chapel go into this thinking their relationship could work so it's not like either of them learn anything.

@episodenull:
'They're both a lot of nothing.'

Unfortunately this is a very good description of virtually *every* episode of NuTrek.

Good to see you're still writing reviews, Jammer!

A 2-year hiatus and SNW comes up with a twist on "The Squire of Gothos" with a mix of "Fascination", perhaps "Bliss" & "This Side of Paradise" thrown in -- hard to take this series seriously with yet another unimaginative light-hearted comedy.

Nice to see Korby as a character though. But he seems nothing like the one on TOS, but that could just be a 1960s vs. 2020s thing. I actually liked the character and actor and he had some good moments with Spock and had that one arrogant line.

Best part of the episode was watching La'an dance -- man, is she ever hot. I have missed her.

So what is up with Ortegas? As I said, the series would have been much better if the Gorn had killed her in "Hegemony, Part II" -- now the stupid writers will try to give her some serious PTSD to deal with because asinine 1-liners can only go so far.

The series might be introducing recurring characters in Ortegas's little brother as Uhura's love interest and the new young black ensign doctor. I hope that's not the case as there isn't enough screen time to spread around for the main cast.

So this wedding planner is basically like Trelane -- a child toying with other species for his pleasure. Again, SNW lacks intelligence and is just out to provide cheap laughs / thrills. This episode was a chore to get through.

1.5 stars for "Wedding Bell Blues" -- hasn't SNW done enough light-hearted comedies already? The writers show a serious lack of originality -- unless the idea is to try to breathe new life into TOS concoctions like the Gorn and now Trelane. And in those cases, they're doing a lousy job of it. The story here just was nowhere near good enough.

Two stars. Great to see a Q on screen again and confirm the Q-Trelane link we fans have suspected for years. John DeLancie’s voice is great and the Trickster is clearly related somehow to his Q and Trelane.

That said, the whole episode is tonally uneven and awkwardly set up. It’s very hard to follow what’s real, what isn’t, and who is enchanted by the Trickster and who isn’t. I like Ethan Peck but nothing is executed with satisfying or confident comedic flair. It just feels average and…meh.

I got serious Medusa vibes over Chapel’s wedding outfit. Maybe a sly reference to her effect on men?

Well "Trelane" (or whatever this guy was) is not my cup of tea, I couldn't stand his acting, behavior, shenanigans, I find it not funny just cringing and boring.
Still, the episode had a few nice moments, like all the dance scenes, the costumes and might have an interesting plot with Ortega's PTSD (maybe the reason she leaves Starfleet and we never heard of her in TOS? I hope she leaves instead of getting redshirted).

But really, WHAM? that's what people dance from the 20th century? ugh!

I've read in some places that this light-hearted episode is a nice counterpoint to the last one and the season 2 finale. But honestly, because of the 2-year hiatus, I think I would have liked to stay deep in the aftermath of the Gorn conflict.

I'm looking forward to some meaningful stories with Ortega, but I'm really hoping to see a meaningful storyline for Mitchell. I'm sure Scotty has a few coming.

I think part of what gives Spock his magic was his mystery. Much of that mystery feels like it has disappeared. I'd like to shelve the 'Spock' episodes for awhile. But if T'pring comes back, I'm all for it! Nevertheless, I'm sure the Korby/Chapel/Spock storyline will continue in the next episode... ...

Jesus Christ this is atrocious. How did this make it out of the editor's room?

Ortega's still alive. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

They continue to $#!% all over Spock's character. If Star Trek is going to turn into Grey's Anatomy in Space just hurry up and hire Shonda Rhimes as a showrunner and get it over with already.

The exact same people who complained about Discovery's continuity blasphemy and character distortion are literally clapping at this mind numbing mischaracterization and complete continuity exodus. These are the same people that cheered when Star Trek Picard turned the Borg Cube into a spaceship parking structure. Make it make sense. You can't, because it doesn't.

Trelane? Really?!? Are you kidding me? It doesn't get any worse than this.

I haven't watched this show other than the pilot but I take it from these comments that Spock has been rebooted into a lovesick emotional basket case?

@Jason R:

Pretty much.

I guess it's some kind of revenge scripting for Chapel being a lovesick emotional basketcase in TOS.

Just for my curiosity is there some fig leaf explanation for why Spock would be like this given him being, you know, a Vulcan?

Fig leaf in this particular episode: Spock and the crew are placed under a reality-warping spell by Trelane, who 'forces' Spock and 'Chapel' into a faux wedding for his own amusement.

No explanation usually given (or attempted) in all previous episodes, however. Just the typical young adult fanfic Tumblr 'shipping' guff by the writers and producers.

2.5/4 stars.

Have to say, I really enjoy Ethan Peck's take on Spock. He's playing him as much dorkier and more vulnerable than Nimoy or Qunto without losing the Vulcan qualities or the inner struggle with emotions / his human side.

Rhys Darby as Trelane is perfect casting, of course. He didn't have much to do given this was a TOS retread, but it was fun watching him.

Still, I felt this episode was missing a real theme other than Ortegas' PTSD which is ancillary and intended for a future episode. Spock did the right thing, but I don't feel he had a realization or learned a lesson which allowed him to finally move past Chapel (or at least be happy for her). Coming to his senses after expressing strong emotion felt kinda hand-wavy and arbitrary.

Overall this is a decent "breather" episode between the intensity of the Hegemony 2-parter and whatever traumatic shit they've got in store for Ortegas.

I hope that this incident is the beginning of Spock reverting to... Spock. He has now explored his emotional side, and experienced a failed human relationship. Join the club, Spock! Most of us have had those. And most of us have experience with much longer term relationships that fall apart, not what appears to be a month-long fling flameout. That's nothing, dude. But I guess having him endlessly obsess and then sulk over what amounts to a failed high school relationship makes sense for a guy that is essentially emotionally stunted.

Anyways, this could be a good pivot point where he realizes he's generally much more comfortable with Vulcan customs/society, even if he isn't fully accepted there either. It could be a good explanation of how Spock mostly abandons his human side. But they'd have to actually start to write him more like TOS Spock sooner or later, and I think the writers kind of can't help themselves with this character. I do think Ethan Peck does a great job with it, I am just kinda over the "Spock is exploring his feeeeelliinngs" storyline.

Here he gets angry and punches poor Korby for hurting his feelings.


So far, kinda disappointed in season 3.

They could lean into PTSD for Ortegas, but it'd need to be a real depiction of the battles people suffer with PTSD. The alienation, outbursts at friends and loved ones, all of it. Not a bad start with the scene of her leaving the party, but we'll see where it goes.

I simply hate the way Hollywood often portrays it as something more akin to a moderate bout of depression, where some therapy and a few feel good moments win the day and it simply fades away. I'm not against a happy ending here, but if you are going to bring in PTSD as a theme, I think it is important to get it right. The overall quality of writing in nuTrek makes me nervous about that, especially now that Kurtzman doesn't have any other shows to distract him. They are generally unwilling to trust the audience with heavy material that might make you think beyond black/white or below the surface, "Under the Cloak of War" notwithstanding. Even Hegemony, Part I was mostly just a darker action plot, not anything that made you really think in any way.

Bottom line: SNW continues to be the best of nuTrek, which is a very low bar. It has a few really good episodes which are positive contributions to Trek lore. But, it is starting to lose my interest and continues to err on the side of being a lightweight fan service show without taking many of its own risks. I may check out on the series after this season.

SNW is great, how I missed this show.
I loved this episode. Ethan Peck is crushing it as Spock. The actor playing Trelane also kept the essence of the original one from TOS, even goofier, which fit well with this episode. His "No, he is a dog" reaction had me laughing out loud.

I wonder if it is that Ortegas is having PTSD or that something has happened to her on a genetic level. Maybe she has Gorn DNA or something.

Always a pleasure to see Rhys Darby, and he's honestly a great choice to play Trelane. He captures the character's impish charm and off-kilter theatrics, while the occasional misstep or misinterpretation of human customs actually feels right...consistent with the original "Squire of Gothos" portrayal. Trelane was always about style over substance, and Darby brings that flamboyant chaos energy in spades.

That said, upgrading Trelane to a full-fledged Q is a bold swing and I'm not sure it pays off. In the original TOS episode, his powers seemed rooted in advanced tech, suggesting he was a precocious child of a powerful species rather than a nigh-omnipotent entity himself. By fully retconning him into a Q (implicitly or explicitly), the writers may have sacrificed some of what made Trelane unique: a petty being PLAYING at godhood rather than actually possessing it.

Motivation is another weak point. The entire plot hinges on Trelane obsessing over Spock's failed engagement and lashing out at Corby out of... jealousy? Insecurity? The rationale, that Corby's "perfection" makes Trelane feel inadequate is thin, to say the least. Why would a cosmic being care this deeply about one Vulcan's love life? It's hard to buy into the stakes when the instigating drama feels so petty and contrived.

The episode superficially resembles TNG's "Tapestry": a higher being altering events to explore character paths, but without the emotional or thematic depth. Tapestry worked because it showed us a meaningful alternate timeline grounded in Picard's choices and regrets. Here, the changes are more akin to chaotic mind control than true "what if" speculation. The crew doesn't make new choices -- they're simply puppeted into Trelane's game, which robs the episode of character growth or insight.

The result is that it all feels rather hollow. There's no real thematic momentum, just zany hijinks layered over shallow psychodrama. It's entertaining in the moment, but it leaves little to chew on afterward. The premise could have supported a deeper exploration of regret, identity, or romantic expectation, but instead we get cosplay chaos and emotional manipulation.

Oh, and one last thing: if that Gorn reflection beside Ortegas isn't a purely METAPHORICAL manifestation of her trauma... someone's going to hear me screaming from space.

Just saw a comment in an another place (YouTube) relevant to our discussions here:

'Read a thread on Reddit calling for TOS to be decanonised as it was ruining SNW.'

Lol, as they say.

@SturdyMike89 -
If it wasn't just a heavy-handed metaphor, and we get a "Fun with DNA" episode, I might check out early.

I appreciate that their stories are primarily character driven. I just don't know if they service the characters well. At this point Chapel has been reduced to her love life even though she had the hard-to-get fellowship going. The experience with the fellowship wasn't even mentioned in this episode. Spock is just comic relief, goofier than the Doctor in his initial episodes. And Pike is pretty much just the MC for the crew. I get it that he is supposed to display "modern leadership". But even a modern leader is still a leader. He is not. They are all pretty much doing their own things.

@Q-Less:
'I appreciate that their stories are primarily character driven. I just don't know if they service the characters well.'

I agree. The writers and producers don't seem to know for sure what to do with the characters they have (despite having far fewer episodes to work with), so some characters are reduced and limited to one-note (Spock is the lovesick butt of every joke; Pike is everyone's fantasy cook and trophy husband and increasingly deferential to his subordinates; La'an is defined by her PTSD, and now Ortegas is; etc etc).

At the same time, others barely get a look-in: Una is frustratingly sidelined in every single episode (if I was Romijn I would be furious), we've had NuKirk, Pelia and NuScotty needlessly added to the roster to jostle for limited screentime, while Hemmer – a genuinely interesting cast member – was killed off unnecessarily. (This episode even introduced yet another entirely superfluous character in Ortegas' brother.)

Only M'Benga has really been developed to any appreciable degree, and even then one of his two focus stories also involved PTSD, which means three (!) of the senior crew are affected by it.

They're undeniably a great cast and it's a real pity to see them being wasted. I'd be happy just watching a bottle episode with Pike, Una, La'an, 'Chapel' and M'Benga essentially having a back-and-forth about ethics for an hour, to be honest.

That was better than the season premiere.

The shapeshifting bartender was played by an actor who starred in a silly but enjoyable little movie called "Relax, I'm From the Future". Great affect.

I loved the shot Spock took at Korby's intelligence. 😜

Poor Spock, having to go through this farce. Heartbreaking.

The three-armed bartender was fun.

Not sure what Ortega's vision portends for future episodes. I had hoped we were clear of the Gorn, but I guess maybe not.

They never explained why Roger Korby was aware of the illusion all along.

Captain Pike was a bit too easy-breezy for my taste about discovering that they had all been under the control of a hostile alien. And the way things turned out was a tad unoriginal – way before there was ever a Q, I'm pretty sure this exact plot happened in a TOS episode, with the parental aliens coming along and chastising the youngun who was messing with humans. In fact, I think it might have even happened a couple times in slightly different ways.

Still, that was a long time ago so fair enough. I enjoyed this, three stars.

@SlackerInc-

"They never explained why Roger Korby was aware of the illusion all along."

I am going with he was too emotionally involved to be susceptible, and the cognitive dissonance he subconsciously experienced protected him. There was no upside for him to go along with it.

It being something of a fantasy of Spock's, he was subconsciously more willing to go along with it. But ultimately, he was brought out of the illusion for similar reasons. Nobody else was terribly invested in Spock/Chapel and so could be manipulated easily on that front.

But that does raise the question of why Nurse Chapel was in turn so resistant to the truth. She still deeply loves Spock maybe? We know she still has a thing for him in TOS, so maybe she consciously rejects him knowing he'd be a terrible partner, but still has deep feelings and can be fairly easily manipulated into this fantasy?

Thinking about the first time we met Roger Korby, I still have a mental picture of his robotic double, and of Majel Barrett as a more mature Nurse Chapel. Definitely sadder, perhaps wiser.

And after last season’s “Subspace Rhapsody,” I did a TOS rewatch and looked back to refresh my memory of that picture. Most of the following notes were written at that time.

One of the best things about “I’m Ready,” Chapel's glorious, joyful production number in “Subspace Rhapsody,” was this: she's so completely wrong.

“My future is infinite, my possibilities are endless,” Jess Bush triumphantly sang. No, they're not. Christine Chapel, your future is set in stone. As of that day, you were officially hurtling towards a tragedy that's just as predestined as Chris Pike's wheelchair. Kid, you have no idea how not ready you are for what's coming.

Dr. Roger Korby was introduced in the TOS episode “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” You can't tell me the SNW writers haven't studied that script carefully, because at one time they were mining it for details about Korby, among others. In “Subspace Rhapsody,” the writers gave M’Benga a line identifying Korby as the “Louis Pasteur of archeological medicine.” In TOS, Spock would use those exact words to describe Korby to Kirk.

It is clear that Season 1 of TOS takes place more than five years after SNW, because in TOS Captain Kirk said so straight up, in front of Chapel. “It's been five years since his last message.”

Start with three months for Chapel’s fellowship, plus enough time to get engaged before Korby leaves on his mission to Exo III, and add five years. That's how long it will take until Jess Bush’s young and boisterous Christine Chapel, ground down by time and tragedy, ultimately matures into Majel Barrett’s calm, steady, but haunted Nurse Chapel. More than five years. And by most sources’ reckoning, no more than roughly six years.

Now that we've seen Kirk visiting Pike’s Enterprise, it feels odd that in TOS, Kirk hasn't heard Chapel's story firsthand. He'd been told about her professional background, but it's obvious in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” that they are not friends from the old days. He remarks, “I'm told you gave up a career in bio-research to sign on this starship.”

Their professional distance is believable, because the SNW writers knew these lines of dialogue from TOS. The writers worked around it. It’s easy to overlook, but Jim Kirk never got the chance to meet Chapel in SNW. While his brother Sam was having a blast dancing at her celebration in “I’m Ready,” Jim was so busy working with La’an that he missed the whole thing about some nurse getting a fellowship.

Okay. Now retcon this TOS dialogue, if you can.

SPOCK: You're certain you'd recognize his voice?

CHRISTINE (smiles): Have you ever been engaged, Mister Spock? Yes. It's Roger.

On the surface, Christine's lines in TOS make no sense in light of SNW. We're now aware that Christine knows he’s been engaged. She knows T’Pring. So her question can't be reconciled with SNW. Not unless she has somehow, improbably, completely lost all her memories of T’Pring. Right?

No. Try this interpretation. Spock's question was both stupid and insensitive. The question made very little sense in TOS; he's smarter than that. It was, at best, a tone-deaf question to ask his colleague about her missing fiancé.

Spock's question makes even less sense, because now we know that he too is familiar with Korby’s voice… including the Irish accent that's missing in TOS.

There's only one way in which Spock's line could make any sense now. Through retcon lenses, it seems like Spock has been unable to get over how fast Christine got engaged after dumping him. She and Korby were barely together long enough, he thinks, for her to still recognize Korby’s voice five years later.

With a quirky half-smile, Chapel threw Spock’s stupid question right back at him. On Kirk's bridge, only Uhura and Spock himself would recognize her rhetorical question as a sarcastic rejoinder – made even more cutting by her calm “Mister,” and her careful choice of words. Even in this heated moment, she’s a professional, and she has the decency to stop just barely short of violating Spock’s privacy in front of everyone on the bridge.

When Spock responds only with a raised eyebrow, she clarifies, “Yes,” for Kirk's benefit. In that moment, she beams, too happy about Korby’s survival to give any further thought to Spock. Until I saw “Wedding Bell Blues,” that rationalization worked for me.

If you ever rewatch this TOSepisode, watch for Uhura as the captain prepares to beam down. She's captured by an unusual camera angle over Spock’s shoulder, the focus remaining on his concerned frown as he takes the center seat. Chapel is following Kirk to the turbolift, but she detours for a moment when Uhura wordlessly rushes over to give her a hug and kiss! It was beautifully played and perfectly shot, exactly as it should be.

Back to “Subspace Rhapsody” for a moment. Chapel was hardly the only character in “I'm Ready” who is unprepared for an inevitable fate. Consider the socially oblivious Sam Kirk, featured in the number’s ensemble happily throwing his hands in the air like he just don't care. It resonates, in part, because we all know Sam’s destiny. In the last episode of TOS’s first season, “Operation: Annihilate!”, Jim Kirk identified his brother Sam’s body. It's the moment of Trek canon to which we owe Sam’s cheesy mustache.

Some key details about Sam Kirk, quite remarkably, were also taken from “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” The android duplicate of Kirk tried to impress Kirk with the accuracy of his memories of Sam. “George Samuel Kirk. Your brother. Only *you* call him Sam.”

SNW has already addressed its own apparent inconsistency with canon about Sam’s name, lampshading it as a mistaken assumption by Kirk during an exchange between La’an and the alternate-timeline Jim Kirk in SNW’s “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.”

KIRK: Sam is his middle name. Most people call him George.

LA’AN (scoffs): Absolutely no one calls him George.

The Kirk android also mentioned that Sam, “with his three sons and wife,” saw Jim off on his mission.

I will be surprised if we don’t meet Sam’s wife, Aurelan, in a future season of SNW. But they must be separated or divorced, because their son Peter is already about six years old at the time of SNW. Going by the young actor’s age, Peter Kirk was 12 or 13 when he was orphaned on Deneva in “Operation: Annihilate!”

I don't know how many varieties of homewrecking **s there are, but Nurse Chapel is the worst kind.

@ S in PA: Great work rectifying TOS canon with SNW episodes; now how do we rectify Trelane/Q doing essentially the same f-ing around with the Enterprise crew that he did in Squire of Gothos years later, without Spock or Chapel or Uhura saying something like "Oh yeah, remember that wedding planner? This kind of reminds me of that." Or the whole arc with the Gorn, which the Arena episode quite clearly establishes that no one has ever seen.

I think Nu trek continuously violates canon because 1) the writers don't know about it, 2) if they are aware they don't care, and 3) they are lousy writers without a creative bone in their body sho they have to rehash old TOS stories.

I simply cannot take any of this anymore. How is it possible? Trelane cannot be Q, nor can Q be Trelane. What is most insulting is we are talking about this at all.

This was supposed to be a romantic fantasy. The guy gets a wish that the woman loves him and then he learns that he doesn't really love her, and takes back his wish. The latter is what we were not shown in this episode. Why does Spock stop wanting Chapel? We do not know. We were not shown a single reason. Also, we were not shown why Spock wants Chapel. We do not know why they came together nor why they broke up. And so this fantasy episode is pointless. Chapel begins as she ends. Spock as well, I maintain.

So, Trelane has always been a Q?

Please say it isn't so.

Jammer is right, nothing at the end to wrap this thing up.

Spock needs to get over Chappel and get on with being Spock.

2 stars, probably .5 too many.

Oddly, Trelane nonchalantly mentioned tribbles to Spock, sounding very much like he expected Spock to know everything about them. In TOS, Spock will show no sign of having heard of tribbles.

It bothers me a lot that SNW's writers and producers decided to bring Trelane into this series, despite *knowing* that Uhura and Spock will not mention or remember the events of this episode when they meet Trelane in "The Squire of Gothos." Unless their memories of the encounter are going to be wiped in a future episode of SNW, this is implausible.

These continuity issues -- which I choose to frame as *memory* issues from an in-universe perspective -- are accumulating, too. In "Arena," nobody on Kirk's Enterprise will mention having encountered the Gorn before, or recognizes the name. In "Amok Time," Spock will stare at an image of T'Pring as a child and will tell Kirk about their childhood betrothal, giving the strong impression that he has not seen T'Pring since childhood.

It's unfortunate that they've created so many continuity lapses. But I think I'd prefer to suck it up, because writing in an on-screen memory reset would undoubtedly be even worse.

@S. in Pa.

The writers and producers have a bizarre and brazenly dysfunctional Schrödinger's cat-like attitude to continuity: on the one hand they treat continuity as optional because there is, according to them, simply 'too much' of it; on the other hand, they compulsively strip-mine it for ill-thought-out memberberries at every opportunity.

They can't make their minds up about whether they want continuity or not, so they exploit it and break it at the same time – and satisfy no one.

"The writers and producers have a bizarre and brazenly dysfunctional Schrödinger's cat-like attitude to continuity: on the one hand they treat continuity as optional because there is, according to them, simply 'too much' of it; on the other hand, they compulsively strip-mine it for ill-thought-out memberberries at every opportunity.

They can't make their minds up about whether they want continuity or not, so they exploit it and break it at the same time – and satisfy no one."

Well said Bok'Mor. You encapsulated perfectly what Zi hate about nuTrek (all the Kurtzman era shows) - the composition of Trek void of any of its spirit.

Nobody noticed the classic reference to “The twilight Zone”? “Wishes all us to the cornfield”? Bill Mumy is going to be offended😁

Pike: "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
Batel: "Mm-hmm. If we play our cards right."

Am I the only one that thought these two were about to invite the three-armed bartender to be part of a threesome?

This episode, like many others, felt a bit cringy in the first half. I don't like the way Spock is portrayed as if he was a heartbroken teenager. But it ended up being a funny and entertaining episode.

It’s pretty impressive that they were able to get Liberace to play the Trelane guy, what with him being dead and all.

This episode felt like it was from another time. In a good way I mean. I loved the lower stakes and all around relaxing vibe of this. Modern tv seems to think that viewers need to be in a constant state of anxiety. This episode “just” wanted to be entertaining.

I prefer entertainment to anxiety.

Is it just me or was Chapel kinda mean in this? Before they left Spock and her where an items, and then she hooks up with some new guy (isn't that cheating?) and doesn't even bother to tell him. She just randomly shows up with him on the teleporter pad and says "Oh hey, he's my fiancé".

I feel like a message to him at some point would have been nice....

I guess they fixed Ortegas' hand then

So is thiss being identified as Trelane, the same entity from the TOS episode? Why didn't Spock recognize him in TOS? If it's a different being then you think Spock would think this reminds of that insane wedding planner fform a few years ago.

I liked this episode a lot, though I agree with Jammer that it could have had a better payoff. I'd still give it three stars for being entertaining and well acted.

I particularly liked Cillian O'Sullivan as Korby, who was immediately likable, which softened the blow for those of us in the audience who liked Spock and Chapel as a couple. And I liked that Spock and Korby ended up teaming up to restore reality. (Relatedly, I liked how it wasn't actually an alternate timeline; everyone was just under the spell of a mass delusion.)

And I was delighted to hear John de Lancie as Trelane's dad at the end. That was just too good. Look, SNW is somewhat derivative most of the time, and this episode was no exception. But it was fun and character-driven, and sometimes that's enough.

I'd be happy with Dancing La'an becoming a regular thing. That alone was worth four stars.

Trelane and Q relation established! Yay for that!

The ep was some lighthearted (less so when Trelane starts forcing things) comedy.

Chapel is a ruthless bitch. No 2 ways there. I liked her maturing from TOS's dove-eyed-damsel trope. But this is too far in the other direction. What Korby sees in her, is beyond me, but to each there own. I bet she'll dump him sooner rather then later.

Spock actually got the lucky break in the end. La'an is WAAAAY hotter and more compelling catch (and I say that as a woman - she's one of the few female characters in Star Trek that tingle my nascent lesbian nerve). Their tango scenes - mmmmm the level of sexual tension in the air is palpable. :) She's got inherent sex appeal that Chapel can only dream of.

3/4. Seems about right for what the ep wanted to be, and achived.

I wish the writers of this show would just go make their Bridgerton / wedding / Musical costume drama that they actually want to make. Remember what we got in TNG post the Best of Both Worlds? Picards traumatic family breakdown? Here it’s time to dance and play with each other.

Trelane - is needlessly inserted into this story. Remember how Q would show up to teach lessons to Picard. Those were the good Q episodes. The bad ones generally were when he just tricked for tricked sake. Here we don’t even get that, because half the time there is “the mystery” Trelane. He doesn’t reveal himself, so we just get to plod through the gimmicks one after another (flowers come back to laugh…wow contain my awe and laughter…)

Again - all this beautiful pomp and circumstance for such mediocre scripts. Can someone shift the budget lines? Less effects, and a few more script writers preferably Elder ones who understand how characters actions develop plot and not the other way around?

"Less effects, and a few more script writers preferably Elder ones who understand how characters actions develop plot and not the other way around?"

No. Discovery debuted 9 years ago and the producers haven't changed their formula since then. In fact, the next series, Academy, will probably be even worse.

"In fact, the next series, Academy, will probably be even worse."

BIG understatement.