Star Trek S3 E4 "And the Children Shall Lead" / YMMV

Accidental Innuendo: The kids use their magic by shaking their fists in an, um... unfortunate manner. What is with you, Season 3?
Ass Pull: Kirk pulls Gorgan's name completely out of nowhere.
Complete Monster: Gorgan is an evil Energy Being and the last surviving member of a race of marauders who were destroyed by those whom they had victimized. Gorgan sealed himself into a cave and waited for an opportunity to strike, which came when a small team of Federation scientists arrived on Gorgan's planet to set up a colony. Gorgan took the form of a "friendly angel", manipulating the children into becoming his minions and using his Mind Control powers to drive all the adults to suicide. After the Enterprise comes upon the colony, they take the children aboard the ship. Gorgan convinces the children to use the mind control abilities he has granted them to take over the ship and send it to Marcos XII, a heavily populated Federation colony. When they arrive, Gorgan plans to make all the children of Marcos XII his minions and kill all the adults. Gorgan forces the crew of the Enterprise to comply with his plan, by exposing them to their worst fears if they don't. After several failed attempts to regain control of the ship, Kirk manages to summon Gorgan and break his hold on the children. Enraged, Gorgan threatens to kill the children if they don't obey him.
Harsher in Hindsight: Kirk proves Wrong Genre Savvy when he reassures Spock his beast (losing command and being alone) is gone. Maybe during a '60s TV show, but when it happens for real in the movies, he has a breakdown.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Uhura's fear of death is shown by her having a hideously decayed face. Nichelle Nichols actually aged very gracefully.
Just Here for Godzilla: Half Narm Charm, half Ho Yay, but the ridiculously close Cooldown Hug and subsequent Longing Look scene is usually considered the only worthwhile thing of the episode.
Mis-blamed: While the episode is often held up as an example of why Season 3 producer Fred Freiberger shouldn't have been let anywhere near the show, in actuality the script was commissioned by Gene Roddenberry and Season 2 producer John Meredyth Lucas, with Freiberger and new script editor Arthur Singer having relatively little time to work on the show. That said, the bizarre casting of lawyer Melvin Belli as Gorgan was entirely Freiberger's decision, though even he later admitted that it had been a stupid one in retrospect.
Narm:
- Virtually any of the scenes involving Gorgan, thanks to Melvin Belli's inexperience with acting as well as the absurd costume that he has to wear.
- It's hard to be creeped out at the various mental tortures that the possessed children inflict on the crew when their way of invoking them happens to look like they're pleasuring themselves.
- William Shatner is perhaps more of a Large Ham here than on any other occasion when he's played Kirk - unless you count his performance as Dr. Lester-as-Kirk in "Turnabout Intruder" - which just dials the ridiculousness of the episode up to eleven.
- The Red Shirt who reacts to Kirk spouting gibberish by simply standing there staring at him, making no attempt to indicate he can't understand him. You can easily get the impression that he's seizing his chance to not have to follow an order that'll inevitably get him killed.
Questionable Casting: Perhaps the most infamous example in the entire Star Trek franchise - Gorgan is played by Melvin Belli, a somewhat-famous lawyer with no prior acting experience whatsoever, something that's glaringly obvious whenever he appears on-screen. Belli did go on to have a small side-career as an actor afterwards, though only ever in minor roles as lawyers or other legal professionals.
Retroactive Recognition:
- As an adult, Tommy Starnes' actor Craig Hundley^note became a composer of jazz and electronic music, including the background music for the Genesis Project demonstration video in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Hundley also helped popularize the Blaster Beam, which was featured heavily in the soundtrack to Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
- Brian Tochi plays Ray in his second ever film role and later goes on to play Takashi in the Revenge of the Nerds films, Nogata in the Police Academy films and voicing Leonardo in the '90's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: There is the grain of a decent idea in the episode, and the Cold Open with the children happily dancing around the bodies of their dead parents does actually manage to be fairly creepy, but everything goes swiftly downhill after the title sequence.

YMMV / Star Trek S3 E4 "And the Children Shall Lead"

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