TAS S1E5 "More Tribbles, More Troubles" Review by AnswerMan

Horrible:Meh:Adequate:Good:Fantastic

Way off....

The Enterprise is escorting two unmanned robot cargo ships filled with grain to a starving planet. They encounter a Klingon ship attacking a small one-man ship. The Klingons are having a very difficult time landing a shot, which gives Scotty plenty of time to beam the inhabitant off before the ship is destroyed. It turns out to be Cyrano Jones, notorious trader of tribbles. He beams over with a bunch of Tribbles that he claims are safe because he has engineered them to not reproduce. "They only get fat," he assures them. Scotty was having a great deal of trouble with the transporter, which we can assume is why he sloppily allowed the tribbles to hitch a ride. Also beaming on board is a glommer, which consumes tribbles in one gulp.



Meanwhile the Klingons are pissed and want their man. They have shot the ship with a new weapon of theirs that zaps all the power out of everything, then retreated. Spock theorizes that it takes as much energy for them to shoot the weapon as it sucks out of their opponent, leaving both ships disabled. The tactical advantage then falls on whichever ship can recover the fastest. The first thought to come to mind was the mutually assured destruction that prevented launching nukes during the cold war, which of course was the era that this show was originally aired in. I'm guessing this is a tame parallel that outlays the same concept without all the dying and radiation poisoning. You know, because it's Saturday morning and kids are watching.

They trade blows with the Klingons, using the robot ships as bait and as battering rams, and it's kind of a stalemate. Throughout the battle Kirk continues to knock ever increasingly comically large tribbles out of his chair before he can take his seat. Eventually the tribble in the captains chair is so large that he doesn't bother. This is the comic relief of the show, and it works quite well, as it had me chuckling. Kirk ends the stalemate by beaming over the enormous tribbles, disrupting the Klingon ship.

Eventually they discover that the grave crime that the Klingons want Cyrano for is stealing the glommer, which they genetically engineered to consume tribbles, and is the only one in existence. Since it's rightfully theirs, Kirk gives it back, and the fight is over. In sick bay, McCoy has been examining a giant tribble and determines that it actually is an entire colony. He injects it with some stuff and it separates into a bunch of small tribbles, with McCoy's pledge that this time they really are no threat. Kirk spots another giant and before McCoy can warn him, it separates too and he is once again is hilariously buried under a pile of the little monsters.

This episode is an ok sequel to "The Trouble With Tribbles," though I'm not sure that one really needed to be made. It was fun to catch up with the Klingon's saga with the funny little invaders, though. The fact that they have engineered a predator for them leads us to believe that the ferocious fuzzies still continue to plague the Klingon empire. The episode deals with the ethics and usefulness of a weapon that disables both parties, and it highlights the duties of a Federation ship to protect Federation citizens, even when the citizen hardly deserves it. But on the other hand, if Cyrano has broken Klingon law, shouldn't the Prime Directive be interpreted to mean that he should answer to the Klingons using their system of laws?

Again with this?

For the return of the tribbles and Cyrano, and an interesting battle with Klingons, and a couple humorous moments, "More Tribbles, More Troubles" is certainly Adequate animated Trek.

Published May 5, 2017