Synopsis: While Captain Batel continues her recovery from her Gorn infestation through the use of Illyrian blood, an alien with the power to shift realities comes aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of why the conscious ego is wary of losing control to the unconscious, as well as what happens when it acknowledges and integrates unconscious material into itself in order to make it stronger and the psyche more whole.
In “Wedding Bell Blues,” while the U.S.S. Enterprise is receiving repairs at Starbase One, her crew prepares to host a centennial celebration of the founding of the United Federation of Planets. Meanwhile, Captain Marie Batel continues to recover from an infestation of Gorn hatchlings, by receiving transfusions of Illyrian blood from Commander Una Chin-Riley (Number One), and Lt. Spock looks forward to the return of Nurse Christine Chapel from her three month fellowship studying with Dr. Roger Korby. But when Chapel beams aboard, Korby is with her as her date. That evening, there is a party being thrown in the Port Galley. After Chapel tells a romantic story, ending with Korby giving her the sun and the moon and the stars, Spock goes to the bar and is given a drink from a bartender who appears to him as Vulcan, but is actually an energy alien who is able to shift realities.
When Spock awakes the next morning, it is in a reality in which he is about to marry Chapel. Korby seems to be the only one who is aware that reality has changed, and after angering Spock to the point of provoking him to violence, Spock realizes it too. Together they then try to explain the situation to Captain Christopher Pike, Dr. Joseph M’Benga, and Lt. George Samuel (Sam) Kirk at Spock’s bachelor party, but no one will listen. At the ceremony itself, Spock uses the phrase the sun and the moon and the stars in his wedding vows, which is enough to stir Chapel’s emotions, so that she is now aware that they are in an altered reality. Frustrated, the energy alien, who is currently appearing as an Andorian wedding officiant, tells those assembled that it is time for everyone to die. At this point, two additional energy aliens appear overhead, his parents. They scold the younger alien and take him home. Leaving everyone to drink and dance at the planned reception, except for Lt. Erica Ortegas, who works out in the gym and sees the reflection of a Gorn in the mirror.
In this episode, the energy alien and Illyrian blood, can be interpreted as bits of irrational unconscious material, and the crew can be seen as representing the rational conscious ego. The energy alien is a physical manifestation of the reason that the conscious ego is wary of the unconscious and losing control to it. The ego’s need to remain in control is illustrated in Starfleet rules and regulations, including the one being broken in this episode—the prohibition of using Illyrian blood in a medical procedure. Illyrian blood, on the other hand, is the only hope to heal Batel. A dilemma is created in having to decide whether to follow rigid rules or to follow one’s instincts and internal moral compass (and the Hippocratic Oath) to save the patient. The decision to compromise Starfleet regulations and use the Illyrian blood can be analogized to when the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates bits of unconscious material into itself to become stronger and make the psyche more whole.
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