What is your opinion of season 3 as a whole?

[The Wormhole]

acting like a child while being 8000+ years old

8000 is considered young for that species.

where in TNG, a new Q matures rapidly

No. They grow rapidly, but they certainly don't mature accordingly.

The problem is the inconsistency.

Inconsistency in Star Trek? Why I never!

 

[Michael]

Any perceived inconsistencies with “The Squire of Gothos” or the portrayal of the Q later in the timeline didn’t really bother me in “Wedding Bell Blues”. Just found the episode to be incredibly boring, unfunny and pointless. I certainly enjoyed Rhys Darby as Trelane and I thought there was absolutely a kernel of an interesting episodes buried in there somewhere, but what we got felt super undercooked, like two or three rewrites away from being the actual finished episode script.

 

[Sn0man]

but what we got felt super undercooked, like two or three rewrites away from being the actual finished episode script

I felt that way about most of the season.

 

[fireproof78]

Any perceived inconsistencies with “The Squire of Gothos” or the portrayal of the Q later in the timeline didn’t really bother me in “Wedding Bell Blues”. Just found the episode to be incredibly boring, unfunny and pointless. I certainly enjoyed Rhys Darby as Trelane and I thought there was absolutely a kernel of an interesting episodes buried in there somewhere, but what we got felt super undercooked, like two or three rewrites away from being the actual finished episode script.

Weddings and Star Trek don't make good episodes.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yeah, Wedding Bells is at the bottom the list of SNW for me.

 

[Firebird]

- In The Squire of Gothos, Kirk's crew (including Spock) reacts to Trelane as if he is an entirely new type of being, despite the show having retconned the crew into having already met the being earlier in time

SNW showed that nobody aboard Enterprise was seeing Trelane's "true" corporeal identity by way of a couple shots where his reflection is of another face.

No retconning.

 

[cooleddie74]

It's not great SNW but there's nothing in it that contradicts the rest of Trek or its in-universe continuity. A little homework would demonstrate that, but it requires actual homework.

 

[Sn0man]

SNW showed that nobody aboard Enterprise was seeing Trelane's "true" corporeal identity by way of a couple shots where his reflection is of another face.

No retconning.

"Type of being"

How he appeared is irrelevant. At the end of wedding bells Q and then Jr Q appeared to the Enterprise crew as balls of light.

Total retconning.

 

[Yistaan]

"Type of being"

How he appeared is irrelevant. At the end of wedding bells Q and then Jr Q appeared to the Enterprise crew as balls of light.

Total retconning.

I think it goes like

Q and the Grey
Squire of Gothos
Wedding Bell Blues
Q2

For Jr/Trelane's timeline. It's not that hard.

 

[cooleddie74]

No retconning whatsoever. It's linear from the Q's perspective.

 

[fireproof78]

"Type of being"

How he appeared is irrelevant. At the end of wedding bells Q and then Jr Q appeared to the Enterprise crew as balls of light.

Total retconning.

They saw non corporeal life prior to Trelane.

 

[cooleddie74]

Yep. The Thasians for one earlier in Season 1.

 

[Sn0man]

They saw non corporeal life prior to Trelane.

More than that - they had direct prior experience of Q powers.

No retconning whatsoever. It's linear from the Q's perspective.

I'm trying to make it make sense.

1. The Canonical Defense (What is Reconciled)
The primary defense against the "retcon" accusation correctly points out that Q exists outside of linear time.

• Established Canon (TNG/VOY): The Q Continuum is a non-linear dimension. The Q can perceive and travel across the timeline of the universe at will, making human concepts of past and future largely irrelevant to them.
• Reconciliation: This canonical fact is used to reconcile the order of events. Trelane's appearance order (SNW → TOS) occurs a century before Q Junior's birth (VOY), but from the Q's perspective, this journey could be sequential:
  • Q Junior's Personal Timeline: Birth (VOY) → Sent on a field trip back in time to the 23rd century (SNW/TOS).
  • Conclusion: The fact that Spock meets Trelane before Picard meets Q is simply a function of Q's time travel. This particular aspect is not a retcon; it is a timeline reconciliation.

2. The Canonical Contradiction (What is Retconned)

The flaw in the "not a retcon" argument lies in the fundamental change to the pace of Q maturation that was established within the Voyager narrative.

• Established Canon (VOY: "The Q and the Grey" & "Q2"): The birth of Q Junior was a momentous, nearly impossible event. Crucially, his maturation was accelerated. In just a few Earth years between his introduction as an infant and his return as a mischievous adolescent, Q Junior demonstrated significant growth and power, suggesting that Q childhood is very rapid (relative to Earth years). His parents sent him on a journey with the expectation that he would quickly mature into a responsible member of the Continuum.
• The Strange New Worlds Retcon: The Trelane character in SNW is explicitly identified by John de Lancie's Q as being "only 8,020 Earth years old." This portrayal establishes that Q adolescence (the "troublesome child" phase) lasts for millennia.
• The Conflict: To establish that a "child" Q can be 8,020 years old, the SNW writers fundamentally altered the established canonical speed of Q Junior's growth from rapid (a few years) to glacial (thousands of years). This change in biological or developmental mechanics is necessary to fit the 8,000-year-old Trelane into the Q Continuum's history

The Strange New Worlds Trelane episode is a reconciliation of a character's identity (Trelane is a Q) and a retcon of his developmental timeline. You are entirely correct to identify the inconsistency in Q maturity as the actual retcon, as it fundamentally contradicts the rapid growth rate that was established as canon during Q Junior's introduction in Voyager.

 

[fireproof78]

More than that - they had direct prior experience of Q powers.

So? That's not an inconsistency. They had experienced the mental projection powers of the Talosians too. Such life was not regarded as an oddity.

Two, Trelane is not established as a Q per dialogue. Three, Q maturation is not consistent given we had Amanda Rogers as a child of two Q yet grew like a human.

We don't know Q maturation. It's a function of plot.

 

[The Wormhole]

It should be noted that while the episode does suggest Trelane is Q's son, this does not mean Trelane is the same son of Q we saw on Voyager.

 

[cooleddie74]

And noncorporeal life forms comprised of energy were first encountered by a Starfleet crew in 2152, so there were records of highly intelligent energy beings going back at least 109-115 years by the time Trelane had his two encounters with the Enterprise crew.

 

[cooleddie74]

It should be noted that while the episode does suggest Trelane is Q's son, this does not mean Trelane is the same son of Q we saw on Voyager.

That's my head canon. Q Junior and Trelane are siblings, Trelane being conceived afterwards.

 

[Firebird]

"Type of being"

How he appeared is irrelevant. At the end of wedding bells Q and then Jr Q appeared to the Enterprise crew as balls of light.

Total retconning.

Oh, really now?

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[cooleddie74]

In my head canon the Barbara Babcock entity is the Suzie Plakson Q.

 

[Sn0man]

SNW showed that nobody aboard Enterprise was seeing Trelane's "true" corporeal identity by way of a couple shots where his reflection is of another face.

No retconning

Oh, really now?

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I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make here is. I'm not suggesting their appearance as balls of light was the retconning, only that their appearance (corporeal or otherwise) was irrelevant because the enterprise crew had already met the Q per the wedding episode.

I guess I just have different ideas about what constitutes retconning or inconsistencies than others here do - even if my personal views on it are supported by what an AI manages to piece together on the lore. I mean, the showrunners themselves say Q Jr is Trelane and there are still arguments about its validity, so that doesn't inspire much hope for agreement about what's what with regards to this universe.