Ugh, this episode makes me feel maybe Picard is right about kids. And to be fair it isn't entirely the actors faults, this wouldn't have been a great episode even with more mature actors. I guess the idea of an alien using children to kill their parents is interesting, but it suffers from unclear rules about how the alien power works and who it effects. It features both a, "he's dead captain," and some seriously over the top acting by Shatner.
The episode opens with Kirk and an away team beaming to the surface of a Federation colony that sent out a distress call. They find a group of corpses and one man who dies moments after their arrival. After looking around for a minute the kids from the colony come cheerfully out of a cave and proceed to play in the area with the bodies of their parents. A funeral is performed apparently, all we see is the tombstones and the kids are once again unphased. They get beamed aboard by the doctor and pass all his medical tests. Before beaming up Spock and Kirk venture into the cave the kids came out of and Kirk experiences extreme anxiety and has to go back out quickly. Back on the ship Spock pours over the logs from the colony and finds some disturbing entries about them being mind controlled.
Kirk decides to question the children and interrupts ice cream time to ask about their parents. They are totally unremorseful about leaving their parents behind so he sends them to bed early and assigns a guard to their quarters. In their quarters the children chant and summon a glowing, "angel," who tells them to take control of the ship and proceed to a larger Federation colony. They spread out and start mind controlling the crew with a fist bump gesture. On the bridge the get everyone to see the view screen as showing them in orbit while Sulu takes them to the colony. For some reason they summon the angel onto the bridge in time for Kirk to see it kinda ruining their plan. Kirk is overwhelmed by terror of losing control, but Spock gets him off the bridge and he makes a rapid recovery. Spock and Kirk conspire to take the ship back but are confronted by Sulu and two redshirts who they pummel.
Kirk returns to the bridge and summons the angel and all the children show up conveniently. Kirk uses a recording to summon the angel and shows he isn't afraid anymore because he has the POWER OF COMMAND!!! Kirk gets the kids to cry by showing them videos of them playing and having fun with their parents and then of their parents dead. This causes the angel thing to lose all it's power and grow hideously ugly and die the end.
Review: I skipped several instances of the crew being mind controlled above because they get kinda repetitive. This whole episode feels like it could have been a lot better with another rewrite to get things a bit more coherent. Also fewer children.
3 out of 10
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