Star Trek TOS S02E15: The Trouble with Tribbles

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. 

Summary: 

The Enterprise is headed toward an area that is in dispute between the Federation and the Klingons. Nearby deep space station K-7 sends out a distress call, but when the Enterprise arrives, the station looks fine. Kirk and Spock beam down to demand an explanation Station Manager Lurry. It turns out Nils Baris, a Federation official of agriculture, made the call. He orders Kirk to provide security to the storage compartments on the station. The station is storing a high-yield grain, and he fears the Klingons might try to sabotage the Federation’s attempt to win control over a disputed planet. Kirk is upset, but assigns the guards and gives the rest of the crew shore leave.

Uhura and Chekov are hanging out in the station bar when they run into trader Cyrano Jones. He is trying to unload various items on the bartenders. When Uhura shows interest in a purring fuzzball called a tribble, he gives it to her for free. She takes it back to the Enterprise, where it has a little of babies which she shares with the rest of the crew. Meanwhile, Kirk has contacted the Federation over this distress call for grain guards. An admiral backs up Baris and tells Kirk that the grain and the station’s safty is Kirk’s responsibility. Kirk then receives the news that a Klingon cruiser is closing in on the station. But the Klingons are there claiming “shore leave rights.” Kirk allows the Klingons to come onto the station in small groups, most likely as a passive-aggressive way of showing Baris how little importance he gives this grain security business and showing Klingons how little importance he gives them them in general.

While Scotty and Chekov are in the bar, Cyrano Jones offers them a tribble. When they say no, he offers it to the Klingons at the next table. The Klingons call it a parasite, and the tribble shows a strong reaction to the Klingons. One of the Klingons starts trash-talking “Earthers,” specifically Kirk. The Enterprise crewmen are agitated but remain calm until the Klingon insults the Enterprise herself. Then Scotty throws the first punch, leading into a full bar fight. In response to the fight, Kirk cancels shore leave and restricts the crew to quarters.

 
Meanwhile, Bones and Spock are studying the tribbles and find them useless. They have a high metabolism and breed quickly, as Bones says, “They’re born pregnant.” They are taking over the ship in great number. Kirk, Spock, and Bones go down to the station to confront Cyrano Jones about the tribble infestation. Baris and his assistant Darvin confront Kirk and claims that Jones is probably a Klingon agent. 

After seeing the tribbles get into the Enterprise machines, Kirk worries that they may have gotten into the station’s storage. They find the storage compartments full of tribbles who have eaten all the grain. But something is wrong with these tribbles; the grain poisoned them. As security guards remove the tribbles, they react to Darvin in the same way they reacted to Klingons in the bar. Bones runs a scan on Darvin and identifies him as Klingon. He was the agent who sabotaged the grain. Kirk orders the Klingons off the station and orders Jones to remove all the tribbles from the station (a job that could take 17 years). As for the tribbles on the Enterprise, Scotty transports them onto the Klingon cruiser.

Lesson: 
Be wary of free gifts. Really, this episode was all on the fun side and any philosophy was lost in a mound of fuzzy, purring tribbles. 

Quotes:

Chekhov: I was making a little joke, sir.

Spock: Extremely little, ensign.

Kirk: I have never questioned the orders or the intelligence of any representative of the Federation. Until now.

McCoy: Do you know what you get if you feed a tribble too much?

Kirk: A fat tribble.

McCoy: No. You get a whole bunch of hungry, little tribbles.

Scotty: “Well, caption, Klingons called you a tin-plated, overbearing, swaggering dictator with delusions of godhood.”

Kirk: “Is that all?”

Scotty: “No, sir. They also compared you with a Denebian slime-devil.”

Kirk: “I see.”

Scotty: “And then they said you—”

Kirk: “I get the picture, Scotty.”

Trivia: 

"Well, you look like us, but the facial hair tells me you're the bad guys."

One of the most interesting things about this episode to me is the Klingons themselves. If you’ve seen The Next Generation, you know Klingons look a lot different in the twenty-fourth century than in the twenty-third. Although the difference is really due to TV production budgets, there is as in-universe explanation. The Klingon Empire went through a time of radical eugenics in the twenty-second century. This led to deformities, such as the loss of cranial ridges. By the twenty-fourth century, these features had returned. But in the twenty-third century, they looked very humanlike, which would have made it much easier for Darvin to be a secret agent. I'll also note here that Darvin was the only bad guy in this episode. The other Klingons really just wanted some vacation time on a Federation space station.