Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 18, Episodes 35 & 36: The Doomsday Machine/ Wolf in the Fold

Wolf In The Fold-The 'Jack the Ripper' episode is another action episode from the second season. The conclusion to the teaser is quite chilling, although the episode never quite reaches that pitch thereafter. The exotic pleasure palace and seance keep things going for a while, but much of the show is ultimately taken up by the 'baton-passing' of Rejack. Once we know the episode's fairly compelling hook, there isn't much novelty even in Rejack's penultimate resting place.

This episode also was not the highpoint of gender sensitivity. 'The Boys' are pretty glib in their loose talk at the beginning of the episode, and the violence towards women isn't treated as anything more than a plot device to get Scotty into trouble. On the other hand, the same could be said of most Star Trek violence towards MEN. There's no denying though that death was treated more lightly after the first season. Some second season episodes (Patterns of Force was the worst offender) stepped way over the line; the producers seemed to feel that as long as they didn't side with the bad guys (and they didn't) any subject could be treated, and in some cases treated lightly.) (3.5 stars)

They did well here. My wife remembers "Wolf in the fold" as nothing less than really frightening - and even as an adult, its not too easy. How exactly Star Trek could take something so very serious (albeit with heavily veiled violence) into a what was then a quite conservative family show was remarkable.

Wolf In the Fold is very - no, wrong word, - absolutely -compelling. Its all too easy to imagine that in the deep of space, there may be terrors, possibly powers quite malevolent with intentions of their own; and that these have on occasion had a part in human history. The possibility that encounters of this sort would happen to a real space crew is all too real.

The story is brilliantly told, well paced. You only get an idea of what may be the source of the evil at work very slowly. It isn't clear at first - it couldn't possibly be. When it finally is revealed that Scotty is all too likely NOT to be the perpetrators, it is a relief - we all love this man too much for that to be true. Some people have remarked that the ending of "Wolf" is weak - I don't know that that is justified. If you had to have a happy ending, this ending is quite rational, and for goodness sake the boys and girls need to go to bed sometime... The only alternative would have been an ending that would be too awful (I didn't like "Event Horizon" either)

What distinguishes this, and quite a few other stories from Star Trek, is that it woukd stand by itself as an undisputed miniature, even if Star Trek didn't exist as a dramatic vehicle. There, I've said it now.

The doomsday machine is really wonderful. Thank you, Norman Spinrad! I fail to see why the special effects are a problem; the story is wonderful, the tensions and passions are the special effects, and there's a lot of those. Spock excels! A captain of a wrecked ship... a sea monster... Absolutely, Gentlemen. This what its all about, and to that I do testify...