Star Trek -- Season 2 Episode 15 (The Trouble with Tribbles)

Klingons pose a danger to the Federation.  While there was no open declaration of war, Klingons were hostile towards Federation colonies and Starfleet ships.  Tribbles are more of a menace.  Yes, they’re dangerous, but they’re cute and fuzzy.  Menace doesn’t sound so bad, but tribbles do two things:  Eat and make more tribbles.  And boy, do they make more tribbles.

Both tribbles and Klingons come to a head on Space Station K7.  The Enterprise has been called to protect a grain bound for Sherman's Planet, which the Federation wants to colonize.  The Klingons would rather colonize the planet themselves.  That alone would be a problem, except that one Cyrano Jones has brought a few tribbles to K7, which leads to a lot more tribbles.

The tribbles pose two problems.  The first is that they like to eat and grain is a good food source for them.  The other is that tribbles don’t like Klingons.  Tribbles are like space cats.  They’re cute and they purr.  Klingons are a warrior race.  You can see where the two parties wouldn’t like each other.

Most of the episode is Kirk being annoyed at having to guard the grain.  Once again, he has to do the bidding of some Federation undersecretary of something.  He’s got better things to do.  I always wonder if an actual military ship would be called to do this and, if so, how argumentative the captain of the ship would be.  I suppose it would be in Kirk’s job description to help the government once in a while.

There is a certain cleverness to the episode, in that the tribbles are used to expose a pair of problems.  All of the major components play well off of each other.  Everyone seems to dislike everyone else to some degree.  Even the tribbles, which are friendly, do pose a problem.

It’s definitely one of the more memorable episodes.  It was used for the basis of Deep Space Nine’s The Trouble with Tribbles and for the short trek, The Trouble with Edward.  If I had to pick a few episodes to get you started, this would be one of them.  I don’t know if it would be on everyone’s favorite list, as it is a little goofy.  Despite the seriousness, Star Trek had a very heavy camp element to it.  However, tribbles have become a point of reference within the Trek universe. 

 

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Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 12 (Too Short a Season)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Even in the 24th century, not everything is perfect. Time still takes its toll on the human body. Admiral Mark Jameson is in his 80s or 90s and showing his age. He’s got a terminal illness and is bound to the equivalent of a wheelchair. The Enterprise is to take Jameson to a planet where he once negotiated a treaty. A governor there, Karnas, requested him by name saying that hostages have been taken on his planet and that Jameson is the only one that he trusts to get the hostages back.

En route, strange things start happening to the admiral. At first, it’s simply bizarre. (He is able to walk when he shouldn’t be able to.) Then, he starts actually looking younger. He’s also experiencing pain. Eventually, he reveals that after conducting negotiations for a planet, he acquired two treatments of an anti-aging substance. (One was for him and the other was to be for his wife.) Rather than wait for it to take its full course, he took both of them. However, the effect was too much for one person to withstand.

By the time the Enterprise reaches its destination, Jameson is a young man again. It also turns out that Governor Karnas was lying. Karnas is the one that actually has the hostages and is trying to lure Jameson to the planet to exact revenge. Jameson ‘negotiated’ with Karnas by giving into Karnas’s demands for weapons. Jameson then gave weapons to the other sides, thus plunging the planet into 40 years of civil war. Karnas doesn’t get his revenge, though. Jameson dies as a result of the treatment; his body simply can’t take the strain of two treatments.

The episode comes across as a little too preachy, trying to tell the audience how a second chance at youth comes at too great a price. Simply put, taking both treatments was selfish and stupid. It was Jameson’s own shortsightedness that killed him. What did Jameson expect would happen? I’d also like to point out that the medicine was never followed up on. There was nothing ever said about the planet being quarantined or other people trying to get the drug.

Also, the older version of Jameson didn’t quite work well. The makeup looked just short of realistic and Clayton Rohner, who played Jameson, sounded like he was trying to impersonate Yoda. He didn’t quite pull it off.

The only real concern I had was when Picard insisted on beaming down with an away team. In the pilot episode, it was specifically said that Riker got the job of first officer because he wasn’t afraid to tell the Captain to stay on the Enterprise when an away mission might be dangerous and it definitely looked like Picard was walking into a dangerous situation.

Overall, it wasn’t a great episode. If you’re buying the VHS tapes, skip this one. In fact, if you’re watching the episodes on DVD, you might want to consider saving this episode for a slow night on TV. It was good, but not great. I give it three stars. 

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