From another thread:
Did I just hear Doomsday Machine called a horrid episode?
Which is only my subjective but nonetheless considered opinion. Windom's performance as Commodore Decker isn't fully convincing: He doesn't come across as a traumatized man bent on amending his wrongs, say when he airily dismisses Spock's request that he vacate the captain's chair on the Enterprise toward the endgame of the drama. Decker's sudden assumption of command itself can be excused on artistic license grounds although high brass in actual modern navies would almost never do such a thing: Deferring to the senior officer on board who knows the ship and crew usually makes more sense. Worse is that Decker's suicide is rendered pointless by the later successful use of the empty Constellation to destroy the machine, a small item which evades Kirk and Spock during their banter after the event.
I tend to view Star Trek from a sociological perspective, as a morality play for the Cold War era. The idea of the doomsday machine has ample motivation amid the hair trigger of launch on warning systems for nuclear weapons that no belligerent really wants to use. Fine. Yet I feel Star Trek shone brighter in episodes where the human element was explored, for instance “The Paradise Syndrome.” The latter features Kirk’s lengthy joyful interlude outside his captain’s role, his lapse in dealing with the rivalry created by his new marriage, and acknowledges through Salish that “primitive” folks are quite capable of figuring out who is or isn’t a deity.
Well my first response was..
But I've really got a bit more open mind than that..I just have to locate it..
