The Doomsday Machine

Coming off the last clunker of an episode (Apple), this is a breath of fresh air. Starship Captain Dekker is rescued. He is the last survivor of a ship that lost all of its crew. A killer entity of great power was responsible but some poor decisions were also made. Now Dekker becomes obsessed with destroying this thing. While Kirk is away, trying to repair the other Captain's ship, communications is circumvented, allowing Dekker, crazy as he is, to take over the Enterprise. He decides to wage war on the thing again, endangering another crew. The episode draws on some wonderful twists and turns as Kirk has to deal with Dekker and then with the force that is now a danger to everyone. This is a superior effort, stepping up from some pretty suspect efforts.

One of the reasons the original series is thought of so highly is that certain individual episodes (City on the Edge of Forever, Journey to Babel, Balance of Terror and this one) are as good as anything you will see on movies or TV. This episode highlights some the things that made TOS great: Lighting, set design, and the acting. For all the grief Shatner receives as an actor, in this episode he really nails what makes Kirk a great captain. He is confident, forceful, able to think on his feet and fully in command. The color scheme, which employs bright primary colors, and the eye light they use on Kirk to highlight his sense of command are excellent. And don't forget the writing and directing that fully makes use of the tension inherent in the situation. You will never see a better straight ahead action episode on TV than The Doomsday Machine.

I was in Army boot camp the summer and fall of '67, and my buddy back home kept telling me about this great new show on TV callled "Star TreK', he said "You gotta see this one, it's the coolest!" I told him, "Nahh, I've seen Lost in Space, it's stupid, i don't care to see another one like that". But when I came home on leave, DOOMSDAY MACHINE was the first Trek episode I saw, I fell on the floor screaming "OH YEAH!! THIS IS IT FOREVER!!" I could'NT believe the magnitude of its coolness and greatness, I was an instant Trekkie, and I've stayed that way for 40 years!! Made all the early cons, even had a silver & red car painted to look like the USS Enterprise,with "NCC-1701" painted across the hood! All it took was one episode to get me hooked for life, and DOOMSDAY MACHINE was the one that did it! Live Long and Prosper!!

One of the things I always think about when it comes to Star Trek TOS is what makes these classic episodes so great is how alot of them could have been made into full-length movies. The Doomsday Machine in my opinion is absolutely Number One when it comes to this. A thrilling adventure crammed into 45 minutes with great performances from the entire cast. William Windom gives the greatest guest star performance in the entire series no question.

"The Doomsday Machine" was always in my all-time top 10 list of original Trek episodes; just saw it again for the first time in several years -- luckily in HD. I first saw this episode as an 8-year old kid during the original NBC run and was just blown away. Even after sitting through the horribly "edited", after-school rerun version of this show many, many times, it still kicked ass! William Windom was great as the haggard, broken Commodore Decker and "The Doomsday Machine" has all the elements of the best Trek episodes: tight script, thinly-disguised references to 60's politics, self-sacrifice for the greater good, tactical improvisation under pressure, victory-snatched-from-jaws-of-defeat etc. etc. It just gets better with age! Hats off to all who participated in bringing this series back with updated FX - it looks great (new prints??). I'm sure it's close to what Gene Roddenberry might have done with the show way back in the day if he had access to all the modern CG bells and whistles...