The Changeling

"The Changeling" (Sept. 29, 1967) Old TV Guide synopsis: 'Kirk encounters a sophisticated killer, a talking metallic cylinder programmed to destroy life forms that don't meet its mechanical standards of perfection.' An old earth probe called 'Nomad' (voiced by Vic Perrin) is damaged in deep space, merging with an alien probe to follow a new directive that results in the loss of billions of lives across the galaxy. The Enterprise narrowly avoids destruction by its response to Captain Kirk, mistaking him for its creator, Jackson Roykirk, and revealing itself to be no larger than one meter in diameter. Its inability to understand human traits finds Scotty killed and Uhura's memory erased just for singing to herself; while the former is easily restored to life by Nomad, Uhura must become reeducated in Sickbay until she can finally return to her post. A Vulcan mind meld spells out how Nomad accumulated such devastating power, its mission to destroy 'imperfect' life forms putting Kirk in the position of having it focus upon its own shortcomings before it reaches the planet Earth. This was the prototype for the 1979 TREK feature film, but far more compact and suspenseful in an hour long format.

"This episode obviously inspired the plot of the first Star Trek Movie where the mysterious and immensely powerful and dangerously destructive evil force is referred to as "V-ger" by the kidnapped and subsequently returned (and reprogrammed) female crewperson of the new and improved Enterprise."

Start Trek: The Motion Picture wasn't simply "inspired"by the Changeling. Roddenberry pretty much took the plot and characters of "The Changeling" tried to file the serial numbers off, and expand it into a feature film without any payment to the author of this script. Said author however wasn't sleeping, nor dead, and sued him over the attempted theft. You can pretty much do a direct mapping of the plot and characters from this episode to that film with Lt. Ilia taking the place of Uhura, but pretty much everything else lifted intact.

Classic Trek aficionados often pan the Third Season of Classic Trek as being the worst of the worst, and specifically they assign "Spock's Brain" as being the absolute worst Star Trek episode ever.

I disagree. I label "The Changeling" as the worst, and not because it was used as the basis for the first Star Trek feature film back in the late 70s.

No.

I just can't stand the execution of this story. The story concept is intriguing enough, but the interpersonal interaction with the mechanical antagonist and Enterprise crew, to me at least, is nearly laughable. If I'm watching classic Trek, and this thing happens to be on the DVD set I've got in the player, then I may keep it on in the background, but it's really painful to watch at times.

To me this episode is the poster boy for people to point at who think Star Trek is stupid. And you know what? I'd be hard pressed to deny them that claim after watching this particular installment.

I just don't know what went wrong here. For all the money that they had to spend on this episode, was this really the best the creative team could come up with? One is reminded of "Red Dwarf's" props department, and the Holly-Hop drive prop. Yeah, it's that bad.

Shatner and gang give us Kirk and crew to outwit a schizophrenic robot. It's a little cliché in that regard, which just adds another nail in the coffin for this episode, but it's not really the defining moment as some may think.

Not a worthy installment of the franchise, if somewhat interesting. Good acting (save for M-5), poor production values (again, M-5), and a lack of vision on how to properly present the story.

Take it for what it's worth.

Yeah, lots of plot holes and cheesy special effects but this is one of my favorites, and it's entirely due to Shatner's restrained (for once) performance. He actually seems to be acting and responding to the crew (mainly Spock) like a normal human being without any of his typical over- the-top hamming it up. Well, with the exception of the ending where, sadly, the writers reverted back to the cutesy crap. I can't really blame Shatner for that, either. When given decent dialog in the rest of show, The Shat did alright in this one, making it one of the most watchable episodes.

And a shout-out to user verbusen for noticing Lt. Leslie in his review. After rewatching these episodes many times, you start picking up the small things in the background, and Lt. Leslie at the helm next to Sulu, as well as wearing a gold tunic (as opposed to his typical red) is unusual. What isn't unusual, of course, is that Leslie has no lines. It's worth noting that the actor who played Leslie, Eddie Paskey, made a point of actually reading the scripts beforehand so he knew when an anonymous red-shirt was going to get offed, and made a point of making himself scarce during those red-shirt casting calls.

Under attack from an old satellite, when it's on board demonstrates great insight, but the hybrid is mad, a crazy nomad, and it puts up a hell of a fight.

A bucket from the past that has evolved into a super thinking machine jeopardises the Enterprise and potentially all those back on planet Earth.