If you go back and watch the original 1966 “Star Trek” series, you may be struck by how little ship-to-ship space action there is. Oh sure, there was plenty of action on the skirmish level. William Shatner got to demonstrate plenty of his stage combat prowess during Captain Kirk’s dramatic fistfights with random aliens like the Gorn, with ancient Klingon leaders, and even with Spock (Leonard Nimoy).
When it came to mid-space ship-to-ship battles, though, “Star Trek” was surprisingly trim. The special effects budget for the show wasn’t big enough to allow for extensive starship exteriors, so many of the space battles were seen from the bridge of the USS Enterprise. Each one tended to reuse the same FX shot of phasers firing. Even when “Star Trek” finally started including full-bore space battles — notably with the release of 1982’s “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” — the ships were still slow-moving and cautious, like submarines in space. Actual fast-paced space battles didn’t become a regular feature of “Star Trek” on TV until “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”
The irony here is that 1990s-era “Star Trek” tended to focus more on peace efforts and diplomacy, while also featuring more action and violence than the relatively militant original series. The original Enterprise crew always stuck me as being eternally battle-ready. The same could not be said of Captain Picard on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” even though he had some impressive battles of his own.
But that’s not to say that the original series didn’t have its moments. There were a few tense standoffs and weapons-hot conflagrations throughout the series, and we here at /Film have assembled the show’s most impressive.
5. Journey to Babel
In “Journey to Babel,” the USS Enterprise is hosting numerous alien diplomats as they trek to a planet called Babel to discuss the potential membership of Cordian into the Federation. Although “Star Trek” has long held diplomacy to be a vital skill in a high-tech peaceful utopia, diplomats themselves are often depicted as annoying nuisances. Of course, “Journey to Babel” reveals that some of the ambassadors are not who they seem, and there is a murderous conspiracy afoot. And, to make matters worse, Spock’s father Sarek (Mark Lenard) will need a blood transfusion. And then Kirk is stabbed. What a Monday!
In the back half of the episode, the Enterprise also comes under attack from a mysterious, fast-moving unidentified vessel. The vessel spins and swerves through space, seemingly able to outmaneuver the Enterprise. Any time the tactical officer attempts to fire weapons, it misses. Although the Enterprise can fly many times the speed of light, it’s not a zippy craft that can bank around corners very well. On “Star Trek,” physics is still a thing.
Unable to lock on weapons while the enemy vessel is speeding around, Kirk orders that all the power on the ship be temporarily shut down, making it appear that the Enterprise has been damaged. The attacker, thinking it has won, finally slows down enough to approach the Enterprise. Kirk then powers everything back up and hits the ship with its phasers. Smart tactics, captain. It’s eventually revealed that all of the discord on the Enterprise, as well as the mid-space attack, was orchestrated by the mercantile species the Orions. Once the Orions are bested in battle, though, those boring diplomatic talks can continue as scheduled.
4. The Tholian Web
In “The Tholian Web,” the USS Enterprise is called out to investigate the derelict USS Defiant, which lies adrift in distant space. The Enterprise crew finds that the ship is slowing phasing between dimensions, and that all the people on board killed each other. Unfortunately, while investigating the Defiant, Kirk is interdimensionally “hooked” and similarly falls out of phase with the universe. He fades in and out of reality at regular intervals, and Spock and co. will have to work overtime to bring him back. Spock calculates that they’ll need to wait about two hours before Kirk fades back in again.
To ratchet up the tension, however, a Tholian ship arrives, arguing that the Enterprise is trespassing in their territory. Tholians are a territorial species and seem to be crystalline in nature. There is a brief intership skirmish, leaving the Enterprise adrift. It seems, though, that powerless ships are perfect for the Tholians’ main weapon, and two Tholian vessels begin spinning a massive, lattice-like web around the Enterprise, hoping to cage it. Luckily, it takes a long time for a Tholian web to be spun, so the Enterprise has some time to think out how they might escape.
The Tholian web is one of the coolest weapons in “Star Trek,” providing the series with one of its most popular visuals. Tholians didn’t play a huge role in “Star Trek,” so for decades fans were only able to speculate about the nature and power of a Tholian web. But when the Tholians finally returned on an episode of “Star Trek: Enterprise,” that show’s modern CGI revealed that Tholians are actually large, scorpion-like beings, and that their web is a ten-sided polyhedronal pocket.
3. The Doomsday Machine
“The Doomsday Machine” features a massive, Lovecraftian vessel that is essentially “Star Trek’s” answer to Galactus from Marvel Comics. The titular machine is a rat-tail-shaped craft, about two full miles long, that drifts across the heavens, swallowing entire planets as a source of fuel. Captain Kirk first hears about the planet killer from Commodore Decker (William Windom), the commanding officer of the USS Constellation. He has barely survived an encounter with the machine, causing his mind to snap. He instantly transforms into Captain Ahab and wants to usurp the Enterprise to have another shot at killing the monster.
Kirk spends a portion of the episode on the damaged Constellation, looking on helplessly as Decker uses the Enterprise to attack the Doomsday Machine. This thing is so huge and powerful, however, that piddling little phasers can only serve as a mild distraction. Decker is eventually wrenched from the captain’s chair, and rushes to a shuttlecraft and takes it into space. He explodes it inside the beast. The beast isn’t hurt.
The Doomsday Machine is described in such overwhelming terms, one gets the impression that it cannot really be harmed. Its origins are also a mystery, leaving the Enterprise on a mission of destruction. They have to blow this thing up, or else it will consume more planets, causing untold billions of deaths. Luckily, Kirk finds that he can blow up the Constellation inside its mouth and perhaps permanently disable it. The episode features a last-minute escape — Kirk has to pilot the Constellation manually only to be beamed out an instant before it explodes — and one of the tensest battles in “Star Trek” history.
2. The Ultimate Computer
“The Ultimate Computer” features one of the biggest celebrities within the “Star Trek” universe, one Dr. Richard Daystrom (William Marshall), one of the future’s most brilliant computer scientists. Dr. Daystrom will eventually have institutes and stations named after him, and everyone is in awe of his intelligence. His latest idea, however, is looked on with skepticism by Kirk and his crew. Daystrom wants to equip the Enterprise with a fast-thinking A.I. that can run the ship without any human aid. The computer, called the M-5, almost immediately proves that Kirk is no longer needed as the Enterprise’s commander, as it is able to outflank other starships in a combat simulation and learns how to use energy more efficiently.
Perhaps predictably, however, the M-5’s brain goes haywire, and it starts attacking other vessels without warning. It attacks a cargo vessel, rewires itself so it cannot be taken offline, and goes after some other Starfleet vessels in seeming anger. Dr. Daystrom reveals that the M-5 A.I. was mapped from his own brain engrams, and he unwittingly transferred his own personal career disappointments into the computer. Although unemotional, the M-5 was essentially being trained to be depressed and violent. It’s a good, classic sci-fi twist.
As Kirk has had to do many times throughout “Star Trek” (see also: “The Changeling,” “I, Mudd,” “Return of the Archons”), he must convince the M-5, with logic, that it is failing in its mission and has to shut itself down. The M-5, which had been instructed to be a peacekeeping device, unwittingly attacked others and caused a lot of death. Yes, it understands that it has to take itself offline. It’s quite a climax, and weirdly depressing when you think about it.
1. Balance of Terror
One of the best battles in “Star Trek,” as well as one of the show’s best episodes, came early in the series with the broadcast of “Balance of Terror,” better known to neophytes as “the Romulan episode.” In it, the Enterprise investigates the mysterious destruction of Federation outposts near the Romulan neutral zone. A century earlier, Earth and the Romulans were engaged in a war that left them separated and alienated. Thanks to communications at the time, no human ever saw what a Romulan even looked like.
During the Enterprise’s investigation, they run afoul of a Romulan vessel that is equipped with a mysterious new widget called a cloaking device. The ship can not only appear invisible to sensors, but also turn invisible in space. The two vessels become locked in battle, and the bulk of the episode involves Kirk and the Romulan commander (Mark Lenard) trying to outwit one another, while also contemplating the dark consequences of another all-out war.
The tactics on display in “Balance of Terror” are amazing. The Enterprise is quicker and more maneuverable than the Romulan ship, but the Romulan weapons are more powerful. In order to fire them, however, the vessel must de-cloak, leaving it vulnerable. Just like in “Wrath of Khan,” the fight is more like slow-moving submarine tactics than a quick-moving dogfight. Every blow is tense, every decision carefully considered.
On the bridges of both ships, the respective captains are urged to violence by panicked and/or violence-minded underlings. The coda of the episode involves a screen-to-screen talk with the Romulan captain where he admits that he and Kirk might have been friends in a parallel universe. This episode is “Star Trek” at its finest.
