And the Children Shall Lead by: Edward J. Lasko and directed by: Marvin Chomsky

 

“And the Children Shall Lead” is written by: Edward J. Lasko and is directed by: Marvin Chomsky.  It was filmed under production code 60, was the 4^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 59^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on October 11, 1968.

 

Children as the source of horror has a long tradition in the genre: from representing the fears of parenting and childbirth to just providing some creepy imagery masters of the genre understand how to effectively make kids creepy by subverting their general cuteness as well as the general parental nature of humanity towards them.  Edward J. Lasko is clearly not one of these masters.  His sole contribution to Star Trek, “And the Children Shall Lead”, attempts to put children as the source of horror, making them responsible for the mass suicide of their parents and ready to conquer the universe for this random god like being called the Gorgan.  This could be something terrifying but Lasko’s script is one gets off on the wrong foot by not giving any real weight to the fact that all of these people have committed suicide outside of the mystery that opens up.  There is almost more concern on the fact that the children aren’t actually reacting properly to the death of their parents, which to be fair is something that is odd and DeForest Kelley gets his one good scene as Bones for the episode, but it doesn’t add to the episode.  The answer to the mystery is just this random god being that wants to take over the universe.  The Gorgan is given absolutely no real explanation or motivation, it’s just evil and when it is defeated it becomes incredibly ugly, perhaps because this might be attempting to say something about beauty standards but I cannot actually tell what it could actually be.

 

The Gorgan is also played by Melvin Belli, who is not an actor.  Belli was a lawyer, though one with several clients who were movie stars.  Before this his experience in showbusiness was as executive producer on the film Tokyo File 2121 and some television appearances, but watching “And the Children Shall Lead” you really can’t tell he has any experience.  It could be director Marvin Chomsky not directing his actors properly (Shatner’s performance has some issues) while Belli reads every line in this flat monotone, amplified by an effect to make it sound booming like a god when it really does not work.  The Gorgan, through the children, makes the crew of the Enterprise hallucinate random horrors and secretly do its bidding through magic which is never actually explained, not even a feeble attempt of saying it’s science of words manifesting physically.  The sequences of hypnosis are particularly repetitive, Sulu sees several swords on the viewscreen scaring him into no moving the Enterprise off the course they set for it and Uhura seeing herself as ugly, old, and wrinkled.  The repetition feels as if the episode was running short, and the children just do this weird motion with their clenched fists to enact the magic which looks goofy.

 

In fact, much of the episode looks goofy whenever it isn’t on the normal Enterprise sets.  Now Season 3 of Star Trek was severely cut in terms of budget, but the flag for the Federation is made of felt and the episode overall looks particularly cheap despite being one that should have been easy to make on existing sets.  William Shatner as Kirk essentially has to lead the episode as he is the only one not tot be taken over by the children, and it's clear that he is not taking the material seriously.  Almost every line from Kirk is done to be over the top, which at least makes an emotion when compared to Melvin Belli who has absolutely no presence, but it’s not a performance you would expect from William Shatner.  Shatner as an actor is actually really good when working with children, “Miri” proved that, but “And the Children Will Lead” gives Kirk exactly one real scene of interacting with the kids and the resolution involves Kirk making them cry for some reason.  It adds this cruel edge to the episode in a way that’s attempting to maybe say something about the nature of grief and loss, but I’m honestly grasping at straws as to what that is supposed to be.

 

Overall, while “Spock’s Brain” is the episode that people say killed Star Trek and is derided as the worst, it took only three weeks for the third season to get worse in terms of quality.  “And the Children Will Lead” is playing with ideas that have been done before way back in the first season under better writing teams.  It’s a weak script under a director who is serviceable, mainly because it’s difficult to shoot the Enterprise sets too badly, being brought down further by some baffling performances.  The episode is honestly meaningless and that’s a problem because it doesn’t even meet the bar of being fun, campy escapism.  2/10.