Title: The Doomsday Machine
Airdate: 10/20/1967
Plot Summary
A giant machine is destroying planets and the Enterprise must stop it. They come across the Constellation, their sister ship commanded by Commodore Matt Decker. It’s broken and nearly destroyed, the crew dead except for Decker. Decker becomes obsessed with avenging his crew and tries to use the Enterprise on a suicide mission while Kirk is trapped on the Constellation trying to repair it.
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk does his best to get the Doomsday Machine, and steps in when he realizes Decker has gone binky bonkers. He also nearly gets killed destroying the machine but gets out at just the last second.
Logical
Spock steps down from command, following regulations to the letter. It’s unclear if he expected things to play out as they did, as Decker kept making more irrational decisions and Spock probably could’ve relieved him cleanly. As it turns out, Kirk bails him out. However, he still has to carry out Kirk’s order and we find out that Vulcans never bluff.
He also calmly helps Scotty get the transporter fixed to save Kirk.
He’s Dead Jim
Bones is clearly right about Decker and wants Spock to just throw out regulations to take back over the center chair. But Spock won’t budge.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu shows he’s a damn good helmsman, maneuvering the Enterprise as best he can and running circles around it during the attack.
Nuclear Wessels
Checkov is not in this episode.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura is absent from The Doomsday Machine.
My Wee Bairns
Scotty redeems himself from The Apple, he fixes the Constellation, rigs the overload, gets the phasers working, and fixes the transporter to save Kirk. He’s completely awesome in this one.
Canon Maker
Matt Decker is Will Decker’s father. Will was to be the Captain of the refit Enterprise in The Motion Picture. It’s never mentioned but generally considered canon. I would assume Kirk recommended him not just because he would be a good Captain but also some guilt or sense of obligation from what happened in this episode.
Canon Breaker
For some reason, the transporter “glitter” is blue-white instead of the typical golden.
Man It Feels Bad To Be a Red Shirt
No one dies! Well, the entire crew of the Constellation does, but we never see them.
Technobabble
Decker says the Doomsday Machine uses pure anti-proton and really stresses the pure. Not sure what that is but it sounds really dark.
It appears the same light that alerts Sulu a shuttlecraft has launched is the one in the Mirror universe that flashes if someone is messing with the transporter. Different universes I guess.
I Know That Guy:
William Windom plays Decker and his performance here is pitch-perfect. You really understand his grief and anger over losing his crew. He played a recurring character in Murder, She Wrote. He had a decent career guest starring in a variety of shows throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
He did reprise the character in the fan-made Star Trek: New Voyages where he wasn’t killed but thrown back in time to the 20th century and lived out his life there. I’m pretty sure so he could film all his scenes from his living room.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
I don’t think The Doomsday Machine is the best episode of the original series, that title belongs to City On The Edge Of Forever. But it might be my favorite.
For one, this episode benefits probably the most from the redo of the special effects. It really makes the episode fly.
But primarily, this episode works on the strength of William Windom’s performance. We meet him as a broken man. Retelling the story of what happened to his crew, he’s just crushed. But he comes around and is resolved to destroy it.
He has a moment before he takes command when the Enterprise is hit by the machine, he grabs the helm and rights the ship, possibly saving the Enterprise. But he begins to descend into obsession as he must destroy it. He never does what he does because he’s just full of himself, a Commodore or arrogant. He simply is broken.
Windom walks a fine line between lunatic and determined but you never get a sense he’s doing this for any personal gain. He’s destroyed by the loss of his crew, so grief-stricken of their memory and having seen what it can do, can’t let the Rigel system get destroyed. No more death on his conscious. His aims are noble so when he dies, it really hits the viewer hard.
Then there’s the pacing of the episode. It ratchets up the tension flawlessly. When they try to get Kirk off the Constellation against the ticking clock, the edits get faster and faster, from the ship heading in, to the viewscreen, to the transporter smoking, to Scotty in the Jeffrey’s tube, to Kirk helplessly talking into his communicator… it’s fantastic.
The stakes are epic and well presented on the screen. You really feel like they might not get out of this.
The crew is admirable in their loyalty, they understand what this thing will do. While Decker gets more and more unstable, they continue to obey because of the stakes. Decker and Kirk have the exact same goals but this episode does underscore how emotion can drive us to make bad decisions. But not always. “Kirk got us out of there, now it’s our turn!” He’s a good man but had a really bad day.
I love how the Constellation is in such bad shape that getting moving just a little bit throws Kirk and the repair crew around like pinballs. Scotty is so on top of things, that he happens to have a phaser ready when Kirk needs it.
Finally, the destruction of the machine does feel earned and not BS. Overall, I never not get engrossed in this episode when it’s on. It has a ton of repeat value.
