Okay, so "Daily Trek" means Weekday Trek. This is a nice way of coming down from the workday. By the weekend I just don't seem to have the energy for it.
Synopsis
In a stellar desert, the Enterprise encounters an uninhabited planet. They try to go around, but Kirk and Sulu vanish. Eventually the Enterprise finds a habitable zone on the planet, and McCoy beams down with two red-shirts. Shockingly, the red-shirts survive the entire episode.
They find an Eighteenth Century drawing room and a weirdo named General Trelane, retired, but you can call him the squire of Gothos. He didn't account for light delay, so he thinks his castle is contemporary. He's obsessed with militarism and honor, but it becomes very clear that those are just words.
Trelane says that he has matter-energy conversion technology, and Kirk reasons that it's being mediated by some device. Trelane's attentions are split between his playthings and his mirror, so Kirk challenges him to a pistol duel and uses his shot to blow up his—Trelane uses the word "instrumentality."
They beam back to ship and try to warp away, but the planet Gothos keeps getting in their way. Kirk beams down and Trelane is wearing a judge's costume. He sentences Kirk to death, but Kirk convinces him to play the most dangerous game. (I know, the story title meant "game" in the other sense.) Kirk and Trelane muck about with swords for a bit, then Trelane's parents show up and put him in time out. They tell Kirk they're sorry Trelane was such a bother, and the Enterprise continues on its way.
Commentary
I have mixed feelings about this episode, but it's only because of how it fits into the rest of Star Trek.
Thematically, I enjoyed "Charlie X" more. In terms of acting and production, "Gothos" is far superior, and it's a lot more fun. There's also a problem that, again speaking thematically, "Gothos" is completely redundant with "Charlie X." I mean, this is the third episode in eighteen that's about asshole gods, and the second one that ends with mommy and daddy showing up and setting things right.
The difference is that Charlie Evans was an adolescent, while Trelane is a child. There's just more going on with Charlie, which is why "Gothos" has so much spectacle—with how thin Trelane is as a character, they had to do something to fill out the runtime.
Then on the other side, "Encounter at Farpoint" (TNG 1x01/1x02) takes the aesthetics of this episode and does something interesting with it. Q's trial isn't just for show or for sport, and you get the sense that he's serious about it and he knows what he's doing.
I don't wanna get too far ahead of ourselves here, but it's absolutely the case that Q works so well because John de Lancie could pull off a disconcerting mixture of playful and threatening. William Campbell tried to do that, but looking back from the present he was drastically upstaged.
So I'm left seeing this episode more as the primordial ooze of the best Star Trek frenemy. Interesting in its own right, but still, why was this episode made?
