Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — 5x06 — Trials and Tribble-ations
Synopsis
Deep Space Nine crewmembers travel back in time and integrate with Kirk's Enterprise crew.
Filler rating: not filler
This episode serves as a sequel to TOS: The Trouble with Tribbles and TAS: More Tribbles, More Troubles. Also the scene when Worf falls just short of explaining why TOS Klingons look different is a sort of inadvertent setup for the later episodes of Star Trek Enterprise, Ent: Affliction and Ent: Divergence. And of course this episode is also one of the best and funniest episodes of the entire series and shouldn't be skipped solely for that reason!
Remarkable scenes
- Dax' faux pas, time joke.
- Bashir and O'Brien making fun of the way Worf smells.
- The crew dressing up in retro uniforms.
- Bashir: "I'm a doctor, not an historian." Count 18 for "I'm a doctor, not a (blah)" style lines, which McCoy was famous for.
- Sisko: "In the old days, operations officers wore red and command officers wore gold." Dax: "And women wore less."
- O'Brien and Bashir trying to work a 23rd century turbolift.
- O'Brien's and Bashir's confrontation with a local Engineer.
- Worf describing to Odo the history of Klingons and Tribbles.
- Odo: "Another glorious chapter of Klingon history. Tell me, do they still sing songs of the Great Tribble Hunt?"
- Bashir speaking of a possible predestination paradox surrounding his birth: "I could be my own great grandfather! If I don't meet with her tomorrow I may never be born! I can't wait to get back to Deep Space Nine and see your face when you find out that I never existed!"
- O'Brien mistaking a low ranking officer for Kirk.
- O'Brien, Bashir, and Odo not recognizing 23rd century Klingons and Worf's reaction to it: "They are Klingons, and it is a long story." O'Brien: "What happened? Some kind of genetic engineering?" Bashir: "A viral mutation?" Worf: "We do not discuss it with outsiders."
- The bar fight.
- Dax calculating the exact number of tribbles exactly the way Spock did.
- Sisko meeting Kirk.
- Tribbles all over DS9.
- Morn Appearances; 1. At Quark's, drowning in Tribbles.
Review
This episode is wonderfully funny. They did a great job making everything look retro; even the characters' hair, along with splicing together scenes from TOS: The Trouble With Tribbles into this episode. Dax is ridiculously nostalgic, Sisko wants to ask Kirk about fighting the Gorn, O'Brien can't figure out all this old technology, Bashir thinks he's his own great grandfather, and Worf feels shame about Klingon history. All very entertaining and probably the biggest fanboy episode ever made.