Two agents from Starfleet's Temporal Investigations division have come to debrief Captain Sisko after the Defiant's recent time-traveling adventure. Sisko lays out for them what transpired: a Klingon outcast, Arne Darvin, got his hands on a Bajoran Orb and transported them all back to the time of James T. Kirk and his Enterprise. Darvin was looking to change the moment his life went wrong, when Kirk -- and millions of tribbles -- thwarted his espionage efforts and exposed his undercover identity. With a well-placed bomb (hidden inside a tribble) Darvin hoped to rewrite his future by killing the meddlesome Kirk.
When Behr first approached the writing staff about doing some tie-in to the original Star Trek, his thought was to make some kind of sequel to one of his favorite episodes, "Charlie X." But even though the key guest star of that episode, Robert Walker, was still alive and working (he died just weeks ago, in 2019), everyone was skeptical that he'd be interested in returning to Star Trek.
Staff writer Ronald D. Moore suggested a sequel to "A Piece of the Action," in which the original Enterprise encountered an imitative society that had modeled itself after a book on 1920s Chicago gangsters. That episode ended with McCoy accidentally leaving his communicator behind; Moore suggested the Deep Space Nine crew could return there to find an entire planet full of Star Trek fans, in an episode stuffed with meta-commentary.
But it was the idea of staff writer René Echevarria that captured everyone's imagination. The movie Forrest Gump had just made waves two years earlier by inserting Tom Hanks into old film footage. What if our heroes traveled back into a classic Star Trek episode? Could you pull that off on a TV budget? Could you possibly recreate all the sets and costumes you'd need? Would all the original actors sign off on the re-use of their performances? Could you match the look of the classic footage, and convincingly place new actors in it?
The answer to all those questions would turn out to be "yes," but not without a lot of planning -- and a budget that was the highest of any one-hour episode the series ever produced. Visual effects guru Gary Hutzel did a test that fooled even the writers, who didn't spot the person he'd inserted into a clip of the original series until he pointed it out. All departments did exhaustive research, sometimes just watching old episodes like any fan making their own film would, trying to match the look and feel of the original series. Jonathan West, the series' director of photography, was chosen to direct the episode, knowing he'd choose the right film stock and lighting schemes to make it all as seamless as possible.
Almost as soon as the writers knew this could indeed be done, they knew the episode they wanted to revisit: "The Trouble With Tribbles." Not only did it have a far lighter tone than other classics (like, say, "The City on the Edge of Forever"), but the jokes seemed to start writing themselves. What if someone was inside that storage compartment throwing tribbles on Kirk's head? What if our heroes got caught up in that bar brawl? Ooo, and dressed down in the lineup with Kirk afterward?
The fates were on the writers' side. Ira Steven Behr has repeatedly told the story of going out for pizza with some of the producers, specifically to discuss whether any original series actors could be brought back for this new tribble episode. It happened at that very moment, in that very pizza parlor, was actor Charlie Brill, who had played Arne Darvin in the original "The Trouble With Tribbles." Brill was happy to sign on, later joking he was glad he hadn't gone out for Chinese food that day instead.
The resulting episode is a gushing love letter to the original series. We get jokes about what a time-traveling menace James T. Kirk was, about the switch in Starfleet's red and gold uniform color scheme, about how primitive the 60s were compared to the 90s (you have to hold the elevator handle to make it move), how the appearance of Klingons has changed, and so much more. If you really know "The Trouble With Tribbles" (or watch it right before this episode), the shout-outs are even more numerous: Sisko, Odo, and Dax all have dialogue lifted straight from the original episode.
On the one hand, you have Dax geeking out all over the place: rocking an awesome beehive, egging Sisko into introducing himself to Kirk, and wistfully remembering a past dalliance with Dr. McCoy (plus also commenting on how attractive Spock is). On the other hand, you have O'Brien, who can't even recognize Captain Kirk. (In a subtle joke, the man he mistakes for Kirk was actually Paul Baxley, William Shatner's stunt double on the original series.)
Then there are the jokes that play completely separately from the "Star Trek" of it all. There's grumpy temporal agents Dulmur and Lucsly (near-anagrams of X-Files agents Mulder and Scully), and their disdain for jokes about time. There's playful teasing of Worf, who smells of lilacs. And there's Bashir's frantic fixation on the possible predestination paradox of being his own great-grandfather. (Though it's his plastered-down 60s hairdo that's the real cause for alarm.)
It's true that not every moment is 100% convincing. Dax walking the bridge behind Kirk looks slightly off. Kirk's shadow over O'Brien as he dresses down Chekov isn't quite right. But for 20-year-old visual effects, it's pretty incredible. And many moments have held up better than anything in Forrest Gump -- Sisko and Dax working on the hallway panel behind Kirk and Spock, Odo watching in the background as Uhura receives the tribble that starts it all, the mixed old and new footage in the bar fight. If you're a Star Trek fan, this episode grabs you from the "let's suit up in classic Trek outfits" montage and never lets go.
Other observations:
- The original footage from "The Trouble With Tribbles" was remastered for this episode using essentially the same process that would later be applied to all classic Trek episodes for Blu-ray release. And the new visual effects for the Enterprise, Klingon ship, and space station K-7 match up very close with those created for the later remaster.
- In some ways, this episode looks better than the original series did. When the budget of the original series was slashed for season three, one of the first things to go were the extras walking the ship's corridors to make it look busy. Here in "Trials and Tribble-ations," the halls of the Enterprise are as crowded as we've ever seen them.
- The writer of the original "The Trouble With Tribbles," David Gerrold, makes two cameo appearances in this episode: behind Sisko and Dax when the Enterprise goes to red alert, and petting a tribble in the corridor behind Bashir and O'Brien.
- The changing Klingon appearance is here jokingly suggested to be a result of genetic engineering or viral mutation. Later, Star Trek: Enterprise would run with these jokes and create a serious attempt at resolving the differences.
- When Sisko does meet Captain Kirk, the footage comes from "Mirror, Mirror," not "The Trouble With Tribbles." If you're picking up Kirk being a little flirtatious with Sisko, that might be why.
- Shockingly (or not, knowing how Star Trek was often snubbed for awards), this episode did not win the Emmy for Visual Effects, despite being nominated. It also lost for Art Direction and Hairstyling (losing the latter award to a Voyager episode). It was also up for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation... and lost that too.
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