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Star Trek: The Original Series 215-216 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-12-11 13:00:02
Edited:
2026-01-08 03:07:50
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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Comments

Keith Brown

This one ,The Trouble with Tribbles , is always on the top of favorite episodes of the fans !

JediLounger

Been waiting for this since you guys started. IT'S TRIBBLE TIME!!

Dirge Girl

Honourable mention: - The Trouble With Edward - Star Trek: Short Treks: Season 2, Episode 2 Rosa Salazar (Alita: Battle Angel) and H. Jon Benjamin (Bob's Burgers) "Captain Lynne Lucero is eager to take command of the USS Cabot. Her enthusiasm is tempered when she meets Edward Larkin, a scientist who believes he has found a revolutionary new use for tribbles."

Amos T Fairchild

It's Deep Space 9 cos they stole the idea from the Babylon 5 treatment and needed a different number. lol.

nigel Macbug

the drinking game giggles with tribbles by Simone binge time, 9:56 drink, 13:41 drink, 14:52 drink 74 more drinks later all the way to 53:56 pass out

Roger Davies

Poor Georges brain always over thinking.

Lintrinsic

Even the makers of Babylon 5 dispelled that myth long ago.

Lintrinsic

I love the Trouble with Tribbles. It's a fun, light-hearted adventure with cute little balls of fur Then you realise those cute little balls of fur are potentially the most dangerous creatures in Trek from an ecological standpoint. But you still love them regardless.

Itbewhatitbe

i mean i agree that does happen. but how in this case? that he thought its gonna be an environmental episode? imo its a pretty obvious train of thought if youre someone who didnt go in expecting and knowing its a silly light hearted episode. star trek has always been ahead of its time when it came to societal issues.

Itbewhatitbe

i actually agree that the tribble episode is a bit all over the place, like they couldnt settle on what the main problem is and just forcibly tied it together at the end. that a conquest focus, warrior culture people just happens to be repulsed by a small creature, so much so they just immediately abandoned their own customs and rules to get away. Oh and lets cap it off with the image of a ship full of klingons swarmed by their worst fears, eating all their supplies and will eventually all die of starvation in space. hahahah so funny.

Actuarial Lurker

Pregnant space kittens....the DS9 episode has time travel where the future characters interact with THIS episode.

WayneC

The Klingons first got their ridges in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (1979).

Alan Kobb

The Trouble With Tribbles was the work of David Gerrold. It was the first script in his long career in science fiction and screen writing. He wrote a book about his experiences working on Star Trek, and said that it was quite different from his original conception. Still, he loves what he came up with, and says that it is probably the best way that that story could be written in that time. Besides, it got him his writer's guild card and got his name recognized. Of course, the idea of the episode was simply comedy, but it also was ecology. It was back in the 1960s when most Americans were starting to become aware of the problems faced when species are removed from their native habitats, so that was a natural concept for an episode.

Actuarial Lurker

George- THERE is a TOS episode coming up about environmental issues....this became a "THING" in the early 70s about 5 years after this show with Earth Day, Overpopulation, famine, climate change etc

Actuarial Lurker

This was parodied on the Sim[psons with Homer as Kirk

Actuarial Lurker

The episode was written by Margaret Armen who later wrote epodes of Wonder Woman, 6 Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Land of the Lost, and cop shows Baretta, Cannon, and Barnaby Jones- and is popular with women for the empowerment of Shahna the female Thrall and also with men for the limited gratuitous dominatrix themes allowed in late 60s TV- the actress playing Shana was a well known burlesque star of the 60s who had minor oles on the campy TV Batman, the spy comedy Get Smart etc

Basil Hazzard

My favorte thing about the DS9 crossover with this episode is when Worf, O'Brian and Bashir are in the bar right before the fight starts and Worf makes a comment about all the Klingons being there and O'Brian goes "Klingons? Where?"

Mastervodo

Finally! The episode that introduces the most dangerous enemy in the galaxy! Purrballs.

3dbadboy1

About Chekov and his national pride, as groundbreaking and progressive and inclusive it was, the Russians were rather insulted because they weren't represented in Star Trek.

Amos T Fairchild

People that worked on both shows have occasionally claimed otherwise, so we will never know for sure, but it's okay. DS9 was limited by the trek universe and the need for it to be episodic tv so at best they used the concept of a space station as a potential budget measure to sell the idea. Nobody was crazy enough to try a 5 year story arc.

Crystal

oh George, of COURSE people will still refer to/ try to take credit for things their ancestors did. I have Greek & Italian (read Roman) friends who are always advising me about what "their people" have done, and we're talking millenniumS at this point! Best subtle bit of comedy in this one is just before the bar brawl, where the Klingon w the 'fro does an impression of Scotty's accent!

Alan Kobb

Why so much Chekov? He wasn't part of the cast in season 1. During that year, there was an article in Pravda, a Russian newspaer, criticising Star Trek. They said that since so many space achievements had been at the hands of the Russians that it was wrong to have a multi-cultural cast on a show taking place in space that didn't include a Russian. Gene Roddenberry decided to add a Russian, but he kind of "stuck it" to the Russians by making him outspoken the way he is. He also wanted to go with trends, so if you notice the similarity between his "look" and some famous "boy bands" of the 1960s (The Beatles, The Monkees, etc.), that's why.

mky

It would have been fun to be a P.A. above the storage container, throwing Tribbles at Shatner's head.

REDR58
>>157975392

That would be Angelique Pettyjohn who sadly died at age 48 of cancer in 1992.

Alan Kobb

Sorry. One more interesting piece of trivia. During filming of this episode, te producers gathered everyone around to give them the bad news that Star Trek was cancelled. However, once this news got out to the fan commnity, a woman named Bjo Trimble organized a huge calling and letter writing campaign that convinced NBC to pick up Star Trek for another season. Unfortunately, NBC failed to learn it's lesson. For Season 3 they relegated Star Trek to the Friday Night "Death slot" which pretty much guarantees that nobody under the age of 40 will ever watch.

REDR58

One of my favorite parts of “…Tribbles” is how quickly Kirk gets so incensed at the wheat situation and then is just so generally pissed off at everything. It’s hilarious!

REDR58
>>157992430

I really miss 20+ episode seasons, generally speaking. As long as most of the episodes are well-done, I much prefer longer seasons.

REDR58

No one seems to address the obvious problem of all the Tribbles’ waste which would surely contaminate the grain. Can you imagine their droppings all over the place? Clearly they didn’t go that way for obvious reasons, but it would be quite disgusting in reality. Here in the eastern part of the US we have been dealing with the Brown marmorated stink bug and the spotted lanternfly, both native to Asia and which have made their way here probably via shipping containers or airborne cargo. They are very destructive to many kinds of vegetables and fruit. The stink bugs first showed up in Allentown, PA in 1998 and they are all over the state and have spread to neighboring states over the last number of years. A few years ago there were thousands and thousands of lanternfly swarming all over gas stations and any other place with a lot of light at night. Fortunately I haven’t seen nearly as much the last year or so.

Brandon

My favourite part was always O'Brien fanboying out with Bashir after Kirk interrogates them all about the bar fight. "I can't believe I just lied to Captain Kirk!" with such a big grin on his face.

dc

Like Simone, I grew up with TNG, but also would watch TOS episodes (since they'd get aired once in a while). This is my first time watching TOS straight through, though I've seen most of the episodes in Seasons 1 and 2. I think TNG is the stronger show—it definitely goes a bit deeper than TOS—but I do admire how TOS isn't afraid to be silly and campy. I think Lower Decks, in this way, is the truest to the original, since it does both comedy Trek and serious Trek extraordinarily well. TOS Season 3 might be a bit of a rough patch. I haven't seen all the episodes, but Star Trek had its budget severely curtailed, and some of the writers phoned it in. There are a few gems, though. The TOS movies are (in general) really strong. In many ways, I prefer them to TOS, as the characters feel more lived-in during the movies. I'm *really* looking forward to those. TNG Season 1 has some stinkers, but Season 2 is a major improvement, and the show has completely found its feet by Season 3. You've got a lot of great TV coming your way, and I'm looking forward to it!

Sergio Meira

I guess the problem George had with the Tribbles episode was that part of him kept expecting this to be a 'serious' episode, with serious topics like invasive species or espionage. But if you think about this as a comedic episode -- and everybody was funnier, less serious than usual, from Kirk who got so annoyed because of the wheat to Chekov and Scotty... This Kirk was not the Kirk we saw in episodes like The Doomsday Machine or Balance of Terror. It's not just the wheat guy who was obnoxious: everybody here was a slightly parody of their usual selves, simply to make the episode comedic. That's one thing you can do with non-arc shows with many episodes: play with various genres. So some episodes are mysteries, others are terror, others are... comedies. And the characters are (slightly) adapted accordingly.

Sergio Meira

I don't think the Tribbles were ever meant as the introduction to a 'Big Idea', as George suspected; true, nowadays we think of invasive species (not a frequent topic in the 60's), and some of the things that happened in the episode (Tribbles showing up everywhere, for instance) seemed to support that. But if you look at it -- most of what the Tribbles did was to make people look silly, because they all (especially Uhura, but also Dr. McCoy and others. even Spock) just went awwww when they interacted with Tribbles. The ecological consequences were, I think, coincidences; the Tribbles were basically a device to make people look silly, and thus funny. (I kept imagining the Tribbles as characters in an episode of Seinfeld: Kramer brings them to Jerry's apartment, Elaine goes awwww, George thinks about selling them, and Jerry fluctuates between these three attitudes.)

Sergio Meira

It's probably mentioned in the Great Tribble War Song, though.

Eddy V Ruiz II

When I was a kid I went to a Sci-Fi convention and the only thing i bought was a Tribble.

Music

I love The Trouble With Tribbles. I first watched Star Trek as a kid when it was in syndication, I think, so I remember really enjoying that episode back then, and that has stuck with me to this day. One thing about Chekov - several have already mentioned that the Soviets were upset there was no Russian on the crew (I didn’t know that), but this show was filmed in the middle of the Cold War. The Soviets were the big, bad enemy. I’m sure they did Chekov’s “Russia invented this” claims done just for fun to kind of counter that.

StonyD

The utopia of the future is luxurious enough to allow the freedom of nationalities while all working under a one-world government. You can be proud of your heritage and your country of birth, while also still being a citizen of the world. Thus Chekov being one of many future-Earth characters proud of their heritage.

Kurt Hockenbury

Just a bit of forewarning, next episode (217) is also a lighthearted one.

Mikebdrx

I agree TNG was a way better show. However if I had to chose a captain from either show to serve under or be friends with Kirk would be my choice. As long as I wasn’t part of the red shirt crew that is.

Paul Patine

It was a funny trope at the time (the '60s) that the Soviets would take credit for many inventions that weren't theirs. They wrote Chekov's lines in the tribbles episode to make fun of that.

Paul Patine

When a show screams "this is a comedy!", sometimes it's best to just go with it. But I get it, letting go of preconceived notions can be difficult. I know some people didn't like the Brendan Fraser movie "The Mummy" for similar reasons -- they thought it was one type of movie and turned out it was another. I think the intentional corniness of "Independence Day", the computer virus substituting for the microbial virus that killed the aliens in War of the Worlds, was also difficult for many to enjoy.

Zinphad

One of the reasons Chekov was in so many episodes was that George Takei had to take time of filming a movie and they replaced roles that would have been Sulu with Chekov (like in Gamesters).

REDR58
>>158006355

This is also a first time watch for me for most of TOS. I’ve seen TNG many times and we are watching it again now at home. It’s interesting to see how much more militaristic and ready for a fight Kirk is in TOS as compared to Picard. TOS Kirk is by no means a warmonger but he is faster to pull the trigger than Picard is. TOS-era Starfleet seems generally more militarized than TNG-era Starfleet as well. TOS Enterprise really looks and feels much more like a naval vessel / warship than Enterprise-E. Some of this comes through in the TOS movies as well, of course.

SpankTheMonk

Star Trek Day🖖! 🥳🎊🎉

Skyruff Creative

In the Tribble episode, Kirk is annoyed and stays annoyed with the agent forcing the sector wide alert that was so bad it was equivalent to a declaration of an ongoing attack requiring all vessels in the vicinity to drop all and rush to their active defense. The when the ship arrives, he acts like it meant nothing and is instead worried he is not doing enough.

zzhe

George thought tribbles purring was leading up to some hypnotizing abilities but really they were just meant to be purring like cats 😂 (cat’s purr also has calming effects)

Andrew Roach

I think that guy was bald, and had a goatee.

SpankTheMonk
>>157969295

Also in this episode, trouble with Tribbles the space station was Deep Space something station. There are often parallel stories and plot ideas. Often times things get the green light via something exterior- competition. Deep Impact/Armageddon- Volcano/Dantes Peak etc.

SpankTheMonk
>>157974239

So much happening in the 1960s in the U.S. about ecological thinking- Silent Spring a break through eco book.

Andrew Roach

Hopefully they will forget this as this is a Major Spoiler!!!

SpankTheMonk
>>157992430

Rewatching the later trek Berman and Braga the 20 plus episodes on some seasons are painful though.

Andrew Roach

When George said he wondered if they could eat Tribbles I had to laugh and was surprised Simone didn't react as if he had said eating cats.

SpankTheMonk
>>157996455

Also I love Lucy stars saved the show at one point too. And if it wasn’t also mentioned before the Reverend Martin Luther King convinced Nichelle Nichols to not leave the show.

Amos T Fairchild

I'm pretty sure the DS9 guys were aware of another 'space station story' doing the rounds, but they would have been pretty confident it would never get made anyway, and it was a very different story. It's not really that huge a community and ideas and basic concepts get arround, which is why we tend to get similar films and shows coming out at similar times.

SpankTheMonk
>>158054753

Yeah that was my thinking too, “technically” they could use the emergency button but it seems clear they were over paranoid, so I get Kirk’s disdain.

SpankTheMonk

George mentioned this before about Bones being a scientist and not acting in away aligned to such a professional approach. But most medical doctors as I understand are not generally thought of as scientists unless they focus on research. Also the fact that Medical and the Science divisions wear blue can be confusing.

ASMR Art Party (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 05:00 Also William Campbell who played the Klingon leader also played the dastardly squire space cloud child entity Trelane- good catch Simone 🤘🍺. Also forgot that dark attempted attack on Uhura 😵. “Oh no Lars died!” 🤷
2024-12-12 07:45

Amos T Fairchild

I made the mistake of looking up the actor who played Shahna. That was a bit sad as she died fairly young. But she had some... interesting roles. lol.

Keith Brown

A different show running producer and cutting the budget for the episodes were also reasons along with the Friday slot that led to the doom of the show getting cancelled. The quality of many of season 3 shows some say the cancelling was a mercy killing.

Actuarial Lurker

Simone said she recognized the episode - and probably from DS9

Actuarial Lurker

They are like the Nutria that pollute waterways near New Orleans- brought in from elsewhere worthy no natural predators so they eat up all the local fish and water life

Lintrinsic

And red signal crayfish & grey squirrels in the UK. Spock did touch on the ecological problems with moving them to other environments, so it wasn't entirely ignored but maybe it wasn't considered to be a big deal in the US in the 60's. I've no idea.

dc

William Campbell (who played Koloth) also reprises his role for Deep Space Nine! So you'll see him again someday. This may seem like a spoiler, but in the episodes of DS9 where he appears, it's not immediately obvious that it's the same Koloth / same actor, so you need to know to look out for him.

BzzBzzBzzBzzBzz

The reason why Kirk fraternized with Shahna but didn't take her or any of the newly freed slaves is because of the continued predominance of colonial ideas of the uncivilized nature of the enslaved and the fear of cultural contagion and degeneration due to racial mixing still very strong in the sixties US. It was a policy of many colonizing nations during their abolition of slavery to mandate a decade or so program of 'education' for newly freed slaves before their being allowed to join society.

Robert Evans

George: yes that is the combat music from 'Amok Time' and you'll notice reuse of music from other episode including 'The Doomsday Machine.' in the 60s only a few episodes each season got full original scores these scores were then used as cues for other episodes. in the 70s the unions won the conession that every episode got original scores and so the re-using stopped.

TomGas2025

aah..the lovely D7 Battlecruiser. Motive on my Tattoo. 🙂

Angzarr

For the kind of bad exposition dialogue you're talking about at the start, Vince Gilligan has a favorite example: "Hey Jim, how long have we been brothers?"

Angzarr

George, re: Chekov using Cossack as an insult, "khokhol" is a sort of Russian slur for Ukrainians. It refers to the topknot hairstyle of the Cossacks. So... yeah.

Randy Gibson

Re: The Trouble with Tribbles - it has always been a fan favorite because of the humor. Also, it was written by David Gerrold who is a science fiction novelist and screenwriter of some acclaim. In fact, he has written some pretty high concept novels in the SF world. Obviously, The Trouble with Tribbles was written with a much more comedic tone. As an environmental science major, I view this episode these days much the way George does. Back when it aired and I was a pre-teen fan, it just made me laugh a lot.

Angela D. Mitchell

What makes "The Trouble with Tribbles" genius is that it's the cutest, sweetest invasive species ever. But aw, George, I was bummed you were so negative about the episode. For me, I think it's refreshing to have an episode that has some genuine thoughtfulness but that also, honestly, is simply a fun, lighthearted episode. Sometimes we need that, and it further humanizes the characters. Like the classic Angel "Smile Time" episode. (PUPPET ANGEL FOREVER!) I did get a big kick out of your and Simone's reactions to how absolutely awful Kirk was to the poor "grain planet guy" (wonderful character actor William Schallert, so great in dozens of things on TV and film).