Star date: 4523.3
Summary: The Enterprise receives an emergency signal from Space Station K7, near the Klingon Empire. Expecting to find the station under attack, Kirk is surprised to find things peaceful upon arrival, and is angry that the emergency signal was sent without cause. Beaming over to address the space station's administrator, Kirk and Spock find that the signal was sent out on the authority of Nilz Baris, Federation Undersecretary in charge of agricultural affairs for the quadrant. Baris is storing a large quantity of quadrotriticale at the space station, a designer wheat bound for "Sherman's planet", a planet claimed by both the Federation and the Klingon Empire. By treaty, the planet will ultimately be claimed by whichever government can develop it most efficiently, and the Federation hopes that the quadrotriticale --- the only wheat which will grow on Sherman's planet --- will win the day for them. Baris, along with his young, weaselly assistant Arne Darvin, want Enterprise security to protect the grain from possible Klingon subterfuge.This episode could just as easily have been titled "Kirk's Terrible, Awful, No-Good, Very Bad Day," but the title they gave it has more pizazz. Seriously, Kirk has to serve a stuffed-shirt bureaucrat, he has to babysit Klingons, his crew gets in a bar fight not to defend him but to defend his ship, and his ship is being overrun by wool mittens. It is considered a Star Trek classic, and deservedly so. It has a number of different plot lines which all work together well, and it is generally well-written and well-acted. As I am now a bit more than halfway through TOS, I've come to the conclusion that the Star Trek writers and cast do comedy better than drama, and this episode is a comedy gem. Unlike "I, Mudd", which was funny but really more silly than anything else, "The Trouble with Tribbles" is genuine comedy, with good writing and good comedic timing, particularly by Shatner.
Vexed at receiving an emergency call just to stand guard over some grain, Kirk orders "two guards, no more" to monitor the grain on the space station, and allows the rest of his crew to beam down on shore leave. In the space station bar, Uhura meets a trader named Cyrano Jones, who gives her a small, cuddly, furry animal called a tribble, which Uhura takes back to the Enterprise with her.
Much to Kirk's consternation, Starfleet backs up Baris and orders Kirk to follow Baris' instructions. The situation gets more tense when a Klingon ship arrives. At first concerned that he may have to do battle after all, it turns out that the Klingon captain, Koloth, merely wants to use the space station for shore leave as well. Under treaty, Kirk cannot refuse them, but he limits the Klingons to come down 12 at a time, and he assigns an Enterprise security guard to each Klingon.
Meanwhile, we discover that tribbles breed at a prodigious rate. Uhura's one tribble has produced several others, which she gives away. The one she gives to McCoy quickly turns into 11.
Meanwhile, another group of Enterprise crewmen beam down to the space station for shore leave, with Scotty as their chaperone --- Kirk is trusting Scotty to make sure there is no trouble between the Enterprise crew and the Klingons on the space station. In the bar, a Klingon tries to bait the Enterprise crew into a fight by insulting Kirk. Chekhov rises to the bait, but Scotty orders him to sit down, saying that they're big enough to take a few insults. The Klingon crosses the line, however, when he compares the Enterprise to a garbage scow, goading Scotty into throwing the first punch in a no-holds-barred bar brawl. But before the brawl, we learn that tribbles don't like Klingons, rearing up and hissing when they get close to one.
Once that's been taken care of, we see that the tribbles are endangering the Enterprise, getting into the engines and lots of other inconvenient places. Kirk realizes that the tribbles can probably get into the storage units on the space station as well, and when he goes to check he finds that indeed, while there are lots of tribbles in the storage units, the grain has all been eaten. Baris is livid and promises to have Kirk relieved of command. It looks like Kirk is done for until Spock notices that some of the tribbles are dead.
As it turns out, the quadrotriticale has been tampered with, making it deadly to whomever eats it. Fortunately, Kirk doesn't have to look far to find the guilty party: as chance would have it, a pair of tribbles pass by Baris' assistant Darvin, and when they start hissing at him, he is revealed to be a Klingon agent. He quickly confesses to tainting the grain, thus making the tribbles heroes rather than villains. Kirk ties up the loose ends by giving the Klingons 6 hours to leave Federation space, and ordering Cyrano Jones to clean up all the tribbles on the space station. He returns to the Enterprise to find that Scotty has taken care of their tribble problem: he beamed them all aboard the Klingon ship right before it jumped to warp speed.
Another thing I like about this episode is that the greatest thing at risk is a few tons of wheat. In most of the episodes, the writers seem to think that life and death must hang in the balance or we won't watch. This episode was much more relaxed, and therefore more enjoyable.
In the trivia department, this episode sees the return of William Campbell, formerly Trelane in "The Squire of Gothos", this time appearing as captain Koloth of the Klingon ship. Trelane was more annoying than Koloth, but you'd have to expect that since he got more screen time.
This episode did not feature Larry Hankin of "Friends" fame, though I could have sworn he played the bartender at the space station. It turns out Hankin was only 27 when this show was shot, and that part was played by Guy Raymond. But the resemblance is uncanny.
Guy Raymond tending bar on Space Station K7.
You owe me a tribble.
Finally, no mention of guest stars would be complete without pointing out Stanley Adams' excellent work as Cyrano Jones.
This show has far too many funny bits to relate them all --- you'll just have to watch it, which I highly recommend that you do. But I will quote this one bit of dialog between the TOS Holy Trinity on the bridge, which is nearly overrun by tribbles:
McCoy: The nearest thing I can figure out is that they're BORN pregnant. Which seems to be quite a time saver!Actually, Mr. Spock, it could be worse. Logically, where there are thousands of tribbles, you would also expect to find tons of tribble shit. Lucky for you, you were on a TV show airing in the late 1960's, where such biological realities were not discussed.
Kirk: I know, but really . . .
McCoy: And from my observations, it seems they're bisexual, reproducing at will. And brother, have they got a lot of will!
Spock: (edited a bit) They are consuming our supplies and returning nothing.
The ending is a bit too pat, with the Klingon agent confessing to poisoning the grain almost immediately, but hey, you can't have everything.
Other observations about this episode . . .
Spock seems to show his human side and find the tribble cute the first time he encounters one.
In the scene where they find the tribbles in the grain storage, there is clearly someone off screen throwing tribbles at Shatner's head periodically, which adds a lot to the scene. Great touch.
Kirk shouldn't be so hard on Cyrano Jones at the end --- without his tribbles, the tainted grain would have killed a lot of people on Sherman's planet.
The Moral of the Story: Sometimes luck is the best strategy.
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