Star Trek: The Trouble with Tribbles: aka., Boy, These Mid-2nd Season Episodes Sure Are About Excessive Eating

TOS: Episode 44: The Trouble With Tribbles

Our episode begins with Spock offering us a clear coaching as to what counts as a joke, thank god. Comments about scents traveling through space do not count. I repeat do NOT count. There is a vacuum in space, you know. That means no air. That means the idea of scents traveling is illogical. I repeat, illogical!

Interestingly enough, we also get a much thicker "Russian" accent from Chekov, and a lot of Scotty air time. Sulu is absent from this episode, as a result of his filming The Green Berets, so we've got to rely on our other not-just-American character actors instead.

Just as Kirk and Spock are chastising Chekov for his poor recollection of the Klingon-Star Fleet encounters in the quadrant they are traveling within, a high level distress call is heard from the Space Station K7, the very location the Enterprise is on its way to. The distress call is of the highest level, reflecting the threat of absolute disaster. The crew rushes to their destination at battle station readiness expecting absolute space war.

Arriving at the Space Station, it turns out there is no such thing as war. Instead, there is a radically arrogant Under Secretary of Agriculture demanding that the entire Enterprise crew be at the beck-and-call of this head of agriculture for the sake of protecting high yield grain, the only grain, in fact, that will grow on a planet the Under Secretary hopes to develop.

The point though, as we know, is that Kirk will be at the beck-and-call of no one. He's a self determining sort of fella. But, as it turns out, Star Fleet believes in the necessity of developing this planet too, and as a result, the grain must be protected. Kirk is utterly put out. In the meantime, he approves shore leave for much of the Enterprise crew (though then is quickly forced to rescind that approval when Klingon's approach the space station posing a very serious space war threat afterall. Klingons are our super super bad bad dudes of space at this point in Star Trek history, you'll remember.). In the midst of trying to fulfill her desire to shop as part of shore leave, Uhura encounters a hairy little purring animal that she decides she adores. And so our episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles" begins.

Episode Summary
Okay, look. This is the most over-celebrated, horribly written, highly watched episode in the entirety of the Star Trek universe. The truth is, I can barely bear to watch it. So, that being said, let me, for this one post, pretend I'm ten-years old too, and post a review as I would if I were only ten.

The Pretending-to-be-Ten-Years-Old Episode Summary

Kirk, just when he thinks he's gonna lose, but if Kirk has it hard it always means he's gonna win real real big.
So, Kirk, just when he's gonna win real real big.

Kirk is angry. Super angry. And then he's told what to do anyway. But he won't do it. He knows better. But he has to. So he will. But we know Kirk always wins. So it'll turn out he wins somehow, and he'll win good since he suffered.

Uhura makes a mistake. She likes a cute little woo woo fuzzy fuzzy purring purring thing. Oh so cute! Oh so cute! she says. But that thing eats everything. Boy does it eat.

And then the guy that made Kirk mad loses all his good stuff grain cause the fuzzy thing eats it. But it turns out the good stuff was poisoned anyway cause the Klingons wanted to hurt everybody cause we're supposed to think Klingons are bad. I think we just haven't taken the time to understand them. Klingons are just like you and me. Just like when we're cranky.

So, the fuzzy things take over cause they ate too much. But then when you think it's gonna go bad the fuzzy things die. Oh they were cute. But they die. And so Kirk wins. Cause the fuzzy things die. But they ate the bossy man's grain, and he'd been bossing Kirk. And the Klingons are to blame so Kirk doesn't get in trouble but the bossy man gets what Kirk would give him if he could anyway. So Kirk wins. TA DA!

The end!

Episode History
It turns out "The Trouble with Tribbles" was actually written by a more-or-less random college student that simply enjoyed the show and decided to try his hand at television story lines. He apparently submitted five episode ideas to the Star Trek crew, and his plot suggestion "The Fuzzies" was purchased for production.

The premise of the show was originally meant to serve as political commentary for the idea of introducing new species into an environment in which they have no natural predators. In other words, the show was meant to remind us that even adorable things can be quite dangerous, with the crop damage induced by rabbits in Australia as its inspiration.

David Gerrod, the writer of "The Fuzzies" also went on to have a small part in the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

In this episode there are also two moments when you can see an unusual physical characteristic of our beloved Scotty. It turns out the actor James Doohan served during the Second World War for the Royal Canadian Artillery. Incredibly, Doohan experienced his first military combat in the Normandy Invasion on D-Day. He managed to lead his men to higher ground, saving most of their lives, and moving them safely through a live mine field where Doohan himself killed two snipers that had been firing on the allied forces. In the process, however, he was hit by over six rounds, with bullets rushing through his legs, his right middle finger, and hitting him in the chest. Miraculously, the bullet to the chest was stopped by a silver cigarette case over his heart. (Honestly, in cases such as this, thank god for smoking.) His right middle finger had to be amputated there on the field. Though Doohan concealed his four-fingered hand during his acting career, there are a few scenes in Star Trek history when the injury shows. Two such scenes occur within Episode 44; as Scotty throws a punch in the middle of a bar fight scene, and then later when Scotty carries a huge load of tribbles into the Enterprise lounge. Later, in The Search for Spock the missing finger shows itself again as Scotty hands parts for the U.S.S. Excelsior to McCoy.

Doohan's four fingered hand shows in the cement outside The Disney Amphitheatre at the Walt Disney World Hollywood Theme Park

As a further, pro-Scotty sidenote, his links to Star Trek include him having previously starred in a Bonanza episode with Majel Barrett, the woman that would go on to be cast as Nurse Chapel (only after serving as the First Officer in the original pilor), the nurse that dearly loves our Spock, and the future wife of Gene Roddenberry.

Though Doohan grew up in Canada, he earned his role as our beloved Scottsman on Star Trek by showcasing his ability to play different voices. He apparently offered Roddenberry a variety of accents, but the two decided on a Scottish character together. Later, in the Animated Series, Roddenberry took advantage of Doohan's voice abilities and cast him in multiple "guest starring" voice roles for the series.