Star date: 4202.1 (from Commodore Matt Decker's log)
Summary: The Enterprise is responding to a distress call from the starship Constellation, when they notice several star systems in which the known planets have been completely destroyed. They then come upon the Constellation, which has been badly damaged itself and is drifting through space.
Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and a damage control party beam over to the Constellation to assess the damage, leaving Spock in command of the Enterprise. Initially, it appears that the ship contains no crew members, living or dead, but then Kirk and McCoy find the ship's commander, Commodore Matt Decker, in a state of shock. Decker explains that they were attacked by a huge ship, miles long, which has consumed several planets in the system. Kirk theorizes that the planet-killer is a sort of "doomsday machine" developed by aliens in another galaxy, which has accidentally wandered into ours and is on track to destroy many populations. In addition to destroying several planets and crippling the Constellation, the planet-killer also emits a form of radiation which makes it impossible to communicate with Starfleet.
Decker is in a state of shock and wracked with guilt because, once the Constellation was on the verge of destruction, he beamed his entire crew down to one of the planets in the system. The planet-killer attacked again, disabling the Constellation's transporter. The planet-killer then destroyed the beam-down planet, and Decker's crew along with it. McCoy returns with Decker to the Enterprise while Kirk and the others remain behind to repair as much of the Constellation as they can. The Enterprise takes the Constellation with it in tow.
However, once McCoy and Decker arrive aboard the Enterprise, the planet-killer attacks them. Spock, realizing that there is nothing one ship can do to affect the planet-killer, makes it his number one priority to move away from the planet-killer's subspace interference, in order to warn Starfleet. However, Decker is intent on taking all steps possible to destroy or disable the planet-killer, even though such action seems futile at best and suicidal at worst. He pulls rank on Spock and takes command of the Enterprise, then stages several attacks on the planet-killer, which accomplish nothing more than making the Enterprise a target of the planet-killer's considerable power. Fortunately, Kirk, Scotty and the others have made sufficient progress in repairing the Constellation to have limited impulse power and one bank of phasers available. Kirk distracts the planet-killer long enough for the Enterprise to escape, but when he learns that Decker has taken command of the Enterprise, he orders Spock on his own personal authority as Captain of the Enterprise to relieve Decker of command. Decker reluctantly steps aside, and Spock orders him to sickbay for medical evaluation.
However, on the way to sickbay, Decker overpowers his guard, steals a shuttlecraft, and flies toward the planet-killer with the goal of destroying it by flying "right down its throat". Despite the pleas and cajoling of both Spock and Kirk, Decker completes his suicide mission, making a negligible impact on the planet-killer. But Decker's actions give Kirk an idea. He has Scotty rig up a mechanism to overload the Constellation's impulse engines on a 30-second delay, then sends Scotty and the damage control party back to the Enterprise. Kirk then steers the Constellation toward the planet-killer's "mouth", and waits until the last possible second to activate the 30-second delay. After a few tense moments of waiting while Scotty works furiously to repair the Enterprise's transporter, Kirk is beamed aboard at the last instant and the Constellation blows up inside the planet-killer, which does not destroy it, but renders it completely inactive and "dead".
The record for season two now stands at 3 above-average shows, and 3 pretty bad shows. I'm not sure why it's so difficult for the Star Trek writers to find some consistency.
I don't have much to say about this episode, except that it was good. Good setup, good plot, good guest appearance by William Windom as Commodore Matt Decker. Good chess match between the two Starfleet ships and the planet-killer, good twist with the battle over command of the Enterprise, good resolution at the end. Good, but not great. Given the collection of clunkers we've had in this series, I'll take good, not great.
The main message of this episode was only lightly touched on, but it was again an anti-war message. Kirk likens the planet-killer to a "doomsday machine" like the H-bomb, something intended only as a deterrent, and never meant to actually be unleashed on the universe. The point here is that mutually assured destruction can have unintended consequences, even for those who are far removed from the parties involved.
Other observations about this episode . . .
The whole time Decker is in command of the Enterprise, he is constantly fiddling with two small rectangular objects about the size of 1990's-style floppy disks, and which seem to serve roughly the same purpose on the show. This is reminiscent of the demented Lt. Cmdr. Queeg, played by Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny. I'm pretty sure this was intentional.
In this episode, we learn that McCoy is "a doctor, not a mechanic."
Decker is obviously traumatized by the loss of his crew, wracked both with survivor's guilt, and also with guilt because when he beamed his crew down to the planet, he thought he was doing his duty: remaining with the ship and ensuring the safety of his crew. But of course it turned out just the opposite, with his entire crew dead and him the sole survivor aboard the Constellation. It's hard to imagine Kirk/Shatner having the same reaction in Decker's place.
And anyway, why is Decker, a Commodore, commanding the Constellation while Kirk, who is "just" a Captain, in command of Starfleet's flagship, the Enterprise?
While it is true that Enterprise security gets pwned yet again when Decker overpowers Montgomery to hijack an Enterprise shuttle for his suicide mission, at least Montgomery puts up a decent fight, which you don't usually see from a member of Enterprise security.
The Moral of the Story: Mutually-assured destruction is MAD.
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