The Doomsday Machine (Star Trek)
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| Star Trek: TOS episode | |
| "The Doomsday Machine" | |
 The Constellation enters the planet killer. |
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| Episode no. | 35 |
|---|---|
| Prod. code | 035 |
| Remastered no. | 20 |
| Airdate | October 20, 1967 |
| Writer(s) | Norman Spinrad |
| Director | Marc Daniels |
| Guest star(s) | William Windom Elizabeth Rogers John Copage Eddie Paskey William Blackburn Richard Compton Tim Burns Jerry Catron John Winston Vince Deadrick |
| Year | 2267 |
| Stardate | 4202.9 |
| Episode chronology | |
| Previous | "The Apple" |
| Next | "Catspaw" |
"The Doomsday Machine" is a second-season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. It is episode #35, production #35, and was first broadcast on October 20, 1967. It was repeated on April 19, 1968. It was written by Norman Spinrad, and directed by Marc Daniels.
Overview: The starship Enterprise plays a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with an alien planet-killing machine.
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[edit] Plot
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The plot summary in this article or section is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the article. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. |
On stardate 4202.9, the Enterprise responds to a distress call and finds that seven planets they charted a year earlier in star system L-370 have been destroyed. A check of a nearby system, L-374, finds that all but two of its planets have also been destroyed. Energy output within the system interferes with communications, but as they move more deeply into the system they pick up the weak automated distress signal of her sister ship, the USS Constellation. The ship is found adrift, wrecked and barely operating on reserve power, its bridge damaged and uninhabitable.
Kirk beams over with Dr. McCoy, Lt. Com. Scott, and a damage control party in an attempt to find out what happened. They find the Constellation's commanding officer, Commodore Matthew Decker, to be the last crewman remaining aboard, holed up in the Auxiliary Control room. Enterprise Chief Engineer Mr. Scott reports that the ship's warp engines are damaged beyond repair and the Phaser banks are exhausted. Decker is mostly incoherent and in shock, unable to respond with specifics to questions and can only mutter about "that thing" which attacked his ship. Kirk orders the Constellation sensor log tapes to be beamed over to Mr. Spock for analysis.
Scotty plays back the ship's Captain's log and they find out that Decker and his crew discovered the obliterated systems and moved in to investigate as one of the worlds in L-374 was breaking up. They soon encountered an enormous machine with a conical shell miles in length and a giant opening at one end filled with sparkling energy. The machine then attacked the Constellation with an anti-proton beam, damaging the ship so severely that Decker had to beam his surviving crew to the surface of one of the remaining planets. The machine then destroyed that world and all Decker could do was watch helplessly while his crew was being killed.
Mr. Spock describes the machine as "a robot, an automated machine of immense size and power", the function of which is to break down planets into rubble which it then consumes for fuel. Kirk believes that it is a "Doomsday Machine", a war deterence device built by a long-dead alien civilization and was never meant to be used, much like the old H-bomb used to be on Earth. Spock adds that given its past trajectory, it is likely to have come from another galaxy and is currently heading for the most densely populated part of their galaxy.
Decker is beamed aboard the Enterprise, where Dr. McCoy is to look him over, while Kirk and Scotty oversee repairs on the Constellation. However, upon Decker's arrival, a red alert klaxxon sounds, and both doctor and patient head for the bridge. Drawn to the energy output of the Enterprise, the machine has reappeared in the vicinity, and is generating sufficient subspace interference to render communication with Starfleet Command impossible. Spock orders an evasive course back to the Constellation, planning to pick up the boarding party and warn Starfleet after exiting the vicinity. The machine attacks them before they can move off, but the initial damage is limited to the transporter and communications. Suddenly the robotic weapon appears to lose interest and veers off. Still distraught over the loss of his ship and crew, an unstable Decker decides to take more direct action against the machine, and quoting Starfleet regulations pulls rank on Spock. Over the protest of both the First Officer and Dr. McCoy, he assumes command of the Enterprise and orders a full on attack against the machine.
Spock warns Decker that the ship's weaponry will be ineffective against the machine's pure neutronium hull, but is ignored, and the Enterprise is badly damaged in the machine's counterattack, including loss of its warp drive capability. The ship is then caught in a tractor beam and drawn towards the machine's maw, unable to break free. Back on board the Constellation, Kirk, unable to sit on the sidelines while his ship is being attacked, is able with Scotty's help to get the shattered hulk moving under one quarter impulse power. Using a phaser bank Scotty recharged, the Constellation distracts the planet killer, freeing the Enterprise. The doomsday machine then begins to rapidly close on the Constellation, but Decker returns Kirk's favor. The mindless artificial intelligence of the planet killer implacably sets it once again in pursuit of the Enterprise. Decker orders Enterprise helmsman Lt. Sulu to put some distance between them and the deadly machine, but Sulu replies that it is once again closing with them. Spock informs Decker that with their warp engines out the ship can only maintain its current power consumption on impulse drive for seven hours, whereas the planet killer has virtually unlimited fuel.
After Kirk (on the Constellation) contacts the Enterprise and learns of Decker's takeover, a ship-to-ship argument ensues that Decker tries to end by claiming command under (StarFleet) regulations. Kirk invokes his own authority when he counters, "Blast regulations! Mr. Spock, I order you to assume command on my personal authority as Captain of the Enterprise." A charged standoff follows, during which Decker attempts to brazen it out. Spock threatens to have Decker arrested if he does not accept being relieved, declaring that "Vulcans never bluff,". Even the obsessed Decker has to finally accept that the Enterprise crew will not follow him over the objections of their own officers and yields the Bridge. Thwarted, Decker steals a shuttlecraft and pilots it on a direct kamikaze course into the planet killer's maw despite the pleas of Kirk and Spock to break off the run.
Kirk realizes that Decker had the right idea, just not enough power, and orders Mr. Scott to rig the Constellation's impulse engines with a 30 second delay detonation timer. The Captain next asks Mr. Spock if it is correct that an overloaded impulse engine would explode with a force of 97 megatons, and if such an explosion could destroy the planet killer. Spock corrects Kirk, telling him that it would result in a nuclear explosion of 97.835 megatons, still not enough to penetrate the machine's neutronium hull. Kirk adds that he intends to detonate the engines from "inside" the planet killer, ramming the Constellation right down the machine's throat. Spock objects that this would result in Kirk being killed - the same as Decker, but Kirk further explains that he plans to have the Enterprise beam him away at the last second and use Scotty's 30 second timer to explode the starship as it is engulfed by the planet killer.
While remaining behind to helm the Constellation, Kirk orders Scotty and the rest of the damage control party back to the Enterprise.
With everything prepared, Kirk steers a course into the planet killer's maw. Once close enough, he presses the detonation timing switch and calls for his beam out. However, the transporter malfunctions again and Scotty rushes to make repairs while Kirk nervously watches the inexorable menacing maw of the Doomsday Machine drawing closer. Scott's desperate repairs succeed at the last second, and Kirk is beamed out as the ship enters the maw. The resulting explosion burns out the Doomsday Machine and destroys its power system, leaving its indestructible body shell drifting quite dead in space.
On board the Enterprise, Kirk is welcomed by Spock.
The episode ends with speculation that if this really was a doomsday machine, there may be more of them out there somewhere.
[edit] 40th Anniversary remastering
This episode was remastered in 2006 and first aired February 10, 2007 as part of the remastered Original Series. It was preceded a week earlier by "Journey to Babel" and followed a week later by "Amok Time". Aside from remastered video and audio, and the all-CGI animation of the USS Enterprise that is standard among the revisions, specific changes to this episode also include:
- The planet killer and the wreck of the USS Constellation have been rendered in CGI. This included giving the planet killer a more battered, metallic appearance.
- The Enterprise and Constellation are rendered is such a way that they are dwarfed by planet killer, giving an enhanced sense of massive size to it.
- In keeping with other episodes of the Original Series, "The Doomsday Machine" had several scenes cut to reduce the episode time for syndication. These include Kirk's "Blast regulations ..." to Spock's "Vulcans never bluff" scene, much of the fighting between Commodore Decker and the security guard in the corridor, as well as truncating the scene involving the sacrifice and destruction of the Constellation. The DVD release will include the complete episode.
[edit] Trivia
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- Episode writer Norman Spinrad had wanted actor Robert Ryan to play Commodore Decker, but Ryan was unavailable due to prior commitments. [1]
- William Windom largely improvised Decker's tale of what happened to his ship and crew. Director Marc Daniels simply left the set and let Windom ad-lib as much as he wanted. Out of a 10-minute speech, only about two minutes was actually used.
- The music for this episode was written by Sol Kaplan. Writer James Lileks notes that the music for this one episode "is the source of half the series' cues. But they're intended to belong together, and that’s one of the reasons the episode works like few others: it has a unique symphonic score. Played start to finish, it holds together."[2]
- Commodore Decker is seen constantly fiddling with recorder tapes aboard the Constellation. This is an homage to Humphrey Bogart, whose character of Captain Queeg did the same thing with ball bearings in The Caine Mutiny.
- In the Peter David novel "Vendetta" it is noted that the theory that the Doomsday Machine originated in another galaxy does not work given the massive amount of fuel required to power the machine. An alternative theory that an early prototype of a machine designed to counter the Borg by an advanced race is advanced. This falls into the category of fanon.
- In an essay on the episode Peter David notes when Decker overpowers the guard escorting him to sickbay it was the only time TOS portrayed "a vaguely futuristic style of fighting." [3]
[edit] External links
- "The Doomsday Machine" article at StarTrek.com.
- "The Doomsday Machine" article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
| Last produced: "Amok Time" |
Star Trek: TOS episodes Season 2 |
Next produced: "Wolf in the Fold" |
| Last transmitted: "The Apple" |
Next transmitted: "Catspaw" |
