“The Doomsday Machine”
I’m jumping the gun a skosh here as this episode isn’t scheduled to air until 4 ay em this Sunday morning, but I wanted to post the fumetti for the weekend.
“Doomsday Machine” is one of the great ones, certainly a Top Ten of All Time episode, written by noted science fiction author Norman Spinrad. We get a simple concept: the ultimate “loose nuke,” one dangerous enough to assure both sides buy the farm in mutually assured destruction (“we may have lost, but you don’t get to win”). Guest star William Windom plays the obsessed Commodore Decker, who was crushed mentally and spiritually when he lost his entire crew. We get several great, tense sequences involving Kirk and Decker, Spock and Decker, and even McCoy and Decker (geez, that guy rubbed everyone the wrong way). All this wrapped in a gripping, fantastic musical score that works on the viewer in a manner similar to the Jaws theme, filling you with anticipation and dread.
I can’t wait to see the new CGI effects. That was always the one weak point with this episode, the special effects. I give them huge props, the visual effects guys did their darnedest, but the limitations of time, budget and equipment of the mid-1960s really worked against the concept of starships battling a giant planet killer (Decker’s damaged ship totally looked like the tiny 18” plastic model kit that it was).
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Thanks to Trekcore.com for the Star Trek screencaps.
PANTS!! An inherently funny word which makes that fumetto all the funnier :) These are seriously some of your best yet! I love the pretzel insignia, wax figure, hell--all of them!
ReplyDeleteFunny about the different, wacky insignia all the Starfleet staff seemed to have in the show. Then, by the time we made it to the first movie, the star badge became the universal insignia.
Notice the Gorn's aversion to wearing pants(I'll say no more on that subject).
ReplyDeleteI wish they had kept the unique insignias for each ship when they did the movies, where there is a bit too much homogenization. Heck, in the U.S. Armed Forces, within each service there is still a measure of individuality, as in different Navy fighter squadrons have different names and patches, same thing with the various Army platoons and companies. We're all the same, but we're still different or special. At the very least you could produce MORE action figures! ;)