bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish

[aria]

Having now watched The Trouble with Tribbles, these are my deep and serious observations:

1. Tribbles ... actually kind of freak me out. IDK, they were cute at first, but by the time they were all over the bridge, ugh. I was really entertained by the CASCADE OF TRIBBLES that fell on Kirk, though.

2. Klingons apparently wear ~fabulous~ clothing. Also, the background Klingon with no lines who was, I guess, there to look intimidating and give the head Klingon some kind of authority, was not very intimidating but instead kind of attractive. Maybe it was the goatee? (Probably this means I should but Mirror, Mirror next on the queue. EVIL GOATEES.)

3. I don't even know what to do with Kirk's hideous green shirt in this episode. Despite his awful fashion choices and the part where he was a dick to the undersecretary out of all proportion to how annoying the undersecretary was making his life, I am actually starting to like Kirk. Maybe it is because I like Reboot!Kirk? Maybe it is because Shatner actually has pretty good comedic timing? Maybe it's just Stockholm Syndrome? Who knows.

4. Related to Shatner's decent comedic timing, the scene where Scotty admits that he started the bar fight reduced me to tears of laughter simply on the strength of Kirk's indignant reaction to finding out that the fight was started over the Enterprise's honor, not his.

5. I don't actually know what to do with how married Kirk and Spock are. Like, on another show the fact that they are able to communicate entire conversations via the twitch of an eyebrow, or the fact that Kirk comes out with things like "Why, Mr. Spock, I didn't know you had it in you," and those would be, like, big important ridiculous slashy moments, but on this show -- every episode is like that.

6. I also now know what people are going on about when they talk about Spock/McCoy! I feel kind of enlightened, and also really charmed. I'm not holding out for McCoy to ever win one of their battles of wits, though.

7. According to McCoy, "bisexual" is synonymous for "has the ability to reproduce asexually." Protip, Bones: a Tribble is not bisexual. Your friend Jim, on the other hand, is.

8. I am a bit sad there was no Sulu! It was made up for by more Uhura than usual, though. <3


Also, two alternate versions of the episode: We Has Tribbles and Also Troubles and The Trouble With Tribbles by Edward Gorey. The latter pretty much does sum up my feelings on Tribbles. Their purring does not work on me. PERHAPS I AM KLINGON.

Comments

[tiltingheartand]

7. According to McCoy, "bisexual" is synonymous for "has the ability to reproduce asexually." Protip, Bones: a Tribble is not bisexual. Your friend Jim, on the other hand, is.

Brb, dying.

(Also, all I have seen of this episode is the bit where Kirk is standing near a -- I think it might be a Jeffries tube? And there's an avalanche of tribbles, and then the scene keeps going, and every so often a tribble comes down the tube and hits him in the head, and I just think: someone had the job to throw a tribble at William Shatner every ten or fifteen seconds, and that must have been so amazing.)

[aria]

YES. And -- you have not seen the best part of the episode, because the best part of the episode is two back-to-back scenes, one with Kirk and Scotty, one with Bones and Spock, both of which made me laugh like mad -- but the scene where Kirk is being PILED WITH TRIBBLES and occasionally another one bounces off his head is, indeed, really great. I want to be that prop person who got to throw balls of fluff at Shatner every fifteen seconds. :D

[gehayi]

And that was the scene that David Gerrold started with. Before there was a story, even, he knew that he wanted to create a script that ended with Kirk waist-deep in fluffballs with other fluffballs bouncing off his head. Basically, he took that scene and wrote a script around it.

[ellen_fremedon]

It is so amazing that in the DS9 episode where they go back in time to this ep, they have Sisko and Dax in the compartment throwing the tribbles down, while they frantically search for one that has a bomb hidden in it.

[holli]

oh my GOD that DS9 episode. Everything Dax does in it is gold.

[feverbeats]

6. YOU HAVE FINALLY BECOME CORRECT.

7. . . . Laughed out loud.

My absolute favorite part of this episode, except maybe Kirk's obsession with Scotty, is how FURIOUS Kirk keeps getting that he's the only one who hasn't heard of that stupid grain.

[aria]

6. Oh whatever, I am still all over the Kirk/Spock. But McCoy can definitely come too if he wants. (I would add "and if he doesn't bitch too much" except that that might be physically impossible. Also it's clearly how he flirts with Spock.)

7. IT IS TRUE THOUGH. Bisexual, what the FUCK. Scott, I'm bisexual! IT MEANS I WAS BORN PREGNANT.

And YES, oh my god. It's making me laugh again thinking about it. On reflection, I think what I am loving best about TOS is that it really doesn't take itself seriously. Like, these guys act their hearts out with fluff balls and hideous shag carpeting, but, awful budget/effects aside, it's just also genuinely hilarious. <333

[feverbeats]

KIRK/SPOCK IS STUPID AND SHOULD FEEL STUPID. <--not my actualfax thoughts, but. Kinda. You know how I am contrary!

The alien bbs are only now getting ready to make their way out, Aria. Get ready.

IT REALLY IS. And then it gets all ~deep~ and about the ~human condition~ and then we're back to dance moves and Spock/Uhura flirting.

[petere_capere]

Perhaps he meant hermaphrodite, but somebody got hold of the script and decided to change the wording to something that, I dunno, small kids could pronounce better?

(Executives thought it was a kids' show. Like Doctor Who is a kids show. Or like how Sarah Jane Adventures isn't for adults. Which is why Torchwood is FULL OF SEX because OMG IT'S FOR ADULTS SO IT MUST HAVE TO BE FULL OF SEX -- and yet, body counts for Torchwood are so much lower than for the same number of Doctor Who episodes, new or old.)

[tei]

I don't actually know what to do with how married Kirk and Spock are.

I feel like somebody had the job of thinking up billions of little context-not-required "Kirk and Spock are married" scenes that could be inserted into the script as needed. Plus an extra one at the end. Every time. (I've only watched the first season of TOS, but I've watched every single last-thirty-seconds-of-episode. I think that's cheating? But it's always hilarious.)

Also, William Shatner went to my university, and hence our Student Centre is named after him. I am having so much trouble not giggling every time I hear, "Okay, we'll meet in Shatner".

[inanimategrace]

(1) Did I give you that song by Voltaire? I've lost track of how many people I've introduced it to...

(2) GO WATCH THIS NOW!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuCKHO-xPjU

[inanimategrace]

Let me just say:

"There's no such thing as a safe tribble."

"You... sold... tribbles... on a Klingon planet?"
"Well I didn't know it was a Klingon planet."

And, the best, by you know who:

"We could always throw tribbles at them, Captain."
"I thought Vulcans didn't have a sense of humor."
(Lifts his eyebrow, surprised) "We don't, Captain."

[graycardinal]

I am morally certain that David Gerrold -- author of the "Trouble With Tribbles" script, which was the first pro writing sale he ever made (boy, was TV different then) -- talks somewhere in his book about the making of the episode about the "bisexual" reference being either Not His Fault or the result of network intervention. But I cannot now find my copy of that book to check. I have two copies of Gerrold's other book about the making of the original series, but my copy of The Trouble With Tribbles has disappeared.

[gehayi]

According to McCoy, "bisexual" is synonymous for "has the ability to reproduce asexually." Protip, Bones: a Tribble is not bisexual. Your friend Jim, on the other hand, is.

He's actually using an old definition of "bisexual"--which was "physically contains primary or secondary sexual characteristics of both sexes." The word has changed a lot since the 1960s, but that's not McCoy's fault--the usage was correct at the time.

. I don't even know what to do with Kirk's hideous green shirt in this episode.

That's the shirt that they used when Shatner was gaining weight and couldn't fit into the regular pullover. Incidentally, the regular shirt was green too. All of the captain's shirts were. But thanks to the lighting of the time, everyone viewing the show saw the green shirts as gold.

Despite his awful fashion choices and the part where he was a dick to the undersecretary out of all proportion to how annoying the undersecretary was making his life, I am actually starting to like Kirk. Maybe it is because I like Reboot!Kirk? Maybe it is because Shatner actually has pretty good comedic timing? Maybe it's just Stockholm Syndrome? Who knows.

Shatner is a Large Ham of tremendous proportions, but he does have good comedic timing.

I don't actually know what to do with how married Kirk and Spock are. Like, on another show the fact that they are able to communicate entire conversations via the twitch of an eyebrow, or the fact that Kirk comes out with things like "Why, Mr. Spock, I didn't know you had it in you," and those would be, like, big important ridiculous slashy moments, but on this show -- every episode is like that.

And now you know why Star Trek fans have been saying that Kirk/Spock is canon since roughly 1965. BECAUSE IT'S TRUE. Seriously, it doesn't matter if they ever have sex or not, because they couldn't BE more intimate emotionally.

6. I also now know what people are going on about when they talk about Spock/McCoy! I feel kind of enlightened, and also really charmed. I'm not holding out for McCoy to ever win one of their battles of wits, though.

You totally need to see Journey to Babel, featuring Spock and his father and his mother, and nd McCoy finally getting the last word with not one but two Vulcans. (This is also the reason that I will never forgive Reboot for killing off Amanda Grayson, because Amanda Grayson is AWESOMESAUCE.)

[gehayi]

And yes, it's dumb that "bisexual" meant that EVER.

[oldstarnewshine]

Ah, so you've met the Green Shirt of Captaintude. It's hideous. Get used to it. I echo the sentiment expressed above re DS9! It makes the episode so much funnier, if you can believe that, and you get to watch everyone fanboy the whole series.

And re: 5, neither does anyone else, they had to invent slash fic to deal with it...

[gehayi]

Oh, and this LOLCAT seems weirdly pertinent:


see more Lolcats and funny pictures