TOS' Ultimate Computer Exposed A Classic Kirk Mistake – Screen Rant
Captain Kirk repeatedly made a mistake beaming down with landing parties in Star Trek: The Original Series which “The Ultimate Computer” pointed out.
The Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Ultimate Computer" exposed a big mistake Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) repeatedly made, but it was never fixed. In "The Ultimate Computer," Kirk's Starship Enterprise was selected to test the M-5 multitronic unit, which was invented by the brilliant Dr. Richard Daystrom (William Marshall), who designed the duotronic computers used by the Enterprise. The M-5 was intended to automate starships, reducing the Enterprise's crew of 400 to a mere 20 personnel aboard.
The M-5 in Star Trek: TOS was meant to eliminate human error and reduce the loss of life, but it exposed a fallacy in allowing artificial intelligence to take the place of human compassion and judgment. At first, the M-5 performed admirably, allowing the Enterprise to outmaneuver the rest of Starfleet. But the M-5 was flawed and malfunctioned so that it attacked other starships and killed the crew aboard. Further, Dr. Daystrom was quite mad, and he was desperate for the M-5 to confirm his genius. But before the M-5 piled calamity upon calamity, it highlighted an ongoing issue in TOS in regard to how Captain Kirk chooses who goes on his landing parties when beaming onto strange new worlds.
Captain Kirk pitted his own command experience against the M-5 when picking personnel for a landing party to the planet Alpha Carinae II. Kirk chose himself, Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley), an astrobiologist, and a geologist. The M-5's call selected the astrobiologist, a different geologist, and it excised Dr. McCoy and Captain Kirk, which left Jim offended. Further, the way the M-5 originally handled the Enterprise before it turned murderous was hailed by the top brass of Starfleet Command, and they insultingly called Kirk "Captain Dunsel," which, as Spock (Leonard Nimoy) explained, means, "a part which serves no useful purpose.”
However, the M-5 was actually right to not pick Captain Kirk for the landing party. As the Captain of the Enterprise, Kirk repeatedly placed himself in mortal peril by beaming down to planets. Further, Kirk almost always brought Spock, his First Officer, along, meaning the Enterprise was left without its two highest-ranking commanders. This meant resorting to leaving Scotty (James Doohan), the Chief Engineer, or Sulu (George Takei), the helmsman, in charge of the ship. Kirk also liked to beam Dr. McCoy down with him, depriving the Enterprise of its Chief Medical Officer. When it comes to landing party recommendations, M-5 was on the money about Captain Kirk's poor judgment.
Captain Kirk never stopped leading landing parties throughout Star Trek: The Original Series or the movies. He continued this risky practice throughout his entire Starfleet career. Of course, the real reason Kirk repeatedly led landing parties is Star Trek is a television show and Kirk was the lead character, so he always had to be the center of the action and the episodes' storylines. Military tactics and logic gave way to the demands of a television series, hence Captain Kirk always led the away missions, danger be damned.
To its credit, Star Trek: The Next Generation took steps to fix the problem Kirk caused by the Captain beaming down on away missions with his First Officer and the ship's doctor. Early in TNG, the delineation was made that the First Officer, Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), would lead the away missions while Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) remained aboard the USS Enterprise-D. That system eventually gave way according to the demands of each episode's story, but it was still a laudable attempt by TNG not to repeat Captain Kirk's common mistake in Star Trek: The Original Series.
Star Trek: The Original Series is streaming on Paramount+.
John Orquiola is Screen Rant’s Star Trek Beat Editor, Senior Features staff writer, and interviewer. He began as a director’s assistant on various independent films. As a lover of film and film theory, John wrote humorous movie reviews on his blog, Back of the Head, which got him noticed by Screen Rant. John happily became the Star Trek guy at Screen Rant and he leads Feature coverage of the various Star Trek series. He also writes about a wide range of his interests from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, House of the Dragon, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, AEW, and Cobra Kai. His other great nerdy love is British TV series like The Crown, Downton Abbey, Sanditon, and Killing Eve. John can be found on Twitter @BackoftheHead if you want to see photos of the food he eats.