{"id":4342,"date":"2014-02-03T07:04:04","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T07:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/224-The-Ultimate-Computer"},"modified":"2014-02-03T07:04:04","modified_gmt":"2014-02-03T07:04:04","slug":"224-the-ultimate-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2014\/02\/03\/224-the-ultimate-computer\/","title":{"rendered":"2.24 &#8212; \u201cThe Ultimate Computer\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n        \n<p><strong>2.24 &#8212; \u201cThe Ultimate Computer\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Plot:<\/strong> The <em>Enterprise<\/em> is selected to test the new Mark 5 computer&#8211;an artificial intelligence capable of completely automating a starship and its functions, allowing the crew to be dispensed with. Kirk is honored, but not sure how to take his planned obsolescence. Dr. Richard Daystrom, the Mark 5\u2019s inventor, beams aboard to supervise the proceedings, which are to include war games against a squadron of four other Federation starships. There is a secret the crew don\u2019t know, however: Daystrom has imprinted the computer with his own neural patterns&#8211;and Daystrom is insane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Thoughts:<\/strong> I didn\u2019t write much down while I was watching this episode. I liked the dignity of William Marshall as Dr. Daystrom, and Dr. McCoy\u2019s dialogue at the top of Act I (\u201cThey wouldn&#8217;t have to replace me. I&#8217;d resign because everybody else aboard would be nothing but circuits and memory banks!\u201d). Nevertheless, I think this one has dated worse than other episodes. The paranoia about the advance of computer technology is hard to empathize with, seeing how afraid they are of tech that seems so primitive. We are, of course, already sending robot drones to other worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Would the Mark 5 technology have worked just fine if only Dr. Daystrom had chosen a different brain with which to imprint the computer? Is it really such a curse to peak so early in your career? \u00a0I feel sorry for Mark 5; it is playing the role of Frankenstein&#8217;s Monster in this episode. The writers missed an opportunity in not developing the machine&#8217;s personality. Daystrom is dismissed as deranged for talking of it as his child; but if Mark 5 is sentient that makes this episode something of a tragedy, like the superior episode &#8220;The Changeling.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m feeling a bit of Star Trek fatigue at the end of Season Two. Only two more episodes to power through, however, and we\u2019ll take a well deserved end-of-season break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>3 out of 5 bottle shows scripted by D.C. Fontana.<\/p>\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Ultimate_Computer\" class=\"embedly-card\" data-card-recommend=\"0\" data-card-width=\"100%\">http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Ultimate_Computer<\/a><script async src=\"\/\/cdn.embedly.com\/widgets\/platform.js\" charset=\"UTF-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n      ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>        2.24 &#8212; \u201cThe Ultimate Computer\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-4342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek-relive-the-majesty-tos-episode-threads","tag-kevin-black"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}