Tribbles

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of NBC's broadcast of the first episode of Star Trek. The show was canceled after only three seasons, but has been in syndication ever since.  The world still abounds with faithful trekkies.

As with acid rock, bell bottoms, light shows, university sit-ins, and other phenomena of the '60s, Star Trek touched upon my world but never exercised a transformative effect on my life or personality.  Although a fan of science fiction since childhood, Star Trek, Star Wars, and the more extravagantly-filmed sci fi movies that followed, weren't really what I looked for (and look for) in science fiction.  I'm not quite sure how to describe what it is that I do look for, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

I actually watched quite a few of the episodes of the first and second Star Trek seasons, however, because some friends in my university dorm had a small TV and insisted that I join them each week.  As a result, as I began preparing this post, I planned to brag that I had watched the original televising of what is perhaps the best known episode of the entire three-year series --  Episode 44, "The Trouble with Tribbles."  But I now discover "the trouble with memory."  Episode 44 was first broadcast on December 29, 1967 -- during Christmas vacation. 

That episode must have been rebroadcast shortly thereafter, because I'm certain I saw it with friends while in the dormitories.  And by the time Star Trek went into syndication, in March 1969, I would have been out of school.   It's perplexing.  All I can say is that I remember what I remember.

In any event, "The Trouble with Tribbles" is the only episode of Star Trek that I actually remember in any detail.  You'll recall that, while the Enterprise was docked at Deep Space Station K7, a trader gives a tribble to a member of the crew, who takes it on-board as a pet.  Tribbles, of course, reproduce rapidly, asexually, and as frequently as the available food resources permit.  And they eat virtually anything, including organic portions of the space ship and the grain cargo in the hold. 

Like rabbits in Australia, only far cuter and cuddlier and more lovable, and far more devastatingly reproductive.

All ended well for everyone by the end of the episode, except for a Klingon spy who was done in by the tribbles' natural antipathy to Klingons, and for the tribbles themselves who all died from ingesting the cargo, which turned out to have been poisoned.

Life was often cruel in outer space.

The fact that I remember this one episode is not strange.  While many true trekkies turned up their noses at the intrusion of cuddly pets into the hard-edged world of space travel, "The Trouble with Tribbles" was a hit with the general public, and is probably the best known episode of the three seasons of the Star Trek franchise.  The New York Times calls it one of the "best-remembered moments" of the series.

Life is short, and one can't do everything.  And Star Trek's appeal isn't that of great literature -- not even great sci fi literature.  And yet, one should maintain some connection with the life of his own generation.  If someone offered me free access to the show's three seasons, I'd probably lock myself in my house, stock up on food, close the shades, and binge.