The Doomsday Machine (Star Trek: The Original Series) - Music

Music

This is one of the few Star Trek episodes for which original music was written; in this case a full score, by Sol Kaplan. Writer James Lileks notes that the music cues for this episode are "intended to belong together, and that’s one of the reasons the episode works like few others: it has a unique symphonic score. Played start to finish, it holds together." Jeff Bond notes, "Although he wrote only two scores for the series, New York composer Sol Kaplan's music was tracked endlessly throughout the show's first two seasons." Both Lileks and Bond point out similarities between this music and John Williams' award-winning score for Jaws a decade later. The music for this episode was collected, along with the score for "Amok Time," on the second release from Crescendo Records of music from the series: the first release other than the music from the pilot episodes.