"The Ultimate Computer" (season two, episode twenty-four; production code: 053; 8 March 1968): Wikipedia-link.
Commentary: Is one of the truly great episodes of The Original Series, & still relevent for us today amidst the peril & promise of "A.I." (Artificial Intelligence is a true misnomer, as there is no operative intelligence, these programs—fie on "agents," as there is no agency—are simply souped-up search engines & faster aggregators). The M-5 computer is supposed to be able to replace a starship's crew; the M-5's creator, renowned computer scientist Richard Daystrom, seeks to replace starship crews so that humans need not die in outer space. Like the latter-day robotics advocates who cheer for mass unemployment, Daystrom believes that humans with purposeless lives devoid of challenge or adventure will somehow (?) be happier. Of course, Daystrom's pet computer ends up killing hundreds of Starfleet officers & crew when it opens fire with full-power phasers on starships that thought they were participating in a harmless war game. Kirk is able to convince the M-5 that it has violated its own purpose—preserving human life—by murdering numerous humans, the umpteenth time Kirk has talked a villainous supercomputer to death.
"The Ultimate Computer" is also notable for featuring five different Federation starships: the familiar U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 & newcomers the Lexington, the Potemkin, the Hood,& the Excalibur. Five different ships, but all Constitution-class, the same as the Enterprise. (So was the Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine" [season two, episode six] & so will be the Exeter in "The Omega Glory" [season two, episode twenty-three].) A different class of Federation starship would not be seen until the Miranda-class U.S.S. Reliant NCC-1864 in 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. (The Reliant was designed specifically to be instantly distinguishable from the refit Enterprise.)
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