2.37 : The Changeling.

[Dave]

The one with Nomad.

The Enterprise investigates the destruction of the Malurian System's 4 billion inhabitants.

Actually, Nomad probably did the Federation a favour, because 'Civilisation' ENT showed the Malurians to be a pretty unlikable species. Nomad thinks that Captain James Kirk is it's creator, Jackson Roykirk. Originally launched in 2020 to seek out alien life, it was damaged and then hybridised with an alien probe, Tan-Ru, which had been programmed to collect soil samples. It now believes it has a mission to destroy imperfect life forms. Kirk pulls off another of his 'confuse the computer' tricks, convincing it that it is itself imperfect.

As Tan-Ru was designed to sterilise soil samples, doesn't the power to obliterate whole worlds seems an excessive ability for such a device?

Nomad kills Scotty, before restoring "the unit" to working order, and then wipes Uhura's memory clean, but it's OK, she learns it all again within a week. Who needs schools? Who needs a Star Fleet Academy?

The episode's plot is very similar to the premise of 'ST I: TMP'. Both have damaged Earth probes, that are modified by alien machinery, both call Humans "biological units", both use a threat of their respective probes destroying all life on Earth.

 

[Extollager]

Nomad is such a combination of "near omniscience" and stupidity that this episode actually seemed a bit annoying to me, watching it again just now -- this, combined with the inadequacy of the prop; Nomad simply doesn't look like an unmanned probe that was (1) hit in space by a wandering meteor (?!), and (2) later fixed up and also messed up by a passing alien device for sterilizing soil samples, should look. Kirk seems to think that the same machine that had no trouble absorbing a proton torpedo can be guarded by a couple of redshirts with hand phasers.

I've been watching episodes of David Janssen's The Fugitive lately, and you get the sense that here was a series that really was aimed at grownups and so, in contrast, that Star Trek was, as a rule, intended to please youngsters, though, the show's makers hoped, some grownups too.

 

[BAYLOR]

This episodes has a few issues.