Trials and Tribble-ations (DS9 episode)

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Trials and Tribble-ations is a fifth season episode of that was written as a tribute to the of Star Trek. Mostly set during the events of "The Trouble With Tribbles", the episode sees members of the crew of DS9 travel into the past, meeting James T. Kirk and visiting the original series Enterprise by means of modern special effects technology which allows the DS9 actors to be inserted into footage from the original episode.

Contents

1 Background
2 Trivia
3 Notes
4 External links

Background

Two Department of Temporal Investigations Agents, Dulmer and Lucsly, interrogate Captain Sisko of Deep Space Nine as to why he and his crew aboard the USS Defiant travelled to the year 2268, to Station Deep Space K-7. While the crew was there they foiled an assassination attempt on Captain James Kirk of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701.

Trivia

Appearing as an Enterprise crew-member is David Gerrold, who wrote the original "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode for the original series and helped develop . This is more apt than the usual cameo appearance, though. Gerrold wrote the character of Ensign Freeman into the original episode with the intention of playing the part himself^{[#endnote_BirthSale]}. However, Gene Coon nixed the idea, saying Gerrold was too skinny. Paul Baxley, William Shatner's frequent stuntman, was cast in the role.

Paul Baxley being William Shatner's stuntman is referenced by Bashir's and O'Brien's mis-identifying Freeman as Kirk in the K-7 bar.

Between the original episode and DS9 the appearance of Klingons had changed radically (their design had originally been altered for '). When Bashir and O'Brien ask Worf why 23rd Century Klingons look so different he will only tell them "we do not discuss it with outsiders". Bashir and O'Brien ponder possible causes, genetic engineering and mutated virus, both of which were later shown to be the cause in an episode of '.

The two Temporal Investigations officers' names "Dulmer" and "Lucsly" are anagrams of the two main characters on The X-Files "Mulder" and "Scully".

This episode answers one question from the original episode: after Kirk opens the grain bay door and is inundated with thousands of tribbles, it was originally unknown why -- after all the tribbles had fallen out -- a tribble would periodically fall on Kirk every minute or so. The DS9 episode reveals that it was Sisko and Dax (hiding in the grain bay) who were scanning the tribbles and then tossing them out the bay door.

Events in the original episode are either stretched or shortened for this episode. Kirk has an extended intercom conversation with Baris, including dialogue from a beam-over, to allow Sisko and Dax an extended conversation. The three day layover of the Enterprise, from Jones' sale of the first tribble to the million tribbles falling on Kirk, is shortened to barely a day.

While the majority of scenes showing the original cast came from "The Trouble With Tribbles", Sisko's last scene on the Enterprise bridge (in which he speaks with Kirk) made use of a scene from "Mirror, Mirror".

Preceded by:
"The Assignment"

Followed by:
"Let He Who is without Sin..."

Notes

External links

[Trials and Tribble-ations] at StarTrek.com
[Trials and Tribble-ations] at Memory-Alpha.org

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