Star Trek DS9 S05E06 Trials and Tribble-ations

O'Brian and Bashir added to the line-up for fighting in the bar.

I had wanted to cover the two tribble episodes for a few weeks now, because the TOS episode is one of the funniest, and the DS9 episode is wonderfully done. After seeing Into Darkness last week, I finally took the time to go re-watch the tribbles. This DS9 episode relies heavily on this TOS one.

Summary:

Two agents, Dulmur and Lucsly, from Temporal Investigation arrive on the station to question Sisko about taking the Defiant back in time. Sisko explains:

The Defiant picked up an orb on Cadassia (later determined to be the Orb of Time) to return to Bajor. Barry Waddle, a human merchant, also comes on board. While under cloak to avoid Klingons, the ship experiences a strange surge of power. When they get the view screen up, they see the Constitution-class Enterprise. (Dulmur notes that this is Kirk’s Enterprise and that Kirk has the biggest file of temporal violations. They are not pleased that this is who Sisko is meeting with in the past.) The Defiant has wound up over 105 years in the past and near space station K-7.

The crew quickly discovers that Waddle is really Darvin, a Klingon disguised to look human. He had broken into the room where the orb was being stored. Darvin was unsuccessful in sabotaging the Federation colonization efforts, and the Klingons made him an outcast. Over a hundred years later, when he learned of the orb, he went back in time to correct his errors, pulling the entire Defiant crew with him.

The men learn about 23rd century hemlines.

Darvin beamed off ship, so the crew has to go on board the Enterprise and K-7 to hunt him down. The crew gears up in twenty-third century uniforms, which they all totally pull off. There is the usual adjusting to this archaic time shenanigans: trying to blend in, wearing the right color uniform, remembering hand-held communicators, using handles on the turbolifts, Bashir getting hit on by his great-grandmother, Bashir believing that he’s in a predestination paradox of being his own great-grandfather (because a super-human doctor of the twenty-fourth century has no genetic tests that could prove that…). I'm not sure how much the Temporal Investigation agents will look into that, or would want to.

Odo sits in the station bar and watches Uhura receive the first troublesome tribble. Worf is less-than-pleased when Odo shows him one. Then again, when is Worf ever pleased? Worf explains that tribbles “were once mortal enemies of the Empire” because they would eat through crops and overbreed. Bashir and O’Brian join Worf and Odo in the bar in time for the big Starfleet/Klingon fight to break out.

Dax looks for the bomb right above Kirk's head.

While the tribbles are taking over the Enterprise and K-7, Odo and Worf find the Darvin from their timeline and take him back to the Defiant. They discover that Darvin is planning to kill Kirk with a bomb already planted in one of the tribbles. He thinks that as poetic revenge, seeing as a tribble is what alerting Kirk to the fact that Darvin was Klingon the first time round. So now the crew’s goal is to find the tribble-bomb in time to save Kirk. Sisko and Dax go down into the station storage compartments to look for the bomb; it is there, but they can’t find it under all the dead tribbles. On the other side, Kirk and Spock are opening up the storage compartment. Sisko finds the bomb and has Kira beam it into space before it explodes. After Sisko makes a quick stop on the bridge to introduce himself to Kirk, the crew is ready to go back to their time. Kira uses the orb to get back to the twenty-fourth century. Lucsly thinks Sisko testimony shows all the ends were tied up and the Defiant’s trip won’t warrant any penalties for temporal violation. But after the agents leave, it is shown that there was one end left untied:

Lesson:

Please leave all secret agents and tribbles in the upright and proper era before time-traveling. And don't tell Temporal Investigation more than they need to know.

Quotes:

Sisko: It was an accident.

Dulmur: So, you’re not contending it was a predestination paradox?

Lucsly: A time loop? That you were meant to go back into the past?

Sisko: No.

Lucsly: Good.

Dulmur: We hate those.

Bashir: Aren’t you two wearing the wrong color?

O’Brian: Don’t you know anything about this period in time?

Bashir: I’m a doctor, not a historian.

Odo: Tell me, do they still sing songs of the Great Tribble Hunt?