Stardate
2025-08-02
101
1168
2001
2823
282
2173
384
2600
291
1182
1002
1802
2514
852
59
2496
1473
102
568
2022
383
1942
2947
1009
2443
523
437
1420
1072
1831
2595
1306
1638
86
103
1426
2017
1254
1863
1990
710
1767
947
2175
490
1540
862
1463
2297
1080
926
104
76
2021
1566
2101
2453
736
2629
1858
32
1489
1839
1826
1754
691
1698
339
105
1094
1987
1221
1153
21
2059
1223
859
2776
600
2428
1115
2372
897
2631
1419
106
1336
2020
1635
2703
127
1757
472
158
170
2920
1345
230
1979
2460
2066
1395
107
1144
2025
435
828
2272
1880
2217
2293
591
466
1972
560
187
1927
2378
1185
108
346
1993
1052
65
2140
1629
2816
153
1806
1816
2564
1018
2058
535
2283
1372

Wedding Bell Blues

Episode Cast
Casting Type Actor Character
Guest Star
Guest Star Wedding Planner ()
Recurring
Recurring
Guest Star
Guest Star
Special Guest Star Wedding Planner's father ()
Guest Star
Episode Review

While neither character is named in the episode, the Wedding Planner is rather directly implied to be Trelane, the god-like "child" being from The Squire of Gothos (TOS), and the Wedding Planner's "dad" is heavily implied (by the nature of being voiced by John de Lancie) as being Q.

This connection between the two characters has long been theorized by fans, even making it into the recently deceased Peter David's excellent book Q-Squared. There was also a slight hint that this was canon in last season's Those Old Scientists episode in a brief exchange between Mariner and Boimler, but it has never been explicitly stated that Trelane was a Q in canon. Since it isn't even 100% confirmed that Darby is playing Trelane in this episode, nor is it confirmed that de Lancie is actually playing Q in this episode, it is still not confirmed that Trelane is a Q, but I think that's what we are supposed to get from this episode.

Yes, Trelane is a young Q, which brings up some very interesting implications. If de Lancie's Q is the specific Q who is Trelane's father, does that mean Trelane is Q's son from the Voyager Episodes The Q and the Grey, and Q2? That seems to be the implication. It is worth noting that Q-Squared does not indicate a familiar relationship between Trelane and Q, but Q-Squared is not canon, this episode is.

Trelane also mentions in this episode that his motivation for wrecking havoc in this episode is because he "spotted him digging in the dirt on the old homeworld" which implies that the original homeworld of the Q when they were a coporial race was located in Federation space, and Roger Korby has done archeological digs on that world. It is implied, though not explicitly stated, that this "old homeworld" might be on Vadia IX, as Sam mentioned earlier in the episode that Korby's "latest dig was on Vadia IX". Might this mean that Vadia IX is the original Q Homeworld?

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. God-like beings acting like children and using their power to treat our main characters like play-things is a staple trope in Star Trek (all the way back to The Squire of Gothos where Trelane was introduced) and it works exceedingly well here.

The idea that at first Korby is the only person to remember the original reality is interesting, it is unclear if it is because of the strong emotional tie, or because Trelane wants Korby to suffer. Even more interesting is how when Spock has an emotional outburst (punching Korby), he remembers the actual reality as well, and then, despite the fact that he has very clear emotions for Chapel, he spends the rest of the episode working with Korby to set reality right.

The emotional "vows" speech he gives at the wedding, which snaps Chapel out of it, was well done. The speech could easily have been vows, but the strong connection with Chapel and Korby's romance is enough to make her real feelings come through.

One minor thing that is worth a mention here, this episode appears to be the first ever live-action appearance of an Edosian, the bartender at the party at the end. Edosians were a species with 3 arms created for The Animated Series, and the only other appearance of an Edosian was also animated in Lower Decks, so it is fun to see one here in live action. Also an Edosian bartender (Kelzing) just seems perfect, 3 arms would be very useful when mixing drinks. As Pike and Una offer Kelzing a job on the Enterprise, and she accepted, it looks like we'll see more of Kelzing in the future, and I'm delighted. I can't wait to see Trekculture's Ups and Downs for this episode, I'm certain Kelzing is getting an up.

This is decidedly A-Tier Star Trek, I rate Wedding Bell Blues: Commander on our rating scale.

HD3 Episode Rank: Solid Pip Solid Pip Solid Pip Commander (A Tier)