In the sixth episode of the second season of Star Trek, this was too much to handle. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.Â
Trigger Warning: For mention of suicide.
You know, for a show that’s entirely episodic, one where the main characters always emerge unscathed, this was still a tense and scary episode. And that speaks to the effective nature of the suspense written into “The Doomsday Machine,” given that there’s no way the show could have actually killed off Captain Kirk in the final moments of this story. But this episode still went a lot further than I expected, and that’s part of the reason it’s so incredible.
It’s also a bizarre experience to think how “The Doomsday Machine” began. I’ve seen enough science fiction movies and shows to know that when you find an abandoned space vessel floating around, NOTHING GOOD CAN COME OF IT. But this might very well have been the first televised version of this trope, and MY GOD, IT’S SO EERIE. It’s not just the fact that the Enterprise comes upon an empty ship that’s creepy. It’s the fact that it’s another starship that’s so unsettling. Like I said on video, I’d forgotten that there were plenty of other starships that were identical to the Enterprise out in the galaxy, all working for the Federation. Seeing the starship Constellation was unnerving because it was like an uncomfortable glimpse into the future. Was this the Enterprise’s fate as well? And once the crew got onboard, it was even worse. The hallways were a chaotic mess, the ship was empty of all life, and there was no evidence of what had happened to leave it in this state.
Until Commodore Decker.
For me, it’s William Windom’s portrayal of the guilt-wrecked, desperate Commodore Decker that makes “The Doomsday Machine” as great as it is. From that incredibly bleak and emotionally volatile monologue he gives near the beginning, recounting the horrible decisions he had to make, to the final moments when he is staring his own mortality in the face, this episode is built around him. It is absolutely not the same without him. In Decker, we get a complicated character portrait about a commander who did everything regulation told him to do, and it still resulted in him having to listen to his crew beg him to save him from their imminent death. I think that goes a long way in explaining why he is so insistent on sticking to protocol. At no time did he have to take command on the Enterprise once he came on board, but he did because… well, what else does he know? What else can he do to avenge the pointless deaths of his crew? He latches on to the only sort of stability that he knows, and in the process, he nearly drags the crew of the Enterprise to their deaths as well.
It’s an incredibly difficult thing to watch. It’s disturbing because we know it’s wrong. Spock knows that Decker is ethically wrong, Bones knows he is wrong, EVERYONE ON DECK KNOWS WHAT DECKER IS DOING IS WRONG. You can see it in their faces as they watch on in anticipation as Decker assumes command, relieves Spock, and sets them on a course of certain death. But there’s an element to “The Doomsday Machine” that is a direct criticism of the rigidity of command. Shit, Kirk himself disobeys the hierarchal structure of Federation command later in the episode, and I think that’s a huge thing for this show. I don’t mean to suggest that the remainder of the original series is going to be an in-depth analysis of military command, but at least for this episode, it marks a turning point. It speaks to the urgency of this nightmare, because even Captain Kirk is willing to throw the rules to the wind in order to save his ship and his friends.
There’s an existential horror to the Doomsday Machine, of course, and I think the sheer absurdity of that creation adds an air of creepiness to the episode. There’s nothing to reason with here, so Spock’s logic has no meaning. There’s no apparent weakness, so sheer might and aggression is equally as pointless. The Doomsday Machine simply brings about armageddon to one solar system after another. It is a perpetual being, one who gains power to destroy planets simply by destroying them. It is programmed for one thing: to consume. There’s no other basis for its own internal logic, and whatever race created this wretched thing didn’t realize that they’d created an everlasting monster. Of course, there’s the whole Cold War aspect of this episode that’s more or less referenced when Captain Kirk is theorizing about what this creature is, and given when this show aired, it’s an important aspect of the Doomsday Machine’s pointless terror.
And really, that’s what will always unsettle me about that thing. There’s no point to it. It just devours one thing after another. It cares not about the damage and chaos that it causes because it can only be wholly indifferent to the ramifications of its actions. In a show that is so rife with moral consequences and ethical dilemmas, there’s literally no consequence or dilemma at work within the Doomsday Machine. So it’s not surprising, then, that Commodore Decker reacts the way he does to this unknowable horror. In an almost eerie mirror of it, Decker assumes a one-track mind in facing it. He believes so much in its destruction that he doesn’t even care to analyze how he’ll do that. He ignores the entirely logical and sensible protestations from Spock because they get in the way of his singular goal.
And goddamn, it’s scary to watch. If it weren’t for the work that Kirk and Scotty did over on the Constellation, the Enterprise would have been destroyed. Even after learning of the damage to the shields and the warp drive, Decker doesn’t even cease his line of attack. It’s the diversion created by the Constellation that saves their lives. It is terribly sad and ironic, then, that Decker’s ultimately course of action technically saves everyone, though not himself. The scene of Decker’s kamikaze attack on the Doomsday Machine is always going to be one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen on this show. Again, I’m drawn right back to William Windom’s acting, since all we during that sequence is the uncaring maw of the Machine and Decker’s increasingly horrified face. Based on what Decker says, there’s almost an air of penance to his actions, since he still believes it was his fault that his crew died. Which is a ridiculous notion! It’s not his fault at all. They either would have died on the Constellation or down on that planet, and nothing Decker could have done would have saved their lives.
But because Decker makes his obsession so personal, he can’t even see the true scope of of things. His suicide inspires Captain Kirk to use the Constellation – which is already a shell of a ship anyway – in precisely the same way as Decker used the shuttlecraft. Kirk uses the Machine’s totality of consumption against it, feeding it its own demise. But that doesn’t negate the tragedy of this all, since the Constellation crew still died terribly, and Commodore Decker killed himself to try and save everyone else.
Now, like I said, I didn’t think this show would kill off Captain Kirk, but the climax of “The Doomsday Machine” is still pretty damn spectacular. This episode relies on a constant building of pressure over a long period of time, and I’m thrilled that the show was able to pull it off so fiercely. This is a remarkably disturbing episode of Star Trek regardless, and IT’S GOING TO HAUNT ME FOR A WHILE. Just… good gods, y’all, this season has been on FIRE.
The video for “The Doomsday Machine” can be purchased here for $0.99. This particular video was commissioned by Froborr, who would like you to check out his books of postmodern criticism, bronies and My Little Pony, and an upcoming book about Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
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