The Ultimate Computer (2)

DVD, Star Trek S2 (The Ultimate Computer) (2)

Continuing the trend for the tail-end of Season 2 to feature lesser episodes compared to the majority of a pretty successful year's run (a strange development considering Season 1 ended on a particularly strong selection, including some of its best episodes!), we have this bottle episode which is nonetheless important for introducing the character of Dr. Richard Daystrom, the genius behind 23rd Century starship computing (Spock says the basic designs of their computers are his), a man on the same scale as Zefram Cochrane (it's called a revolution as great as warp drive in the episode), for his importance to future technology (and perhaps Emory Erickson for his invention of the Transporter over a century earlier). Daystrom is one of those names (much like Cochrane), that resonates into the future, referenced in most other Trek series', with his Daystrom Institute garnering numerous mentions (though we didn't actually see it until 'Picard'), so you'd think this would be an episode to anticipate! In that case it's surprising how little I was engaged by this one because I have the impression I'm going to like it, then it falls somewhat flat. Not for lack of trying, either, as it deals with a theme that is ever more pertinent as time passes: the mechanisation of society to the detriment of workers in manual labour roles. Leaving aside the technological issues of the limitations of 'TOS' production, one reason the addition of drones from 'Star Wars' into the 23rd Century landscape (which 'DSC' so worryingly introduced), feels wrong, is because we get the sense future humanity has learned the importance of human usage - they no doubt have the tech to be able to have machines perform most tasks, but they choose to keep the human hand and brain in.

This is what ultimately messed up the ultimate computer, a human brain that wasn't entirely sane, the price for genius perhaps, but the issue at hand is the replacement of even key personnel as a Captain to make decisions or any other role that would normally be essential. This is the horror of robotics to us, that the thinking mind could be replaced by the cold intelligence of order, all compassion removed. Over the years we've seen this idea become more complex as both robotic and holographic life made by humans took on the characteristics of their makers: sentience. Is M-5 sentient? Only in the sense that it knows it must survive as that is the programming it was given. Based on Dr. Daystrom's mind it also has his flaws, that of a bitterness towards those who doubted him and a need to succeed at all costs. Daystrom himself is hardly bothered by the malfunctions of his pride and joy - though we see he is regretful of the damage to property when the M-5 causes the Enterprise to destroy an unmanned, automated ore freighter, but as the stakes rise and real people's lives are lost in battle, while he is upset, you don't know if it's more because his theories have been proved wrong and his life's work isn't getting the chance he wanted for it, to the point where he eventually speaks of it as if it's his child, defending it and losing his cool, regardless of the loss of life, intent on the rightness of his creation in direct proportion to the opposition that grows against it.

In that respect it's quite a sad story, this once great scientist who believes he's created the next stage of computing, but which fails to be kept under control so spectacularly. It does make you wonder if the machine could have been modified so that it was able to automate the many tasks, while at the same time was always able to be overridden. It may be that it did actually form the basis of future starship computing as by the 24th Century the computer is even more integral to the ship, so advancement must have occurred. At the same time it would seem most likely that this later work of Daystrom would have been buried because I doubt many would wish to serve on a starship that used technology which had caused so much devastation in its development (the 'Voyager' episode 'Nothing Human' comes to mind which explored the idea of medical advancements arrived at by inhuman experiments by a Cardassian scientist, a story inspired by Nazi experimentation on humans). While the episode sets up these big themes it somehow fails to carry them off in the most dramatic and engaging fashion. The fault is partly that it is a purely ship-bound story, not that a stage play mentality is a bad thing, it's just that it's not written to be compelling enough to carry the drama. You can see exactly what's coming, it's like a tanker's turning circle and takes its time to get where it's going, to the extent that it felt like a 'Picard' episode - not a lot happening, and what there is doesn't excite or stir.

The argument of computer logic versus human emotion would be the ideal examination of Spock and McCoy, and by extension, the combination of their attitudes that makes up Kirk, and while this may have been the intention (Spock is very much for the M-5, while McCoy is biased against it), nothing really comes of it. There are hints of how the other crewmembers feel (we're down to a skeleton crew of twenty as M-5 has so much control of the ship), most notably Scotty only cooperating with the integration into the ship's systems on the direct orders of his Captain, and Chekov almost seems mesmerised by the damage it wreaks on the other ships. But other than the two points of view specifically shown by Spock and McCoy there's nothing to get a hold on. There's some good self-searching from Kirk, quoting poetry and recalling the romanticism of a life at sea which made me think of that Holodeck scene on the HMS Enterprize where Picard eulogises the way of life in 'Generations,' but somehow the drama isn't there most of the time. It's impressive to see four starships in one shot, though less so when you can tell they're just arranged that way to multiply the image, it's not like we see them passing each other or anything like that, so the visuals, in what is the closest to a fleet battle 'TOS' ever had, can only take you out of it.

Commodore Wesley was quite a good character (played by Barry Russo who was also Lt. Commander Giotto in 'The Devil In The Dark,' so he got a good promotion there!), and I'm glad Jim Kirk knew him, as to me it seemed like all he wanted was revenge on the Enterprise for the deaths of so many crewmembers in the 'training exercise,' but that's the moment that really did hit home: Kirk knew how he thought and that he wouldn't fire on them if the shields were down - it could have been a ruse, but he still wouldn't take that chance and because of that they're saved. It was pretty effective to show Wesley's ship only via Viewscreen, with that high-backed Captain's Chair denoting a different Bridge, plus it added (or should have), to the tension by never leaving the Enterprise. Yet it doesn't, the tension is dissipated, there isn't that close feeling of 'Balance of Terror,' the most similar experience the ship went through that I can remember. Darkened, empty corridors should have been a great source of an oppressive atmosphere as M-5 closes off sections it deems unnecessary since most of the crew have disembarked to a space station (which goes unnamed), and the horror as M-5 vaporises Ensign Harper (Sean Morgan also had another role on the series: Lieutenant O'Neil in 'The Return of The Archons,' so he had a demotion!), who tried to disengage it, should have been more palpable. Perhaps there's too much repetition in scenes, Kirk expresses scepticism, Daystrom exudes smug confidence, Spock supports the idea and McCoy hates the idea. That's about all there is to it.

I actually love seeing the same class of station as K7 from 'The Trouble With Tribbles,' I just wish it had been given a name, but then with M-5, perhaps they felt calling it something like J4 might confuse the issue in the audience's minds? It's obviously just a reuse of footage from a previous episode, which isn't a problem because it gives continuity and coherence to the series' technology, but then we get a little too much reuse and it starts to feel cheap: the ore freighter Woden is the Botany Bay from 'Space Seed' and the listing Constitution-class starship that has been damaged by M-5 is from 'The Doomsday Machine' - it's not that it was wrong to reuse such things, just that it adds more impression of a flawed, unfinished episode. No, not unfinished, just undeveloped, not taken as far as it needed to go. There's also a bit of a big problem in the fact that M-5 is supposed to be a move towards automation, and yet the Woden shows this automation already in action! Granted, an ore freighter is going to be relatively simplistic in its operation than a starship - loading on cargo, heading from A to B, unloading cargo. But it didn't quite click with the story's internal logic and may have been best avoided. But then there'd be the problem of requiring a target to 'threaten' M-5, which hadn't yet escalated to human deaths so it was a difficult situation to write well. (They do throw in a typical Trek list of characters to put Daystrom's qualities in context, with a familiar name, Einstein, followed by a 'future' invention, Kazanga, then topping it off with a Vulcan name, Sitar, which was supposed to be Sakar, but was apparently mispronounced by Shatner!).

Technology taking on a life of its own and going haywire is a standard sci-fi trope going back to 'Frankenstein' and there have been plenty of examples of the sub-genre in Trek over the years ('Civil Defence' on 'DS9' always stands out to me), and I did like Kirk's vulnerability, questioning his own motivations and whether they're honourable or self-serving, does he resent progress or is it really progress at all? The idea of progress is such a meaty topic to delve into, so many things in modern life are considered progress when they're really only change, but it's so easy to get caught up in something looking shinier and consider it to have progressed, when it's really only that it's new to the time it's in. A perfect example is Trek itself, the modern versions (the Kurtzman era we can call it), features so much more effects work, larger sets and a bigger budget, and yet it has so far failed to capture my imagination in any way, but it's thought to have made progress because of the superficial advances that have come to TV production through standing upon the developments of the past. 'TOS' was made so many years ago and yet the characters and storytelling remain appealing, leaving aside the aesthetics or effects, so in many ways Trek has regressed, taking on the zeitgeist of modern tropes to the detriment of what made Trek work so well in the past.

This episode isn't the best one to use in argument for how good Trek used to be, let's be honest! It is one of those stories that turns into Kirk talking the computer down, which had already been done at least once this season, so they were beginning to rely too heavily on ideas used before - it even felt like Kirk should have just jumped straight into it as he's had so much practice, and using Daystrom's own beliefs in murder as being contrary to the laws of man and God to combat the same flaws in its mental personality was a little too easy. What if it had decided to reject Daystrom's position? Daystrom himself doesn't have the ability to logic it to destruction, but then he's going easy on it because he doesn't want it destroyed, he still sees it's problems as kinks to work out of the system, even with so much death! It would have been nice in future Trek to hear Daystrom made a full recovery and was responsible for other advancements in computing, but his fate remains unknown, sadly, the impression being that he burnt his genius out by being so successful early on in life - we almost had a year to nail Trek's time period to: he's said to have done his pioneering work when he was twenty-four, and that was twenty-five years ago, but when M-5 is about to give us his date of birth he cuts it off! Foiled again… (until 'Star Trek II,' anyway).

James Doohan gets to expand his contribution again (having only just done the voice of Sargon in 'Return To Tomorrow'), this time as the voice of M-5 (Trek likes to use male voices for bad computers, perhaps because it sounds more authoritative, assertive, even authoritarian - see 'Dreadnought' on 'Voyager' for example), in preparation for the many voice roles he played on 'The Animated Series.' It's just a shame Scotty wasn't more integral to the episode (though quite surreal to hear the Engineer say a line, then immediately after, M-5 speaks - I could instantly tell it was him!). There's a rare example of more than one person in a Jefferies Tube at the same time (they used to crawl around together plenty of times in later Treks, but on 'TOS' the space was so small it was usually only one at a time), when Spock and Scotty try to shut M-5 down, while Kirk holds back the desperate Daystrom. He needn't have, I'm sure Spock was much more capable of holding off the man and would simply have given him a nerve pinch, just as he does later when the man loses it. As you would expect, Spock knows all about the M-5 computer (it's probably a hobby of his to keep up to date on tech manuals as much as Scotty does), while the previous four versions had problems. I don't think I ever actually heard the word Multitronics once, which I was expecting.

Kirk's hackles being up and having an undefined, but strong instinct of danger, could have had more play, though I did enjoy the scenes between him and McCoy - the Doctor even follows one of his predecessors in bringing a drink to the Captain's cabin to cheer him up when he's at his lowest point, just as Dr. Boyce famously did for his Captain, Pike in 'The Cage.' Kirk admits to never having felt at odds with the ship before, and we get a visualisation of this with a bulky new control pad attached to the Captain's Chair as an interface to M-5, which looks very out of place and uncomfortable. Kirk has rhapsodised the Enterprise in the past so it does bring home the difference this time, though he concedes that it could just be his resistance to change - he does actually suggest he could do a lot of other things and it would be fun to speculate on what he might have done if he had been replaced as Captain of a starship. It gave me the impression he'd find something outside the service, perhaps even join the merchant marines, as we hear one crewmember who's discussed for a Landing Party (which never goes ahead), served in that organisation, proving there are other spacefaring powers out there and the ECS (Earth Cargo Service), as seen in 'Enterprise' may well still be in operation, who knows?

It's good to hear some technobabble related to common speak in later Trek, such as engrams, as it's said that human engrams were impressed on circuits for M-5 to be able to think like a human brain. What's more interesting as a concept is McCoy's own engrams being suggested for the same, quite entertaining coming from Spock - a computer that is annoyed with technology! M-5 uses a forcefield around itself to prevent any tampering from the puny humans (carbon units infesting USS Enterprise?), though once it had given up control by destroying itself I wasn't sure what the issue was with the comm system, other than dramatic licence - you'd expect that once its control was removed it would have been possible to contact the approaching Wesley before he fired on them, though they do mention communications doesn't work. And I was unsure about the issue of the punishment for murder - Kirk assumes that M-5 would believe murder is punishable by death, and he's right, but does that mean he agrees with it? The only offence requiring the death penalty, as we heard in 'The Menagerie,' was to visit Talos IV (since entirely ignored when they did exactly that in 'DSC,' either preferring not to address the issue, uncharacteristically for Trek, or not even knowing about it, just as likely!), so perhaps Kirk was playing on Daystrom's beliefs? It does seem hard to accept the 23rd Century Federation would condone execution…

Daystrom's argument for the reason for M-5's necessity is that space is too dangerous for people, quite in opposition to Captain Archer's speech that they could have sent probes out, but they preferred to see for themselves. I wonder if Daystrom had heard of the events surrounding Control in Season 2 of 'DSC' (maybe he doesn't like Netflix), because artificial intelligence doesn't seem very reliable - it's a shame Kirk was too young to talk it down in those days as that would have saved us wading through one of the worst seasons of Trek (only beaten by Season 1 of the same series - progress!). There have been plenty of examples from other civilisations that had been turned on by their creations (The Old Ones in 'What Are Little Girls Made Of?'; the robots from 'Prototype' to name but two). 'Picard' tried to make an effort towards the issue, but was lamentably confused and messy. I can't say this episode was the same, it's more that it was spare and a bit empty, much like the ship in which it took place and the season continues to wind down to a stop.

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