Synopsis: Tribbles overtake the Enterprise and help Captain Kirk uncover a saboteur.
“The Trouble with Tribbles” is one of the best known, most loved, and probably the only episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that through the presence of the soft animal bodies of the tribbles comes close to what could be interpreted as a fairy tale. And as many fairy tales make us aware, there is a need to listen to the voice of our internal feminine.
The tribbles are described as “only the sweetest creature known to man” by Cyrano Jones, the traveling salesman who is peddling them on Space Station K-7. Dr. Leonard (Bones) McCoy describes them scientifically, amazed that half of their metabolism goes to reproduction. And Mr. Spock, while stroking a purring tribble states that they seem to have a tranquilizing effect on a human psyche – to which of course he claims to be immune – and finds them of no use. Lt. Nyota Uhura states that they give us love.
Of course, it would be Spock, who would have no use for love, he who has suppressed his internal emotions, his soft, animal body – to paraphrase Mary Oliver’s poem, “Wild Geese.”
I believe that the tribbles in this episode are an embodiment of voice of the internal feminine, that animal instinctual wisdom. As on the Enterprise, sometimes these instinctive bodily callings are shoved aside, in the pursuit of the truth in a way that science can understand it. But, as in many fairy tales, it is this instinctive feminine voice that must be listened to, in order to return order to the world.
And in “The Trouble with Tribbles,” it is the tribbles that not only save the day in the end, they give their lives for it – all in the cause of the Federation’s desire to cultivate Sherman’s Planet, and by doing so make claim to it as theirs. However, the crew of the Enterprise is unappreciative; they send the tribbles away to the Klingons. Since they seem to instinctively speak more strongly to the Klingons, perhaps they will listen to them.
Original post created 22 February 2021
mydailysoultrek 