The Trouble With Tribbles
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| Star Trek: TOS episode | |
| "The Trouble With Tribbles" | |
 Captain Kirk up to his shirt in tribbles |
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| Episode no. | 44 |
|---|---|
| Prod. code | 042 |
| Remastered no. | 9 |
| Airdate | December 29, 1967 |
| Writer(s) | David Gerrold |
| Director | Joseph Pevney |
| Guest star(s) | William Schallert William Campbell Stanley Adams Whit Bissell Michael Pataki Ed Reimers Charlie Brill Paul Baxley David L. Ross Guy Raymond Eddie Paskey William Blackburn |
| Year | 2268 |
| Stardate | 4523.3 |
| Episode chronology | |
| Previous | "Wolf in the Fold" |
| Next | "The Gamesters of Triskelion" |
"The Trouble With Tribbles" is a second-season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, first broadcast on December 29, 1967 and repeated June 21, 1968. It is episode #44, production #42, and was written by David Gerrold and directed by Joseph Pevney.
Overview: Cuddly creatures quickly become a menace when they reproduce out of control aboard the Enterprise.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
On stardate 4523.3, Captain James T. Kirk and his crew are called to Deep Space Station K7 by a priority-one distress call. The station is near Sherman's Planet, a world in a sector of space disputed between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Under the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty, Sherman's Planet would be awarded to whichever side demonstrates that it can manage it more efficiently.
Kirk is furious when he later realizes the distress call was unwarranted, and the undersecretary in charge of agriculture in the sector, Nilz Baris, simply wants someone to guard the shipments of quadrotriticale, a four-lobed wheat-rye hybrid grain, bound for Sherman's Planet. To Baris's annoyance, Kirk assigns two token guards to the task shortly before learning that Starfleet Command endorses Baris's concerns. A Klingon ship soon arrives at the space station and requests that its crew be granted shore leave, as entitled under the treaty. Kirk tells the Klingon captain Koloth that he may only bring members of his crew down 12 at a time, and that he will provide one security guard for each Klingon who beams down.
Meanwhile, an independent trader, Cyrano Jones, brings some little furry animals called tribbles onto the station to sell; he gives one to Uhura as a marketing ploy. She brings it on board the Enterprise, where it and its offspring are treated as adorable pets. The animals purr a relaxing trill that the crew (even the stoic Mr. Spock) find soothing. Klingons, however, find tribbles very annoying, and the feeling is mutual: tribbles emit an ear-piercing shriek of aggression, and jump, whenever they are near Klingons. (It has subsequently been explained that tribbles have a keen sense of smell and find food by scent, that they find the smell of Klingons offensive, and that Klingons, who are likewise spoken of as having a keen sense of smell, find the "stench" of tribbles repulsive.)
The "trouble" with the tribbles is that they reproduce far too quickly and are capable of eating a planet barren if their breeding is not controlled; in the words of Dr. McCoy, "they are born pregnant" and threaten to consume all the onboard supplies. The problem is aggravated when it is discovered that the creatures are entering essential ship systems, interfering with their functions and consuming any edible contents present. Kirk realizes that if the tribbles are getting into the Enterprise's stores, then they are a direct threat to the grain stores aboard the station. However, upon examining the holds, Kirk learns that it is already too late; the tribbles have indeed eaten the grain—a fact he learns the hard way, by being buried to more than half his own height in tribbles when he opens a hold with an overhead hatch. It appears the mission has ended in a fiasco. On top of that, Koloth wants a formal apology from Kirk, since some of the Enterprise crew members have started, though not without provocation, a western-style brawl with the Klingon crew in the station's bar.
Spock and McCoy, however, soon discover that around half the tribbles in the hold are dead and many of the rest are dying, alerting the Federation that the grain has been poisoned. Furthermore, the tribbles also give away the identity of a surgically altered Klingon agent responsible. The saboteur is the only "human" the tribbles do not like: Arne Darvin, Baris's own assistant. He had infected the grain with a virus that becomes an inert material in an organism's bloodstream; the more that is eaten, the more inert matter builds up, till the organism cannot take in enough nourishment to survive and essentially starves to death. Upon a medical scan by Dr. McCoy, it is revealed that Darvin is indeed a Klingon in disguise. Thus the tribbles redeem themselves and enable the Federation to score a diplomatic victory against the Klingons. As for Cyrano Jones, who introduced the species to the station, he is ordered to remove the tribbles from the station (a clean-up task that Spock estimates will take 17.9 years) or be imprisoned for 20 years for transporting a dangerous life form off its native planet.
Just before the Klingon departure, all tribbles that were on the Enterprise are somehow beamed onto the Klingon ship by Scotty as a retaliation for the troubles the Klingons have caused, where, in his words, "they'll be no tribble at all."
[edit] 40th anniversary remastering
"The Trouble With Tribbles" was remastered in 2006 and first aired on November 4, 2006 as part of the remastered original series. It was preceded a week earlier by "Catspaw", and followed a week later by "Mirror, Mirror". Video and audio have been digitally restored, and the episode features the all-CGI USS Enterprise that is standard among the revisions. Other changes to this episode include:
- Space station K7 is rendered as a CGI effect with more surface detail added.
- A Klingon ship has been added in orbit around the station that was never seen in the original episode, but was seen in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine tribute episode, "Trials and Tribble-ations". None of the effects from "Trials and Tribble-ations" were used in the remastered episode, although the more detailed appearance of station K7 (including a prominent K7 logo on the dome of its central module) is clearly influenced by that episode.
[edit] Notes
[edit] Background
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This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008) |
David Gerrold was a college student just learning to write for television when he submitted five story premises to Producer Gene L. Coon. Of those five, "The Fuzzies" was the only one that interested Coon, and Gerrold was commissioned to write the story outline (retitled A Fuzzy Thing Happened To Me. . .) and script while still an amateur.
Gerrold wrote the character of Ensign Freeman with the intention of playing the part himself; however, Coon nixed the idea, saying that Gerrold was too skinny. Paul Baxley, one of William Shatner's frequent stuntmen, was instead chosen for the role. (Gerrold later appeared as an Enterprise crew member watching the destruction of the space station Epsilon IX in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.)
"Tribbles" was originally intended to be a serious take on the introduction of alien species to predator-free environments, as had happened with rabbits in Australia. Gerrold said he wanted to show how something that looked cute, fuzzy and adorable could be quite dangerous. Another version of the same theme appears in his script treatment "Bandi," in which a crew member has a sort of living teddy-bear for a pet. When the creature feels threatened, it telepathically induces other species to fight or kill on its behalf. D.C. Fontana later used the idea in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Encounter at Farpoint," in which a people called the Bandi, though they appear to be harmless and peaceful, prove to be willing to enslave other entities to materialize their desires. Possible literary antecedents include flat cats from the Robert A. Heinlein novel The Rolling Stones, which led some fans to demand to know why Heinlein never got any screen credit.[1]
The use of quadro-triticale was supposed to reestablish Mr. Sulu as an amateur botanist. But since George Takei was away filming The Green Berets, all his lines were given instead to Ensign Chekov.[1]
James Doohan did most of his own stunts in this episode, including some of the punches in the bar fight scene, exposing his missing middle finger (lost as a result of a war injury) for one of only several times, the other two being "Catspaw" and The Lights of Zetar. The missing finger is also observable under the great armload of tribbles that Scott carries into the lounge.
"Sherman's Planet" was a reference to Holly Sherman, David Gerrold's girlfriend at the time.[1]
[edit] Setting
Deep Space Station K7 was based on a model for a real-life space station/moon base proposed by Douglas Aircraft as early as 1960. Intended to be housed in the top stage of the Saturn IB or Saturn V rocket, it was designed to deploy like an inflatable balloon. This space station was also available as a model from Aluminium Metal Toys.[2]
[edit] Tribbles revisited
The James Blish adaptation of the episode was included in the Star Trek 3 collection published in April 1969. It is based on a version of the script which incorporated Sulu rather than Chekov. The episode was the basis of the third Star Trek Fotonovel.
A sequel episode appeared in Star Trek: The Animated Series titled "More Tribbles, More Troubles", for which Gerrold also wrote the script. He is writing another sequel for the Star Trek: New Voyages fan film series.
Tribbles are handled by Starfleet personnel in the bar scene in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock while Dr. McCoy seeks illegal passage to the Genesis Planet.
The original episode was later edited and spliced into the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations". In this retelling, the crew of Deep Space Nine witness the original events through time travel in an effort to stop Darvin from returning to change the course of history. This time, Gerrold made a cameo as a gray-haired, red-shirted ensign in a corridor of the Enterprise. During the episode, Worf reveals that Klingons considered tribbles to be an ecological menace and destroyed their homeworld. Charlie Brill reprised his role as Darvin in this episode after Deep Space Nine after coincidentally meeting several of the producers. According to a text commentary written by Mike Okuda on the DVD version of the episode, the producers were ambivalent on whether to do a return to "The Trouble With Tribbles" or "A Piece of the Action" when they happened to chance upon Brill sitting in the same restaurant that they were discussing the planned tribute.
A tribble can be seen in the newest film, Star Trek, sitting on Montgomery Scott's desk when he is first met on Delta Vega by Kirk and Spock Prime.
The original episode is featured on the Star Trek: Fan Collective - Klingon DVD set as the fourth of 13 episodes featured on the four-disc set. It was released on August 1, 2006, in the United States and Canada.
[edit] Gerrold's relationship with Star Trek
Although this episode marked the beginning of a long association between author David Gerrold and Star Trek, he was to sour on the series for many years. He later reconciled with it. [3]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Gerrold, David. "The Trouble With Tribbles: the birth, sale and final production of one episode" (PDF). benbellabooks.com. http://www.benbellabooks.com/gerrold/Tribbles.pdf. Retrieved 27 November 2006.
- ^ "AMT K7 Space Station". http://www.forbiddenplastic.com/amt_k7/amt_k7_build.html. Retrieved 2007-08-30.
- ^ "Nobody Knows The Tribbles He's Seen". nytimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/arts/television/16vinc.html. Retrieved 2007-12-16.
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Trouble With Tribbles |
- The Trouble With Tribbles 2006 remastered side-by-side comparisons
- The Trouble With Tribbles at StarTrek.com
- The Trouble with Tribbles at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
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