Classic TV Rewind · Episode 3
Tribbles and Letters
Season 3, Star Trek. The second season: Chekov arrives, Leonard Nimoy and the Vulcan salute, Spock's parents, the evil goatee, The Trouble with Tribbles, and the fans who wrote in to save the show.
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Shannon Early 1968. At NBC, the mailroom has a problem. Letters. Sacks and sacks of letters. And almost all of them say the same thing.
Carol Please don't cancel Star Trek.
Shannon Nobody had ever seen anything quite like it. And it all started with a husband and wife, working from their home.
Carol Welcome to Classic TV Rewind, where we go back to the shows we grew up with, and find out what made them work.
Shannon This season, it's Star Trek. And this time, season two. A new face on the bridge, a famous salute, and a whole lot of fur.
Carol Episode three. Tribbles and Letters.
Shannon So, season two starts in the fall of 1967. And the first thing you notice is a new face at the navigation station. Ensign Pavel Chekov.
Carol The Russian.
Shannon The young Russian, played by Walter Koenig, who we lost in October of 2026, at ninety. And remember, this is the middle of the Cold War. Putting a Russian officer on the bridge, working happily alongside Americans, was a hopeful thing to do.
Carol And wasn't there a story about why they added him?
Shannon There's a famous one. The story goes that the Russian newspaper Pravda complained that there were no Russians in space on Star Trek, even though the Soviets had been first into space. It's a great story. But nobody has ever found that article.
Carol So maybe just a story.
Shannon Could be. What we do know is that the producers wanted someone younger, to bring in younger viewers. And the hair helped. Walter Koenig had a mop-top hairstyle, a bit like the pop stars of the day. For the first few episodes, he even wore a wig to get the look.
Carol And season two opened with a big one for Spock.
Shannon It did. Amok Time. For the first time, we go to Spock's home planet, Vulcan. And we find out that even Vulcans can't keep their feelings locked away forever.
Carol And this is where the hand salute comes from.
Shannon Right here. The Vulcan salute. The hand held up, with the fingers parted in the middle, two and two. And with it, the words live long and prosper.
Carol And Leonard Nimoy came up with that himself, didn't he?
Shannon He did. When he was a boy in Boston, he went to synagogue with his family. And during a blessing, the men held their hands up in that same shape. He never forgot it. So when the script needed a Vulcan greeting, he reached back to that memory.
Carol I love that.
Shannon Me too. A gesture that started as a blessing, and now people all over the world know it.
Carol And we finally meet Spock's parents this season.
Shannon We do, in Journey to Babel. His father, Sarek, a Vulcan ambassador, played by Mark Lenard. And his human mother, Amanda, played by Jane Wyatt.
Carol Jane Wyatt! From Father Knows Best.
Shannon The very same. The mother from one of the great family sitcoms, now the mother of the most famous alien on television. And it's a lovely episode. Father and son haven't spoken in years, and they have to work it out on a ship full of diplomats.
Carol And then there's the one with the beard.
Shannon Mirror, Mirror. A transporter accident sends Kirk and some of the crew into a mirror universe, where everyone is wicked. And the evil Spock has a beard.
Carol Which is how you know he's evil.
Shannon Exactly. And to this day, people say a character has gone evil by saying he's grown the goatee.
Carol Okay. Now we have to talk about the tribbles. We promised.
Shannon We did. The Trouble with Tribbles. Late in 1967. The Enterprise is guarding a space station full of grain. And a trader gives Uhura a little ball of fur, called a tribble. A free sample.
Carol And it's adorable.
Shannon Completely. It purrs, it's soft, everyone loves it. The only trouble is that tribbles have babies. Lots of babies. Very, very quickly.
Carol How many?
Shannon By the end, they're everywhere. In the corridors, in the food, in the captain's chair. And there's one famous scene where Kirk opens a storage bin, and hundreds of tribbles pour down on his head.
Carol (laughs) And he just stands there.
Shannon Not moving a muscle, buried up to his chest, with the most patient face you've ever seen.
Carol And who wrote it?
Shannon A young writer named David Gerrold. He was in his early twenties, and it was his first sale to television. And it became one of the most beloved episodes of the whole series.
Carol And that's why we rate out of five tribbles.
Shannon Exactly. They're fluffy, they're harmless, and they multiply. Just like Star Trek fans.
Carol So, back to those letters.
Shannon By late 1967, there were rumors that NBC was going to cancel Star Trek after the second season. The ratings were still only middling.
Carol And the fans weren't having it.
Shannon Not one bit. A fan named Bjo Trimble and her husband, John, organized a letter-writing campaign. They used mailing lists from science fiction conventions, and they asked every fan they could reach to write to NBC. And to ask their friends to write too.
Carol From home?
Shannon From their little house in Oakland, with a hand-cranked copying machine in the basement. And the letters poured in. Tens of thousands of them. Some say many more. Students marched outside NBC, too.
Carol And it worked.
Shannon Beautifully. On March 1st, 1968, right after an episode, NBC did something it almost never did. An announcer came on and told viewers that Star Trek would be back in the fall. No mention of the letters. But everyone knew why.
Carol The fans saved it.
Shannon The fans saved it. And it was one of the first times a TV audience ever did that. People still point to it whenever a beloved show is in danger.
Carol So, what's your pick for season two?
Shannon It has to be The Trouble with Tribbles. It's the funniest episode they ever made. And Kirk under a pile of tribbles is worth the price of admission.
Carol And mine is Amok Time. Spock goes home to Vulcan, we get live long and prosper, and that wonderful fight music.
Shannon And our ratings, out of five tribbles. Real tribbles, this time.
Carol For season two? Five tribbles. They multiplied.
Shannon (laughs) Five from me too. Plus one for every letter that saved the show.
Carol That's season two. A new navigator, a famous salute, a pile of tribbles, and the fans who wrote in to save the show.
Shannon Next time, the final season. A new time slot, a smaller budget, a kiss that made history, and the end of the voyage, at least for a while.
Carol That's next time, on Classic TV Rewind.