Star Trek: The Original Series 2-15: The Trouble With Tribbles

Episode:

44

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Writer:

David Gerrold

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Director:

Joseph Pevney

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Air Date:

29-Dec-1967

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm going to try to find something new to say about The Trouble with Tribbles, arguably the most famous episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. It's the one with the tribbles in it.

You've probably figured out from the clues that this was written by David Gerrold. In fact, it was his first professional sale. He went on to provide two scripts for Star Trek: The Animated Series and was part of the team that developed Star Trek: The Next Generation, even writing some of the series bible. Unfortunately, season 1 TNG was a damn mess behind the scenes and he left the show without writing a single episode.

The title card doesn't mention that it was heavily rewritten by producer Gene Coon. It was one of his final episodes as producer, as the work was exhausting and he was butting heads with Gene Roddenberry over the amount of comedy he was bringing to what was supposed to be a serious show.

This was originally the last episode of 1967, which basically covered Coon's time on the series, give or take a few episodes. It's probably not a coincidence that 1967 may have also featured the best run of stories in the franchise's history. They weren't all winners, but the first episode to air that year was The Galileo Seven, one of my favourites, then you've got stories like Arena, Space Seed, Devil in the Dark, Errand of Mercy, City on the Edge of Forever, Amok Time, Mirror Mirror, The Doomsday Machine, Journey to Babel etc. I'm not saying that Gene Coon was the real talent behind classic Star Trek, it was a team effort, but the show shined brightest when he was part of that team. And not just a freelancer dropping off scripts like Spock's Brain.

Okay, I'm going to be going through the whole episode and writing my thoughts underneath screencaps, so there will be SPOILERS here. I won't spoil anything that aired after it though. Even episodes that actually have 'tribbles' in the title.

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If you're watching the remastered Blu-ray with the original effects the episode begins with an incredibly blue and grainy-looking shot of the Enterprise. I don't know what happened, as the colours look much better on the previous non-remastered DVD release. Just neutralising the colour cast would've been a big improvement.

This is basically what it looked like on the earlier DVD release. I mean it's not actually a screencap from the DVDs, I just took that picture up there and messed with the colours so that it looks like it is. Did you know that the Enterprise actually has a subtle blue stripe down the front of the neck? They originally had the whole neck painted blue but I guess they realised that it looked kind of terrible like that.

Anyway, the episode cuts inside to show Kirk, Spock and Chekov having a meeting in the briefing room.

Hey, it's a green shirt Kirk episode. The walls are very grey this week though.

The reason that Chekov's been invited to the briefing room is that they want to make sure he's been learning something during his time on the ship. It's just a happy side effect that his answers double as exposition for us.

They're in sensor range of Deep Space Station K-7, which is a parsec away from the nearest Klingon outpost (or 3.3 light years). Chekov adds that they're figuratively close enough to smell them, though Spock would prefer it if he could stick to being literal.

Chekov tries to explain that he was making a little joke, but Spock gets it. He'd just assessed that his joke was extremely little. Man, Spock is getting an early start on the disparaging dialogue this episode. He's just crushing poor Chekov's spirit for no reason.

Spock also has some exposition to give, explaining that the nearby Sherman's Planet has been claimed by both the Federation and the Klingons. We get some continuity here as they mention that the Organian Peace Treaty that came out of the episode Errand of Mercy says that disputed planets can be claimed by whichever side can prove they can develop it most efficiently. So they're still fighting the Klingons, they're just it with logistics instead of phasers.

The teaser ends with the news of a distress call from K-7. A disaster call in fact! The ship's put on red alert as they all run to their posts. Okay, that's a pretty decent teaser I think. Lots of facts thrown at us, but in an amusing way, and there's the promise of drama with the Klingons at the end.

ACT ONE

Act one begins with the Enterprise pulling up to Deep Space Station K-7, the first and only space station we ever get to see in the original Star Trek. They actually made a proper miniature for it, with internal lighting and everything, which is pretty unusual for the classic show. This isn't it though, this is the CGI version from the remastered episode. Incidentally, this was the first of the remastered episodes to feature the new and improved replacement CGI Enterprise model that they stuck with for the rest of the project.

Kirk's captain's log voice-over reminds us about the priority-1 call, which signals absolute disaster. If you're only suffering from a mild disaster you have to send out lower-priority calls I guess. Kirk's working on the assumption that the Klingons have attacked the station, so the Enterprise is flying in with shields and weapons ready.

There's no battle though. In fact, everything seems pretty calm here at K-7.

Kirk calls up the station and requests they state the nature of their emergency, but the guy on the phone uses the classic 'you'd better come down here' line, to which there's no possible argument or defence. Kirk's just going to have to beam over.

It's already pretty clear that Kirk's not particularly relieved by the apparent lack of a real emergency. He's not taking chances though and keeps the ship on battle readiness as he and Spock beam over.

There's a better shot of the station, which couldn't look more 60s if it was wearing a miniskirt. The modeller did a fantastic job of meticulously recreating the original miniature, even down to the windows overlapping the letters 'K7', making them kind of hard to read.

I remember reading somewhere that those saucer shapes under the cones were apparently designed to slide open, revealing... I dunno, somewhere for spaceships to dock maybe. That probably wasn't a feature built into the model, however.

Look at the Enterprise in the window! That's the first time we've ever seen the ship and the characters in the same shot, well except for the opening of The Cage.

It turns out that the distress call was ordered by Federation undersecretary Nilz Baris, who put the entire quadrant on alert just so he could get someone over here in a hurry. Trek didn't nail down the meaning of 'quadrant' until a few seasons into Next Gen, so we don't actually know how big of an area that is, but I expect that it's a fourth of the size of something even bigger. Unfortunately, Baris is in charge of agricultural affairs in this quadrant, so he actually has the authority to get away with it.

Baris dragged the Enterprise here in such a hurry because he wants Kirk's security officers to guard his storage compartments. Kirk's so thrown off by this that he asks "Storage compartments?" twice in rapid succession. Then he pauses a bit too long on his next line and the station commander interrupts his sentence by handing him a mysterious golden bag.

It's an excessively ostentatious pouch of blue wheat, but beyond that Kirk has no idea what he's looking at. Baris makes the mistake of assuming that Spock doesn't know what it is either, and regrets it when the Vulcan starts giving him a lecture on the grain's origins. The episode keeps turning exposition into comedy.

The grain is known as quadrotriticale and they've got compartments full of the stuff. In real life, triticale is a synthesized grain created by crossing wheat with rye and this stuff is even better than that. In fact, it's the only Earth grain that'll grow on Sherman's Planet, so it's crucial to their claim. Without the quadrotriticale, the Klingons will likely get the world for themselves.

Spock talks Kirk into the logic of posting two security guards, and Kirk decides to also give his crew shore leave while they're here. Baris clearly wanted more guards, but he made the mistake of putting Kirk in a bad mood. In fact, Kirk tells Baris that he's never questioned the orders or intelligence of a Federation representative... until now. Damn Kirk, you're as bad as Spock today.

Kirk's still whining about it in the station's bar later. It can't have been that long, Spock's still carrying the bag of quadrotriticale, but I guess Kirk's decided that he's off duty now and he's having a drink. You won't find many Star Trek episodes where Kirk and Spock go to a bar together, but it happens I guess!

Chekov and Uhura don't waste any time getting down there as well, which Kirk actually points out. So Uhura points out that she rarely ever gets to leave the ship, which is true. The poor woman is rarely ever invited to landing parties.

Then another guest star walks in. It's a man literally called Cyrano Jones, played by an actor called Stanley Adams. He's currently a bit of a blur but you'll see him clearer in the next picture.

Adams, I believe, is the only Star Trek guest star in the history of the franchise to have also written an episode (season 3's The Mark of Gideon). In fact, I can only think of a handful of Trek actors in general with writing credits. Walter Koenig wrote an episode of the Animated Series, Simon Pegg co-wrote Star Trek Beyond, and Robert Picardo helped come up with the story for Voyager's Life Line. I guess Shatner and Nimoy had some input on their movie scripts.

Kirk decides to test Chekov's knowledge again with the bag of grain, and he gets what it is right away! I mean why wouldn't he, it was invented by a Russian! (It probably wasn't invented by a Russian). The original plan was for Sulu to come in and identify the grain, using his botany experience, but I think it's funnier this way.

The protagonists leave, but the camera stays with Chekov and Uhura as they go to the bar. It's their scene now.

Cyrano Jones has been trying to sell the bartender more Spican flame gems, but he's not interested, he's already got enough. So Jones opens up another pocket and tries to tempt him with some Antarian glow water, but he's already got enough of that too. Finally, he tries to tempt him with a bit of fluff he pulled out of his top pocket, but it's Uhura who's interested.

Jones calls it a 'tribble' and when Uhura holds the creature it makes a pleasant purring sound. Nichelle Nichols does a good job here of being absolutely in love with the thing. She also does a good job of completely ignoring Jones calling her things like "lovely little lady". Chekov can't ignore the fact that it's eating his quadrotriticale though.

The bartender has the idea of buying the tribbles from Jones and then selling her one, but Jones just gives it to her for free. The idea is that once her crew sees her new pet they'll all want one. Man, he's going to be disappointed when he learns that they don't use money in the Federation. Wait, this is a Federation station.

What's really weird is the music in this scene. It sounds like a choir of cats.

Kirk's in the briefing room having another drink when he gets a priority call from Admiral Fitzpatrick telling him to take the grain situation more seriously. It's now his responsibility! Kirk thinks that's just lovely. Then he gets news from Uhura that a Klingon battle cruiser is on the way! I guess her shore leave is over then?

By the time Kirk's made it to the bridge the Klingon vessel has already reached the station, but it's just sitting there 100 kilometres away. Kirk calls Mr Lurry, the station administrator, to give him a heads-up. But Lurry presses the button that zooms the camera out to reveal...

Original effects

... that the Klingon captain is sitting in his office!

I love that we can see the ship through the window again. It's rare that we get to see the outside of the Enterprise from inside the Enterprise. This time I'm showing the original effects, so the Enterprise was always visible out there in the episode, though whether it's a miniature or a cardboard cut out I don't know.

ACT TWO

This is a new Klingon we haven't met before called Koloth, though Kirk apparently knows the guy already.

I've read a few stories about the introduction of Koloth and I'm sure there's probably some truth in all of them. One story says that this was supposed to be Kor from Errand of Mercy, but John Colicos was unavailable. Another says that they'd planned to introduce Koloth as a recurring rival to Kirk for ages, but they decided to wait a while as the actor they had in mind, William Campbell, had already played the role of Trelane in The Squire of Gothos.

Personally, I think running into Kor or Koloth every other week would've made it seem like a very small universe, but then DS9 did okay with its recurring antagonists so it can work.

Koloth claims he's just here for some shore leave and Lurry doesn't have the authority to refuse them. I guess because of the Organian Peace Treaty.

The original Star Trek is very episodic, but I'm glad that every now and against something can change and events can have consequences. If something can be that important it means that potentially anything could have an effect on later stories, even if it usually doesn't.

Anyway, Kirk does have some authority here, enough to limit the Klingons to 12 at a time and then bring in an equal number of security guards to keep an eye on them.

Kirk and Spock are joined at the hip in this episode, as the two of them head to the ship's recreation room next. Here they find Scotty relaxing by reading technical journals off a tiny monitor screen.

I figured that he must have come down here because he knew it would be quiet with everyone else on shore leave, but nope.

It turns out that half the crew are hanging out just off-screen, transfixed by Uhura's tribble... and its kids.

I would've assumed that there'd be a Starfleet regulation about buying strange alien pets from a space station and bringing them onto the ship, but I guess not!

Spock notices that the tribble has a tranquilising effect on the human nervous system, to which he is of course immune (he's not) and McCoy decides to take one for study. In fact, everyone's going to take one. Tribbles are a big hit!

Don't worry, I'm sure they're not part of some kind of sinister plot against the crew and the presence of the Klingons here is purely coincidental.

Hey, I recognise this scene! It was reused in... uh... a later episode.

They don't use communicators on the ship so Kirk has to go to a wall panel to hear Baris whine about the station being full of Klingons now. Kirk points out that he has guards on the grain and on the Klingons, so he's already done his job. And now he's going down to sickbay with a headache.

He wasn't joking either, he really does ask McCoy what he's got for a headache. Then he notices that McCoy's got a lot more than one tribble in here. Every organism is a machine that evolved to consume food and create baby organisms, but these tribbles don't mess around. Feed a tribble and you'll have a bunch of hungry tribbles. Worse, if you feed them after midnight they turn into Gremlins. Wait, no, that's the movie Gremlins. Man, I haven't seen that film in years. I wonder how well it holds up.

Things are going to be a bit awkward on the station with the crew having shore leave at the same time as the Klingons, so Kirk's sending Scotty down to keep people out of trouble. He also just wants him to get out of the house and have some fun.

It's a bit weird maybe that Scotty's reluctant to go on shore leave. I mean the dude likes his engines but he's also known to enjoy a drink or two. But in airing order, this episode comes directly after Wolf in the Fold, where shore leave goes very badly for him (the ghost of Jack the Ripper framed him for murder), so I can understand if he'd rather stay on the ship this time.

Original effects

This episode's full of shots of the Enterprise orbiting the station, they really spent a fortune on effects this week, and honestly they don't look too bad. Sure the colours have been inverted for some reason, giving the Enterprise blue stripes, but it's hardly noticeable. Plus when was the last time we saw what the port side of the ship actually looks like? It's almost always filmed from the starboard side, in the TV series anyway. The movies flipped this and shot the Enterprise from the port side.

You know what else is weird? The Enterprise is orbiting the station and the station itself is rotating, despite the fact that gravity isn't an issue here at all. You can justify the station rotating to give the occupants a more interesting view, or to avoid one side being heated up by constant sunlight, but the only reason I can think of for the Enterprise to be moving is so that it's always visible in Lurry's office window.

Oh, plus the Klingon ship is missing, that's weird too. They didn't actually have a Klingon ship miniature to film at this point, so Koloth's vessel is always just off-screen. Or 100 kilometres away I guess.

You can see it in the remastered version though! The new effects don't make a big deal about it, the ship just lurks around in the background, but it's there.

Cut to the bar on Deep Space K-7, where we learn that Klingons don't like tribbles, and they don't much like humans either. Though Koloth's XO Korax does give Jones a refill from his own glass before going over to harass Scotty.

Scotty and Chekov are just minding their own business, arguing over what's the more powerful and manly drink, Scotch whisky or Russian vodka, when the Klingon comes over to ruin the mood. He compares humans to blood worms and then says Kirk's a swagging, overbearing tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood. Chekov's ready to leap up in his captain's defence but Scotty's there to keep them out of trouble and he does his job. He hands the ensign his friend's drink to keep him seated.

Then Korax insults the Enterprise and it's on, with Scotty sending the guy flying over a table with one punch before smacking another one down with the back of his hand.

Chekov has less success, with this guy no-selling every punch he throws into his gut. I think it's because he was punching the belt. The thing's made of bubble wrap so it was cushioning every blow.

At this point, everyone's on their feet and it's Starfleet vs. Klingons. Star Trek's first barroom brawl! The fighting style is very 60s, because it was filmed in the 60s, but there's a lot going on.

There's also comedy, with Jones helping himself to some drinks out of the pro-replicator while the bartender's gone, and then trying to make it through the chaos to the exit. I like that they bothered to wire up the drinks dispenser so that it has some blinky lights going when it's in operation. I also like that there are people back there just watching and not getting involved; it makes the scene feel more real.

Jones actually makes it to the door without spilling a drop...

...then the bartender comes in and takes his glass right out of his hand! What's he going to do, pour it back in the bottle?

Jones thought ahead however and had another drink hidden in his pocket! The actor somehow managed to do that whole routine, twirling around a bar fight for 10 seconds, without it emptying out all over his pocket.

ACT THREE

Hey, Shatner's back! He's furious that his crew stole his episode for 7 minutes, and he's not happy about the bar fight either. It's not often that Kirk has to discipline his crew for screwing up, but they're getting it this time.

What he really wants to know is who threw the first punch. Unfortunately for him, no one's going to rat anyone out. No one's volunteering to come out and admit guilt either.

Kirk eventually dismisses his officers, all except Scotty who he wants to speak to in private. He was the senior officer there, with instructions to avoid trouble, so he wants to know what happened.

Scotty finally comes clean, admitting that it was him that started the fight, to Kirk's shock. This leads to a joke where Scotty repeats all the insults the Klingons said about Kirk, only to reveal that he didn't leap into the fray in defence of his captain's honour, he did it because they insulted the ship.

So Kirk confines Scotty to quarters, which he is very happy about. Now he'll finally be able to read his technical journals. This probably isn't helping Kirk's headache.

Back in sickbay, Spock's bothered about the tribbles. He drops a bible quote, talking about how the tribbles are like the lilies of the field in how they don't toil or spin, which he considers to be a bad thing. The creatures serve no practical purpose. This leads to a discussion about pets which ends with the two characters agreeing on one thing: they like the creatures better than they like each other. They don't talk too much at least.

Kirk arrives on the bridge and accidentally sits on a tribble, which has apparently climbed up onto his chair. Unless Sulu planted it there as a joke. Where is Sulu anyway? He's been missing this whole episode. Probably off filming The Green Berets or something I expect.

Anyway, anyone who thinks that Shatner is a bad actor clearly missed this scene, as he gives the most  genuine reaction to sitting on a tribble that anyone could ever imagine. He's not ranting and raving afterwards, but the way he slams his fist down on the button to call down to sickbay and then pauses before calmly requesting McCoy's presence on the bridge says a lot.

It's good timing, as McCoy has just discovered something new about their space rabbits: as far as he can tell they're basically born pregnant. That sounded impossible to me at first, but the more I think about it, the more it works. I mean they clearly don't need to mate in order to produce offspring, so the process could get started before they leave their mother's body.

McCoy describes them as being 'bisexual', which is another case of the show getting the obscure technobabble wrong. Writer David Gerrold claims that they used the word the network would allow and I'm inclined to believe him. The man's gay, so I'm assuming he knew exactly what it meant.

We get a reprise of the discussion in sickbay, with Spock repeating that the tribbles drain their resources and give nothing in return, while Uhura argues that they give love. Either way, there are clearly too many of them and they're wandering around where they shouldn't, so Kirk has maintenance clean them up while he goes back to K-7.

Kirk came here to have a chat with Jones about taking creatures away from an environment which has predators to keep them in check, but Baris takes the opportunity to call Kirk's security measures a disgrace. He thinks he's taking the project too lightly. Kirk takes the opportunity to say that it's him that he takes lightly.

Has this room always been this purple? Because this is an extremely purple room right now.

One thing I caught this time around is that Baris's assistant Darvin starts the scene encouraging him. I can imagine that he's been whispering in his ear, offering suggestions and stoking the antagonism between him and Kirk. Not that it needs much stoking. What Baris is really pissed off about is that Kirk is allowing Jones to roam around freely even though he's likely to be a Klingon agent.

Spock reveals that they've already checked Jones' background and he's never broken the law, not seriously. I don't know if they ever considered bringing habitual crime person Harry Mudd back for this story, but the two characters are actually pretty different.

Time passes and Kirk and Spock go to the mess hall together to get their lunch, only to find it filled with tribbles. The ship is absolutely infested at this point.

Kirk's day was already bad enough, but now he's discovered that tribbles have gotten into the food processors. This was supposed to be his chicken sandwich and coffee! Maintenance clearly hasn't done its job.

Scotty comes in with an armful of them, confirming that they've gotten into the machinery.

Hey, who let Scotty out of his quarters? And who let the tribbles into their equipment?

Scotty figures out they must have gotten there through the air vents and Spock points out that there are vents on the station too. Kirk gets on the phone with Lurry and Baris and tells them to meet him at the quadrotriticale storage compartments.

Hey, those two have a 3D chess game going. I was going to mention that the set is pulling triple-duty this episode, as the briefing room, the rec room and the mess hall, but maybe they eat in the rec room.

Kirk arrives in Lurry's office, still holding a tribble he picked up off the transporter pad, and races down to the storage compartments with Lurry and Baris. Hang on, he told them to meet him here. Maybe that was the storage compartment office.

Anyway, Kirk has one of those two security officers he had posted open the lower hatch for them with a stick-on sci-fi handle, but it won't open. It makes lots of beepy computer noises and that's it. So Kirk gives it a try himself, with similar results. Even when he tries putting the tribble under his arm so he can use both hands.

He gives up and tries one of the overhead compartments instead. Hang on, why have overhead storage compartments in a section with artificial gravity? Surely that's just going to be awkward.

Yeah, that's pretty awkward.

It's even more awkward if the scene takes eight takes to film, with Shatner having to just stand there and endure the shower of tribbles each time. The actor was totally up for it, but it wasn't much fun for him.

ACT FOUR

Well the bad news is that K-7 is currently storing 1,771,561 tribbles, at least according to Spock's calculations. I did the maths myself and that is absolutely correct. Though the amount of assumptions he's making means that 'around 2 million' would've been a better answer. He also mentions that he considered the amount of grain and the size of the storage compartments. Then he presumably concluded that they hadn't hit those limits yet, as the number would be the same if they were infinitely big. He wanted to show off, I get that.

Then McCoy comes in with some tribble facts of his own. First, if you stop feeding them they stop breeding, which is something true of literally all creatures (because they die). Second, these tribbles have died. Something in the grain must have killed them. You think it's bad for Kirk, he was holding a live tribble so the poor creature is now buried in a pile of corpses.

Baris is furious, saying that a board of inquiry will roast Kirk alive for this, and he's going to enjoy every minute of it. Man, these two really do not get on. Kirk's made some enemies, but none of them hate him quite as much as Baris does.

Oh, plus Captain Koloth wants an official apology from Kirk for treating his men like criminals after the bar fight. He feels that Kirk's actions have basically handed Sherman's Planet to them. But first Kirk wants to know who put the tribbles in the quadrotriticale, which is a bit of a tongue twister to say.

Here's a pointless fact for you: Kirk's played by William Shatner, Koloth is William Campbell and Baris is William Schallert. Those tribbles are all called William as well.

Cyrano Jones is here too, which means he's able to give them a crucial fact when they see them freak out next to Baris' assistant Darvin: tribbles don't like Klingons. Kirk takes them over to Koloth and Korax and sees the same reaction, confirming that something weird is going on.

Luckily McCoy walks in at the exact right time to tell them what's up: Darvis is a surgically altered Klingon agent, though not altered enough that he doesn't light up McCoy's tricorder. Under tribble-torture he admits that he was the one who poisoned the grain, to sabotage the Federation's efforts to colonise the planet.

So the tribbles weren't part of a plot, but they did reveal one! And it was Baris' own assistant that was the threat, not the other Klingons, who were presumably just there on shore leave like they said. But Kirk still wants them all gone from Federation territory in six hours.

Well that all worked out and now everyone is happy!

Unfortunately, someone will have to clear up all the tribbles on K-7 and Kirk is assigning Cyrano the job, seeing as he caused the problem. Spock comes up with another inappropriately specific estimate, saying the task will take him 17.9 years. And they're happy to leave him to it! Bloody hell guys.

The alternative is 20 years in a rehabilitation colony, which seems like the better option to me. At least he wouldn't be spending all that time picking up furry blobs from the floor and they presumably let you out early if you've been rehabilitated.

Also, the entire maintenance crew on the Enterprise couldn't clear up their tribbles, so I think they've assigned him a Sisyphean task. If there are 2 million of them after 3 days, then in 10 days there'll be more tribbles here than there are grains of sand on Earth. In 12 there'll be more of them than there are stars in the universe. I mean, assuming they've had enough to eat and the space station is infinitely big.

We get a line from Spock saying that they were able to divert a freighter full of quadrotriticale to Sherman's Planet and get them their wheat that way, which kind of puts Baris's concerns into perspective.

The Enterprise is mysteriously tribble free, however, and the crew are being suspiciously evasive about why that is. Even Spock. Eventually a furious Kirk gets Scotty to admit that he was the one who did it (again). He figured out a way to use the transporter to beam them all away. Not into space, that'd be inhumane, no he beamed them all to the Klingon ship's engine room "where they'll be no tribble at all". So yeah, these tribbles are dead, and now the Klingons will be even more angry with the Federation.

But it's funny, so they all laugh until the credits come up. Except Spock. Man, I hope they remember to tell Cyrano how to do that tribble transporter technique.


CONCLUSION

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Man, that's so blue. The funny thing is, the miniatures for the Enterprise D, the Defiant and Voyager actually are blue, but they were colour-corrected to look grey on screen. They're a nice subtle blue though, not like that.

Comedy is subjective and divisive, especially for Star Trek. Well, maybe not for the fans, who absolutely love this episode, but the people making the series were split. Creator Gene Roddenberry, producer Bob Justman and co-star Leonard Nimoy really weren't keen on the episode, feeling that it wasn't about anything, it turned the series into a parody, and the dialogue just wasn't believable. I can see their point, especially considering when the episode was made. Star Trek's biggest rival space opera in the US was Lost in Space, which had devolved into an absurd farce and the other genre show that jumps to mind, Batman, was a spoof to begin with. Science fiction has always faced an uphill battle for respect and Star Trek was trying to be recognised as a serious drama at a time when series like Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea had set the expectations for what a show like this should be.

But The Trouble with Tribbles' enduring success and status as one of the most beloved episodes of the entire franchise has pretty much answered the question of whether there's room for comedy episodes in Star Trek. There could even be room for an entire animated comedy series! I think part of the reason it works so well is that it does no harm to the characters or the setting, and even builds on the events of Errand of Mercy. The comedy isn't at the crew's expense and no one's out of character, instead the episode puts them into situations where humour comes naturally. Chekov claiming everything for Russia is just what he does, there's nothing weird about Spock and McCoy trading barbs, and Scotty getting drunk and throwing punches in his lady's defence isn't exactly unexpected behaviour. Okay, Kirk's in a real mood in this one, delivering sick burns to Baris and even yelling at Scotty by the end, but Shatner's acting is a joy to watch. The character is on the back foot the whole way through, but that helps make his revenge on Baris, Koloth and Jones even sweeter. Well, maybe not Jones, that punishment was harsh, but Baris had it coming.

The episode has a lot of memorable guest characters, but they don't steal the focus from the regulars, who all get their moments to shine here. In fact, it's almost a shame we don't get more from people like Koloth, who only really shows up for two scenes in an office. Jones and the bartender did well though, acting out their own little sitcom in the middle of a Star Trek episode and making it seem natural. It's just a shame that the comedy often came with obnoxious comedy music, which I'm allergic to. In fact, that's at the top of my very short list of things I didn't like about the episode.

My 'things I liked' list is a bit more substantial and includes things like the pacing, the way they delivered the exposition, the tiny model Enterprise outside of Lurry's window, and the fact that they actually built a space station miniature and filmed lots of shots with it.

Some Star Trek episodes earned their way onto top 10 lists with their emotional drama, imaginative concepts, thought-provoking messages, or status-quo shattering events, but this is just solid well-crafted fun. And it's good.

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NEXT EPISODE

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's my first review of a Star Trek: The Animated Series episode! Season 1, episode 5: More Tribbles, More Troubles.

If you'd like to share your own thoughts about tribbles you can leave a comment in the box below.