Podcast Enterprise: S2S24 The Ultimate Computer

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: When this episode begins, you find that the USS Enterprise has been summoned to a space station and Kirk is very confused about this because his crew has most of his crew has been offloaded onto the space station into the security holding area and he has no idea what’s going on. But once there, he is told by Commodore Bob Wesley of the USS Lexington that the great honor has been conferred on the Enterprise. A computer is going to be installed on the Enterprise that will take over most of what the crew does. The ship won’t require a crew after this. This is of course very annoying for kirk because first of all it he wasn’t told about this and secondly, he is very suspicious of this computer Now this computer has been built by a genius called Dr Richard Daystrom. He has made a lot of revolutionary technologies that are used in almost all the starships.

They bring about this computer, the M5, they install it in engineering. Dr. Daystrom is a very smug, confident character who seems to treat this computer as a child. And it is also something that bothers Kirk because he feels that something is going wrong. Part of it has to do with the fact that he might lose his job to this computer. And part of it is something else that he cannot explain. Quickly his fears are confirmed when this computer completely takes over the Enterprise. The first mission that they have, a trial mission is where they have to go to planet Alpha Carinae II. The computer uses its recommendations to recommend a landing party that does not include Kirk because Kirk is apparently non essential personnel. That bothers him. After that, there is a fake drill that wants to check the computer’s capabilities in a fight or in a battle, which it does admirably and passes the test. And Kirk is still unhappy about this because he feels that the computer has way too much power.

It cannot be disengaged. And eventually what happens is the computer manages to take over the Enterprise as these things do. It does not respond to anybody’s commands. It has overridden Kirk’s authority. It destroys a robot mining ship just like that, because it felt like it. It won’t allow anybody to deactivate it because it’s got some measures of self-preservation built in. Then, Kirk also discovers through Spock that this computer is not behaving as a computer should. It’s behaving very erratically and illogically. And then They find that Dr. Daystrom, who’s slightly unbalanced in the head, has impressed his engrams onto the computer, making it behave very oddly. By the time the second mock drill comes along, this M5 is out of control.

It wants to destroy everything in its path. Kirk has to figure out a way to make it stop it. But before he can do that, it has already attacked ships. It has killed people. And finally, what we see is Kirk using a bit of ingenuity. to talk his way into deactivating the computer.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

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Acknowledgements

1. Intro music: Music from anchor.fm
2. Shotcut for editing the podcast
3. References: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/