And The Children Shall Lead

DVD, Star Trek S3 (And The Children Shall Lead)

And lead they do indeed. Led by a Gorgan, or The Gorgan, or simply Gorgan, I'm not entirely sure. For the first half I was thinking of all the problems with this episode, but in the second I found plenty to enjoy as the crew are forced to confront their fear, or 'beast'.

The way the teaser would have been done in a modern series would be for the inhabitants to discover something terrible deep down in an archeological dig - here the mystique is lost with that aspect only mentioned in about one line of dialogue. The children were more irritating, than anything, and though Kirk and Spock enter a cave and Kirk gets the willies, nothing more exciting happens for a while. Chapel gets to play babysitter, but rather than showing the rec room we are in a new place, perhaps the botany section that Sulu used to have something to do with. The food slots are well shown, acting more immediately like replicators as we see food appear and disappear between opening and closing. How Chapel had a disk with the combination that boy wanted I don't know.

While we're on the subject of mistakes, they used the stock shot of Hadley and Sulu on the bridge again, when Chekov is there in pre- and pro-ceeding shots. The biggest hole must be Kirk forgetting to go back to Triacus to pick up the survey team or whatever they were, who were being relieved by the two security men, who sadly get beamed into space. Kirk sets a course for the Starbase, leaving these poor crewmates stranded with no idea what's transpired! And while redshirts are being mentioned, Mr. Leslie gets called by name, and shaken in vain! According to Eddie Paskey who played Leslie, Shatner was trying to make him laugh in this scene, but he kept a straight face and never blinked, earning him congratulations from Shatner!

The episode started to get interesting from the moment Scotty gets in on the action in auxiliary control. Uhura in really old makeup worked quite well too, although Mr. Sulu's flying daggers on the viewscreen seemed a bit silly. 'Captain we might get sliced up by these huge knives flying past the ship!' Scotty got to fight back against Spock and Kirk, with a couple of redshirts, but Spock should have taken them on a lot easier, and it would have made he and the captain look better if they'd won the fight, or there had been worse odds. Chekov had the best acting up moment, and I wonder if they got the similar bit in 'Star Trek II' from this scene - he pulls a phaser on Kirk and can't follow his orders, conflicted.

Spock did seem to overcome whatever fear he had, rather too undramatically, which was a lost opportunity. Indeed, there were several lost opportunities over all, and if the episode had been polished more it might have been a classic. The children are creepy enough, and I did care eventually, by the affecting film of their lives, having fun with their parents at the colony. Gorgan is effective also, especially the uglifying appearance at the end. But I would have liked to know more about him and his race and motivation. Though there were problems, I appreciated that all the crew took part, and there were moments of greatness. I liked it slightly more than the last episode, and I don't remember seeing it before.

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