Episode Title: The Changeling
Air Date: 9/29/1967
Written by John
Meredyth Lucas
Directed by Marc
Daniels
Cast: William
Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H.
McCoy AKA “Bones” James
Doohan as Lieutenant Commander
Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”
George Takei as Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine
Chapel Eddie Paskey as
Lieutenant Leslie Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent Roger Holloway as Lieutenant Lemli Jeannie Malone as unnamed Yeoman Makee K. Blaisdell as Crewman Singh Barbara Gates as Unnamed Crewwoman
Meade Martin as Unnamed Crewman Arnold Lessing as unnamed Security
Guard Joe Paz as Security Guard Marc Daniels as Prof. Jackson Roykirk Vic Perrin as Nomad
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: none
My Spoiler filled
summary and review: The episode begins with the Enterprise heading toward the Malurian star system, but when they try to
raise them on the communication system there is no answer. Long-range sensors pick up that the planets' populations have been wiped out. This of course the
massive tragedy but also serious concerns the crew, for just two weeks ago they had defeated the planet killer. Almost
immediately the Enterprise is
attacked and they’re bombarded by incredible power. When Kirk tries to retaliate they find the
photon torpedo fired is simply absorbed by the attacking force.
The Enterprise is down to its last hit so in a desperate plea Kirk
sends a message through the communication system hoping that the universal
translator will be able to get it through accurately. It works! Their opponent responds to Kirk’s hail and identifies
itself as “Nomad.” The Nomad is very
small so Kirk volunteers to have it be beamed aboard which
Nomad accepts.
 |
| Nomad aboard! |
When Nomad arrives on the
transporter pad it demands to know the crew’s point of origin. The Captain tells the device that they are from
the United Federation of Planets to which Nomad responds with “non-sequitur.” This confirms to Spock that Nomad is artificial
intelligence and tends to identify problems like a computer normally would. They
take Nomad to look at some star charts and when looking at the charts it makes
references to Earth. Nomad declares
Earth is also its point of origin and identifies Captain Kirk as its creator. The crew uses Nomad’s belief that Kirk is its
creator to manipulate it to reveal more information about itself. Nomad explains that it is perfect and its
primary mission is to seek out imperfections and sterilize them. Nomad confesses to destroying all life on the
planets that the Enterprise was
trying to reach.
In the conference room Spock had presented
some research based on a statement Kirk made about a Nomad probe launched in
the early 21st century. That
probe’s creator was named Jackson Roykirk and the probe’s mission was to try to
discover alien life. Something happened
and changed it however given it much more power, a new mission, and faulty memory. Because of the similar name it thinks the
Captain is its creator.
 |
| Nomad finds Uhura's singing imperfect |
While Crewman Singh is watching
Nomad, who is placed in the auxiliary control room, he calls up to Uhura for
some assistance. While aiding the
Crewman, Uhura begins to sing. Nomad
finds Uhura’s singing to be annoying so it leaves auxiliary control and heads
to the bridge. When it arrives on the bridge it confronts the
Lieutenant about her singing. When Uhura
can’t explain why it is she sings to Nomad’s satisfaction it determines she is
an imperfect human and begins to sterilize her.
Scotty tries to interfere and is killed by the device. It appears his red shirt finally caught up
with him.
When Kirk arrives on the bridge he
is visibly angry with Nomad. This
actually comes clear to Nomad when it asks the Captain if the Scott Unit is
another one of his creations. When Kirk
confirms that he is then Nomad offers to fix him. This offer is a surprise considering that Mr.
Scott is dead. However after
studying some medical books provided by McCoy, it is able to revive Mr.
Scott. When asked to do the same for Lt.
Uhura, it claims it can’t because Uhura was not physically harmed only memories
erased and they can’t be put back. (I am
going to have more to say about that in the “Additional thoughts” section.)
 |
| Scotty's red shirt catches up with him! |
Captain Kirk decides it is best to
put Nomad in high-security brig with two armed guards. In order to learn the truth of the Nomad’s
nature, Mr. Spock decides to perform a mind meld. Despite the fact that this is a device not a
biological organism, Mr. Spock believes that his it has evolved into a
functional artificial intelligence and that will allow him to do the meld. The mind meld to the probe is successful but
difficult and Spock is almost absorbed by Nomad. However what Spock has learned was worth the
risk. It appears the original Nomad had
a collision with an alien probe called Tan-Ru.
Tan-Ru’s job was to sterilize soil samples. When the two probes collided they tried to
make repairs and ended up combining into one unit. The combined probe assumed the identity of
Nomad and its new purpose was to seek out life and sterilize the imperfections.
Nomad grows board with waiting so
it kills its guards and heads to the engineering. In engineering, it takes control of the ship
and augments the vessel to go to faster than safe or even possible speeds. Kirk arrives and orders it to back off. When Nomad defends its actions by saying only
the biological organisms would die and that the ship would be fine. Kirk lets
it know that its creator is a human being.
This information shocks Nomad and it begins to reassess things.
 |
| machine mind meld |
Nomad escapes confinement again
kills a couple more guards. It starts
to research all it can on Captain Kirk.
Kirk has now had enough. Nomad
may be the most powerful artificial intelligence ever accidentally created but
it was going have to match wits with Captain Kirk the Bane of all Artificial
Intelligence. In the space of a few
minutes Kirk is able to show Nomad its imperfections and convinces it commit suicide. While Nomad is doing its suicide countdown Kirk
and Spock rush the dangerous entity to the transporter room and send into space
just like they did Jack the Ripper.
In the end Spock warns that they
may have lost an opportunity to learn from the probe. Kirk mocks that idea by claiming that he was
the one who truly lost for the thing thought it was his offspring so he could
have had a son. Given Nomad’s skills
with medicine, seeing how well it fixed Scotty, he could’ve had a son grow up to
become a doctor.
Additional thoughts:
Okay let’s talk about what happened to Lt. Uhura. I am calling bull****. If what Nomad did to her is taken at face
value that he essentially killed her and we now have a completely new
person. To be fair the episode
mentioned she lost her “knowledge” not all her memories and the characters
simply talk of retraining her but how do you separate memory from
knowledge?
So here’s what I think happened to
Lt. Uhura. I don’t take Nomad’s
statements at face value. It can’t even
keep its own origin story straight and thought Captain Kirk was its creator. I think what happened to the Lieutenant was
she lost access to her memory. However
the memory was recoverable with simple triggers. Once exposed to a trigger a memory
reemerged. This is why she went from
knowing nothing to completing college level material at the end of the episode, and according to Dr.
McCoy, will be back on the job by the end of the week. Some evidence of this can be seen when Uhura
was being tutored by Nurse Chapel. All
of a sudden Uhura went back and forth from English and Swahili. Now as far as I know Nurse Chapel does not
know Swahili. This is evidence of
Uhura’s natural knowledge returning to her. Still it was a bad week to come back from vacation.
 |
| Last I checked Chapel doesn't know Swahili |
Nomad was some piece of work. In the end it was some old space junk that
mutated into a monster. It committed
genocide on several planets and almost destroyed the Enterprise. I think we
humans need to be more careful with what junk we throughout into space. We don’t need it coming back to us and sending
our starships flying through space with unheard of speeds. I thought the Enterprise held up quite well against it. At one point Mr. Spock said energy Nomad was
omitting was equal to 90 photon torpedoes and the only caused the shields the
buckle.
 |
| Please don't kill me again |
When I was in college in the early
2000s, my history professor compared the historical figure Pompey the Great to
Nomad for his actions in the Middle East prior to forming the First Triumvirate with Caesar and Crassus.
 |
| That look Kirk gets when it is time to destroy artificial intelligence |
These have been a rough couple
weeks for the United Federation of Planets.
Two weeks ago The Doomsday Machine shows up and wipes out entire solar
systems. Now a nasty bit of space junk
comes back and destroys entire planetary populations. The 23rd century is a very
dangerous place.
FINAL GRADE 3 of 5
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