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The Doomsday Machine (TOS episode)
Encyclopedia
"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
s Enterprise
and the damaged USS Constellation must work together to stop an alien planet-killing machine going any further.
4202.9, the USS Enterprise responds to a distress call and finds that several planets in a nearby system have been destroyed. They soon find their sister ship, the USS Constellation, adrift and heavily damaged. Captain Kirk
and a damage control team beam over to investigate and find the ship's commanding officer, Commodore Matthew Decker, half-conscious in the auxiliary control room – the sole survivor. Mr. Scott
reports that the ship's warp engines are damaged beyond repair and the weapons exhausted. Meanwhile, an incoherent Decker can only mutter about something attacking his ship.
The logs reveal that the ship investigated the breakup of a planet and was soon attacked by an enormous machine with a conical shell miles in length and a giant opening at one end filled with sparkling energy. After the attack, Decker ordered his surviving crew to the surface of a nearby planet, but to his horror, the machine destroyed that world next. Spock theorizes the machine breaks down planets into rubble which it then consumes for fuel and adds that given its past trajectory, it is likely to have come from outside the galaxy and continue towards the "most densely populated region of our galaxy".
Kirk theorizes that they have encountered a doomsday machine
, a device built to destroy both sides in a war. It was intended as a bluff or deterrent, not to be actually used, but was activated nonetheless. It wiped out its builders long ago but it lives on indefinitely, fueled by the very planets it destroys.
Kirk has Decker beamed to the Enterprise while he and Scott remain on the derelict. On the Enterprise bridge, Mr. Spock is alerted to the approach of the alien machine which generates interference that makes radio contact with Starfleet Command
impossible. As the machine attacks, Decker comes to the bridge, and quoting Starfleet regulations he pulls rank on Spock and assumes command. He then orders a full-on attack against the machine ignoring Spock's warning that the ship's weaponry is ineffective against the doomsday machine's pure neutronium
hull. As a result, the warp engines are disabled and the Enterprise becomes drawn by a tractor beam
towards the machine's glowing maw.
Aboard the Constellation, Scott has managed to restore partial phaser and thrust control, and Kirk creates a diversion to distract the planet-killer away from the Enterprise. As the machine veers off, Kirk personally orders Spock to relieve Decker of command, as Decker is clearly in no condition to give orders. Eventually, Decker, recognizing that the Enterprise crew would support Spock without question, yields and is escorted off the bridge by security. However, he knocks out his guard and quickly heads to the hangar bay to steal a shuttlecraft
. He then pilots it on a kamikaze
course into the planet killer's maw despite the pleas of Kirk and Spock to turn back.
Kirk learns that the shuttlecraft's subsequent explosion slightly decreased the planet killer's output power. He realizes Decker may have had the right idea but not enough energy to succeed. Kirk has Spock determine if the thermonuclear detonation of the Constellation impulse engines inside the planet-killer would destroy it. Spock is unsure, and he and Scotty object to Kirk's intention to remain on the Constellation to carry it out. Kirk has Scotty rig a manual 30-second detonation timer, planning to start it and beam back to the Enterprise before detonation. Scotty explains that once the timer is started, it cannot be stopped.
With everything prepared, Kirk orders the others back to the Enterprise and steers the Constellation toward the planet killer's maw. At the right moment he starts the 30-second timer and asks to be beamed out. In classic cliffhanger fashion, the damaged Enterprise transporter shorts out. Kirk is stranded on the Constellation. Scott rushes to make repairs. As the timer ticks toward zero, First Officer
Spock
suggests to Scotty
to try "Inverse Phasing", Kirk issues an understated request: "Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard" and watches the doomsday machine grow on the viewscreen. Scott's desperate fix succeeds and Kirk is beamed off the Constellation at the very last second. The Constellation enters the maw and explodes, destroying the planet killer's mechanism and leaving its indestructible shell adrift, dead in space.
In the epilogue, Kirk and Spock muse about the parallels between their doomsday machine and the "doomsday machines" of late 20th century Earth, nuclear weapons. Kirk notes with irony that the Constellation's impulse engines exploded in the same way, though this time it served a constructive purpose.
to play Commodore Decker, but Ryan was unavailable owing to prior commitments.
. Writer James Lileks
notes that the music cues for this episode are "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." Jeff Bond notes, "Although he wrote only two scores for the series, New York composer Sol Kaplan's music was tracked endlessly throughout the show's first two seasons." Both Lileks and Bond point out similarities between this music and John Williams
's award-winning score for Jaws
a decade later. The music for this episode was collected, along with the score for "Amok Time", on the second release from Crescendo Records of music from the series: the first release other than the music from the pilot episodes.
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:
reprises his role almost 40 years later.
gave the episode an 'A' rating, describing the episode as "very strong stuff" noting effective tension building and the development of Decker's character. Handlen also noted Sol Kaplan's
score which "matches the actors' intensity".
, titled "The Planet Crusher: The Creature that ate Sheboygan III," is based on the planet killer in this episode.
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 huge amount of fuel required to power the machine. An alternative is presented, theorizing that the device is an early prototype of a machine designed by an advanced race to counter the Borg
. The novel further speculates that because it was a prototype, it was never intended for use but was activated when its creators saw their defeat looming. A second, 'completed version' of the same machine appears in the novel, this one piloted by a living being who was interfaced with a form of AI based on the minds of its creators. The original Doomsday Machine is reactivated in David's book Before Dishonor, and is piloted by Seven of Nine
against a Borg Cube threatening Earth.
The library computer entry on the Planet Killer in the CD-ROM game Star Trek: Star Fleet Academy mentions a school of thought suggesting that the galactic energy barrier may have been constructed ages ago to keep such planet killers out of the galaxy.
In addition, other CD-ROM games such as Star Trek: Starfleet Command
feature the planet killer as an antagonist.
The Doomsday Machine is featured as the boss at the end of the Star Trek: 25th Anniversary.
The concept was used in the FASA
Star Trek module "A Doomsday Like Any Other" where the players in the role of USS Fife crew members encounter another Doomsday machine.
Star Trek Concordance
and The Monsters of Star Trek refer to the device as a "berserker
" suggesting an inspiration from Fred Saberhagen
's creations.
In some Star Trek media, notably comic books, Commodore Decker is portrayed as one of Captain Kirk's mentors and teachers at Starfleet Academy, providing a backstory for their relationship and deepening it.
In the Star Trek: Phase II
fan made episode "In Harm's Way", both Commodore Decker and the planet killer(s) are featured.
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
. It is episode
Episode
An episode is a part of a dramatic work such as a serial television or radio program. An episode is a part of a sequence of a body of work, akin to a chapter of a book. The term sometimes applies to works based on other forms of mass media as well, as in Star Wars...
#35, production #35, and was first broadcast on October 20, 1967. It was repeated on April 19, 1968. It was written by Norman Spinrad
Norman Spinrad
Norman Richard Spinrad is an American science fiction author.Born in New York City, Spinrad is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science. In 1957 he entered City College of New York and graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Science degree as a pre-law major. In 1966 he moved to San Francisco,...
, and directed by Marc Daniels
Marc Daniels
Marc Daniels , born Danny Marcus, was an American television director.-Life and Career:After serving in World War II, Daniels was hired by CBS to direct its first dramatic anthology program, Ford Theater. He mastered live television directing, and was hired to direct the first 38 episodes of I...
.
Overview: The starship
Starship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
s Enterprise
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701, is a fictional starship in the Star Trek media franchise. The original Star Trek series depicts her crew's mission "to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before" under the command of Captain James...
and the damaged USS Constellation must work together to stop an alien planet-killing machine going any further.
Plot
On stardateStardate
A stardate is a date in the fictional system of time measurement developed for Star Trek, commonly heard at the beginning of a voiceover log entry such as "Captain's log, stardate 41153.7...
4202.9, the USS Enterprise responds to a distress call and finds that several planets in a nearby system have been destroyed. They soon find their sister ship, the USS Constellation, adrift and heavily damaged. Captain Kirk
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. Kirk was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series. Shatner voiced Kirk in the animated Star Trek series and appeared in the first seven Star Trek movies...
and a damage control team beam over to investigate and find the ship's commanding officer, Commodore Matthew Decker, half-conscious in the auxiliary control room – the sole survivor. Mr. Scott
Montgomery Scott
Montgomery "Scotty" Scott is a Scottish engineer in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by James Doohan in the original Star Trek series, Scotty also appears in the animated Star Trek series, seven Star Trek movies, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Relics", and in numerous...
reports that the ship's warp engines are damaged beyond repair and the weapons exhausted. Meanwhile, an incoherent Decker can only mutter about something attacking his ship.
The logs reveal that the ship investigated the breakup of a planet and was soon attacked by an enormous machine with a conical shell miles in length and a giant opening at one end filled with sparkling energy. After the attack, Decker ordered his surviving crew to the surface of a nearby planet, but to his horror, the machine destroyed that world next. Spock theorizes the machine breaks down planets into rubble which it then consumes for fuel and adds that given its past trajectory, it is likely to have come from outside the galaxy and continue towards the "most densely populated region of our galaxy".
Kirk theorizes that they have encountered a doomsday machine
Doomsday device
A doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon, or collection of weapons — which could destroy all life on a planet, particularly the Earth, or destroy the planet itself, bringing "doomsday", a term used for the end of planet Earth...
, a device built to destroy both sides in a war. It was intended as a bluff or deterrent, not to be actually used, but was activated nonetheless. It wiped out its builders long ago but it lives on indefinitely, fueled by the very planets it destroys.
Kirk has Decker beamed to the Enterprise while he and Scott remain on the derelict. On the Enterprise bridge, Mr. Spock is alerted to the approach of the alien machine which generates interference that makes radio contact with Starfleet Command
Starfleet Command
Starfleet Command may refer to:*Starfleet Command, headquarters/command center of Starfleet in Star Trek.*Star Trek: Starfleet Command, a space battle simulation game set in the Star Trek universe....
impossible. As the machine attacks, Decker comes to the bridge, and quoting Starfleet regulations he pulls rank on Spock and assumes command. He then orders a full-on attack against the machine ignoring Spock's warning that the ship's weaponry is ineffective against the doomsday machine's pure neutronium
Neutronium
Neutronium is a proposed name for a substance composed purely of neutrons. The word was coined by scientist Andreas von Antropoff in 1926 for the conjectured "element of atomic number zero" that he placed at the head of the periodic table...
hull. As a result, the warp engines are disabled and the Enterprise becomes drawn by a tractor beam
Tractor beam
A tractor beam is a device with the ability to attract one object to another from a distance. Since the 1990s, technology and research has labored to make it a reality, mostly at microscopic level. Less commonly, a similar beam that repels is called a pressor beam or repulsor beam...
towards the machine's glowing maw.
Aboard the Constellation, Scott has managed to restore partial phaser and thrust control, and Kirk creates a diversion to distract the planet-killer away from the Enterprise. As the machine veers off, Kirk personally orders Spock to relieve Decker of command, as Decker is clearly in no condition to give orders. Eventually, Decker, recognizing that the Enterprise crew would support Spock without question, yields and is escorted off the bridge by security. However, he knocks out his guard and quickly heads to the hangar bay to steal a shuttlecraft
Shuttlecraft (Star Trek)
In the Star Trek fictional universe, a shuttlecraft is a small auxiliary spaceship carried by the larger craft such as the Enterprise. Shuttlecraft were documented in the writer's guide for the series in 1966 and first appeared in the episode The Galileo Seven. Galileo was the name of the...
. He then pilots it on a kamikaze
Kamikaze
The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....
course into the planet killer's maw despite the pleas of Kirk and Spock to turn back.
Kirk learns that the shuttlecraft's subsequent explosion slightly decreased the planet killer's output power. He realizes Decker may have had the right idea but not enough energy to succeed. Kirk has Spock determine if the thermonuclear detonation of the Constellation impulse engines inside the planet-killer would destroy it. Spock is unsure, and he and Scotty object to Kirk's intention to remain on the Constellation to carry it out. Kirk has Scotty rig a manual 30-second detonation timer, planning to start it and beam back to the Enterprise before detonation. Scotty explains that once the timer is started, it cannot be stopped.
With everything prepared, Kirk orders the others back to the Enterprise and steers the Constellation toward the planet killer's maw. At the right moment he starts the 30-second timer and asks to be beamed out. In classic cliffhanger fashion, the damaged Enterprise transporter shorts out. Kirk is stranded on the Constellation. Scott rushes to make repairs. As the timer ticks toward zero, First Officer
Executive officer
An executive officer is generally a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization.-Administrative law:...
Spock
Spock
Spock is a fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in the original Star Trek series, Spock also appears in the animated Star Trek series, two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, seven of the Star Trek feature films, and numerous Star Trek...
suggests to Scotty
Scotty
Scotty can be:*A common nickname for a Scottish man*Montgomery Scott, the Star Trek character**See Beam me up, Scotty*Scotty , a reggae singer*Scotty Moore, American guitarist, one of Elvis Presley's backing musicians...
to try "Inverse Phasing", Kirk issues an understated request: "Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard" and watches the doomsday machine grow on the viewscreen. Scott's desperate fix succeeds and Kirk is beamed off the Constellation at the very last second. The Constellation enters the maw and explodes, destroying the planet killer's mechanism and leaving its indestructible shell adrift, dead in space.
In the epilogue, Kirk and Spock muse about the parallels between their doomsday machine and the "doomsday machines" of late 20th century Earth, nuclear weapons. Kirk notes with irony that the Constellation's impulse engines exploded in the same way, though this time it served a constructive purpose.
Production
Episode writer Norman Spinrad had wanted actor Robert RyanRobert Ryan
Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:...
to play Commodore Decker, but Ryan was unavailable owing to prior commitments.
Music
This is one of the few Star Trek episodes for which original music was written; in this case a full score, by Sol KaplanSol Kaplan
Sol Kaplan was a prolific film and television music composer.Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kaplan worked as a successful concert pianist, including performing at Carnegie Hall in 1941. That same year, Kaplan composed his first film score. He went on to write music for dozens of films...
. Writer James Lileks
James Lileks
James Lileks is an American journalist, columnist, and blogger living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.- Career :Lileks has had a wide-ranging career as a columnist, radio personality, author, and prominent blogger....
notes that the music cues for this episode are "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." Jeff Bond notes, "Although he wrote only two scores for the series, New York composer Sol Kaplan's music was tracked endlessly throughout the show's first two seasons." Both Lileks and Bond point out similarities between this music and John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
's award-winning score for Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
a decade later. The music for this episode was collected, along with the score for "Amok Time", on the second release from Crescendo Records of music from the series: the first release other than the music from the pilot episodes.
40th Anniversary remastering
- 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, Constellation, and the shuttlecraft Decker stole are rendered in such a way that they are dwarfed by the planet killer, giving an enhanced sense of the machine's gigantic size.
- The debris from the planets destroyed by the planet killer is visible throughout the first half of the episode, even impacting on the hull of the Constellation.
- 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 decisive "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 and Blu-Ray releases include the complete episode.
Remake of the Episode
A remake of "The Doomsday Machine" appears in Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II. Titled "In Harm's Way", William Windom (actor)William Windom (actor)
William Windom is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his work on television, including several episodes of The Twilight Zone; playing the character of Glen Morley, a congressman from Minnesota like his own great-grandfather and namesake in The Farmer's Daughter; the character of John...
reprises his role almost 40 years later.
Reception
Zack Handlen of The A.V. ClubThe A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
gave the episode an 'A' rating, describing the episode as "very strong stuff" noting effective tension building and the development of Decker's character. Handlen also noted Sol Kaplan's
Sol Kaplan
Sol Kaplan was a prolific film and television music composer.Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kaplan worked as a successful concert pianist, including performing at Carnegie Hall in 1941. That same year, Kaplan composed his first film score. He went on to write music for dozens of films...
score which "matches the actors' intensity".
Non canonical references
The first "monster" scenario in the tabletop wargame Star Fleet BattlesStar Fleet Battles
Star Fleet Battles is a tactical board wargame set in an offshoot of the Star Trek setting called the Star Fleet Universe. Originally created in 1979 by Stephen V. Cole,...
, titled "The Planet Crusher: The Creature that ate Sheboygan III," is based on the planet killer in this episode.
In the Peter David
Peter David
Peter Allen David , often abbreviated PAD, is an American writer of comic books, novels, television, movies and video games...
novel Vendetta it is noted that the theory that the Doomsday Machine originated in another galaxy does not work given the huge amount of fuel required to power the machine. An alternative is presented, theorizing that the device is an early prototype of a machine designed by an advanced race to counter the Borg
Borg (Star Trek)
The Borg are a fictional pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms depicted in the Star Trek universe associated with Star Trek.Whereas cybernetics are used by other races in the science fiction world to repair bodily damage and birth defects, the Borg use enforced cybernetic enhancement as a means of...
. The novel further speculates that because it was a prototype, it was never intended for use but was activated when its creators saw their defeat looming. A second, 'completed version' of the same machine appears in the novel, this one piloted by a living being who was interfaced with a form of AI based on the minds of its creators. The original Doomsday Machine is reactivated in David's book Before Dishonor, and is piloted by Seven of Nine
Seven of Nine
Seven of Nine is a fictional character on Star Trek: Voyager, portrayed by actress Jeri Ryan. Born human, she was assimilated by the Borg at the age of six. Eighteen years later, Voyager left Borg space with Seven on board, after attempts to negotiate passage through Borg space proved only...
against a Borg Cube threatening Earth.
The library computer entry on the Planet Killer in the CD-ROM game Star Trek: Star Fleet Academy mentions a school of thought suggesting that the galactic energy barrier may have been constructed ages ago to keep such planet killers out of the galaxy.
In addition, other CD-ROM games such as Star Trek: Starfleet Command
Star Trek: Starfleet Command
Star Trek: Starfleet Command is a computer game based on the table-top wargame Star Fleet Battles. It simulates starship operations, and ship-to-ship combat and fleet warfare in the Star Trek universe....
feature the planet killer as an antagonist.
The Doomsday Machine is featured as the boss at the end of the Star Trek: 25th Anniversary.
The concept was used in the FASA
FASA
FASA Corporation was an American publisher of role-playing games, wargames and board games between 1980 and 2001. Originally the name FASA was an acronym for "Freedonian Aeronautics and Space Administration", a joking allusion to the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup. This tongue-in-cheek attitude was...
Star Trek module "A Doomsday Like Any Other" where the players in the role of USS Fife crew members encounter another Doomsday machine.
Star Trek Concordance
Star Trek Concordance
The Star Trek Concordance is a reference book by Bjo Trimble about the television series Star Trek. It contains summaries from episodes of The Original Series and The Animated Series, as well as an encyclopedia of characters and technology from the series...
and The Monsters of Star Trek refer to the device as a "berserker
Berserker (Saberhagen)
The Berserker series is a series of space opera science fiction short stories and novels by Fred Saberhagen, in which robotic self-replicating machines intend to destroy all life. These Berserkers, named after the human berserker warriors of Norse legend, are doomsday weapons left over from an...
" suggesting an inspiration from Fred Saberhagen
Fred Saberhagen
Fred Thomas Saberhagen was an American science fiction and fantasy author most famous for his Berserker series of science fiction short stories and S.F...
's creations.
In some Star Trek media, notably comic books, Commodore Decker is portrayed as one of Captain Kirk's mentors and teachers at Starfleet Academy, providing a backstory for their relationship and deepening it.
In the Star Trek: Phase II
Star Trek: New Voyages
Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II is a fan-created science fiction series set in the Star Trek universe. The series was created by James Cawley and Jack Marshall in April 2003...
fan made episode "In Harm's Way", both Commodore Decker and the planet killer(s) are featured.
External links
- Full Episode of The Doomsday Machine - at CBS.com