Yeah...sheer genius
It took 25 and 3/4 years of my life, but thanks to my girlfriend, I finally saw fifty of the most iconic minutes in science-fiction history: the Enterprise‘s epic confrontation with small, furry, lumps of hair which bear a startling resemblance to Chia pets and, in the words of Dr. McCoy, are “born pregnant.” The Tribbles are not malevolent by nature, so this being the original Star Trek with clear lines between good and evil, while they do screw a bunch of things up for James T. Kirk and company, they also allow Kirk to get rid of some troublesome Klingons AND foil a second Klingon plot to sabotage the food supply for Sherman’s Planet. (Or were these two strands of the same plot? David Gerrold never really makes this clear.) And I’ll admit, “The Trouble With Tribbles” is one of those things which really and truly live up to all the hype. Like The Room. Anyway, since a single episode of the program only offers enough in-depth commentary for a diehard Trekkie, which I am not, here are a few observations…
What I love most about William Shatner is that the vocal cadence which made him ripe for parody his entire career is so obviously natural…and yet is so terribly jarring with spoken English. How does one force pauses to your attention every single time? But from Judgment at Nuremberg to Boston Legal, the Shatnerian pause is a glorious thing to hear, so intense and yet so amazingly un-self-conscious. Plus, watching this episode, you can clearly see something of what makes Mr. Shatner the Trekkie’s choice as greatest captain. Patrick Stewart was a philosophical statesman, Avery Brooks an imposing but benevolent commander, Kate Mulgrew a wise diplomat…but Mr. Shatner, under the handsome face and readiness for action, comes across as the most ordinary-person of the captains. He wears ridiculous clothes. He has something of a paunch. He suggests that the Trek ideal of a future society in space would indeed be a democratic society.
It’s a pleasure to hear Leonard Nimoy deliver every one of what would be called witticisms if Spock was witty…the line about the “ermine violin” is genius.
Best moment of the episode: either when Scotty tells Kirk what led to one of the show’s more ridiculously choreographed fight scenes (he attacks the Klingons not when they insult Kirk but when they insult the ship) or Kirk being bombarded by Tribbles who just FALL OUT OF THE GRAIN SILO one after the other. That Mr. Shatner plays this with dignity is all to his credit.
By the way, as if to prove something about the 1960s vision of the future, my girlfriend’s roommate was convinced that the bar on Sherman’s Planet (And I’m sorry, that was the BEST name Mr. Gerrold came up with?) became the cafeteria on Beverly Hills 90210.
And best of all, this episode demonstrates the secret of Star Trek and its multiple incarnations. The show is about a diverse group of people who really care about each other and actually work together in a unified effort to solve problems. The Kirk-Spock friendship is the main case in point (I would follow that with Picard’s paternal relationship with Riker, Wesley, and other crew of the Enterprise-D.) but all of the Starfleet members share a really tight bond. Just watch everybody laugh, with Mr. Nimoy restraining a smile, at the very end after Scotty reveals what he did with the Tribbles…
Andrew Rostan's Occasional Pieces 
Aug 14, 2010 @ 17:14:49
Nicely observed. It’s nice to know that the best of classic Trek still holds up to a new audience.
I especially like your characterization of Shatner’s Kirk as ” the most ordinary-person of the captains”. Latter-day Trek has so often exploited the larger-than-life/ superheroic aspects of their starship captains, that they occasionally mired themselves in 90’s style excessive political correctness– and often lost, I think, the very human quality their humanist philosophy was supposed to espouse.
I sometimes worry that the actual original episodes of this 20th century engine of cultural mimesis had become so dated as to be lost on younger audiences. Your review restores my faith in both the genuine classic-ness of StarTrek and the perspicaciousness of the modern audience. As an old-school trekkie who remembers the first network broadcasts, I feel like I am watching the winnowing process by which certain popular literature of one era transcends to become classical. Just as Dickens or even Shakespeare were in their own times mere mass entertainment, so original Star Trek continues to prove it’s worth while most of its television series contemporaries are being swallowed by history, –forgotten, but for a dwindling subculture of nostalgic aficionados.
Thanks for such a stimulating review.
Aug 14, 2010 @ 18:30:57
Hi Andrew,
I love your Tribbles Post. One thing that you said: What I love most about William Shatner is that the vocal cadence which made him ripe for parody his entire career is so obviously natural
Actually, I think this was not natural for Shatner. The story I have heard is that he developed this delivery style when he was doing Shakespeare –Christopher Plummer’s understudy on HENRY V. He didn’t know his lines well, and the pauses gave him time to think of his next line.