The 53rd episode of Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction series Star Trek premieres on NBC. In true sixties style, the story’s “ultimate computer” is depicted as a giant mainframe with psychedelic lights; William Marshall guest stars. 
Stardate 4729.4: Kirk is ordered to relinquish command of the Enterprise to Dr. Daystrom’s new M-5 computer, which, according to Daystrom, can make all the decisions that a starship captain would encounter correctly and more quickly than any human. The Enterprise, with Kirk and a few others aboard, is engaged in Starfleet wargames, but the M-5 begins to treat the other ships as a serious threat and retaliates with full salvos of phasers and photon torpedoes, destroying one ship. Believing Kirk may have lost his mind, Starfleet gives the remaining ships permission to destroy the Enterprise.
teleplay by D.C. Fontana
story by Laurence N. Wolfe
directed by John Meredyth Lucas
music by Sol Kaplan and Fred SteinerCast: William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), DeForest Kelley (Dr. Leonard McCoy), James Doohan (Mr. Scott), George Takei (Lt. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), William Marshall (Dr. Daystrom), Sean Morgan (Harper), Barry Russo (Commodore Wesley)
Notes: Dr. Daystrom’s disastrous experiment with the M-5 didn’t completely tarnish his legacy; there are numerous references in most of the later Star Trek spinoffs to the Federation’s Daystrom Institute of Technology.
LogBook entry by Earl Green