Synopsis: The Enterprise confronts a powerful robot weapon.
“The Doomsday Machine” has striking parallels to Moby Dick and like that classic tale, that which sets your imagination afire, or stirs your passions, can be your undoing.
In this episode however, it is not Captain James T. Kirk who is possessed by revenge, but Commodore Matt Decker, played by William Windom, who is obsessed by the need to stop the “planet killer,” which caused the death of the crew of the U.S.S. Constellation. Mr. Spock declares that the planet killer is a “robot weapon.” Kirk then muses that because of the sheer invincibility of this robot weapon, he likens it to a doomsday machine, a weapon so powerful that it could destroy both sides of a war if activated. Kirk further surmises that likely the creators of this device, from another galaxy, are therefore no longer in existence, and this planet killer has been roaming various galaxies in the universe until it came to ours.
That following your passions too far can lead to destruction, can be seen as letting the unconscious take over one’s conscious ego, instead of their being a sort of truce or détente between the two parts of our psyche to work together in an effort to become more whole. When Decker is found in auxiliary control of the Constellation, he is almost comatose, so engulfed by his unconscious. Dr. Leonard (Bones) McCoy gives him a hypo, in an effort to stabilize his condition. This does some good for a while, but he has gone to far down into the Underworld. It’s his suicidal actions that allow Spock to relieve him of command. Decker is entirely possessed by the “irrational” god of war, Ares (Hillman, 2016, p. 66).
Kirk on the other hand, as a hero figure, is linked to the strategy of Athene, who is the counselor of heroes (Hillman, 2016, p. 68) – a partner in their enterprises and will offer guidance as a way to get out of the situation in a reasoned, civilized way. Kirk, aboard the Constellation, tells Spock that unlike Decker, he has no intention to die.
At the close of the episode Kirk sees the poetic justice in creating a ship as a weapon, in this case the disabled U.S.S. Constellation, to kill the planet killer – a modern day version of the H-Bomb, which at the end of the twentieth century was Earth’s own doomsday machine.
Reference:
Hillman, J. (2016). Mythic figures. Spring Publications.
Original post created 11 February 2021
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