One Of The Best? | With Walter Koenig | TOS 2.15, "The Trouble With Tribbles" T7R #350 - The 7th Rule -- A Star Trek Podcast with DS9's Cirroc Lofton

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Where Scotty comes from. Vodka is soda? Pop Bones likes

(00:04):
Tribles better than he likes Spock, and Checkov made a
little joke. Hello everybody, and welcome to the Seventh Rule
with Sarrock, Lofton and check Off himself. Walter Kanig, Hello,
You're gonna get a lot of little jokes in this
episode review.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I bet you.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Today we're doing a review of Star Trek the original series,
season two, episode fifteen, The Trouble with Tribles, written by
David Gerald, directed by Joseph Pivney. Again, boy, he directs
a lot. This was December twenty ninth, nineteen sixty seven.

(00:41):
Where were you, How you guys doing today?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Pretty good?

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Pretty good?

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Okay, So this is an iconic episode, one of the most,
if not the most talked about episode in the history
of Star Trek. Deep Space nine did an episode where
we visited them in the episode Trials and Tribulations. Tribles
have been in all these extra additional series after this, Walter,

(01:12):
when we said we're gonna do the Trouble with Tribles,
you had a pretty positive reaction. Why is that?

Speaker 4 (01:23):
Well? Watching it again after all these years, I was
pleasantly surprised to be able to say it holds up,
it's funny, it's still delightfully And you know, from the
first moment before we see Tribles, there's an attitude among

(01:47):
the casts that this is a certain whimsy it's going
to take place here. From the very first moment, there
is a sense that this is going to be fun.
And it was. It was. It was just charming. I
I'm so pleased that I wasn't disappointed. It was. It

(02:09):
was really neat seeing everybody together and and people that
I uh knew at the time, like Michael Pataki, who
played the the bad, the really bad cling On It
was a friend passed away a few years ago, but

(02:32):
a very fine actor. And I don't know.

Speaker 5 (02:38):
How far had you worked with him before, Michael Pataki?

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Had you worked with him before?

Speaker 4 (02:47):
Have I en't worked with him? We were We were
in the theater group together. Oh cool, Theeter East, And
that's how I knew him initially. Then as the years
went by, it became a ping pong associate. Yeah, a
ping pong table and you would he got very intense

(03:11):
about the ping pong.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
It's called being a ping pong associate. When you play
ping pong.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
With each other, you pay a monthly dues. There's a
dance you have to do.

Speaker 6 (03:26):
Yeah, Walter, I want to ask you, was the feeling
on the set the same as what.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
We saw on screen?

Speaker 5 (03:37):
Was was there a lightheartedness amongst the actors and everybody
on the set.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
I don't know if we talked about it, but everybody
was in the game. Everybody knew that this was supposed
to be a fun episode and it was. As I say,
I was so pleased to see that it holds up
after all these years. Just still very funny moments in
the show. I thought the scene between Scottie and Kirk

(04:09):
was terrific. Yes, that was probably Scotty's best episode. And
the scene between Scotty are.

Speaker 5 (04:19):
You are you mean the Scotty the Scotty scene where
he's confessing to Kirk about hitting the Klingon in the
bar fight.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
Yeah, that was funny.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, Yeah, I thought so too. I was that was
funnier than I remembered the scene being where he's begrudgingly,
you know, giving out little bits of information. He's like,
he called you this, and he called you that, and
then Kirk's like, oh, Kirk starts to understand. Okay, well
I understand why you hit him. He's like, no, no,
that's that's not actually when I hit him. I hit

(04:52):
him when he insulted the ship.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
Great, cleverly written moment, David Chery. He wrote a good
script and script that really holds up. I keep repeating
myself on that basis. Yeah, that was fun and Captain
Kirk's reaction very subtle, but very much you know, the

(05:18):
the unspoken comment was, hey, what about me? When I
count the life very charming? All the way around the
forest was was was funny and great. I if I had,
if I had an exception, it would be the young

(05:43):
who played the killing on in disguise. I mean, they
didn't have much of a disguise those days, but this
guy a makeup job and he was really.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah yeah, what was the character's name, Arnie Darvin.

Speaker 5 (06:02):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
And he was Nil's assistant and he's the one that
ends up being the klingon. I mean that that memorable.
I mean there's so many memorable moments that we've heard
a thousand times before. I think maybe the line that
I remember the most and have heard repeated, or maybe
I'm the one repeating it the most is hold away

(06:25):
ashs garbage. I don't know when he's talking about the enterprise.
I don't know why, but that's just the line where
he's just like going in deep and apparently that worked
on Scotty but I thought that was great. But Arnie Darvin,
you thought that he wasn't quite at that level. Do
you think it was miscast or do you what? Do
you think Walter sounds good?

Speaker 4 (06:53):
He's this line and I didn't mind them who says it?
But see you? I take lightly who says that? Do
you remember.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
It's you?

Speaker 3 (07:06):
I take what.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
I remember the conversation, but I don't it was I
think it was when a Klingon was talking about Yeah,
I don't remember, but it was a Klingon.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
Is that what you didn't want?

Speaker 5 (07:23):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Okay, uh yeah.

Speaker 5 (07:26):
I So your criticism is that you didn't like the
undercover Klingon.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
But for what reason? Though? Because you didn't have enough
makeup on or what was the reason?

Speaker 4 (07:40):
And that's that's a cling on? You know it was
a young man with a shiny face, hairless.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah, didn't look.

Speaker 4 (07:48):
Like any Klingon I ever knew. He really really minor point.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
By the way, did you guys notice that they pronounced
cling on three different ways in this episode. Some of
them called them clingons like we're used to. Somebody else
called them cling gons cling gons, and then a couple
other people call them clingings, including the main Klingon, Captain Coloth,

(08:19):
who's like, I am a klingon and my clinging people.
I was like, wait, if you're a klingon, how do
you know how to say your own? But then you
always have to remember different dialects. Maybe he's from the
Northern continent and they're from this, you know whatever. Uh
so that, but I didn't. Did you guys notice that
they kept saying it differently?

Speaker 5 (08:39):
I noticed it, And you know, you would think that
a script supervisor would be the one that catches that
and just says, oh, no, we you know, just some
that actually brings up a question from me, because on
the Deep Space nine scripts Walter in the beginning of
the script, there was a pronunciation guy, and whatever words

(09:03):
were in the script that maybe somebody wouldn't be familiar with,
or even alien names like bromulent or whatever it was,
they would provide a pronunciation, kind of like the dictionary
does a breakdown on how to pronounce the work. Did
they do that at that time? Were you did you
guys have pronunciation guides in the front of the scripts.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
No, nothing like that.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
You guys were flying blind?

Speaker 4 (09:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, it was I guess it was just
so much fun that anything.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
You know, it was the free Will in sixties. Huh.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
You know.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
I just so I'm on this, but I it's a tangent,
but I just just as comparison, I recently saw The
Magnificent Seven. It's cool, yeah, and it's dated. It's really dated.
That's the same period as when we were shooting Star Trek.

(10:11):
There were things that were just silly and kind of preposterous,
and there was none of that in the Trouble with Jibbils.
It all felt current and is as funny today as
it was then.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
So do you think, Walter, if this came out as
a brand new episode, if like they just they came
out in twenty twenty five, the fans would still love it?

Speaker 4 (10:42):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (10:42):
Absolutely, I think yeah, yeah, yeah, I would. I think
in the revamp of this, if they were to come
out with it in twenty twenty five, I think that
they would have to up the state of the disaster
beep lot spectrum of this script, which is the attack

(11:06):
on the grains for example, Uh, what were.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Those what were those grains?

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Ruck?

Speaker 3 (11:13):
Quadrich? Quadro right, what.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
I think it's quadrant, Yeah, quadro tritical, I think.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Is what it was? Quadrit?

Speaker 1 (11:26):
I think.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
Who who killed the dribbles?

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Uh? That was also really funny when they were talking
about that, But it ended up being Scottie that transported
them over to the Klingon ship. So presumably they are
now the Klingons problem, and the Klingons were not pleased
with this.

Speaker 7 (11:55):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
I don't know if they ate them or they transported
them out into space or what the Klingons did. But
that's what Scotty did, was he transported the triples over
to the clean ship.

Speaker 4 (12:09):
They were they were dead. It was a scene where
they said they did They're all good and what did
they die? I didn't.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
There was the guy, uh, the guy Arnie whatever his
name was, Darvin d He poisoned apparently some of the
quadratritic Kayley, So that's who I think it was.

Speaker 8 (12:40):
Arvind thecover Klingon h and the undercover Klingon was planning
on poisoning the feed so that the star the Federation
side of that planet would eat it and eventually die
because it wasn't actually giving it any utriants.

Speaker 5 (13:01):
And so the plan was an essential cling on takeover
of the planet by starving everybody out on this grain.
And so that that was the nefarious plot that was uncovered,
and you know, and so I think they would have
to just retool that a little bit. It's okay that

(13:21):
you know there's something there, but there'd have to be
a little bit more.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Expanding of the of the threat.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
I agree that, I completely agree, because what they did
was they just kind of told us that, like as
if it wasn't terribly important. It just kind of in
the background, Oh, I was just going to do this
thing whatever. But if they gave us a little bit
more there, we would have had the humor and lightheartedness
of the episode plus a strong threat to actually stress
you out towards the end.

Speaker 9 (13:48):
There.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
I think that's that's the only note I would give.
I do want to say or ask Walter, did you
know the actor that played Serenode Jones?

Speaker 4 (14:00):
Yeah, yeah, I knew.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Can you tell us about him? Because I thought he
was so freaking funny and talented?

Speaker 4 (14:09):
Yeah, Stanley Adams he was. He was a delight off
off camera as well. He did impersonations a little antisocial.
Oh really, he was very funny, nightful guy.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Delightful guy, you know, because he thought he was good too.
I thought he was good. I agree with his performance.
Gave a little.

Speaker 5 (14:38):
Bit of you know, like he's this traveling gypsy, you know,
hustler kind of a guy. But he also had a
level of charm to his portrayal of the character that
made you not dislike him, even when he was pleading
to the captain at the end for his you know,
leniency on you know, bringing the triple board the ship.

(15:02):
I thought he was giving a rather convincing you know, like, hey.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
You know, what did I do?

Speaker 5 (15:07):
I didn't do anything, you know, Like I thought it
was a good performance in that regard.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
The line that made me really laugh and I'm trying
to find it in my notes, but that was when
I really I was like, Wow, this guy's really funny.
Is he started to say something. I think Spock accused
him of something and he's like, well, I don't even
what did he say. He did one of those kind
of movies where he just got to like switch mid
sentence into what does that mean or what was that?

(15:34):
And I can't find that exact line, but I was like, Wow,
this guy's funny. That's like just a very standard funny,
you know way of speaking. I guess that makes him
a comic rather than a comedian. But I liked him.
I thought he made me laugh. He seemed like he
was a talented funny man that clearly made a living

(15:56):
off of being a funny guy on television.

Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
I think you did a lot of stage work.

Speaker 4 (16:02):
I believe Stanley did the one thing that this episode showed,
perhaps more than any other supporting actors could contribute. I
could add to this to the story.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Uh dot mail.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
Yeah, I mean, Jimmy, Michelle check Off, we were all
up to up to, you know, being the valuable part
of the show should have been taking We should have
been taken advantage of more often. I think these these

(16:48):
are competent acts who are more than just furniture. And
this episode episode so showed that. You know, Jimmy was
the life of Michelle was not only gorgeous but really
functioned very well in her role. Yeah, and I was okay,

(17:11):
so I'm i that somebody didn't say, well, you know,
we have this this potential area of professionalism that we're
not we're not really using as well as we could. Walter,

(17:38):
other hand, you know, Leonard Bill and the first were
so good in their roles that you know, maybe you
didn't want to rock the boat.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
I don't know, Walter, when you first read the script
and you saw you know that you had a pretty
big role in this. Do you remember being excited about
about the episode? You remember thinking, Hey, this is going
to be a fun one. It's gonna be more than
just I, sir, I kept.

Speaker 4 (18:04):
In Yeah, I probably did. I don't remember now, but
I couldn't miss it. The first scene is Captain just yeah.
So I probably, I quite possibly hoped that that would recur,

(18:28):
that we would see, uh, these supporting actors contribute as
they did in this particular episode. I left Star Trek
in the third season. I left the show. Nobody thought
it was going to be picked up anyway, so nobody

(18:48):
really cared. I left for a month and I did
play outside of Chicago with Jackie Coogan, Charlie Chaplin's sidekick,
you know, and that was great fun. And I didn't
miss being on the show because at that point it
was really Sir, you know, and I still wanted to

(19:15):
perform in the shows my chosen profession with some dignity,
dignity a participation. Yeah. So anyway, that's decide.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
The point that makes sense.

Speaker 4 (19:29):
I really enjoyed that episode. I enjoyed it as a performer,
and I certainly enjoyed this audience.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
The big part to me, real quick was when I
saw you, Walter in the Captain's ready room or the
conference room with Kirk and Spock. That felt like a
big step up where it was Kirk, Spock and check
Off in a meeting. I was like, whoa, look at
the big man on campus all of a sudden.

Speaker 5 (20:01):
Yeah, And I thought you did fantastic and that scene Walter,
because I enjoyed it a lot, and it reminds me.
It reminds me of my own ancestry and family because
you know, coming from Ethiopia, have an Ethiopian background. One

(20:21):
of the things that we always do as Ethiopians is
mentioned what comes from Ethiopia. Right, So we'll say, we'll say,
you know, coffee was invented in Ethiopia.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
You know we discovered coffee.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Right, you like coffee, You're welcome Starbucks exactly.

Speaker 5 (20:39):
Uh, And so it's kind of a cultural pride, you
know thing for a lot of people who immigrate from
places they like to talk about the you know, the
proud things about their heritage. And so when you came
on there and you were talking about you know, and
now you've in that to the next level with your character,

(21:02):
which is, you know, we invented that right and basically
everything that ever happened first happened in Russia. So I
love how you played that note in the beginning because
that was that offered a great back and forth between
you and Spock and Kirk when you you know, you

(21:23):
see famous Russian astronaut astronomer Mapps, you know, Mapped at first,
and they were like, no, actually was John Burke. And
then when you say, oh, Royal Academy, like, oh, okay,
never mind, you know, excuse me. The Royal Academy so
very great performances had me laughing.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
I thought it was great. And then you go on
to talk about Peter the Great and I'm like, oh,
here we going. So it's just great. You know, I
loved your performance in this.

Speaker 5 (21:56):
I was very pleased to see you open this episode.
This is one of the classic great episodes and here
you are, you know, with the two stars of the
episode in you and and it just you you. You
made that scene run, so, you know, kudos to you.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
I love the moment where when I say close enough
to smell him, Spark songly says, now then you cannot
smell in space or whatever the hell I was.

Speaker 10 (22:27):
Was mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
It was fantastic.

Speaker 5 (22:33):
And then cut to the letter later scene again you
you hit that one out the park.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
The whole, you know, the whole.

Speaker 5 (22:41):
I thought it was great that you were about to
stand up for Kirk. So I thought, so again, great
writing by the by David Gerald.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
You know here he is.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
He sets you up in the beginning with Kirk and
Spock in the opening scene, flash forward to the bar scene,
and now you're standing up for your captain and you're,
you know, ready to fight. So I thought that's great writing.
You know, it shows you the intimacy of you and
the closeness.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
You have with the captain and Spock.

Speaker 5 (23:13):
And then we go later on in that same episode
where you're willing to you know, defend his honor essentially.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
And I thought that that stood up well for you.

Speaker 5 (23:23):
I was surprised that Kirk didn't mention it more. I
thought Kirk would have accentuated the point to Scottie that
so you're saying Chekhov stood up for me and you didn't.
You know, I'm one of those just doubling down on
the obvious.

Speaker 4 (23:41):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I guess is just assume that I
had made loyalties to the captain.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
Man.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
It also showed you, kind of, like to me as
something I hadn't noticed about your character. Maybe it hadn't
been shown before, but it almost showed to me that, oh,
Chekhov's kind of a hot head too. He's not just
like some submissive guy that sits there and pushes buttons.
Don't push his buttons or you, you know, like, don't
push Chekhov's buttons because he's kind of a hot head.

(24:18):
So it was interesting to see you getting you weren't.
It almost was like you weren't just standing up good.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
You know that the tribbles were inanimate. They were little
manufactured fuzzballs, the ones that move that your exes are, Okay.
They had motors inside toy motors so that they could
move across a desk or a table or something, and

(24:52):
they and made a sound. They had to cut out
the sound.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
They should have kept that. That's very cute. Yeah right, well, actually,
Walter I had some questions about the tribles.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
However, we got to jump to our brake, so we'll
get those on the other side. Everybody stick around, we'll
be right back on the seventh rule. Well, hi there, everybody,
welcome back to the seventh Rule with Sarak Lofton and
Walter Kanigg. All right, here are the trivioids of the week.

(25:29):
You guys, can you believe it? Chekhov makes a little joke.
Sherman's planet is claimed by both the Klingons and the Federation.
Mister Barris is the Federation under Secretary in charge of
agricultural affairs in this quadrant. Of course, quadro triticali is
a high yield grain. Chekhov wants to make sure the

(25:51):
tribles don't bite. Scotty loves to relax with technical journals.
Fifty percent of a tribles metabolism is geared for metabolism, wait,
procreation scared for procreation. Where Scotty comes from, vodka is
soda pop. A regular blood worm is soft and shapeless.

(26:11):
You better not insult the Enterprise in front of Montgomery.
Scott bones like tribles better than he likes Spock, and
tribles don't like Klingons. Okay, so here's my first question
to you regarding the tribles, mister Walter Canning, since they
are very popular Star Trek animals aliens, I don't know.

(26:32):
I wanted to know when they had so many tribles.
First of all, I just thought, like, did that blow
the entire season's production department budget? Because they made so
many of them and I can't and they didn't look
like they're easy to make. It's not like a wood block,
like you know, there's there's obviously, you know, they're different colors,

(26:55):
they're different sizes, there's a lot of Like all joking aside,
it looked like it was a lot of work. Do
you know anything about that?

Speaker 4 (27:04):
I do not.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
I knew you were going to say no.

Speaker 4 (27:10):
Asked me shooting the episode, how many tribles do we use?
I would have said thirty or forty? You know, I
didn't know. I didn't know what was going on. I
wasn't in the scene where all the tribles fall on
Kirk's head. I remember when they opened that chamber, that

(27:36):
vault and all the tribles fell down. I remember that
one of them bounced offs his head, but I didn't
see that in the episode.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
I think we saw it.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
You saw someone. I saw it.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
It seems like there was a pa up there having
way too much fun throwing triples at Shatner's head while
Shatter's trying to deliver lines.

Speaker 4 (27:59):
It is a great reaction. He had a great reaction
when it bounced off his head.

Speaker 10 (28:06):
You know.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
I did. My triple question is did you take any
troubles with you? Was anybody like eager or taking in
them taking them with you? Did they give them away
where they pass them out like football? What was the
the Trible?

Speaker 4 (28:26):
Enough years have passed that I can I can confess,
and it is a matter of confession because I was
booked and spent two nights in the Hollywood Jail as
of stealing and selling.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Illegal contraband tribles.

Speaker 5 (28:52):
Yes, yes, the famous Trible scandal that Walter was involved in.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
No, I really thought it was great.

Speaker 5 (29:03):
You know who I really didn't expect to see in
this episode, and I didn't know obviously I haven't seen
this episode, but I didn't know how large a part
everybody played in this episode, and I didn't realize that
Michelle Nichols had a major role in this episode. And
I thought she was lovely, and you know, besides just

(29:24):
being beautiful, she's so sweet.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
She's so.

Speaker 5 (29:30):
You know, there's an innocence to her as when she's
approaching the trouble and kind of discovering it.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
I thought she was fantastic in this episode.

Speaker 5 (29:41):
I just thought, you know, she made the trible acceptable
and kind of welcoming.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
She was the.

Speaker 5 (29:49):
Reason why I had so much love for it was
based on her introduction of it. As opposed to the
salesman or the bartender, they didn't project the way the
kind of love that I had for it. It came
from Michelle Nichols obsessing and adoring over it and talking

(30:09):
about how.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Cute it was. I think she's the one that really
sold the triple for me.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Her character.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Absolutely, Yeah, she had that. She had that line She's
like it's purring, you know.

Speaker 5 (30:27):
She she she sweetened it and she made it feel
like like it's like a little kitty cat or something.
So I thought that was great. So, yeah, Michelle.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
Nichols was great in this episode as well. What was that.

Speaker 4 (30:46):
The mean guy William Shaller. He had been a sitcom
playing the father in a sitcom prior to either prior
to her show after I think it was prior. It wasn't.
I don't think it was Gidget, but it was something

(31:08):
like that. So he had a background is comical, lighthearted roles.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
You know.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Of course, when Sak was talking about the tribles, my
first thought was if Sarac or me or most other
people were on that set, those tribles would be footballs
in between takes, Like how could they not? And you know,
the you know, the art department would be chasing you
down and yell, they're not toys. But I could totally
picture people just like throwing tribles around. There's so many
of them there everywhere.

Speaker 9 (31:39):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
But here's something, here's a piece of trivia for you.
Sarak Lofton, do you know? I mean, you do know,
But did you realize that one of these characters did
come back in Deep Space nine and not in the
not in the Trials and Tribulations. It was the Klingon

(32:03):
Captain Captain Coloth came back. The character did, as well
as the actor that played him, who was what was
his name, right, now there's right now there's some Star
Trek fans yelling at their screens. They're like William Campbell.

(32:24):
William Campbell came back reprised his role as Captain Coloth Siroc.
You'll remember this is what he looks like thirty years
later on Deep Space nine, reprising his role. Now he
was an updated version of the Klingons, but this is
the same actor playing the same character Coloth and Siroc.

(32:49):
You'll remember the episode when, uh, when Dax meets up,
there's like the three Klingon old friends. That was core
Call and Colloth or something like that, and they were
friends with jat Zy and they went to go fight
this final battle and they all kind of died or
two out of three something like that. So that was them.

(33:09):
All three of those Klingons in that episode were characters
that were introduced in the original series, and they were
portrayed by the actors that played them. So they actually
were all three reprising their roles thirty years later in
Space nine. This was one of them. So it was
really cool that we got to see this. That was
good old Colloth, one of jad Zia Dax's good friends.

Speaker 5 (33:34):
Wow, And like I think also, three of the tribles
from the original episode were reprised at each based Ivory
make that's that's pretty wow.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
They got quite the life expected expected.

Speaker 5 (33:47):
Great acting, great actor, Yeah, I have.

Speaker 4 (33:54):
Those triples were so old, Sarah that they we were
we used in that episode you're talking with the with
the sanction of medicare.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
The The episode was called Blood Oak. I just looked
it up. It was called Blood Oak.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
I remember that episode. It was a famous episode.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
At the moment event in our show. The other guy
in the bar sat with Jimmy and I if you recall,
it was the third.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Guy, Yeah, Freeman. His name was Freeman, and he did
have one line when Kirk was dressing them down. He said, Freeman,
who started the fight? He says, I don't know, sir.
He goes, you don't know, sir.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
Great, But he was there because he was a stuntman
and when they had to fight, he was the one
that was doing most of the fighting.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
He was pretty good. It was it was he was
a lot of times we see these fight scenes and
we kind of giggle a little bit, but you you
could tell why he was there. He was a legitimate
stunt guy.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yeah, I thought the fights were good.

Speaker 5 (35:07):
Uh, sometimes they're they're they're a little corny to watch it.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
But this one was actually a good old fashioned bar
fight and I enjoyed it a little bit. And then
they had the little segue.

Speaker 5 (35:19):
Too with the guy uh you know, stealing the wine
while the fights going.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
You know, so it was it was pretty good.

Speaker 5 (35:28):
It's it's like help yourself to the bar when nobody's looking,
you know.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
So I thought that was fun too. This episode, you know,
it was fun.

Speaker 5 (35:40):
You know, it didn't it didn't doesn't always have to
be serious, and that's one.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Thing about Star Trek that I think had.

Speaker 5 (35:46):
You know, when they do a good job of striking
a balance of science fiction and also funness. Uh, sometimes
it's too comical and you're thinking, oh, they.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Just went too far on the comedy side. But this
one was.

Speaker 5 (36:04):
Subject matter wise because it's the Troubles, because it was
you know, a furry.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Fuzzy little animal that you like. I thought it was
it played well.

Speaker 5 (36:14):
You know, Spock got to have a moment where he
felt a little awkward. He was like, it seems that
devolcan you know, it seems like it likes me or something,
and I'm immune to its you know, lovability or something.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
It's trilling I think they called it.

Speaker 5 (36:29):
Yeah, So you know, all of that was good. I
just had fun. I watched the episode. I knew it
was going to be light. It had me, really, you know.
The only thing I think was a little over the
top for me was, uh, the the scientist or whoever

(36:52):
it was that was in charge of the grain that
was being a little obnoxious about the Klingon are here
and this and that.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
It was a little over the top to me.

Speaker 5 (37:07):
Unless it was met with some serious threat. The threat
didn't seem to match the level of outrage that he
was expressing.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Walter, can I ask you this question? We've been bombarding
you with questions, but that's because people have been wanting
to ask you these questions and asking you these questions
at conventions for sixty years. But this is just such
an iconic episode. David Gerald, He's still around, he still
goes to conventions, he still answers these questions, He's still

(37:44):
active on social media. Did you ever meet him? Did
you ever have any words with him about this episode?
Anything like that?

Speaker 4 (37:53):
More than having words about this episode, I've had words
with him nice before. I knew well he was, you know,
it was kind of like a prodigy. He was so
young when he was doing the hippis, so I mean,
he made the mistake of saying that the big player

(38:16):
Walter Kney incurated me, and I told him I'd kill him.
I ever heard it again. I ran into him and
he didn't seem to understand that that was an enormous insult.
And maybe it wasn't, but me it was. And it was.

(38:37):
It was at a party at Harleman Ellison's house and
I cornered him and he was totally surprised by my
very emotional reaction. But I got to know him over
the years, and more than that, I worked for him.
He did a series called Land of the Losses, and

(38:58):
he hired hired the right one of the episodes, and
if I may say so, on the basis of other
people's comments, it was one of the most accomplished episodes
that they had on Land of the loss So I
didn't know that at the time, but I'm pleased that

(39:19):
it worked out. So anyway, Yes, I saw David now lives,
I think either in Vermont or upstate New York. I
was at a convention in Taekwonder Roga and he was
there and he looked good and he seems to be happy. Yeah,
we got along after that particular moment. We got along

(39:42):
quite well. And and he tried to get me on.
He and Dorothy both tried to get me on as
a writer on Next Generation.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
No way really. Yeah, they because you wrote an episode
for the animated series too, so this there was a
precedent here. So you'd written for Land of the Lost,
you'd written for the animated series.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
How did this go?

Speaker 4 (40:08):
And yeah, So I pitched some stories to them and
they love them. They love the stories, you know, no
matter if friendship that's involved, and say, well, they you
were friends, so they they liked them. It's their ass
on the line if the story isn't good and they

(40:30):
and they have they've supported the writer. So my sense
was they really liked the stories. They thought they were
well doing. And I bring it all up because the
other producer, who I didn't know, I hope I'm not

(40:52):
getting my series confused as possible. Anyway, he also very
much liked them. He said we're going to do I
pitched two or three stories. He said, we're going to
do one of the three for sure. And so I
went home, saying that's great. And then I got a
call Jeane wants to meet meet with you. I said, okay,

(41:17):
So I went back to the studio. Jean was very pleasant.
We walked a lot. We sat down in the cafeteria
and I pitched the stories again. I finished one and
he went for his drink that he had. He said
a moment, and then said, how do we get Jordie? Jordie? Yeah, yeah,

(41:45):
I can't think of his name.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
Yeah, yeah, how.

Speaker 4 (41:51):
Do we get No, strike that it wasn't Jordie, it
was Dada, Sorry, got it. How do we get him
to the planet. There's a million ways you can get
him to the planet. You can be checking out the people.
There's an insurrection. There's a hundred things. The ways of

(42:15):
doing it, he says, and then he asked me to
tell the second story. And by now I knew this
is never going to happen. It just wasn't going to happen.
So that was the end of that. But both Dorothy
and David Jerald and this other producer, we're very very

(42:36):
generous in their approbation.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
Boy, that would have been awesome, though, if you well,
you kind of dodged a bullet not riding. In the
first and second season of Next Generation, it was pretty
uh helter skelter there for a while. I do want
to point out, though, very quickly, speaking of Land of
the Lost, the two lead actors of Land of the
Lost go to STLV every year in the vendorsroom. I
don't know if you ever see them, Kathy and Wesley,

(43:02):
the two lead actors from Land of the Lost. If
you see him, you should say hi. Be like I
wrote for you fifty years ago.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
It's truth. I didn't care what much treat.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Oh no, okay, then don't then don't go sick?

Speaker 5 (43:25):
Yeah, never mind strike that when that's hilarious. But but
that's funny you say that because you just mentioned that
it was one of the most acclaimed episodes of the show.
That's interesting how the episode you wrote is of Land
of the Loss. You said was one of the better
episodes that people say.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
I didn't know it. They brought back the character that
I created and was in Oh cool at least, yeah,
so good. And I'm working for David was fun. He
was a good producer. So I had a good time.
I just I wasn't I wasn't that fun of this series.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
I thought the space Station Case seven looked really cool.
The exterior shots of the space Station Case seven. I
think those were maybe remastered or something, because I was like,
that looks way too good for sixty years ago. That's
just one point that I noticed at the very beginning
it opens up and you see the outside of space station.
I was like, Wow, that can't be right. That looks
really good. But we are running low on time already. God,

(44:33):
we could talk about this episode forever, But so Rock
lofton who gets the home run of today's episode?

Speaker 5 (44:51):
In a performance Wise, I liked Walter's performance like Golf
the most, made me laugh, and I thought that you
had the real standout performance in this episode.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
And then I want to also give the home run
to David Gerald.

Speaker 5 (45:13):
I think that coming up with an idea like this
that ends up becoming, you know, part of the canon
and having long lasting effects and you know, staying.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
Relevant all of these years. You know, that's a.

Speaker 5 (45:26):
Great idea by him, and it worked well, and so
I would give the two Walter and David.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
Well.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Walter, you're a baseball guy. You like the Yankees, you
like the g Men. Just kidding, that's amazing that's ruthless.
My guys have been scoring zero or one points for
like the last ten games, so I know you feel.
But the question is who gets the home run of

(45:57):
today's episode?

Speaker 4 (46:00):
Well, you know, I hadn't thought about David. It was
very well done, very well created, uh and executed episode.
But because he may not get another chance, I want
to give it to Jimmy. Jimmy doing I thought he

(46:23):
had a significant role and he played it very well.
I'm necess thoroughly impressed with this work. The scene that
he has with Kalinga in the cafeteria, there was so
much built in anger and he was ready to you know,

(46:43):
do him in. I thought that was very very well executed.

Speaker 10 (46:47):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
You know, Sock Scottie in this episode and other episodes
does remind me a little bit of Chief O'Brien. I
feel like Chief O'Brien in Deep Space nine. It's kind
of derived a little bit from scott not just because
of you know, their you know British and they have
drink Scotch, but also because you know they're they got
a little bit of a temper. You know, they they're

(47:09):
kind of tough guys. You know that that they're not fighters,
they're engineers, but they both kind of have like that background.
I'll tell you home runs of the episode. For me,
it is Chekov and uhurah because they rarely get to be,
you know, part of the leads, part of the you know,

(47:31):
part of the main story, and they both did very well.
They did a lot with what they had. I thought
it was great. Also honorable mens and yes to Scotti,
Sarah O Jones. There are so many great performances David Gerald,
But for me, it's Uhura and check Off. I wrote
a lot of notes about Chekov, I'll have you know.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
That. Yeah, I want to add just really quickly to that.

Speaker 5 (47:54):
I loved hearing that Chekhov was going to hang out
and go shot being with Aura.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
Just I don't know why.

Speaker 5 (48:02):
I love that so much, but that little nugget right
there let me know how good friends you are, and
I thought that was a great for me.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
I just I don't know why I love that line,
but it just resonated with me.

Speaker 9 (48:16):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (48:17):
I don't think we ever had a scene for the
two of us every again.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Wow okay, wow, So that yeah, it gives us just
a tiny bit more to chew on with regards to
those characters. Gives us a little bit more to know about.
Speaking of things we like to chew on and people
that like to go shopping. Here are some people that
love shopping. Their names are doctor Anne, Marie Siegel, Eve

(48:42):
England Out in Wales, You've got black Men, Tom t J. Jackson,
bay Out, Missouri Titus Smaller, doctor Mohammad Nora, and you'll
oh Platte Joe Balcearadi, Mike Goo, doctor Stephanie Baker, Carrie Schwent,
Faith Howell, Edward Foltz Aka Crewman Guy, the Matt Boardman,
Chris McGee, Jake Barrett and her Unger, Allison Leech Hide,
Julie Menasfi, Jed Thompson, doctor Susan B. Gruner, Glenn Iverson,

(49:07):
Dave Gregory, Chris Sternet, Greg k Wickstrom, Cassandra g chuck A,
Chris Garrison, Mark Zuttcoff Lamaiah Lancaster, Sean mouch Amiram miss Nay,
and of course Jason m Okin. All right, everybody stick around,
We've got the free for all up next we will
be right back on the seventh Rule. Hey, everybody, welcome

(49:32):
back to the seventh Rule with Sir rock lofton Yellow
and Melissa A.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Lungo.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Hello, it's the free for all, of course. Jason m
Okin is here, everybody, Thank goodness.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
T J.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Jackson bays seeling a little fiery today. Alison leech Hide
is here as well, always cool stuff in her background.
Mark Zudkoff has three cool pictures. Maybe we'll learn something
about each. Carrie Schwentt is buried in colorful tribles to
oh she has her I Love Triples sweater too, that's cool.

(50:08):
Chuck Chuck A is smiling knowingly. It's one of his
favorite episodes ever. And Chris McGee has an awesome Seventh
Rule shirt. Which version is that? Cool? All right? Jake
Cisco guesses the IMDb score.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
I'm gonna guess that this was probably like an eight
point nine.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Oh does anybody else have any guesses as to what
this episode got on? IMDb has an average. It's not
even an average. They have like a weighted average. Now,
IMDb is weird anyway, that doesn't already know nine nine
point five.

Speaker 11 (50:56):
I'll guess my point one.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
We're all over the place this one, okay. The answer,
of course is Melissa knows it.

Speaker 12 (51:08):
Eight point seven Chris got it.

Speaker 5 (51:11):
Oh, I would love to take credit for that, but
I said nine point five, Yeah he did?

Speaker 1 (51:18):
What else said?

Speaker 12 (51:19):
He said? Eight point seven?

Speaker 13 (51:21):
Oh?

Speaker 14 (51:22):
Sorry?

Speaker 4 (51:25):
I sorry? Sorry?

Speaker 1 (51:32):
How did you remember that from already reading about it
and knowing it was eight point seven? No, that's a
good good guess. Awesome good guess by Sarah too. Do
we have any some kinds of or some sorts of
in this one?

Speaker 15 (51:46):
I heard one of them, Sarah O Jones, when he
was pleading with Kirk to get out of prison time,
said Captain Kirk, friend, friend Kirk. Surely we can come
to some sort of mutual understanding.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Nice. That was a hidden one. What about non appearance mentioned?
Was Sulu mentioned? Was anybody mentioned? I didn't catch it
either way. Fewer non appearance mentions in the original series,
it seems, because I guess they don't have many people
to mention yet, because they just started the series. All right,

(52:18):
Malisa Longa, please get a start off on the right
track by telling us what you thought of this particular episode.

Speaker 12 (52:26):
I was watching it twice. I was like, what are
they doing with this episode? I couldn't No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Speaker 5 (52:39):
Right there.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
No.

Speaker 7 (52:44):
I thoroughly enjoyed this episode and it had me giggling
on both watches.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Wow.

Speaker 7 (52:53):
Yeah, because it was funny. It was you know, it
was a fun, little funny episode. And I under stand
why it's so popular because triples are really cute.

Speaker 12 (53:04):
I was there with the Hour when she was like, oh,
it's adorable.

Speaker 7 (53:09):
It was great.

Speaker 12 (53:11):
But even from the opening teaser when Chekhov is telling
his jokes, it was great. It was great to see
Chekhov and Hourrah and Scottie get some love and attention.

Speaker 7 (53:28):
In the storytelling. I really enjoyed that we got some
character development for Scotty in that he loves to read
technical manuals and his feathers don't get ruffled. If the
Captain has insulted, but you insult the Enterprise, you watch out.

Speaker 12 (53:49):
You got to watch out.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
It was great.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (53:55):
Overall, I thought it was just a really enjoyable episode.
I really enjoyed Kirk in this episode too. I think
he did really.

Speaker 7 (54:03):
Well playing the straight man and and his delivery. There's
always a a sense a tone or a sense of
honesty in his deliveries. So and they're not usual, they're
not normal line deliveries that you would expect, which maybe

(54:27):
why he gets made fun of so often. But I
think he did really well and I believed him in this,
and I really liked when he's talking to Scotti after
Scotti has can fast about starting to fight, just because

(54:47):
he listens.

Speaker 12 (54:49):
You can see him listening, and you know there's something
going on in his brain when he's talking. He's just
not he's not just phoning it in, which is great.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Mm hmmm, great stuff, Melissa. One quick question. You said
you watched it twice. You laughed both times the second time.
Was there something you laughed at that you didn't laugh
at the first time?

Speaker 12 (55:18):
Was there something possibly?

Speaker 1 (55:23):
I think.

Speaker 12 (55:26):
I don't know, and I have to mention, oh that,
uh it may I may like it even more because
I did watch Deep Space nine, the trible with triples or.

Speaker 16 (55:42):
Wait, trials and tribulations and tribulations, because they did Deep
Space nine did a really good job.

Speaker 7 (55:55):
Bringing us back to that time. The colors, Oh my gosh,
the colors are so much to say about this episode.
You guys, go, it's your turn. I don't want to
take off everyone's turn, but it's a fun episode.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Thanks very much, Melissa, Longo, Jason m Okin, she met
you go ahead.

Speaker 17 (56:12):
Oh, Belie, You're absolutely right. I mean, you know, how
much time do we have?

Speaker 9 (56:19):
Uh?

Speaker 17 (56:20):
Yeah, you know this is I mean, this, perhaps, along
with The City in the Age of Forever, one of
the most written about and talked about episodes of Star
Trek altogether. The book's written about it, so uh again,
we can talk about this for a long time. And
I think, you know, overall, it strikes a very very
nice balance with drama and comedy. I think it reaches

(56:42):
the level of comedy where it should be. It comes
on the heels of I Mud was shut right after
I Mud, which I think went overboard quite a bit
with its humor. So I think it right reached the
right point here. And it's a little too bad that,
you know, Walter couldn't join us for this, but there
you know, again, a lot of things have been said
about it. A couple sort of jumped out at.

Speaker 4 (57:02):
Me and Melissa U sedid.

Speaker 17 (57:03):
Certainly Walter had some nice scenes in it, you know,
Michelle had some nice scenes in it, and attention with
Spade to give these supporting characters a little bit more
to do. But kind of going back to Walter, and
I know the story typically is that, you know, because
George de kay was absent for a good part of
the second season, a lot of the lines that were

(57:24):
meant for Sulu went to check off. Not quite the
same here, although the episode I think started shooting the
day after George went on sabbatical or on leave to
shoot the Green Berets with John Wayne. Originally there was
this character called Doggerty who was supposed to be in
the Caesar and then the fight, and Bob Justman said,
why don't we give the lines to check off? So

(57:45):
a lot of that ended up because of Bob Juman.
And there's a little anecdote that I'll tell it's a
little bit different from all of this. When David Gerald
was writing this, apparently he was using he was using
his own timeewriter. That it was a bit different from
the way the scripts were typed out back, you know,
in the day when he showed up when the when

(58:06):
the first draft of the script was printed, he was
about twenty pages too long, so he needed to go
back and cut a lot. So he went to the
set and he was you know, chopping and doing all
that kind of stuff, and he had a conversation with T. Kelly,
and then after a while, Walter supposedly comes up and says,
you know, what are you doing as well? You know,
I have to cut my script and and he says,

(58:27):
well anything of mine, and David Gerald apparently couldn't resist
and said all of it. I supposedly Walter wasn't too pleased,
and you know, it all ended up being well but
again all in good fun. The episode is fun, the
history behind it is fun. There's a lot more to
say here and I'll save that for later.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
Wow teaser do it?

Speaker 17 (58:53):
Now?

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Do it? Noah, thank you very much, Jason m Oakin
all right, T J. Jackson Bay is out in Missouri
this episode too.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Maybe I do. Uh. It definitely is a fun one. Uh.

Speaker 18 (59:08):
You know, I enjoy watching it because I feel like
we get a little bit of Klingon lore there with
Captain colof uh and you know, since I've watched these
Face nine when I'm watching this episode, I can't help
but like picture in my mind the scenes where I know,
like the defined crew is like.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Over there.

Speaker 18 (59:29):
And so they're the like the nun appearance Nun mentions
in this episode for me, you know, but it's interesting
you know, to kind of see you know, the Klingon
story develop and see you know, how they behave under
the Organian peace treaty that they're trying to quote unquote

(59:50):
trying to play by the rules, but they're still roguish.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
And you know, still you know, doing.

Speaker 18 (59:56):
The stuff to be antagonistic is their role in the show,
you know. But we also.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
You know, get to.

Speaker 18 (01:00:06):
See, you know, kind of how they have a little fun,
you know, poking at the Enterprise crew.

Speaker 9 (01:00:11):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
And so that is one of my favorite scenes.

Speaker 18 (01:00:14):
I think I ran it back a couple of times
to hear him say that the Enterprise should be hauled
away garbage because he delivered that He delivered his line
so well in that scene. You know, he's kind of
prancing around the bar and uh and poking like he's

(01:00:35):
he knows that he's getting at him because jakof keeps
jumping up. Scottie is the one that ends up, you know,
doing the deed. So, you know, I think that scene
is hilarious. It's so well played, you know, but it
also shows you know, this kind of idea of the
Klingons trying to be cordial.

Speaker 19 (01:00:54):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
We see the Klingons, you know, kind of joking and laughing.

Speaker 18 (01:00:57):
So you know when Warf comes years later and says,
you know, Klingons don't laugh, we already know that that's
not true because you know, we see that, you know,
just kind of sitting around having a good time, but
we also know that they're up to something. So because
they're you know, they're the Klingons of the bad guy.
So you know, there's that. I thought, you know, seeing

(01:01:20):
Cyrho Jones character was also interesting. Bubbles mentioned eye Mud
and you know he kind of gives it, kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Gives some Harry Mud, you know, vibes.

Speaker 18 (01:01:34):
You know, he's this kind of you know, ruggish character
that you know, he's not necessarily malevolent or bad, but
he also, you know, isn't quote unquote all good.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
Like he he will get you if he.

Speaker 18 (01:01:47):
Can, uh, and you know, so kind of seeing how
they deal with the trible situation and you know how
he kind of almost it's not a core, but he
kind of almost takes a clee Barkain, you know, to
clean up his mess rather than go to jail. So,
you know, I thought that was some some interesting things

(01:02:08):
as well. But the thing that stood out the most
to me in this watch was the line that Captain
Kirk delivers towards the end of the episode when he's
talking to who I mean and the tribles are all
over the place at this point, and you know, Lieutenant
or Who is defending you know, the tribles and saying
that they, you know, they give us love, and Captain

(01:02:29):
Kirk says, too much of anything, Lieutenant, even love isn't
necessarily a good thing.

Speaker 20 (01:02:36):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
And you know that made me stop and ponder for a.

Speaker 18 (01:02:40):
Minute about you know how as a society it does
seem that we try to to just take all of
something that we can get, whether that's money or or
or love or influence or whatever it is, we can
just never seem to get an enough of it. And

(01:03:01):
so you know it's just something to kind of stop
and think about, you know how, how we can you know,
maybe be you know more balanced and sharing and caring and.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
Loving him that way. So that's all.

Speaker 18 (01:03:17):
I got a lot of things for things left un said,
So I'll leave this here now.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Excellent, Thank you so much. TJ. Jackson, bay Out and Missouri.
All right, Allison Leech Hide is here. Finally the weight
is over. What do you think of this one.

Speaker 21 (01:03:34):
I love this one. I've loved this one since I
was a kid because it's fun and funny and you
know our crew, Yes, Sulu is not in this episode,
but the rest of our crew all has great things
to do and say. Michelle is particularly wonderful in this episode.
Just the joy on her face that is expressed whenever

(01:03:55):
she's holding the triple that is just purring and cooing
at her is just beautiful.

Speaker 4 (01:04:00):
The woman radiates.

Speaker 21 (01:04:01):
Light and love just straight out of her face and
to your your living for your watching. So I love
her in this one, especially when she says the line
I couldn't could I when she's.

Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
Off her.

Speaker 21 (01:04:18):
I melted, like, I know why you want to give
her stuff. I want to give her stuff. So love
her in this. And I also love Scotty in this
because yes, you can insult Kirk. You insult that his ship,
because the Enterprise is Scotty's ship, like and so he's like, oh,
that's that's a no go. And the scene with him

(01:04:39):
and Kirk after they all been back and get in trouble,
and you know he's got the black guy and Chekhov
has got the big old bruise on his cheek and
you know, he's explaining what happened, and just the look
on Kirk's face is like, you weren't defending me, you
just the ship. I thought it was a great scene
of them and highly enjoy that. And I have to

(01:05:02):
say Spock had some of the best technobabble, which wasn't
true technobabble, but I now a line from him that
was the just hilarious. But it's three lines in my notes,
so I don't know if I really want to say it,
but I just I loved it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
I'm like, this script is so great.

Speaker 21 (01:05:21):
So great script, fun story. All of our characters get
to do stuff and shine and kind of either they're
personally who they are or in their job because bones
is great. Trying to figure out the entire episode, you know,
how do Tribble's work, Like how does this ball of
fur do this? And so wonderful episode And probably my

(01:05:44):
favorite line comes the short favorite line of mine that
comes from Kirk is at the end, and that is
on the contrary, sir, I think of this project as
very important. It is you I take lightly.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Yes the line I love that.

Speaker 21 (01:06:00):
I'm like, this is how he feels about this whole thing,
Like why is this the situation I'm in?

Speaker 4 (01:06:05):
So I love this episode.

Speaker 21 (01:06:07):
And a fun little tidbit I learned on Memory Alpha
is that William Campbell, who played Cole Off, stole like
a bag full of tribles from the set the neighborhood kids,
and I think that is the sweetest thing.

Speaker 4 (01:06:22):
So that's what this.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Episode great stuff. Thanks very much, Alison. You answered like
two of our questions from our review. One was we
were trying to figure out who that I take you
lightly line came from or where it was delivered from.
And Srock also asked if Walter stole a bunch of tribles.

Speaker 4 (01:06:42):
But William cambled it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
So William Campbell did.

Speaker 21 (01:06:46):
There one more little tibbet They were finding tribles for
months on the set afterwards because they so he probably
could have and they never would have noticed.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
It's funny. Did Thanks very much, Alison Leech Hide Mark Zutkoff,
I bet you've seen this episode a few times. What
do you think of it?

Speaker 11 (01:07:05):
Well, it's one of three second season episodes featuring comedy,
and it's the one that's the most out and out funny.
Given that the famous quote says drama is easy comedy
is hard. It's even harder to believe this was writer
David Gerald's first professional sale. Now I've read both of
Gerald's books on Star Trek, one of which contains the

(01:07:27):
entire script of the episode annotated with his observations. Gerald
worked closely with producer gene L. Kuhon on the script,
who rewrote several sections of it. As Melisa said, the
teaser is a great showcase for Chekhov in a rare
instance of cross season continuity, referencing the Oregonian Peace Treaty
established in season one. The teaser was written by Kuhn

(01:07:50):
rather than Gerald, and in Gerald's words, was shorter and
funnier than his Some people complain that this type of
episode comedy for one, dialogue, heavy for another, doesn't have
any action other than the barroom brawl. For me, the
action is in the movement. Kirk and Spock are constantly
moving throughout the ship, back to the space station, to

(01:08:11):
sick Bay and so on. And speaking of the barroom scene,
Chekhov has great character bits first, then great fight choreography,
especially when he hits the klingon multiple times in the
stomach to no effect. There is a crewman in a
Starfleet shirt from the Cage era, who looks on with
a grin as if to say, I'm just jazz to

(01:08:31):
be on the show Man. My least favorite scene is
in Sick Bay between Spock and McCoy. It was also
written by gene O Kuhn, and the two characters are
just too nasty to each other. It also has Spock
making a Bible quote and he refers to an ermine violin.
In the bridge scene where we see the triples becoming
out of control, we get some marvelous musical cues, including

(01:08:55):
a theme which I'm pretty sure is played on an
ermine violin. But the walking dog Trible on the railing
just looks wrong to me. No now how Shatner picks
it up and has to shut it up before he
speaks his dialogue or its motor would have drowned out
his words. Back in mister Lorry's office, there's a great
bit of business where Kirk hands a Trible to Spock,

(01:09:16):
who hands it to Lorii. All this keeps the Trible
away from Darvin until late in the episode when it's important,
and the look on Spock's face when he tells Sirrah no,
it'll take seventeen point nine years to pick up Every
trible on the station is absolutely priceless and my home
pungs of the episode. Kirk was leary of Lourie. And

(01:09:39):
if there were a future episode featuring a Federation bureaucrat
to annoy Captain Kirk, We'll always have Barris.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Okay, very good, thank you very much. Mark Zutkoff, all right,
Kerrie Schwentt. What do you got on? You got a
home pun too?

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
I didn't.

Speaker 19 (01:10:01):
I do have a limerick for the acts. Normally for
t o s I do haikus, but for my tribles
I had to do a limerick. But I'll get to
that at the end. Like Ellison, I too fell down
the memory of a rabbit hole. This is the one
POS episode that I know well. The tribles are so

(01:10:23):
cute me just like Uhura. And if you put like
a kitten or a kitten video or a picture of
a kitten in front of me, I make this same
noise as Ohr did the first time. Tag dribble and
tribbles are so cute and they make the cutest noise
and they're so pretty. Anybody who's been by my cabin
on the Star Trek cruise knows how many troubles I

(01:10:45):
have all over all over my door. I actually want
second place on the door decorating contest on the most
recent grew very proud of that, and the I brought it.
I brought a prop actually from the from the cruise
A little was the key chane like this was what
inspired the the tribles in the episode, and that key

(01:11:05):
chane was owned apparently by the writer's girlfriend whose last
name was Sherman. And that's why you had Sherman's planet.
He named a planet after his after after his girlfriend.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
And the scene.

Speaker 19 (01:11:19):
Where the the tribles get dumped on on the on
the core, Kirk took eight times to get right. The
core crew above that were jumping the tribles down couldn't see.
So that's why random tribles just keep raining down on
him periodically throughout the rest of the rest of that scene.
And Stettner was the look, the irritated look on Kirk's

(01:11:42):
faith is genuine because by the end of a take
he was genuinely annoyed by getting tribils dumped on him
over and over and over again. But the Admiral the
Admiral apparently during one bunch a on the on the
Blooper reel was tossed a trible and his thing at

(01:12:04):
the time was doing all.

Speaker 3 (01:12:05):
State insurance commercials.

Speaker 19 (01:12:07):
And you've got the hands and the all State commercial
holding out he put he puts the triple in his hands.

Speaker 12 (01:12:13):
And where did I write?

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
I wrote it.

Speaker 19 (01:12:15):
I wrote good hands with tribles. Yeah, I read that.
I laughed out loud. All all the guest cards were
all great. One note I found absolutely fascinating is Charlie Burrill.
He at the at the time was had a comedy

(01:12:38):
duo team with with.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
Him with him, him and his wife.

Speaker 10 (01:12:42):
And they had the distinction of following the Beatles on
their first episode or first performance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Speaker 4 (01:12:55):
They had to follow the.

Speaker 19 (01:12:58):
Yeah I'd love that name, Mitzi and and looking on
his IMDb, I knew and recognized.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
Him from somewhere.

Speaker 19 (01:13:05):
He is still lieutenant on a fantastic crime drama. Crime
drama from the nineties, held still talking. My crush on
rob at dates dates back to the time because my
mom and I both crushed both crushed on him. And
before I get to the the Limerick and I do
have a question for things left unsaid, So don't let

(01:13:27):
me forget about that. But poor Scotti, he just wants
to hang out, hang out at home and read his books.

Speaker 3 (01:13:34):
But yeahs making him go outside and close.

Speaker 4 (01:13:37):
He just wants to sit at home and read.

Speaker 19 (01:13:40):
I mean, poor guys, that's his When he gets drownded,
he's happy as a claim that needs he gets to
go back to his book. I can as a book
form of that back in my middle school and high
school days, I can absolutely relate and hold on. It's
a little bit windy, so I got hopefully doesn't blow
away and I try to turn the page. But here

(01:14:00):
is my trible limericks for the episode. We tribled are cute,
our hut and fluffy race are per will bring you
a smile to your face. We come in many colors,
plan on cs and shudder. We multiply a quentny rapid pace.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Nice. Thank you very much, Carrie Schwent aka crafty barrel location.
What do you got for us today? Chuck a akat
and g fanatic. You've been chiming in saying you basically
know every line of this episode. Ever you must love it.

Speaker 9 (01:14:37):
Yeah, it's really no triple at all. Right, Well, The
first thing is, you know, I got to see a
lot of these actors at conventions, you know, from the
original series, because I've been going to convention since their
earlier mid seventies. I did say William Campbell at a

(01:14:58):
convention in la I don't remember if I talked to
him or not, but as he was signing autographs, the
actor played mister Lurry was. An actor's name is Witt Bistle.
He was in a lot of Western early westerns. And
he was also in the in the Time Tunnel with
James Darren and and uh Colbert. I can't think of

(01:15:23):
his first first name, but he was in the Time Tunnel. A.
Lee Merriweather was also in the Time Tunnle Robert Cole,
thank you. Uh. And if you notice a core rap,
the one that was lecturing uh Scotty about the uh
the garbage Scale enterprise as a garbage scale. He was

(01:15:43):
in the Next Generation episode too Short a season uh,
first season episode.

Speaker 16 (01:15:49):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (01:15:51):
I think everything else in my notes has been mentioned,
but the episode itself was excuse me, the episode self
was always my favorite episode. There's a handful of T
t O S episodes that are you know, my top
five episodes but I'd have to say The Trouble of
Tribles was my top favorite episode. Uh it was. It

(01:16:12):
was as a Melissa that mentioned it was hard to
watch the episode now and not think of Trials and Tribulations,
you know, seeing the characters in the background.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (01:16:24):
Charlie Brill, you know as Arn Darvin of course made
that uh appearance in Trials and Tribulations. Uh he in
the uh in the the Trouble of Tribles episode that
the look on his face when the Tribles identified him
as a Klingon was really really good.

Speaker 8 (01:16:44):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (01:16:45):
As was mentioned, Spock had a bunch of one liners,
and it was kind of unusual for Spock too to
go on to the comedy side.

Speaker 10 (01:16:55):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (01:16:56):
But the Kirk and Spock and McCoy scenes were just
just wonderful. And uh Walter of course had the best,
probably those best scenes as Chekov and Scottie and her
also got so much to do in the episode. What
a wonderful episode.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
Great stuff, Thank you very much, Chuck A number one. Wow,
that's amazing. All right? Up next, Faith, howel she's floating
outside the enterprise. What'd you think of this one?

Speaker 13 (01:17:27):
This is definitely probably my top two teck Ts episodes
for sure. I mean, what what can I add that
you guys haven't said. I definitely love that we get
some interaction human to human with the Klingons. We see
a lot of space fights and you know, viewscreen interaction,

(01:17:50):
but to actually be in the same place at the
same time and to see the crew interact with their
crew was pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 20 (01:17:58):
I just and I I want to say, Carrie, I
love your background. I tried hard to find a background
shot from the show like that, could not find one.

Speaker 13 (01:18:09):
I feel like maybe DS nine would have it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
Okay, I think that's it. Thank you very much. Faith
Howe appreciated breat Kenzo's just hanging out. Hanging loose in
Hawaii looks beautiful over there. What do you think of
this episode?

Speaker 22 (01:18:31):
Like everybody else, I loved it. There were a few
things that I particularly loved. The checkof and Hora scenes
were amazing. It's interesting also to see that they did
have a system of currency. During the triple introduction scene
where they're talking about credits, you think that the Federation

(01:18:53):
has past currency and needing currency, but as we see
a lot in DS nine and here, we do see that.
But anyway, that's just like a little side note, was
this was that King and Coloth that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
We see Coloth was one, Yeah, the other guy wasn't King,
No Colo.

Speaker 22 (01:19:19):
Okay, okay, because he looked like the actor that And
to get to that, I'll get to that DS nine
crossover at the end. But yeah, I wanted to say
I loved Walter's performance. He's heavily featured in this. I'm
not sure exactly what it is, but there's something in
me that loves seeing the loyalty that check Off and

(01:19:41):
Scotty show for it. Well check off with Captain Kirk
and Scotty with the ship, the demonstration of the loyalty,
it just tugs at my heart shrinks. I don't know
what that what it is, but it almost every time. Yeah,
it reminded This episode reminded me like there's a newer

(01:20:03):
method of storytelling that happens. It's definitely more modern, but
you tell the same story from multiple different perspectives. And
this felt like that because we saw the DS nine
version of Trouble with Triples and they kind of go
off on their own story and then we come I
see this and I'm like, okay, this is what you know?

(01:20:24):
This crew was actually doing during that time. So yeah, yeah,
this episode was great. It was full of well written
and well executed comedy.

Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
Yeah, I loved it, and if anybody knows comedy, it's
Hawaiian's thank you very much, Greg Kenzo, great stuff, all right,
friend McGee or should I say me lad because that
is friend in Elvish or Dwarvish I remember? Anyway, what
do you got, Chris.

Speaker 15 (01:20:57):
Well? What else can be said about one of the
greatest Star Trek episodes ever produced? Of course I love
it and considered a top five episode of the series,
probably number two or three.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
It has excellent.

Speaker 15 (01:21:10):
Comedy, good pacing, witty dialogue, acting and cinematography are well done,
and even the music is on point and perfect for
the episode. I think this episode has the most times
Chekhov's history has been skewed toward Russia. Speaking of Chekov,
I like the little double take that he does when

(01:21:32):
he realizes he's not drinking his vodka after Scotty handsom
Freeman's drink. It's always a funny moment that I never
noticed in my first few viewings. I've always wanted to
see a re edited version of this episode with the
modified scenes from Trials and Tribulations. McCoy calls the triples bisexual,

(01:21:55):
which I don't think is the correct use of that term,
but this was the nineteen sixties, so I can forget that.
I think the proper term would be intersext or even hermaphroditic,
but that's just me being pedantic. You had asked Melsa,
by the way, Ryan, whether she laughed on it, and
says something on her second viewing that she didn't notice

(01:22:15):
on her first viewing. Well, one thing I noticed this
time around that I don't remember seeing before is when
McCoy says to Kirk, I haven't figured out what keeps
them alive yet. Kirk's glare at him is so absolutely
prices that I just busted out laughing. This is probably
the most quotable episode in all of Star Trek, certainly

(01:22:37):
in the original series, so it was tough to narrow
it down to just one, but I finally found a
good one, and that's McCoy saying the nearest thing I
can figure is that they're born pregnant, which seems to
be quite a time saver.

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
Thank you very much, dark Lord aka friend McGee. All right, Oh,
we got a quick bonus thing, TJ, you've got something funny.

Speaker 18 (01:23:00):
So, yeah, Corrax was played by Michael Pataki, so he's
literally a pat.

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
Yeah. I didn't I think of that right when said Pataki,
I was like, oh wait, very good, very good, very good.
Jake's final take, final thoughts Truck.

Speaker 3 (01:23:26):
Yeah, like Klirk saying a few lines. One of them
was when he said you're running a nursery.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
I loved it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:32):
I thought it was hilarious.

Speaker 5 (01:23:37):
He also calls up for security and he says two
and only two.

Speaker 3 (01:23:43):
He kind of like, and I get more than that
out of me. I love that line as well. And
then the third Kirk.

Speaker 5 (01:23:50):
Line was I don't want to interrupt this mutual admiration
society that you guys got.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
Another great line.

Speaker 23 (01:24:00):
So those were Kirk's home runs for me. Also, let's see, oh.

Speaker 5 (01:24:10):
I thought that the Trible have better intuition than Troy.
I mean, this triple can figure out the bad guy
really easily.

Speaker 3 (01:24:20):
It takes Troy.

Speaker 5 (01:24:23):
We need tribles around at least one just to go
as a light detector around, you know, my nose, cool
or not. Let's see what else we got, Oh, Kyrie
Irving is the best tripler, I know, So that's funny.

Speaker 10 (01:24:43):
There.

Speaker 5 (01:24:44):
Yeah, twentieth century Canada got a shout out, so I.

Speaker 3 (01:24:49):
Have to acknowledge that I like that.

Speaker 5 (01:24:52):
And uh, let's say we got some Star Trek nomenclature,
a lot of it in.

Speaker 3 (01:24:57):
This episode, actually more so than usual. We got the
regular blood worm, Regulon bloodworm.

Speaker 5 (01:25:04):
We had a dynebian slime devil, and Ermine violin.

Speaker 3 (01:25:09):
So all this nomenclatures, I thought it was great.

Speaker 5 (01:25:14):
And then the last thing I'll say is this, and
this I'm surprised I have not heard from.

Speaker 3 (01:25:18):
Anybody all of these years. And this is my theory.
You're ready for it here it is.

Speaker 5 (01:25:28):
The trouble were beamed aboard the Klingon vessel.

Speaker 3 (01:25:34):
Is that correct at the very end?

Speaker 1 (01:25:35):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (01:25:36):
All right, So the last we see them is in
the hands of the Klingon, essentially flash forward. When we
do see the Klingon again in the next generation, they
are all adorned and dressed in first So it.

Speaker 14 (01:25:53):
Is my theory, my theory, that the Klingons took these
trouble and decided to make clothing out of them.

Speaker 5 (01:26:04):
So sorry for the triple Lovers, but it only seems
logical that got popped back up.

Speaker 3 (01:26:11):
They looked totally different and they're wearing furs everywhere, So.

Speaker 1 (01:26:15):
I don't know.

Speaker 12 (01:26:19):
Why did they use Why do they only use the
black triples?

Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
No, some of them have? Yeah, really, well, we'll find
out on things left unsaid very much too, Greg Kenzo,
Faith Howl, Friend McGee, Chuck A, Carrie Schwent, Mark Suttkoff,
Allison Leech Hide, TJ. Jackson, by Out Missouri, Jason, m
O and Melissa. A longo for myself, Sarah, Melissa, and

(01:26:48):
of course mister Aaron Eisenberg. Thank you all very much
for hanging out with us. We will see you next time,
and until then, always remember the seventh rule

Speaker 3 (01:27:01):
We get up of it

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One Of The Best? | With Walter Koenig | TOS 2.15, "The Trouble With Tribbles" T7R #350

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}One Of The Best? | With Walter Koenig | TOS 2.15, "The Trouble With Tribbles" T7R #350