The Doomsday Machine love

Anyone in the UK want to find out if there's anything in the Blish papers?

http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb161-dep.blish1-441

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/modern/blish/blish.html

 

The Domesday Machine is definitely one of my favorite episodes- I remember seeing the Constellation all torn up and my jaw dropping. That was the first time I ever a Starfleet vessel with visible damage. Every other time it was just talked about, but nary a scorch mark on the paint job. Here we had holes ripped through the hull, warp engines torn apart and the interior trashed. The ship was more real world to me than any perfect SFX miniature shot with perfect lighting and camera angles.
The acting was superb- as mentioned above Windom nailed his role. You could see how powerful and inspirational he must have been under all the trauma. The way he commanded the Enterprise, both with a firm grip and a casual nature (the absent minded playing with those computer squares as he considered his next move).
I do prefer the ST-R version with the upgraded Constellation wreckage (having an asteroid bounce and split against it's hull during an establishing shot), the dynamic ship battle with the DDM and the reworked Shuttle stealing scene where Decker lifts off before waiting for the turntable to finish rotating him to flight position, which remanded me of a dramatic helicopter escape.
My only disappointment is the design of the actual weapon itself. It does not even look like a machine, alien or otherwise. It does have a nice overall shape and texture, but it looks like somebody was in a hurry and had to make it during a lunch hour...

 

For a 9-year old somewhat hyperactive kid, the occasion of watching his first his first episode of Star Trek in local UHF syndication after getting home from 3rd Grade classes, "The Doomsday Machine" was a life changing event for me.

I remember being glued to the old B&W TV set. I always loved to go out and play after school, so why I didn't that day remains a mystery. Was it raining? Snowing?

As I stated earlier in this thread, this episode remains my favorite episode of any show ever. Is it because the episode was so good, or because of the impact it had on my life? I wish I knew.

 

Visually speaking, the amount of damage to the Constellation--both the original and reimagined versions--has always bothered me.

Regarding the original model, there are areas of the saucer that obviously aren't habitable, at least not without space suits. Yet Spock reports to Kirk that only the bridge is uninhabitable--a line necessitated to explain Decker being in Auxiliary Control instead of being on his bridge (obviously to avoid the need to redress the bridge set, costing valuable production time). Clearly, the SFX team preparing the model didn't read the script, otherwise they would have damaged the bridge section of the model, and maybe downplayed some of the other damage.

As for the reimagined version, I always felt the damage was overplayed--the SFX team were like kids in the candy store, not knowing when to stop. The damage to the saucer was most troublesome to me , but I suppose its validity depends on when one thinks Decker decided to beam down his crew.

If he beamed them down before that damage was done, that maybe makes sense--Decker used the Constellation to try to protect the crew on the planet, and the ship took a great pounding. But if he beamed them down afterwards, wouldn't there be some dead crew members still on the ship?

And though many disagree, I think the original planet killer is more visually striking and believable than the reimagined version, which looks especially cartoonish on the interior.

 

I'm with you on that. I've seen folks point out positions of tape and what not, but the original does look like something roughly hewn from a larger body. Someone really needs to find some glass blowers to do the craft properly.

It had enough angles that this looks possible
http://www.photomodeler.com/index.html
http://www.3ders.org/articles/20130...lgorithm-turns-2d-photos-into-a-3d-model.html

 

Pretty much all of the "starship combat" or "Enterprise setting" episodes were great, The Corbomite Maneuver, Balance of Terror etc, but the sheer scale of the "planet killer" and the idea of such a device in and of itself sells this episode.

Not to mention some great guest star acting by Windom...such a memorable episode.