The Changeling (29 Sep. 1967)

A powerful artificially intelligent Earth probe, with a murderously twisted imperative, comes aboard the Enterprise and confuses Capt. Kirk as his creator.

Director:

Marc Daniels

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator), John Meredyth Lucas

Stars:

William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
William Shatner	...	Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy	...	Mr. Spock
DeForest Kelley	...	Dr. McCoy
James Doohan	...	Scott
Nichelle Nichols	...	Uhura
George Takei	...	Sulu
Majel Barrett	...	Nurse Christine Chapel
Makee K. Blaisdell	...	Singh (as Blaisdel Makee)
Barbara Gates	...	Crewwoman
Meade Martin	...	Crewman
Arnold Lessing	...	Security Guard
Vic Perrin	...	Nomad's Voice (voice)

Storyline

The Enterprise encounters a powerful energy force that has apparently killed all human life in a solar system with over one billion inhabitants. They identify the culprit as a small space probe that had its origins on Earth. Called Nomad, it merged with another and, as a result, took on a new mission to destroy all biological beings as being imperfect. It believes Captain Kirk to be its creator and, as such, has spared the Enterprise and its crew, at least temporarily.

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Plot Keywords:

space probe | killer robot | episode title spoken by character | singing while working | mind reading | 

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 September 1967 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Desilu Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Desilu Productions, Norway Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

50 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The alien probe that Nomad collided with was called Tan Ru.

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Goofs

When Nomad is supposedly emerging from sickbay after attacking Chapel to see Kirk's records, he is instead seen emerging from the Turbolift.

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Quotes

Spock: Intelligence does not necessarily require bulk, Mr. Scott.

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Connections

Spoofed in Mystery Science Theatre 3000: Laserblast (1996)

User Reviews

Inspired first ST movie

This episode obviously inspired the plot of the first Star Trek Movie where the mysterious and immensely powerful and dangerously destructive evil force is referred to as "V-ger" by the kidnapped and subsequently returned (and reprogrammed) female crewperson of the new and improved Enterprise.

In the movie eventually Kirk and Spock figure out that "V-Ger" is really the old Voyager spacecraft sent out as a probe in the twentieth century (they clean some charcoal off the 2nd through 4th letters of the machine's still existent painted on name) and long lost track of. Well, clearly it must have been damaged in flight at some point and then met up with some other probe of some other kind from some other planet with some other prime directive. The two machines "helped" each other repair themselves and combined forces to become much stronger but corrupting their prime directives as the two combined forces.

But gee, how could they figure all that out about V-Ger? Well, maybe it's because they went through most of all that before with the TV episode involving Nomad: the 1 meter long, square columnar, self-levitating and mobilizing metal box around which this episode revolved. Nomad had basically the same background story and was just as terse and ruthless in carrying out it's corrupted prime directive (and with just as much unlimited power - albeit on a much more limited production budget) to "Sterilize! Sterilize!" as V-Ger.

I mean...Spock had already solved the Nomad mystery via a Vulcan mind meld with Nomad (via "Creator Kirk" 's permission) so figuring out V-Ger's problem must have been a piece of cake! My favorite Nomad quote is simply "Non Sequiter!" when presented with some feeble attempt at logic by an obviously inferior human. As soon as I first heard it I immediately added it to my vocabulary...and have used it quite frequently ever since.