TOS

GETTING INTO THE ACTIONWhether you’re a die-hard fan of the original series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine or Voyager (and, god help you, if you are), it’s hard to argue that there’s only one series which did comedy well and that was Classic Trek. Unlike Next Generation (which tried to be funny, painfully in episodes like "Manhunt" and the somewhat wittier "Captains Holiday" in which Picard vacations on a pleasure planet with the story eventually degenerating into mindless technobabble) and Voyager, Classic Trek and Deep Space Nine were the only series for which humor was an essential ingredient.

Ahh yes… "And The Children Shall Lead" is another often maligned episode from Trek’s infamous 3rd season. The episode is so unremarkable that doing a review of it was reduced to a chore that neither Anthony, myself nor any of our regular contributors really wanted to do. I got inspired to write it first so I win? Although Trek’s producers may have been better off taking W.C. Fields advice to "never work with children," the Remastering actually gives us a chance to take another look.

The Enterprise crew are on their way to some well-deserved R&R when Starfleet orders them to investigate the radio silence from the billions of inhabitants of the Gamma 7A system, as well as the loss of the starship Intrepid, crewed (despite being named for a U.S. aircraft carrier) by Vulcans. The Enterprise discovers a huge black splotch, which Spock identifies as “a zone of energy which is incompatible with our living and mechanical processes.” Worse, inside lurks—I kid you not—a giant space amoeba, some 11,000 miles wide (the metric system having fallen by the wayside for this episode).