SFX Video
(WMV)
New and Old
Assuming orbit of Triacus
In orbit of Triacus
Triacus on the viewscreen
Breaking orbit
Zipping along to Marcus XII
Enroute to Marcus XII
Changing course back to Starbase 4
Assorted
Kirk posing with the UFP flag
Tommy and Mary do their best ‘Children of the Corn’ looks
More of the Enterprise breaking orbit sequence
Kirk realizes that he just beamed two redshirts out into space
Calling the "Friendly Angel"
Sulu’s Knives
Kirk posing with the UFP flag
Tommy and Mary do their best ‘Children of the Corn’ looks
More of the Enterprise breaking orbit sequence
Kirk realizes that he just beamed two redshirts out into space
Calling the "Friendly Angel"
Sulu’s Knives
Uhura aged and diseased
Kirk… losing… command…
The true face of Gorgan
I hope they don’t try to recast Gorgon in any movies.
I think this will be the first remastered show I’ll not bother to watch. No effects worth tuning in for, I’ll check back for Matt’s video later.
Yeah, this one is less in need of remastering than regret, remorse, and repentance.
Wait, they didn’t replace the knives in Sulu’s hallucination? What’s up with that?!
I hope Abrams casts William Shatner as the New Gorgan in Star Trek XI!
They didn’t replace the knives??? Thats odd…
#4 — Nope and if you look you can tell, since CBS-D has been changing the starfield to be more realistic, when Sulu starts hallucinating the starfield becomes the larger brighter globs from the original version, thanks to the daggers it isn’t very noticeable, but if you look you can see it.
Worst…episode…ever….
This is why you should never have children on board a Starship.
> “Kirk… loosing… command”
(sp) “Losing”
I guess you could say that his grip on command was loosened …
#10 — LOL, thanks, that’s a word I always add an extra ‘o’ to, dunno why
why does EVERYBODY nowadays seem to spell “losing” as “loosing”…?
I must read it a hundred times a day on the ‘net?
What the..?!?!?
It’s NOT that tricky a word!
oh yeah, the “E” shots this week looked EXCELLENT!
It would have been fascinating if Nichelle had re-done her old age make up for this one.
OK, this is bizarre.
I’ve been watching Star Trek for more than 30 years. “And the Children Shall Lead” has always, *always*, been at the bottom of my list. Awful, terrible, appallingly bad episode. So bad that I haven’t watched it in decades.
And I just watched it. And it’s not that bad. It’s not that good, either, but it’s no worse than mediocre. And it had some genuinely creepy moments, and … the scene at the end with the kids watching home movies actually got to me.
Something’s wrong. I feel like I’m hallucinating. Is there a kid pounding his fist in the air somewhere behind me?
There’s nothing wrong with you Cranston,
the episode isn’t nearly as bad as some would have you believe.
It wouldn’t win any Emmy or Hugo awards but, at the absolute minimum, it is yet another example of watching the wonderful dynamics play out between all of these wonderful characters, witnessing their camraderie and professionalism in the face of adversity.
This episode as a whole is no worse than that TNG episode that had the “portal” on it.
16. Josh T.
I don’t remember that episode with the portal. Could be because I don’t remember hardly any specific episode of that series. :)
16 — Josh
You’ll have to refresh my memory on the “portal” ep. I did a Google search…is is that awful “The Last Outpost” one that first showed us what a fearsome threat the Ferengi were?
And yes, there are many (nay, even dozens) of latter-day Trek episodes that are worse than ATCSL, if only because there are so friggin’ many episodes out there.
And re: the cameraderie/professionalism. One detail that I really liked was when the kids were confounding everyone’s perception and making Kirk’s words sound like gibberish, we saw classic professional competent Spock. Without words or exposition, we see the following rapid progression: Spock hears Kirk spouting gibberish, concludes that his mind’s being screwed around with, takes a moment to assert good old Vulcan mental discipline to beat it, confirms that he’s back in control, and promptly leads Kirk off the bridge. Nice.
Making fun of this episode is sort of like shooting fish in a barrel… er, tribbles in a Jeffries Tube.
Hollywood lawyer painted green and wearing a shower curtain. What more needs to be said?
But really, the basic premise isn’t that bad for a Trek episode: Alien energy being causes a Jonestown-style mass suicide, and brainwashes children to be its minions. Just the actor and the bad costume and special effect of the creature itself is what really tips this into SPOCK’S BRAIN territory.
I do have to wonder: Wouldn’t Sulu’s daggers of the mind be scarier if they were coming towards the ship pointy-end first?
Two little factoids that the Trek wiki pointed out:
* Kirk calls the creature a Gorgan, even though the kids never tell its name, and the creature never gives its name. Weird!
* At the end of the episode, Kirk sets a course for Starbase 4, apparently completely forgetting that there are still two stranded redshirts back on the planet.
I’d like to see a Trek novel tell their story, like a Trek-version of ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD.
Used to hate this episode, now I like it. As a kid, I did not think there was enough action. Now, I appreciate the ideas. Disappointed to hear they did not redigitize Sulu’s knives. They could have inserted a new sequence with the present day Nichelle Nichols into the comm console, too — LOL. One little quibble — when the security team was beamed down into empty space and Kirk and Spock realized it, there was time to beam them back safely to the ship. Mammals can live in a vacuum for about 30 seconds. As you recall, Dave Bowman did this in “2001”. Surely, they would have know about this in the 23rd Century. (OK, I’ll stop calling you Shirley now.)
What I have found is that episodes I did not like as kid, I like now. Conversely, episodes I liked as a kid I don’t like as much now or dislike. As I stated previously, back then I wanted more action and less talk. Now I appreciated the discussion of ideas or the presentation of them. This phenomenon usually occures between 2nd and 3rd season shows. In general, there were too many Earth parallel stories in the 2nd Season — Romans, Nazis, Gangsters. Now I like “The Empath” and I am not so crazy about “The Immunity Syndrome”. Now I like “In Truth Is There No Beauty”, not as enamored with “A Piece of the Action”. One exception — I thought “The Enterprise Incident” was cool as kid, now I find it to be rather improbable — the female Romulan commander just bowls over for Spock two minutes after meeting him and gets distracted long enough to let the Federation steal one its top secrets. I also am not sure why they had to rush the Klingon ship model into service in the series instead of using the serviceable Romulan model of the 1st Season. As Worf once noted the Romulan think the Klingons are “a waste of skin”. I still dislike:
* “the Paradise Syndrome” — too many stupid things happening: why didn’t the Enterprise deflect the asteroid first and then visit the planet? If they had to visit the planet first, when Kirk first went missing why didn’t they leave a search party behind and go deflect the asteroid? I could go on.
*”The Turnabout Intruder” — what a terrible way to end the series. (they did not know that at the time, 2 final episodes were canceled). Kirk would have been relieved as soon as the erratic behavior starting occuring.
“The Lights of Zetar” — Scotty in a love story, it was painful. Then the decompression chamber drove the aliens away — geez. Memory Alpha — didn’t they invent the subspace internet by the 23rd Century? Even back in 1969 they had something called “a backup tape”. (I am entending the index and middle fingers of both hands and curling them as I say ” a backup tape”.)
Nothing on the thasian ship? No caps?
Humm, Two red shirts left on some planet by themselves….
PLANET OF THE RED SHIRTS !
Ya’ blew it up, ya’ maniacs, darn ya’, darn ya’ all ta’ heck !
– W –
* Still better then MANOS : The Hands Of Fate *
Hey CBS, as Kirk said, “Will somebody kindly tell me what happen to the stars!” If I may be so bold. Tell the Great Bird of the Galaxy to hit the light switch. Nice UFP banner in this ep.
True story-
I warned my wife about this one but asked her to watch it with me because she loves kids. Her comment, as soon as the show ended was: “if you ever make me watch that episode again, I’ll divorce you!!!!” No LIE!
Why change the screen effect of Sulu and his knives? They always looked fine and pretty cool to me. Besides, change a few space/ship shots and forget the rest. Save the money and time for better episodes (like the other 78/79-counting “The Cage”)!!!!!!
I hate CGI, are we done yet?
Is the Gorgon’s voice different? Or Am I just watching it w/a good sound
system this time? He had the same booming bass, but it sounded overlaid
on a chorus of children, speaking the exact same lines?
Is that new?
The good thing about this episode is that after the hour or so you spend watching it..it’s over.
The Next Generation Episode “The Bonding” covers similar if not identical subject matter with far more emotional depth, impact, and seriousness.
I thought the kids in “Miri” were way more annoying than the kids in this episode.
#7:
I saw that the starfield looked old right away. To me, it was very noticeable. It had no depth.
I thought the kids in this episode were way more annoying than the kids in “Miri”.
Mainly just that red-haired kid.
“Miri” is just a far better-done episode despite the presence of some annoying kids…this one’s just silly.
#15 & 16
I watched the episode last night (Midnight, KWGN Denver) for the first time in years – – with an open mind. I agree, this segment is not a bad as I “felt” it had been. The main characters are solid, everyone gets a little something to do (especially Nurse Chapel), but in particular Mr. Shatner is strong – – “The Time has come to See the World as it is”.
Now don’t get me wrong this episode will always rank near last – – but the very bottom should be fought for by “The Way to Eden” (James Doohan’s pick) and “Spock’s Brain”.
Note – Remember “Freeman” (Paul Baxley) from “The Trouble With Tribbles”? Returning to aid Mr. Chekov in detaining Kirk and Spock. Now he sports a Red Uniform instead of the Gold he wore for “Tribbles”.
The Redshirts were beamed into open space. They were not orbiting the planet at that time.
#32 Most here are referring to “The Planet Security Team” on duty at the time on the Planet’s surface that were to be brought “up”. The two Guards that transportered down to relieve them were killed.
I can’t believe they didn’t change the mirror on the bridge panel effect, COME ON! That was so easy to fix and looked so terrible. Sweet Baby Jesus I’m starting to think CBS-D isn’t even watching the episode, they are just looking for space shots.
Look I forgave the James R Kirk thing because there were fifty other shots that needed done, but here? You had like ten shots, most viewscreen shots with stars.
Someday, someone is going to do this project right. Let the nitpickers go though the episodes and show them what exactly is wrong, and then fix all of that. I don’t know what episode they are about to begin working on, but seriously guys call me and I’ll give you the breakdown on what needs fixed, I’ll do it for free!
I now know they won’t fix Kirk’s shirt in Charlie X, won’t fix McCoy in the sickbay, instead of the transporter room in “Mudd’s Women” and they didn’t fix his arm with/without a sleeve in “The Immunity Syndrome”. They are really starting to get under my skin.
Somehow we have to get it through to CBS that we would be happy with twenty episodes a year, if they were done right, at this point, I won’t even bother to download the updated DVD’s let alone buy them… but I’m not bitter.
FredCFO – there have been two stories floating around over the years as to why they used the Klingon model and not the BOP. One story is that it was purely mercenary – they wanted to show off the new ship design and boost its model kit sales. The other story is that by then they didn’t have the original model anymore, because Desilu had settled a grievance with a local union by giving Chang the model back instead of paying him for it (Chang was non-union, and the guild didn’t like that Desilu were commissioning him to do original work). Chang then supposedly took the model home and destroyed it in a fit of pique. Whichever story you believe though, we do know that the BOP model disappeared at some point, and it’s still missing to this day. The only question is when exactly it activated its cloaking device and vanished – 40 years ago, or sometime after the show’s cancellation?
#35: I read that the Klingon ship model was made by the AMT model shop. Wouldn’t that be a problem, since those model makers would’t be members of the movie union?
#34: Since you’ve graciously agreed to “allow” CBS-D to remaster only twenty episodes per year, I’m sure you’ll be willing to pay the staff salaries for the additional year or two it will take to complete the project.
This could have been a great episode if they’d have lit-up the hanger bay lights on the tail.
Lame.. No enhanced Sulu knives. Ginger kids creep out both Cartman and Lord Garth. Marta will not dance this week
Why is Tommy Starns dressed to go swimming… in 1918??
This episode sucked the air out of the room. I guess they didn’t bother to replace Sulu’s daggers for the same reason the effects team didn’t really bother to make the daggers look like more than a loop of bad fx in the first place. They KNEW this episode chomped choice chunks of cheetah chum.
Triacus is prettier, though. But then again… if it’s a lovely world with lots of water, why did the Federation set up its science team in the seemingly only hellhole on the planet?
OK — I will not defend much about this episode, but I see there are defenders. It’s kind of a “Lord, I wish they’d fire that guy… Aw, isn’t awful they fired that guy” mentality. Or maybe a bad day at Trek is better than a good day at CSI.
The episode doesn’t suck only because of Melvin Belli and his shower curtain. It sucks because you’ve got a bunch of kids with maybe one talented one in the bunch. (I like Pamelyn Ferdin if only because she’s the original voice of Lucy Van Pelt and helps kack off Clint Eastwood in Beguiled.) The episode also bogs down in endless psycho-babble about the emotional state of the kids. (This meaningless Freud wannabeeism is a precursor to the use of technobabble to fill thin Voyager scripts.) Lastly, this episode bites because it’s dull. The music is more whiny than eerie and the tension never gets above a simmer.
The basic premise is sound. I’ll give them that. It has the same ‘seduced innocence’ of children that makes Village of the Damned (original not Kirsti’s remake) watchable. But, the director here wasn’t interested in much beyond his paycheck. His work is heavy-handed without offering anything interesting.
IMHO, of course.
But, I’m the same guy who loves “Spock’s Brain.” Bring on the go-go booted alienettes, baby!
I’m pissed off because they didn’t have those barrell rolling Ginsu knives I wanted! Damn…same old FX there!
Lame! That’s the only reason I tuned in…to see the Ginsus!
TTM
If you separate the implementation from the concept, this is an illuminating episode.
The basic premise is paralleled to the Cultural Revolution then being effected in the late 1960s. Obviously, ATCSL is a conservative take on the Revolution, and I posit that as the main reason it is disliked by the predominantly Leftist Star Trek fan base.
Gorgon is of course a Bolshevik, who leads his followers with seeming utopian promises that mask his ulterior motives of power and conquest.
Preying on the innocent and gullible is the primary mark of Marxist regimes, particularly as it happened in the US where armed revolution was impractical.
There are several lines that obviate the episode’s Christian cultural matrix as well. The name of the episode, and the premise itself, are taken from both Old and New Testament escatology that prophesize abdication of social leadership to women and children, portrayed here by the willful blindness of the evil they help perpetrate. Also, “Truth” and “Light” figure as the means to destroy Evil and its ugly deceptions.
The pormise of a never-ending childhood of ice cream and play is powerful, and little different from our own self-indulgent age where sin no longer exists, former wrongs are now rights, and those who protest are systematically purged from society. Indeed, many have noted how our culture is, essentially, adolescent and divorced from the responsibilities of adulthood. It is a lie wherein the “dream” takes the palce of the reality of flesh-and-blood and thus dissent and criticism must be met with deadly force, lest the illusion fail and those in power be threatened.
(Recall that Lucifer, the falled angel who was “Bearer of Light” was a deceiver, a seducer, and one who excelled in expliting the innocent virtues of the unwary as a means to control them.)
Placed back into context of the 1960s counter-culture, we see how Gorgon’s agents seek to acquire effective control over the levers of power — impersonating Star Fleet Command and issuing arrest warrants, deploying disinformation via the command information systems, unknowingly turning the crews respect of authority and duty to the survival of the ship against their own best interests. Only Kirk and Spock, through their superior sense of duty and self-control reassert themselves successfully. That is why they are the ship’s command-grade officers!
Always bittersweet are the now quaint anachronisms of a lost age, “The Before Time”. Tommy introduces his playmates to the adults per Emily Post. “Ring Around the Rosey”, a chant now lost to children and an ancient testamony to both Faith and Plague. The idea that adults should command children to their best interests, not children commanding adults according to selfish interests.
All these are lost in the early 20th Century as we really do allow women and children to lead us. The results are at once more subtle than gigantic space knives but more dangerous. Childish indulgence and gullibility, when connected to the levers of power, are lethal to a society whether on Triacus — or Earth of 2007.
Thus, And the Children Shall Lead will be despised by most, but recognized by a remnant of those who still remember The Before Times. Ed Lakso, born in 1962 and thus sufficiently mature to recognize the true nature of the struggle, could not foresee how many millions the Gorgon would seduce here on Terra Firma, nor how eargerly they would join him.
Make that “21st Century” and “born in 1932”.
#41 “this episode chomped choice chunks of cheetah chum”.
Nice alliteration in condemning this “turd in space” episode!
@#20 FredCFO:
“One little quibble — when the security team was beamed down into empty space and Kirk and Spock realized it, there was time to beam them back safely to the ship.”
I would say that was a case of incompetence. The Transporter Chief should always verify to where s/he is beaming people. That Spock figured out the problem so quickly means that the verification procedure is quick and easy. Also, the relief team should be beamed down first to properly relieve the current security team. Otherwise you have no security detail on the planet for a few moments. If something is worth “securing” with a security team, then do things in the correct order, for Kirk’s sake!
Additionally, the Enterprise was traveling at warp speed at the time the hapless redshirts were transported. I would think that being beamed off the ship and suddenly decelerating from superluminal speed would shred one to pieces. There’s nothing to rescue.
This incident should never have happened–unless the Transporter Chief was under the children’s control. With all the syndication cuts, who knows… Did I overanalyze this or what?
Whatever became of that Sigma Draconis ship miniature from Spock’s Brain? Is it serving as a paper weight in Greg Gein’s home these days? Or does Majel own it? I’ve never seen any photos of it…
Curt of Star Trek History.com could probably find some pics of it…
Enquiring minds want to know!
Anyway, I guess CBS-D will make it all organic looking with glowing orange or blue panels on the fins…
They should add some kind of glowing effect to that Teacher helmet too…something to jazz up the effect. That would be cool. Get rid of that blue cyclorama and add some big glaciers/mountains on the horizon.
Oh…here’s a question: Sigma Draconis VI was supposedly glaciated, yet they beam down in their standard uniforms. Seems like they would need some heavy duty jackets like they wore in Star Trek II at the very least.
Where’s the snow? I think they should add some CGI snow to the above ground scenes…
Speaking of Sigma Draconis…according to the Star Trek Star Maps book that is now out, the Morgs and Eyemorgs formed a Congress after Kirk left. Oh…and it also says their entry into the Federation is contingent upon development of warp drive. HUH?? They already had more advanced warp propulsion than Starfleet to hear Scotty tell it…
All they would need to do is put on the teacher helmet and start building some more ships. Seems like instant entry into the Federation to me. Any culture that has the technology to remove and replace brains should be a shoo-in anyway. Except the men are stupid…oh well…
LMAO!!!
TTM
Nice analysis, OTF! I always enjoy reading your posts.
TTM