In this episode, Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and the crew aboard the USS Defiant are taken back in time to the events of the Original Series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", and must work to prevent the assassination of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) of the USS Enterprise by a Klingon using a booby-trapped tribble.

"Trials and Tribble-ations" was warmly received by critics with praise directed at the nostalgia and level of detail seen on screen.

Agents from the Department of Temporal Investigations (DTI) arrive at Deep Space Nine to question Sisko about an incident involving the Defiant.

They discover that the hitchhiker is actually Arne Darvin, a former Klingon agent disguised as a human who was caught by Captain Kirk on K7 after poisoning a shipment of grain.

Fearing that Darvin used the Orb of Time to alter the past to prevent his capture, the crew dress in period uniforms and investigate the Enterprise and K7.

They attempt to interact with history as little as possible while searching for Darvin, but Dr. Bashir, Chief O'Brien, Worf and Odo get involved in a bar brawl between the Enterprise crew and a number of Klingons on shore leave.

Producer Ira Steven Behr later recalled that he thought that Deep Space Nine might not be included as he considered it to be the "middle child" of the franchise.

Some consideration was given by Moore to sending the DS9 crew to revisit the Iotians, as seen on the gangster-themed planet visited by Kirk in the episode "A Piece of the Action".

Once Hutzel revealed that an additional security officer (played by visual effects camera operator Jim Rider) had been seamlessly added to the sequence, the episode was green-lit.

[7] Berman asked what the endorsement would cost, to which Gerrold requested public acknowledgement of his work and to be cast as an extra in the episode.

[6] Gerrold compared inserting new footage into an existing episode to Back to the Future Part II (1989) and later said that he would have gone in a different direction had he written the story.

[11] He sought to match the same production values as The Original Series but found that lighting style and color saturation to film had changed in the intervening years.

[9] Visual effects supervisor Dan Curry directed some of the second-unit sequences, and together with West and cinematographer Kris Krossgrove worked to rectify these issues.

[14] Due in part to the special effects, the costuming, the set re-constructions, and the residual payments to The Original Series cast, Behr later described "Trials and Tribble-ations" as "probably the most expensive hour of episodic TV ever produced".

[15] The only member of The Original Series cast who was spoken to directly by the producers was Leonard Nimoy, who was enthusiastic about the idea and was surprised that it had taken them so long to come up with it.

[9] The only piece that was directly re-recorded by McCarthy is the Alexander Courage "Theme from Star Trek", which involved a 45-piece orchestra.

[17] Art director Randy McIlvain led the set re-creation for the Enterprise and K7, describing the excitement of working on the episode as "contagious".

After searching shops selling retro furniture, the production team found a single chair that matched those seen in the original episode.

"[17] Greg Jein had already been working on a new model of the USS Excelsior for the "Flashback" episode of Voyager when he saw the test footage for "Trials and Tribble-ations".

[15] They were purchased from Lincoln Enterprises, a company set up by Majel Barrett, widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

[8] "We do not discuss it with outsiders" Costume designer Robert Blackman was concerned about the re-creation of the Klingon uniforms seen in The Original Series as he thought that the metallic material used would be nearly impossible to create accurately.

The hairstyles of the crew were meant to be reminiscent of The Original Series, with Alexander Siddig sporting a style previously seen on James Doohan.

"[21] Deirdre L. Imershein was brought in at the last minute to play Lt. Watley, as she was a friend of one of the production crew and had previously appeared as a Risan pleasure girl in The Next Generation episode "Captain's Holiday".

[4] A string of other visitors came to the set during filming, including Majel Barrett and former The Next Generation producer (and TOS co-producer) Bob Justman.

He thought that the bomb-in-a-tribble plot was ingenious and allowed the episode to step outside of merely being good due to the success of "The Trouble with Tribbles".

His favorite scene was the constant stream of tribbles hitting Kirk on the head because Sisko and Dax were throwing them out of the grain compartment while looking for the bomb.

He summed it up by saying: "It's not tightly plotted, and once the initial rush of nostalgia fades, there isn't a lot of depth or suspense to replace it.

"[27] In the book Deep Space and Sacred Time: Star Trek in the American Mythos, Jon Wagner and Jan Lundeen compared the temporal agents seen in "Trials and Tribble-ations" to the police detectives seen in the television series Dragnet.

[33] "Trials and Tribble-ations" was the winner of a 2012 poll conducted on the official Star Trek website to determine the best episode of Deep Space Nine.

[48] "Trials and Tribble-ations" was first released in the normal run of VHS issues as part of a two episode cassette alongside "The Assignment" in the United Kingdom on October 1, 1999.