The Most Disliked Episode of STAR TREK - Final Round...

Spock's Brain used to be my least favorite until one day I realized that it is a metaphor for the fact that a beautiful woman can make you lose your mind, and you need your friends to help you get it back in place again. ATCSL is a good choice for me now, but I would not be upset if Plato's Stepchildren gets it in the future.

 

Lucky kids got to be in a TOS episode. Too bad it was a klunker.

 

I wonder....did Fred Freiberger ever watch the daily film shot and think too himself, “This is a bad script.”?

 

I wonder how it was received the first time it aired.

 

We kids (at the time) were the only ones that could have liked it, but it was creepy even for us. Maybe a few psychopathic children who wanted to kill their parents received it well.

 

I’m sure the hardcore TOS fans who watched the original air dates of S1 and S2 were thinking “What the Hell is this?”

 

Well, for the third game in a row, "AND THE CHILDREN SHALL LEAD" is the 'winner' of Most Disliked STAR TREK episode.

Thank you all for participating. This was quite a lot of fun to do and read all the reasons.

I have lot going on tonight at work and a list of things to do tomorrow, so it may be late tomorrow that I begin THE ANIMATED SERIES.

 

I can't believe two of my favourite episodes made it to the final round of this fiasco.
Lucky they didn't win!
Shows what happens when you're away from the board.

 

Plato's Stepchildren IS the worst episode of the entire series whatever the voting!!! There is a preconceived dislike for ATCSL that has been raging on here for years! I can't stop the process obviously but you all know I'm totally right!
JB

 

Apparently, there are not 4 enlighten individuals in all of Trek BBS to save ATCSL, yet. You need to brainwash recruit one or two more.

 

Both PS and ATCSL were neck and neck going into the final stretch. Either one could have ‘won’.

 

I still get PTSD from ATCSL!!!

 

PS has Barbara Babcock, ATCSL has Melvin Belli.
PS has Michael Dunn, ATCSL has those kids.

PS has one of the most clear and striking demonstrations of Gene's vision (before he listened too much to his own hype and age and abuse caught up to him) of a better future for Humankind while still showing idle power is corrupting.

ALEXANDER: You know, I believe you are. Listen, where you come from, are there a lot of people without the power and my size?
KIRK: Alexander, where I come from, size, shape, or color makes no difference, and nobody has the power.

PS also have some excellent scenes of Spock dealing with his emotions.

KIRK: Can you do anything for him?
MCCOY: There is no medicine that can help him. He'll have to come through this himself.
SPOCK: I trust they did not injure you too much, Captain.
KIRK: My muscles are sore, that's all.
SPOCK: The humiliation must have been most difficult for you to bear. I can understand.
MCCOY: The release of emotions, Mister Spock, is what keeps us healthy. Emotionally healthy, that is.
SPOCK: That may be, Doctor. However, I have noted that the healthy release of emotion is frequently very unhealthy for those closest to you.
KIRK: Which just goes to prove that there's no such thing as a perfect solution.
SPOCK: So it would seem. Captain.
KIRK: Yes, Spock.
SPOCK: Do you still feel anger toward Parmen?
KIRK: Great anger.
SPOCK: And you, Doctor?
MCCOY: Yes, Spock. And hatred.
SPOCK: Then you must release it, gentlemen, as I must master mine. I might have seriously injured you, Captain, even killed you. They have evoked such great hatred in me, I cannot allow it to go further. I must master it. I must control.

And Kirk with Alexander
ALEXANDER: He's right. I should have warned you. They were treating you the same way they treat me. Just like me, only you fight them. All the time, I thought it was me, my mind that couldn't move a pebble. They even told I was lucky they bothered keep me around at all, and I believed them. The arms and legs of everybody's whim. Look down, don't meet their eyes. Smile. Smile. These great people, they were gods to me. But you showed me what they really are. And now I know, don't you see. It's not me, it's not my size, it's them! It's them! It's them!
(Alexander breaks an urn and takes a sharp shard of pottery.)
KIRK: Put it down.
ALEXANDER: No. This is the best thing for them.
KIRK: Put it down. Do what I say.
ALEXANDER: I'm going to cut their I'm going to cut them. Parmen first, and they'll all get infected. But this time, listen, whatever they say, don't save them. Let them die.
KIRK: Give it to me!
ALEXANDER: At least let me give them a taste of what they gave me. Please, they're going to kill you anyway. You know that.
KIRK: In that case, what's the point in you dying too, Alexander? Give it to me.
ALEXANDER: That's the first time anybody ever thought of my life before his own. I should have told you when you first came here that they were going to kill you. Because I knew, but I was afraid. I was afraid.
KIRK: That's all right. It's all right, Alexander. Listen, we haven't given up, and there may be something you can do to help.

ATCSL has kids pretending to be bees and eating wobble.

 

Well, there's no accounting for taste. or like the Romans used to say:

De gustibus non disputandum est.

(I love Latin)

 

^^this

Especially when the episode had them doing something novel and creepy, it's not my favorite episode by any stretch but it is emotionally unnerving as opposed to being by-the-numbers flat and had more potential to be even better. Melvin Belli too was reasonably good in most of his scenes. The only one that is a total stinker is "If you need me, call" - which exactly isn't the best line of dialogue to begin with. Unless the line was "call for me"or something different and there was ad-libbing going on to cut down on scene overrun, but I wasn't there at the time... now an experienced actor might be allowed to take "if you need me, call" into something more menacing and act it out - but that's not always the case. I suspect Melvin did get more graft than deserved. He needed someone behind the camera or even a cast member to give some more oomph, but being season 3 and all the turmoil already involved (in a script that I don't think anybody liked or wanted to find something to flesh out and all on top of a show that was given the death slot and a reduced budget, Roddenberry left some time ago out of angst, etc), I just can't imagine a way where this episode would have been improved upon. And the basics of a good story ARE there and I still feel this story could have been one that would make the horror movies of the era (e.g. "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist") pale by comparison if it was given the TLC it needed and deserved. I'm amazed the makers were allowed to let kids wander around being controlled by a demon to terrorize their parents (to their suicides!!), but given the likes of movies such as "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" that got a G rating but were telling what was clearly R-rated material, and it's the late-1960s to begin with...

And the "we must exterminate all who do not...", "death to you all!", etc, he uttered were creepy and well done. (maybe it's the vocal processing, adding the echo, that helps sell it - this is an alien mystical being and all and it's nice not all alien mystical beings are glowing balls of light saying they're more advanced and/or want Trelane to come in for supper...)

Yes, I'm surprised to defend this story so passionately... it did have potential and there are some visceral moments - the shock over a kid show dealing with kids' parents all offing themselves, even more high concept stuff with transporting people into outer space (assuming the controls would have safety protocol overrides but it'd been established they can beam things, like Nomad, into space... it's the only one of two or three times in Trek's history where characters are killed by the mechanism), and it's a novel story and a better means of lumping a bunch of kids onto a ship than via TNG's premise (which is okay, but TOS was decided more military-focused...)

Oh, The Wiki entry has a fascinating piece of trivia regarding TMP and TWOK, which is way-cool:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_the_Children_Shall_Lead#Production

The TWOK extended soundtrack with the Genesis briefing video had a lovely haunting overtone, which suited the scene admirably. Never knew he composed it!

The Wiki for "Blaster Beam" states it was used by Goldsmith to create the V'Ger sounds. Craig also successfully patented his design of the beam, noting the cost of patents it's cool he made money off it beforehand!

Bonus:

Nice to see two of the paragraphs given sources cited.

 

Even the worst of Star Trek is better than most of what I see on TV nowadays. Just my opinion, but I feel confident about it every time I turn off the TV after Jeopardy because "Love Island" is coming on.

 

When that one kiddo (Melvin Belli’s son ) started complaining about his ice cream, I was tempted to reach through the screen, grab him by the neck and say “Shut up and eat! You’re on a starship. We don’t have 31 Flavors!”

 

Agreed. I watched 30 seconds of a rerun of 2 Broke Girls....oh, the horror! Back to my TOS DVDs!

 

Season 3, even in questionable stories, had some nice set pieces, though kids eating ice cream and being bees was just a ruse for the crew until Gorgon started to take over. At least in-universe. Those scenes are also proof that kids do not need to see other kids doing the same shtick on TV as ratings' pandering... at least the actual crew didn't act like that. But they might for any new shows aimed at today's 6 year old demographic.

Along with Kirk discussing with Alexander the lack of prejudices, here McCoy and Spock have an exchange on burying emotions, with Kirk getting the best word to summarize before moving on. (And McCoy forgets despite pointing it out earlier, Vulcans evolved to where if they do not suppress their emotions it can be lethal. It'd be interesting to have an episode that has Spock emoting without the need of Platonian telepathic control. )

Oh, as for Alexander being forced to recite Aristophanes' poetry:

https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2016/05/26/what-does-the-frog-say-koaks-koaks/

 

I’m glad there is a S3, even though I get restless watching some of the episodes.