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101-593: David Gerrold (born Jerrold David Friedman ; January 24, 1944) is an American science fiction screenwriter and novelist. He wrote the script for the original Star Trek episode " The Trouble with Tribbles ", created the Sleestak race on the TV series Land of the Lost , and wrote the novelette " The Martian Child ", which won both Hugo and Nebula Awards , and was adapted into a 2007 film starring John Cusack . Gerrold

202-491: A 60-page outline for a two-part episode called "Tomorrow Was Yesterday" about the Enterprise discovering a ship launched from Earth centuries earlier. Although Star Trek producer Gene L. Coon rejected the outline, he realized Gerrold was talented and expressed interest in his submitting some story premises. Bearing preliminary titles and, in some cases, preliminary character names, Gerrold submitted five premises. Two of

303-539: A Japanese restaurant in Tulsa , near the Ramada Inn . Book a reservation and arrange transportation. If there's no Japanese restaurant, try for Italian. Or voicemail Bob as follows: 'Bob, we accept your offer, but we'll need a draft of the deal memo by the 15th. Let me know if that's a problem.' I call this device a Personal Information Telecommunications Agent, or Pita for short. The acronym also can stand for Pain in

404-566: A co-writing credit. The producers liked the resulting script so much that Gerrold was later tasked with re-writing the script for " I, Mudd ". During script development the Kellam de Forest Research firm cautioned that the tribbles and the events involving them strongly resembled the Martian flat cats in Robert A. Heinlein 's 1952 novel The Rolling Stones , and suggested that the rights to

505-689: A convention in 1987 where he had promised that the upcoming Next Generation series would deal with the issue of sexual orientation in the egalitarian future. The script was purchased by the TNG producers, but eventually shelved. He later reworked the story into the third book in the Star Wolf series (see below) and again as a two-part episode of the fan-produced Star Trek: New Voyages , which he also directed. Gerrold had wanted to appear onscreen in an episode of Star Trek , particularly "The Trouble with Tribbles". The character of Ensign Freeman, who appears in

606-665: A crewman extra with other Trek fandom notables in Star Trek: The Motion Picture , he did not appear in a Trek series until Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , when he played a security guard in " Trials and Tribble-ations ", set during the timeframe of his original episode. Gerrold wrote a novelization of the Star Trek: The Next Generation series premiere " Encounter at Farpoint ", published in 1987, and an original Star Trek novel titled The Galactic Whirlpool , published in 1980, which

707-545: A digital recorder, and it will have enough processing power and memory to function as a desktop system. It will be able to dock with a keyboard and full size monitor. Oh yes, and it will handle email as well. Most important of all, it will have both speech recognition and speech synthesis . It will listen and respond in English or whatever language you need, and yes it will be a translator too. It will be an agent, going out and doing cyber errands for you. For instance, I need

808-452: A fan of science fiction since he was a child. When Star Trek was first broadcast, he was concerned that it might turn into something similar to Lost in Space , which he has described as "one full-color hour of trash reaching into millions of homes". His first story outline was sent in to Star Trek after his agent suggested that he wait until the shows started to air under the theory that

909-532: A further decline in viewing ratings for what was already a low-rated program. Many Star Trek fans have since criticised Freiberger for being the cause of this decline, but actress Nichelle Nichols (who played Uhura ) wrote in his defense. Nichols argued that NBC's considerable budget cutbacks to the third season of Star Trek , in an environment of rising production costs and escalating actors' salaries, meant that: you saw fewer outdoor location shots, for example. Top writers, top guest stars, top anything you needed

1010-467: A list of ten must-see episodes, and USA Today listed as one of the three best. In 1998, "The Trouble with Tribbles" was listed as the eighth best cult moment of all time by The Times newspaper. In a list of the top 100 episodes of the Star Trek franchise, "The Trouble with Tribbles" was placed sixth by Charlie Jane Anders at io9 . Zack Handlen's July 2009 review for The A.V. Club gave

1111-631: A man who inherits a time-travel belt, and When HARLIE Was One (1972), the story of an artificial intelligence 's relationship with his creators. When HARLIE Was One was nominated for best novel for both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award . This novel is notable for being one of the first to describe a computer virus . A revised edition, entitled When HARLIE Was One, Release 2.0 , was published in 1988, incorporating new insights and reflecting new developments in computer science . Gerrold

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1212-595: A new series, called The Dingilliad . It follows a resourceful teenager and his family as they try to begin a new life. Although not necessarily canon, there are hints that it ties into the War Against the Chtorr universe, with everything from the plagues to the rumored appearance of a giant purple worm (similar cross-universe tie-ins occur in Gerrold's Trackers books). The Dingilliad trilogy consists of Jumping Off

1313-498: A response in June. At the time the show had already purchased too many scripts for the second season, but story editor D. C. Fontana suggested that they should purchase the story and assign it to a staff writer as it was better than some of the other stories they already had. At the time that Coon got in touch, Gerrold had just been employed at CBS as a typist working on scripts such as the pilot of Hawaii Five-O . As soon as he got

1414-587: A shipment of quadro triticale grain . Captain James Kirk is annoyed at Baris's use of a high-priority distress call for a seemingly trivial matter, and complies minimally. The Enterprise crew enjoy shore leave on the station, as does the crew of a Klingon ship under the command of Captain Koloth . Interstellar trader Cyrano Jones arrives with goods for sale, among them purring balls of fluff called tribbles . He gives one to Lt. Uhura , who takes it aboard

1515-428: A short piece to Smart Reseller magazine predicting that cell phones could evolve into devices he called "Personal Information Telecommunications Agent", and described a feature set very similar to modern smartphones : I've got a cell phone, a pocket organiser, a beeper , a calculator, a digital camera, a pocket tape recorder , a music player, and somewhere around here, I used to have a color television. Sometime in

1616-569: A surprising amount of enjoyment to be had in seeing him complain about it to Spock." Michele Erica Green, writing for TrekNation in March 2006, said she thought that the episode would have been dated, but found it was "as funny as ever." She thought that Scotty's lines were "unforgettable" and the scenes between McCoy and Spock were "priceless". Eugene Myers and Torie Atkinson reviewed the episode for Tor.com in April 2010. They described it as "easily

1717-552: A very good story. It doesn't do what Gene Roddenberry or Gene L. Coon would have been willing to do." So I was disappointed. The Trouble with Tribbles was one of two books Gerrold wrote about Star Trek in the early 1970s after the original series had been canceled. His other was an analysis of the series, entitled The World of Star Trek , in which he criticized some of the elements of the show, particularly Kirk's habit of placing himself in dangerous situations and leading landing parties himself. Gerrold contributed two stories for

1818-433: Is a miracle and a credit to him. One day Fred and I had an exchange, and he snapped at me. Even then, though, I knew he wasn't angry with me but with his unenviable situation. He was a producer who had nothing to produce with. On 15 December 1975, Freiberger was confirmed as both script editor and producer for the second season of Gerry Anderson 's British science-fiction TV series Space: 1999 , recruited in part to make

1919-719: Is also a member of the board of directors for the Hollywood Science Fiction Museum. Gerrold continues to write and publish online on Patreon and other mediums. He is also a proponent of personal development programs such as Lifespring and Landmark, among others. See his post on Patreon, "Why I Believe in Personal Development Courses." Gerrold was the winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award for 2022. ——————— Notes The Trouble with Tribbles " The Trouble with Tribbles "

2020-439: Is buried chest-deep in grain-gorged tribbles. Spock and McCoy discover that many of the tribbles in the hold are dead or dying, suggesting the grain has been poisoned. Infuriated, Baris vows to see Kirk punished for the fiasco, while an equally outraged Koloth demands an apology from Kirk for what he considers disrespectful treatment of his crew. Their arguments are cut short, however, when Baris's assistant Arne Darvin walks into

2121-467: Is described as an excerpt from Time for Treason . The Chtorr series and its central character have moved through stages of development with each book in the series, with another layer of the Chtorran ecology explained and understanding of it unveiled with each successive book. Since "It Needs Salt" and "Enterprise Fish" are short stories from planned future layers of plot and character development, fans of

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2222-424: Is terrified of possible Klingon interference with the grain project, and suspects Jones of being a Klingon agent. Doctor Leonard McCoy and Spock are concerned that the increasing number of tribbles threatens to consume all the food aboard the Enterprise . Kirk realizes that the tribbles on the station could be a threat to the grain shipment. He is too late, however; when he opens an overhead storage compartment, he

2323-437: Is the author of the War Against the Chtorr series of books, about an invasion of Earth by mysterious aliens: A Matter for Men (1983), A Day for Damnation (1985), A Rage for Revenge (1989), and A Season for Slaughter (1993). He eventually announced that what was initially supposed to be a trilogy would in fact require seven books. In approximately 2010 Gerrold was reputed to have a considerable amount of work completed on

2424-463: Is the fifteenth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by David Gerrold and directed by Joseph Pevney , it was first broadcast on December 29, 1967. In this comic episode, the starship Enterprise visits a space station that soon becomes overwhelmed by rapidly reproducing small furry creatures called " tribbles ". It is claimed

2525-626: The Emmy Award -winning Star Trek: The Animated Series which ran from 1973 to 1974: " More Tribbles, More Troubles " and " Bem ". "Bem" featured the first use of James T. Kirk's middle name, which was revealed to be Tiberius. This was later entered into live-action canon in the movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country when Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy are on trial for the death of the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon. Many of

2626-500: The Enterprise are transported onto the Klingon vessel by Chief Engineer Scott , where, in his words, "they'll be no tribble at all." The episode was the first professional work of writer David Gerrold , and went through a variety of drafts before it reached the screen. Because his typewriter used a less common, smaller size font, an approved screenplay version needed to be reduced by twenty pages before filming. Gerrold had been

2727-442: The Enterprise . On both the Enterprise and the station, the tribbles begin reproducing rapidly. They make soothing cooing noises and are loved by the Enterprise crew, even the stoic Spock . However, tribbles jump and screech in disgust when around Klingons. On the station, a drunken Klingon insults the Enterprise , her crew, and her captain. The resulting brawl between humans and Klingons forces Kirk to cancel shore leave. Baris

2828-617: The New York Public Library described this episode as having Spock's sixth best scene in the show. In 2015, this episode was included in Geek.com 's 35 greatest moments in Star Trek — they ranked Kirk's getting buried in tribbles the 29th greatest moment of all Star Trek . 2016 was the 50th anniversary of the first broadcast of Star Trek , which triggered a large amount of press including TV Guide ' s review of top Original Series episodes. They ranked this episode

2929-579: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. in 1992. The sale at Christie's auction house in 2006 included tribbles from this episode as part of a larger Star Trek sale. Because of the synthetic fur technology of the 1960s, relatively few original tribbles exist as of 2010 because the fur fell out over time and they went bald. An original tribble was sold at auction in 2003 for $ 1,000. Filming began during

3030-430: The "outline was by no means inadequate. It is, as a matter of fact, very adequate." It went on to say that it would require a budget larger than that available to television, but would have made a good film treatment. Coon offered to meet with Gerrold and explain what they were looking for, because they were not purchasing scripts at that time. Coon suggested that Gerrold should wait until the following February to see if

3131-570: The 13th best moment in all Star Trek , pointing out several scenes, but especially the one where Kirk is buried under a mound of tribbles. In 2017, Space.com ranked this episode the second best episode of all Star Trek franchise television, and praised the hilarity of the scene where Kirk gets a tribble shower. Fred Freiberger Freiberger was the producer of the third and final season of science-fiction series Star Trek , between 1968 and 1969. His screenwriting credits include 13 films made between 1946 and 1958. He appeared as himself in

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3232-527: The 5th best of the series. In 2016, Business Insider ranked "The Trouble with Tribbles" the third best episode of The Original Series . In the same year, Newsweek ranked "The Trouble With Tribbles" as one of the best episodes of The Original Series . In 2016, IGN ranked this episode the fifth best in a top ten list of The Original Series episodes. They ranked it the ninth best out of all Star Trek series prior to Star Trek: Discovery . Empire ranked "The Trouble With Tribbles" 8th out of

3333-484: The Ass, which it is equally likely to be, because having all that connectivity is going to destroy what's left of everyone's privacy. Gerrold wrote the non-fiction book Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy , published in 2001. The Martian Child is a semi-autobiographical novel, expanded from a novelette of the same name, based on the author's own experiences as a single adoptive father, with most of

3434-884: The Planet (2000), Bouncing Off the Moon (2001), and Leaping to the Stars (2002). Jumping Off the Planet received the 2002 Hal Clement (Young Adult Award) for Excellence in Children's Science Fiction Literature. In 2005, Gerrold was awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology in Telluride, Colorado. In 2013, Gerrold wrote a Starcraft 2 short story titled "In the Dark" for Blizzard Entertainment's series of Starcraft short stories. As of 2015, he

3535-467: The USA: he first used that name as a screenwriter on the movie The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), and subsequently in writing television episodes of the 1960s Western series Rawhide . Freiberger has a dubious reputation in science-fiction fandom , due to his involvement in the final seasons of Star Trek , Space: 1999 , and The Six Million Dollar Man , all cancelled on his watch (he also produced

3636-547: The additional sets would cause it to be too expensive for a single episode. Because of his agent's comments, Gerrold modified the pitch to place the action on a colony planet instead. This pitch included the plot points such as the creatures getting into a poisoned grain storage, but omitted the Klingons; and Cyrano Jones was called Cyrano Smith. The five pitches were submitted by Gerrold's agent in February 1967, and received

3737-428: The aliens are "Chtorraforming" Earth. Instead of armies, the unseen aggressors gradually unleash plants and animals from their older, more evolved planet (which is indicated as being perhaps a half billion years older than Earth, and evolved into a higher effective competitiveness). These outcompete and displace their terrestrial counterparts and Earth becomes more and more Chtorr-like as the "war" progresses. Portions of

3838-603: The bar scene with the Klingons, was originally intended by Gerrold to be a walk-on part for himself, however another actor took the role since Gerrold was deemed too thin at the time. He also had an in-joke cameo of sorts in Star Trek The Animated Series : "More Tribbles, More Troubles" where a very thin Ensign is told to seal off the transporter room area by Kirk. Gerrold also provided the voice for alien Em/3/Green in "The Jihad". While Gerrold appeared as

3939-786: The cartoon series Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space , which ran only one season, but most Saturday morning cartoons had short runs). In some circles this resulted in Freiberger being nicknamed "the Showkiller" or "the Serial Killer", with perceptions that he was unfamiliar with the science fiction genre and its core attributes. The argument goes that because of this unfamiliarity, script quality and characterisation notably suffered on Star Trek in its third season, and

4040-502: The changes Gerrold had advocated in The World of Star Trek were incorporated into Star Trek: The Next Generation when it debuted in 1987. He parted company with the producers at the beginning of the first season. Gerrold wrote a script for Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled " Blood and Fire ", which included an AIDS metaphor and a gay couple in the ship's crew. Gerrold wrote this script in response to being with Roddenberry at

4141-439: The colours separate. Gerrold's story involved a man transported from a shuttlecraft trying out a new space warp technology. The man is no longer unified, separating into three visible forms when he moves, separated by a fraction of a second. As efforts are undertaken to correct the condition and move the Enterprise to where corrective action can be taken, the protraction worsens. Since I first wrote that damn script for Gene And

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4242-512: The county. When it came to the fight scene in the episode, Dwyer warned director Joseph Pevney not to damage the chairs. That scene was filmed twice after a cameraman with a handheld camera wandered onto the set. The scene where Kirk is covered with tribbles in the grain container needed to be filmed eight times, using all five hundred sewn tribbles. Gerrold had expected that scene to be cut at some point during production, as he thought that William Shatner would not agree to it. He said that Shatner

4343-452: The dogfights usually portrayed—in most cases the ships doing battle would not even be able to see each other. After his early success with "The Trouble with Tribbles" Gerrold continued writing television scripts (mostly for science fiction series such as Land of the Lost , Babylon 5 , Sliders , and The Twilight Zone ). He has also made several uncredited appearances on the TV series The Big Bang Theory . In 1999, he contributed

4444-469: The electrical picture machine Tribbles have chased their creator From here to Decatur . Nobody knows of the tribbles I've seen. The fifth premise, "The Fuzzies", was also initially rejected by Coon, but a while later he changed his mind and called Gerrold's agent to accept it. Gerrold then expanded the story to a full television story outline entitled "A Fuzzy Thing Happened to Me...", and it eventually became "The Trouble with Tribbles". The name "Fuzzy"

4545-531: The episode a grade of A. Cyrano Jones was Handlen's least favorite part of the episode, and with the exception of that character, it was one of the better scripts seen in The Original Series . He thought that despite the lack of a sense of real danger, the plot all comes together neatly and praised the story's effects on Kirk, saying "The way the episode unfolds means Kirk's constantly dealing with things he does not really want to deal with, and there's

4646-570: The episode was mixed, it was more popular with the general public. Critical response to the episode was positive, and it was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation which instead went to fellow Star Trek episode " The City on the Edge of Forever ". It has since been included in several "best of" episode lists and features, including as part of the Best of DVD collection alongside three other episodes. It has also been released as part of

4747-634: The first season episode " The Squire of Gothos " as Trelane . In "The Trouble with Tribbles", he portrayed the Klingon Captain Koloth. At various points Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry claimed it was his intention to bring back Koloth during the third season of The Original Series , as Kirk's recurring Klingon adversary. Some internal production documents contradict this story. Although Koloth returned in Star Trek: The Animated Series , Campbell did not voice

4848-481: The idea. It was called "The Fuzzies". The idea was based on the introduction of rabbits in Australia in 1859, whose population grew extraordinarily fast owing to a lack of predators. The initial premise placed the story on a space station to avoid the ecological damage that the creatures would have on a planet. However, Gerrold's agent was concerned that requiring a miniature of the station to be built as well as

4949-549: The key moments drawn from actual events. The novelette won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and a movie version was released in November 2007, with John Cusack playing the adoptive father. There is some controversy surrounding this character, as David Gerrold and his character in the novel are both gay, but in the movie he is a straight widower. In 2000, his long-time admiration of the works of Robert A. Heinlein led him to create

5050-456: The lack of perceived narrative continuity between the first and second seasons of Space 1999 may have damaged that series as well Both William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols of Star Trek refused to assign any blame to Freiberger in this manner. From an interview by Canadian Kevin McCorry with Fred Freiberger in regard to Space: 1999 not being picked up for a third season: "Because

5151-467: The meantime." So the idea was, "Let's get gritty. We're not going to change things overnight, but we can put changes in place that will have long-term effects." There was also more to the story that was about the social issue, and there was no magical zenite gas that was causing the problem. Freddy Freiberger and Margaret Armen came in and changed it to a "Let's solve it all in the last five minutes with gas masks" (ending). And I thought, "That's really not

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5252-427: The monster movie The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). From 1958, Freiberger worked almost exclusively in television. As a writer, he contributed scripts for dozens of tv shows in the period 1952 through 1989. As a producer, his first assignment was in 1960 on the medical drama Ben Casey , followed by a brief stint as producer of The Wild Wild West during its first season (1965–66). In 1968, Freiberger

5353-511: The most appealing character". He did not remember the character's name, only learning it when he first attended a Star Trek convention at a hotel near Los Angeles Airport , as the fans called it out when he entered the lobby. He was later cast in the role of the Bajoran musician Varani in the DS9 episode " Sanctuary ". Whit Bissell , who played the station manager, Lurry, was better known at

5454-406: The most celebrated episode of the entire Original Series (if not the whole franchise)". They went on to describe it as a "perfect episode", and both gave it maximum scores of six out of six. In 2009, Time rated "The Trouble with Tribbles" as one of the top ten moments of Star Trek , including television series and films up to that time. In 2017, Space.com ranked "The Trouble with Tribbles"

5555-431: The next few years, all of those devices are going to meld into one. It will be a box less than an inch thick and smaller than a deck of cards. (The size will be determined by what's convenient to hold, not by the technology inside.) The box will have a high-res color screen, a microphone, a plug for a headset or earphones, a camera lens, wireless connectivity, cell phone and beeper functions, a television and radio receiver,

5656-428: The novel should be purchased. Gerrold became concerned that he had inadvertently plagiarized the novel which he had read fifteen years before. Coon phoned Heinlein, who, according to Gerrold, only asked for a signed copy of the script and later sent a note to Gerrold after the show aired to thank him for the script. Heinlein’s own recollections were at odds with this account. In his authorized biography Heinlein said he

5757-524: The other novels in the series' main continuity. The initial germ of Yesterday's Children was the "framing" story in his early Star Trek proposal "Tomorrow Was Yesterday", much altered over time. Gerrold had planned to develop this concept into a TV series, as he writes in an introduction to Voyage of the Star Wolf . The Star Wolf series reflects Gerrold's contention that, due to the distances involved, space battles would be more like submarine hunts than

5858-407: The powers in control decided that the first season was not successful does not mean that the productions were not well done in terms of the acting, the directing, the stories. There are many reasons why a series is canceled other than quality of the episodes. Ratings are the economic driving force. Are people watching the series? Obviously not enough. Lew Grade and his advisors decided that if the show

5959-472: The public outside of the Star Trek community. The New York Times described the scene with Kirk and the tribbles in the grain container as one of the "best-remembered moments" of the series. Time magazine ranked "The Trouble with Tribbles" as the sixth best moment in Star Trek . IGN ranked it as the fifth best episode of The Original Series , while TechRepublic ranked it as the fourth best. The A.V. Club included "The Trouble with Tribbles" in

6060-445: The remainder of the series, and the fifth book, A Method for Madness , was listed on Amazon with a publication date. The publication date has been updated several times since; the last was January 1, 2014. At that time the remaining books in the series were tentatively titled A Method For Madness , A Time For Treason , and A Case For Courage . In 2017, he announced that the fifth book, now tentatively titled A Nest for Nightmares , and

6161-500: The remaining books have made it into print, however. Gerrold released to fans a cliffhanger teaser chapter from Method for Madness . In his collection The Involuntary Human ( ISBN   978-1-886-77869-6 ), he included "It Needs Salt" (as a portion of the planned but not formally scheduled Time for Treason ). Finally, he also published the story "Enterprise Fish" in a volume of Thrilling Wonder Stories , ( ISBN   978-0-9796718-1-4 ; edited by Winston Engle). "Enterprise Fish"

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6262-446: The response, he quit the job. Gerrold and Coon met once more, and revealed that the network had recently made a request for more episodes based on other planets. Coon told Gerrold to work up a further pitch. This version of the story added the Klingons, and moved the action from planetside to a space station. During a visit to the set, Gerrold had the opportunity to speak to Leonard Nimoy and ask his advice on how to write for Spock and

6363-497: The role. He returned to the role in 1994 for an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , entitled " Blood Oath ". At the time of casting, William Schallert had just finished filming the ABC sitcom The Patty Duke Show . He described himself not as a fan, and had not read any science fiction since 1948. He thought that the role of Nilz Baris was just another guest spot, and considered Baris to be just "a rather stuffy bureaucrat, not

6464-403: The room and the tribbles react as if in the presence of a Klingon. McCoy reveals Darvin to be a Klingon disguised as a human; Darvin confesses to having poisoned the grain. Jones is ordered to remove the tribbles from the station (a task that Spock estimates will take 17.9 years), or he may face charges for transporting dangerous life-forms. Just before the Klingons depart, all the tribbles aboard

6565-422: The scene where Kirk has tribbles tumbling onto him while in the grain locker. Gerrold felt that this enforced editing process "tightened up the story and made for a better series of gags". Nichelle Nichols said to Gerrold "I've never seen a script go through so many changes – and stay so much the same". Coon's participation in terms of suggestions and edits was such that Gerrold thought he should have been given

6666-529: The season two DVD box set. "The Trouble with Tribbles" was first broadcast in the United States on December 29, 1967 on NBC . The initial fan reaction was undecided, but the episode connected better with the mass market. This effect was later explained in 2012 when Jordon Hoffman on StarTrek.com described "The Trouble with Tribbles" as "quite possibly, the first episode of Star Trek you ever saw". It entered popular culture and remained well-known to

6767-477: The second (and last) season of the British sci-fi series Space: 1999 (1976–77), the final season of The Six Million Dollar Man (1977–78), and the short-lived Beyond Westworld (1980). Toward the end of his career, he wrote six episodes of the 1980s syndicated series Superboy . Freiberger had been interviewed as a possible producer for Star Trek before it entered production in 1966, but had left

6868-454: The second best episode of all Star Trek television, including all Star Trek television series episodes prior to Star Trek: Discovery . Io9 ranked it as the sixth best episode of all Star Trek episodes, including later series, up to 2011. In 2012, The A.V. Club ranked this episode as one of the top ten "must see" episodes of The Original Series . In 2013, The Hollywood Reporter ranked Kirk being buried in tribbles as one of

6969-446: The second week of August 1967. Three temporary sets and a portion of corridor were constructed for specific use in this episode, which included the large trading post set. The chairs in that set were a problem, as the set designers wanted 24 matching chairs and decided that folding ones would not do. John M. Dwyer sourced them from a local company, but the numbers required meant that they had to be pulled out of showrooms from all over

7070-415: The selection process due to a planned trip. In 1968, as a result of creative differences with broadcaster NBC , Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry resigned as showrunner . Freiberger was again contacted and hired as producer for the series' third season. He assumed this role with a reduced budget that made the series more difficult to produce, as well as a new " Friday night death slot " that resulted in

7171-458: The series are forewarned that they contain "spoilers". Gerrold is also the author of the Star Wolf series of books, centered on the star ship Star Wolf and its crew: Voyage of the Star Wolf (1990), The Middle of Nowhere (1995), Blood and Fire (2004), and Yesterday's Children (1972) which is actually an earlier novel that features the same main character, later significantly expanded and republished as Starhunt (1985)—it occurs prior to

7272-434: The series more appealing to the American market. To that end, Freiberger re-worked the series with major cast and character changes, a heightened emphasis on action and drama, and even ensured that signs appearing in the episodes used American English spelling. He also wrote three episodes for the show's second season, under the pen name "Charles Woodgrove", a pseudonym he had employed when writing for movies and television in

7373-596: The short documentary Funny Old Guys , which aired as part of the HBO series Still Kicking, Still Laughing in 2003, a few months after his death in March. Freiberger died on March 2, 2003, at his Bel-Air home, according to his son, Ben. No cause of death was given. Freiberger was born to a Jewish family in New York City. In the late 1930s, Freiberger worked in advertising in New York . During World War II , he

7474-400: The short story " Pigs Is Pigs " by Ellis Parker Butler inspired the episode, but strong similarities to sections of the novel The Rolling Stones led the producers to seek a waiver from author Robert A. Heinlein . The original episode has had several produced follow-ups. The first, " More Tribbles, More Troubles ", was originally pitched for the show's third season but not accepted; it

7575-424: The show might drop an existing episode in favor of a better script. The story was entitled "Tomorrow Was Yesterday" (not to be confused with the Star Trek episode " Tomorrow Is Yesterday ") and concerned the Enterprise coming across a generation ship which had degenerated into a two-tier class system. His agent received a rejection letter from producer Gene L. Coon dated October 3, 1966. The letter stated that

7676-508: The show was renewed for a second season. They also discussed several story ideas, including some small furry creatures that bred too quickly. Coon thought it was a cute idea but would be too expensive as they'd have to build each creature. In preparation for the second series submission, by January, Gerrold had put together five premises to pitch. He had his best hopes on two treatments called "Bandi" and "The Protracted Man", but decided to submit his fifth story despite Coon's earlier dismissal of

7777-504: The show. The cast responded favorably to the script. Nichelle Nichols was particularly pleased as it allowed Uhura to be a woman and took her off the bridge. It was one of her largest roles in any single episode in the series. The special effects design for the K-7 Space Station in the episode was based on actual 1959 design by Douglas Aircraft Corporation for the space station. William Campbell had previously appeared in

7878-457: The sixth book, A Method For Madness , are nearing completion, over two decades after the last book came out. Whether a seventh Chtorr book is still planned, or what its title will be if it is, are unknown. Gerrold is considering crowdfunding and other ways to raise money to fund completion of organization of the material and final writing for the two books. The alien invasion is an ecological one. Instead of Earthlings terraforming another planet,

7979-690: The submissions of which he later had little recollection involved a spaceship-destroying machine, similar to Norman Spinrad's " The Doomsday Machine ", and a situation in which Kirk had to play a chess game with an advanced intelligence using his crew as chess pieces. A third premise, "Bandi", involved a small being running about the Enterprise as someone's pet, and which empathically sways the crew's feelings and emotions to comfort it, even at someone else's expense. A fourth premise, "The Protracted Man", applied science fiction to an effect seen in West Side Story , when Maria twirls in her dancing dress and

8080-491: The third season has a story credited to Gerrold and Oliver Crawford . I came in with what I thought was a near-perfect Star Trek story, which is we find a culture that isn't working for everybody and fix it. But my original ending was that, as they're flying off, Kirk says, "Well, we solved another one." Spock says, "Well, actually, it'll take years and years and years for all of these changes to be put in place." And McCoy says, "I wonder how many children are going to die in

8181-736: The time in the main cast role of Lt. Gen. Heywood Kirk in the ABC science fiction television series The Time Tunnel . Michael Pataki, who portrayed the Klingon Korax, went on to play Karnas in Star Trek: The Next Generation first season episode " Too Short a Season ". Charlie Brill portrayed the Klingon agent Arne Darvin. Brill had previously been a sketch comedy artist with his wife Mitzi McCall , and had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show when The Beatles made their first appearance. While initial fan reaction to

8282-468: The time of the episode. The use of live animals to represent the tribbles was immediately ruled out. According to Gerrold's account, as their similarity to Heinlein's flat cats was not yet discovered, the inspiration for the form of the tribble instead came from a fluffy keyring owned by Holly Sherman. Sherman's Planet in this episode was subsequently named after her. The design came from Wah Chang , but they were individually sewn by Jacqueline Cumeré. She

8383-531: The top 15 key moments of The Original Series . They remark "the image of Kirk mired in a pile of adorable fur balls has solidified "The Trouble of Tribbles" in the pop culture lexicon." In 2012, The Christian Science Monitor ranked this the fourth best episode of the original Star Trek . In 2013, Wired magazine ranked this episode one of the top ten episodes of The Original Series . In 2015, Wired recommended not skipping this episode in their binge-watching guide for The Original Series . In 2015,

8484-407: The top 50 episodes of all Star Trek in 2016. At that time, there were roughly 726 episodes and a dozen films released. In 2016, Vox rated this one of the top 25 essential episodes of all Star Trek . In 2017, Radio Times ranked this episode the fourth best episode of Star Trek , especially for those unfamiliar with the franchise. In 2016, Radio Times also ranked this episode as having

8585-411: Was allowed to watch the dailies from each day's shoot of the episode " The Doomsday Machine " which was being filmed at the time. This version of the story was entitled "A Fuzzy Thing Happened to Me...", which was purchased by Coon as a plot outline . He offered Gerrold a chance to write the script himself, by promising not to hand it to another writer for a month. However, Coon made it clear that he

8686-415: Was an agent, which Coon thought was not "punchy" enough. It was then re-written so that the fuzzies were allergic to Klingons. Both Gerrold and Coon thought the idea was "trite... shtick... hokey" and "had been done before". but Coon agreed that it was the direction the story should go. The re-write of the script took a further week. On a further visit to the set, Gerrold was called into Coon's office. He

8787-469: Was based on his story outline "Tomorrow Was Yesterday". In 2006, for the 40th anniversary of Star Trek, he co-edited, with Robert J. Sawyer , an essay collection titled Boarding the "Enterprise" . Gerrold acted as a series consultant for fan-produced series Star Trek: New Voyages and Star Trek: Phase II starting in 2006. In June 2013 he was named showrunner of the series. His science fiction novels include The Man Who Folded Himself (1973), about

8888-483: Was born to a Jewish family on January 24, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Van Nuys High School and graduated from Ulysses S. Grant High School in its first graduating class, Los Angeles Valley College , and San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge ). Within days of seeing the Star Trek series premiere " The Man Trap " on September 8, 1966, 22-year-old Gerrold wrote

8989-462: Was called by Gene Coon who gave him a "sob story" about the issue and asked him to waive claim to the "similarity" to his flat cats. Heinlein states he agreed because he’d just been through one costly plagiarism lawsuit against Roger Corman and did not wish to embroil himself in another "chump's game". He had misgivings upon seeing the actual script but let it go, an action he later regretted: "If that matter had simply been dropped after that one episode

9090-453: Was changed because H. Beam Piper had written novels about a fictional alien species of the same name (see Little Fuzzy ). The script went through numerous rewrites, including, at the insistence of Gerrold's agent, being re-set in a stock frontier town instead of an "expensive" space station. Gerrold later wrote a book, The Trouble with Tribbles , telling the story of producing the episode and his earlier premises. " The Cloud Minders " from

9191-555: Was directly responsible for the casting of Stanley Adams. He had pushed for the episode to be made as he recalled that there was some resistance at the time against making a comedy-style episode. These types of episodes were unusual for the series, as only "The Trouble with Tribbles" and " A Piece of the Action " were considered to be comedic episodes from season two. Pevney was one of the two most prolific Original Series directors alongside Marc Daniels , and directed fourteen episodes of

9292-407: Was filmed, I would have chalked it up wryly to experience. But the 'nice kid' did not drop it; 'tribbles' (i.e. my 'flat cats') have been exploited endlessly… Well that’s one that did 'larn me.' Today if J. Christ phoned me on some matter of business, I would simply tell him: 'See my agent. ' " The fictional quadrotriticale's real-world antecedent, the grain triticale , was a fairly new invention at

9393-446: Was harder to come by. Thus, Star Trek 's demise became a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I can assure you, that is exactly as it was meant to be ... In the third season [the] new producer Fred Freiberger did everything he could to shore up the show. I know that some fans hold him responsible for the show's decline, but that is not fair. Star Trek was in a disintegrating orbit before Fred came aboard. That we were able to do even what we did

9494-462: Was hired as producer for the third and final season of Star Trek . He then returned to writing, scripting episodes for a number of early-1970s TV series, including All in the Family , Emergency! , Starsky and Hutch and Ironside , and also worked as a story editor at Hanna-Barbera on the TV series The New Scooby-Doo Movies and Super Friends . Freiberger then moved on to produce

9595-408: Was informed that he needed to change the name of the fuzzies, as the legal department was concerned about similarities in the name with H. Beam Piper 's 1962 novel Little Fuzzy . He subsequently came up with a variety of alternative names. Through a process of elimination, he ended up with the name "tribble". Gerrold's submitted script was within the standard page count for an episode, but, when it

9696-443: Was not offering Gerrold a script assignment, but was giving him the option of submitting a draft. Gerrold turned around the first draft script in two and a half days. Both Coon and associate producer Robert Justman gave feedback on the script, and pointed out a few gaps such as there needing to be some way in the plot for the crew to discover that Darvin was a Klingon agent. The following draft had Cyrano Jones discover that Darvin

9797-496: Was paid $ 350 to sew five hundred tribbles from synthetic fur and stuff them with foam rubber. Six ambulatory tribbles were made using the mechanisms of walking toy dogs, which were quite noisy and required the dialogue to be looped in during editing. Other tribbles were created by Jim Rugg out of beanbags for when it was required for one to sit on a person or object, and the breathing tribbles were hollow with surgical balloons inserted. Some of these tribbles were later displayed at

9898-427: Was retyped for distribution by the production's mimeo department, it ballooned from 60 to 80 pages due to Gerrold's having used a typewriter with 12- pitch rather than the 10 characters per inch Pica standard of the TV and film industry. This meant that some twenty pages needed to be cut from the script. Scenes which were cut from the script included the Enterprise chasing after Jones in his vessel, and resulted in

9999-548: Was stationed in England with the United States Eighth Air Force , but was shot down over Germany and spent two years as a prisoner of war. After the war, he moved to Hollywood with the intention of working in film publicity, but a studio strike saw him move into screenwriting. He was associated with Buddy Rogers ' Comet Productions and Columbia Pictures . He was one of the four credited writers on

10100-404: Was the "consummate professional and I believe he was eager to show off his comic abilities". The scene was later described as "solidifying 'The Trouble with Tribbles' in the pop culture lexicon". Pevney was pleased with the outcome of the shoot, calling the episode "a delightful show from beginning to end". In addition to directing, Pevney also sourced some of the parts to create the tribbles and

10201-543: Was ultimately produced for Star Trek: The Animated Series . To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Trek in 1996, the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode " Trials and Tribble-ations " used digital techniques to insert the Deep Space Nine actors into the events of "The Trouble with Tribbles". The Enterprise is summoned to Deep Space Station K7 by undersecretary Nilz Baris to guard

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