J. Robert Oppenheimer has been in the news recently. He’s been dead for fifty years and yet his name is probably about to win Best Picture. That self-titled, masterful film ends as Oppenheimer looks upon a pond, the ripples evoking his imagined nuclear apocalypse. In filmic language, the world ended with the first bomb.
“The Doomsday Machine” asks: what if it was not just the world?
In one of the show’s most evocative openings - set to Sol Kaplan’s unique episode score - the Enterprise stumbles upon a destroyed version of itself. The U.S.S. Constellation has been left for dead. Its hollow and broken image is unmistakable, the same model as the Enterprise. It has been threatened many times, but our ship always avoids this fate. The Constellation is empty of crew and has barely functioning systems. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam aboard only to find the Constellation’s captain, Commodore Matt Decker, barely coherent and all alone. After being sedated, he’s able to explain what happened. The Constellation encountered a long, cigar shaped machine destroying entire planets, breaking them down into their component elements and feeding on the useful ones. The ship attempted to stop it but was torn apart. Decker was forced to evacuate his crew to a nearby planet as he went down with the ship. The planet no longer exists.
The U.S.S. Constellation, broken and almost entirely abandoned. It is a striking image that comes early in the episode. Given how often the Enterprise breaks, it’s haunting to see what would happen if a previous episode had ended badly.
Kirk and the crew immediately peg what’s going on. Tracing back the machine’s path reveals that it came from a different galaxy and is headed towards “the most populated” part of ours. Kirk and Bones begin theorizing:
KIRK: Bones, did you ever hear of a doomsday machine?
MCCOY: No. I'm a doctor, not a mechanic.
KIRK: It's a weapon built primarily as a bluff. It's never meant to be used. So strong, it could destroy both sides in a war. Something like the old H-Bomb was supposed to be. That's what I think this is. A doomsday machine that somebody used in a war uncounted years ago. They don't exist anymore, but the machine is still destroying.
The time for theories quickly runs out as the machine reappears. Kirk and Scottie stay aboard the Constellation to learn more, while the rest of the crew beams back to the Enterprise, where Spock is in command. At least until Decker shows up, revenge on his mind and the chain of command in his hand. He takes command of the Enterprise and orders the ship on a suicide run against the machine that killed his crew.
Matt Decker looks to take command of the Enterprise. Decker was portrayed by William Windom, who worked mostly in television but had his film debut in the classic, original adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Just two years after his appearance here, he won a Lead Actor Emmy for his starring role in the sitcom My World and Welcome to It.
Only through Kirk’s clever maneuvering, and Spock’s willingness to break the chain of command, is Decker’s plan thwarted. His death drive unleashed, he nevertheless commandeers the Enterprise’s shuttle and charges the machine head on. His second suicide run tragically succeeds, but gives Kirk an idea: do the same, but bigger. The crew manages to maneuver the Constellation right into the machine’s mouth, detonates the ship, and saves Kirk in the nick of time. At the end, Spock and his captain sum up the exhilarating events:
SPOCK: Indeed, Captain. I presume your log will show that Commodore Decker died in the line of duty.
KIRK: Indeed it shall, Mister Spock. Ironic, isn't it? Way back in the 20th century, the H-Bomb was the ultimate weapon, their doomsday machine, and we used something like it to destroy another doomsday machine. Probably the first time such a weapon has ever been used for constructive purposes.
SPOCK: Appropriate, Captain. However, I can't help wondering if there are any more of those weapons wandering around the universe.
KIRK: Well, I certainly hope not. I found one quite sufficient.
That’s the plot, and it is fantastically presented. “The Doomsday Machine” is one of the most exciting and thoughtful episodes of Star Trek, part of the absolute heater run the show is on to start its second season. As mentioned above, Sol Kaplan’s score for the episode is entirely unique and wonderfully paces the viewer through multiple scenes of, essentially, the main characters watching screens. Spaceship combat is tough to convey, since the ships are literally a collection of sets and, in long view, detailed models. Star Wars famously figured this out in 1977, with a massive film budget, but this is one episode of a television series in 1968. The score and the camera are all you have, and “The Doomsday Machine” uses both to ratchet up the tension and make the danger feel real. Camera wise, the episode was directed by Marc Daniels, probably the best director of Star Trek episodes and only rivaled for the crown by Joseph Pevney. Daniels jumps back and forth between Kirk on the Constellation and the rest of the crew on the Enterprise with expert timing, and the script always keeps the pressure on at least one group of characters. Lots of center framing on the actors gives a direct, emotive quality to the “actions” taken. Which are, again, mostly yelling at screens.
The Enterprise stares down the Doomsday Machine. No account exists regarding how the model was created, but apparently the episode’s screenwriter - Norman Spinrad, a prolific writer of science fiction in the 60s - was disappointed in its look. Personally, I find the oddly natural, rocky look of the thing to be suitably alien.
And in service of what? A genuinely unique, quintessentially science fiction take down of the nuclear arms race of the 1960s, the “end of the world” that Oppenheimer feared. Here, we are presented with the outgrowth of an arms race that exceeded the grasp of its runners. A self-sustaining, planet-eating machine that ate through an entire galaxy before arriving at ours. Kirk explicitly compares this to “the H-Bomb” - tellingly, not the original nuclear bomb - an example of a doomsday machine he ironically says was “never meant to be used.” Of course, when it was created, the H-Bomb was the first step along a path of nuclear escalation that Oppenheimer opposed. A large portion of the recent movie - and the excellent biography it is based on - dives into Oppenheimer’s seeming hypocrisy regarding the H-Bomb, which he believed should not be pursued. Regardless, the creation of the H-Bomb represented a significant step towards the Cold War and a hard pivot away from the very real possibility of nuclear cooperation that existed in the years immediately following World War II. The Doomsday Machine is the end of that line of thinking.
Decker’s storyline reinforces the dangers of accelerationism as well. Decker is a relatable character and well handled by William Windom, whose choices are mostly understated. It’s a smart performance. He refuses to go big, keeping a certain air of authority about him despite his fractured mental state. But he is certainly fractured. His blind focus on defeating the enemy despite the annihilation his pursuit will cause is not too far off from dominant U.S. nuclear policy in the early 1950s. Defeat the Soviets, damn the world.
“The Doomsday Machine” shows the end result of any untempered arms race. It must eat the world, and in Star Trek, there’s a different world every week.
Stray Thoughts
James Doohan (Montgomery Scott) stated that this was his favorite episode of the series multiple times:
For one thing, it had William Windom in it. Very good actor. And it was a very strong role – a very self-tortured character. Very driven. And a strong statement about nuclear weapons. And the effects were extremely good; that was an epic story for television in that time. It wasn't a standout role for Scotty, but it was okay, and I was pleased. I saw it not long ago and I still find it to be very exciting television." (These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Two, p. 158)
I remain very impressed by how well Star Trek’s ship combat episodes work. “Balance of Terror” is similarly thrilling. These episodes are expensive, and that’s probably why they don’t come around too much, but it has me excited for the films and big budget Trek in general.
Photo Credits
H-Bomb Explosion: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/06/cnbc-explains-what-is-a-minitiarized-hydrogen-bomb.html
U.S.S. Constellation: https://www.flickr.com/photos/birdofthegalaxy/3710500000
Matt Decker: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Matt_Decker
The Enterprise and the Machine: https://thoughtsfromthemountaintop.com/2021/02/19/star-trek-the-doomsday-machine-planet-destroying-bombs-planet-killing-machines/
Episode quotes pulled from: http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/35.htm