TOS - 2.08 - The Changeling

It seems like a case of déjà vu when the Enterprise encounters a mysterious and immensely powerful machine that is wiping out all life that it encounters since “The Changeling” comes only a few episodes after “The Doomsday Machine” in which the Enterprise encounters a mysterious and immensely powerful device that is destroying all planets that it encounters. Much as I enjoyed “The Doomsday Machine”, I wasn’t sure that I wanted a rerun quite so soon. Fortunately, “The Changeling” does have a different emphasis to the earlier episode. The eponymous Doomsday Machine was just a device in every sense of the word, an unexplained threat just serving as the catalyst for conflict between Kirk and Commodore Decker. This time, the episode is very much about the device which is essentially the principal guest character.

I was aware of the plot of this episode from the fact that it provided the basis for Star Trek: The Motion Picture in which it is revealed at the climax that the mysterious V’Ger that is threatening the galaxy is actually a Voyager space probe that was launched from Earth hundreds of years previously but has been changed by encounter with aliens. Given this link, I was actually surprised how early it was that “The Changeling” revealed that the device encountered by Kirk was Nomad, a 21st Century probe that had been thought destroyed but had become changed through an encounter with a powerful alien probe, rather than leaving this as surprise twist. However, this is to the benefit of the episode since it can spend time exploring the implications of Nomad’s creation, which is actually a very clever idea given that it is not actually malevolent and is only intent on destroying all human life due to a corrupted conflation of its own programming (to seek out new life) with that of the alien probe that it encountered (sterilising soil).

“The Changeling” is another bottle show, with all of the action taking place on board the Enterprise with Kirk bringing Nomad on board. This means that so much of the episode is dependent upon the execution of Nomad itself. Fortunately, this is very successful – it is well designed and the effect of it floating around the ship is entirely convincing when it could so easily have been comical. Vic Perrin also gives Nomad a voice that manages to be convincingly robotic without being boring. This all makes Nomad sufficiently threatening, enhanced by its throbbing and menacing theme. There is actually great tension in the episode since the Enterprise has only survived destruction since Nomad has mistaken Kirk for its creator, a human scientist called Jackson Roykirk, and we are expecting it to find this out at any moment. The stakes are also raised when Kirk and Spock have realised that they have given Nomad the directions to Earth (which it remembers as its place of origin) and that is keen to return there in order to sterilise it of its problematic biological infection…

Whilst the episode has an interesting threat that is well executed, the script of the “The Changeling” unfortunately struggles to find much actual story and instead is reduced to filling time with old chestnuts with Scotty actually being killed before being “repaired” by Nomad in a manner that is reminiscent of what happened to McCoy in “Shore Leave” (it’s fortunate her the Nomad didn’t chose to completely disintegrate Scotty as he does with the four security guards later on). There is also a bizarre subplot in which Nomad becomes interested in Uhura’s singing (which she conveniently does over the intercom) and decides that this is illogical behaviour and so wipes her mind completely. This is not something that Nomad can reverse and so McCoy must re-educate her from scratch! This is addressed only through one interminable scene of Chapel teaching Uhura to read, but the plan is presumably successful since I can’t imagine that she will have any adverse effects in future episodes (with her memory and personality also restored somehow). Whilst it is nice that the script gives Nichelle Nichols something to do other than sit at the communications console, it is a shame that this subplot is so daft.

Fortunately, the episode does have a satisfying resolution. Whilst it is another example of Kirk talking a machine into destroying itself (as per “The Return Of The Archons”), it is clever that his argument hinges on him revealing that he is not Jackson Roykirk and therefore Nomad is not perfect as it claims to be. We also get a tag scene that manages to be amusing rather than completely tone deaf as Spock congratulates Kirk on his logic, and the captain refers to a Nomad as a promising son.

Planetary Gazetteer

The Malurian System: A star system of four planets with a population of four billion people who are wiped out by Nomad.

General Observations

• A single Stardate is given in the episode – 3541.9.
• Walter Koenig does not appear as Chekov. Majel Barrett makes her second appearance of the series as Christine Chapel. We also briefly meet Lt Singh (who works in Engineering) and a security officer called Lt Carlisle.
• Earth’s star is referred to as Sol by both Kirk and Nomad.
• We get another “He’s dead, Jim” from McCoy, this time referring to Scotty.
• Spock uses a Vulcan mind meld to understand Nomad (last used in “Devil In The Dark”), but it is still not named as such. This is a convenient way to explain Nomad’s background, but it does seem somewhat unlikely that a mind meld would work on a computer!
• Nomad’s weapons travel at Warp 15 and the device later increases the efficiency of the Enterprise’s engines so that it can reach Warp 11 – this beyond what the structure of the Starship can withstand. This indicates that the warp scale was still being developed by the show since, by the time of Voyager (and the episode “Threshold” in particular), no ship can reach Warp 10 since this corresponds to infinite speed.  
• One nice touch about Uhura’s mind wipe is that she is learning English whilst defaulting to Swahili which had been established as her first language in “The Man Trap”. She sings is “Beyond Antares” which was the song that she sang in “The Conscience Of The King”
• Nomad seems to have an inherent knowledge of which Enterprise crew members are regulars and which are disposable Red Shirts – as well as not disintegrating Scotty, it only knocks Chapel unconscious when she tries to stop it accessing Kirk’s medical records – and this occurs shortly after it has had no problem with zapping the security guards into oblivion.