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Matt and Sean talk about how we believe children are the problem, in Star Trek The Original Series, Season 3, Episode 4, "And The Children Shall Lead.”
Matt and Sean talk about how we believe children are the problem, in Star Trek The Original Series, Season 3, Episode 4, "And The Children Shall Lead.”
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Creators and Guests
What is Trek In Time?
Join Sean and Matt as they rewatch all of Star Trek in order and in historical context.
Sean Ferrell: In this episode of Track in Time, we're talking about. What are we talking about? Children joining cults. I think that's what we're talking about.
Matt Ferrell: It is.
Sean Ferrell: Gosh. And are we talking about children joining cults Is the kids fault. Anyway, we're talking about. And the children shall lead. That's right. From the original series, the 60th produced, the 59th aired overall, the fourth of the third season. Welcome everybody, to Trek in Time. This is the podcast that takes a look at Star Trek in chronological star date order. We also take a look at the world at the time of original broadcast. We are currently just edging our way into the third season, the final season of the original series, and we're talking about 1968. So who are we? I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci fi, I write some horror. I write some stuff for kids. And with me, as always, is my brother Matt. He is that Matt behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. Matt, how are you today?
Matt Ferrell: I'm doing well. How about you?
Sean Ferrell: I'm feeling pretty good about the fact we're both wearing gray sweaters so we can both pretend we're wearing some kind of uniform like in Star Trek. Here we are just like going around doing our tech jobs. It's a lot of fun. So we're going to be talking about. And the children shall lead. This episode originally aired on October 11, 1968. We'll be talking about what was going on in the world at that time. But before we get into that, we always like to dip into the mailbag, see what all of you have had to say about our previous episode. So, Matt, what have you found for us this week?
Matt Ferrell: Well, from Paradise Syndrome, we had Wayouts chiming in, Dark episode, but it's one of those stories that every Trek seems to do. TNG did it best. I do agree with you on that. This is a very kind of like these kind of episodes I think Trek enjoys doing, and they kind of tend to do them pretty well.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: And that sentiment was kind of like in the comments, a lot of people talking about how dark it was, but they enjoy this episode. So it was kind of a. In that same vein. Then we had PaleGhost writing, we have 30 minutes before we need to deflect an asteroid bound for this planet. Then in all caps, then go take care of the asteroid. Yeah. PaleGhost.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah. Yep.
Matt Ferrell: Then we had Babarudra chiming in with wrong answers only for the Enterprise incident. Which was last week's episode that you and I talked about, which is airing for timey wimey stuff. Anyway, Enterprise Incident, Babarudra wrote, Kirk is arrested while investigating a supposed alien corpse in the Neutral Zone, leading to a closed Romulan tribunal. Through flashbacks and contradictory testimony, it turns out that what crashed was not a spacecraft, but experimental technology derived from an alien DNA that the Vulcan Science Academy had studied decades earlier. The Romulans have been using the research to conduct long term experimentation on unwitting subjects, attempting to adapt their species for environments beyond their natural limits. As Spock tries to find Kirk, witnesses begin dying under suspicious circumstances. Evidence quietly vanishes and it becomes clear to Spock that someone is actively erasing the incident. Or perhaps that really was just a weather balloon they found in the Neutral Zone. The Federation has canceled its project. It's just to search for signs of Romulan experiments as well. As AJ Chan wrote, Enterprise Incident Praxis explodes while Sulu is in command. Sulu calls Qo'nos only for an administrator to say there was an incident. Sulu, an incident. Great.
Sean Ferrell: That's a wonderful callback to something that we will talk about in the future. So that was a good one. So that noise you hear, those flashing lights, that's not Matt falling in love. It's time for him to tackle the Wikipedia description. And I hope you're all enjoying these as much as I know he is here in season three, where for some reason the Wikipedia entries are just one sentence summaries. It's lovely. Take it away, Matt.
Matt Ferrell: The crew of the Enterprise rescues a group of children stranded on a planet along with their evil quote, imaginary friend.
Sean Ferrell: And the children shall lead. Season three, Episode four, directed by Marvin Chomsky, written by Edward Lakso, with the original crew in full display, we have everybody, William Shatner, all the way down to Majel Barrett. And amongst the guest appearances, we have Melvin Belli as Gorgan, Caesar Belli as Steve, Craig Huxley, James Wellman, Pamelyn Ferdin, Mark Robert Brown, Brian Tochi, Lou Elias, Jay Jones, Paul Baxley, Dick Dial, Eddie Paskey, Frank Da Vinci, William Blackburn and Roger Holloway. It is a long list of guest appearances. So despite the fact that this takes place mainly aboard the Enterprise, I feel like this might have been a slightly more expensive episode than some of the other ones we've talked about. Originally broadcast on October 11, 1968. What was the world like at that time? Well, I know what you were singing along to, Matt. Take it away with hey Jude. I think you can all tell that based on that rendition, Matt's not a huge fan of hey Jude. In the movie theaters, people were lining up still to see Rachel, Rachel. This is the 1968 drama written or produced and directed by Paul Newman and starring his wife Joanne Woodward. It remained at number one for several weeks. And this, I believe, might be the final week that we'll be talking about it as other films will take its place. And on television, we've talked about shows also appearing on Friday nights, which is always a weird night of television. Early in the days of television, they realized people didn't watch television on Friday nights the way they did on other nights. Thursday night is the biggest night of television. Friday nights was often a strange kind of no Man's Land, which includes Star Trek. Star Trek was relegated to Friday nights during the second season and it never really recovered. Its viewership dropped and then it just continued to go down from there.
So we've been talking about the shows that also populated Friday nights. And we started off with ABC's programming, which included Operation Entertainment, the USO style entertainment show Question Mark, which was showing performances at air bases and army bases that the US would send in entertainers to rally the troops during an era as Vietnam was escalating. Maybe not the kind of programming people wanted to see at home. We also have talked about Felony Squad, the Don Rickles show, the Guns of Will Sonnet and Judd for the Defense, which is a title I just like saying because it's such a weird title. Well, Operation Entertainment lasted through the fall and then in the winter it was replaced with this is Tom Jones. This is Tom Jones was a variety and comedy show which focused on its host. That's right, Tom Jones, the crooner. It aired on television for three years. It was the result of a UK program that was licensed by ITC Entertainment to ABC. It ran from 69 to 71. It had 60, excuse me, 65 total episodes. Jones was nominated for a Golden Globe and it featured comedy sketches by a troupe as well, which included Fred Willard as one of the main actors in the comedy troupe. Strangely, in recent years, the show has not been available in any platform from through sale of DVDs or Blu Ray or on any streaming platforms because there apparently are licensing issues which have been going on as to who actually owns the program. Just a little footnote that I thought was interesting. And in the news on this day, Friday, October 11, 1968, the Tigers had won the World Series. There was a push for President Johnson to change who the Chief justice of the Supreme Court was He refused to do so, leaving Justice Warren as the Chief justice of the Supreme Court. There were ongoing debates around the presidential race where Richard Nixon was ramping up as the leader in the race.
Hubert Humphrey wanted to debate him, but Nixon was taking the stance that he wouldn't do any televised debates that involved George Wallace. So they were using. The Republicans, were effectively using George Wallace's being a part of the race as a way of sidestepping, having direct debates between Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. And at this point, the Senate Democrats had been pushing to allow for free airtime to be given to a debate and they gave up the fight. This effectively was the end of this push for there to be that kind of debate. But one of the headlines of this day that caught my eye doesn't even make it at the top of the page. It's basically a mid page note. Apollo is poised to lift off today. Oh, to have lived through an era where moonshot was becoming a footnote. This is about Apollo 7. So Apollo 7 was sitting on the launch pad getting ready to lift off. The 11 day mission was of course part of the testing phase for astronauts in preparation to say, yeah, we can actually manage to make it to the moon and back. The 11 day mission would be part of that research which would allow for the safe launching and return of astronauts to the moon. On now to our discussion about this episode in particular. Sometimes, Matt, we trade off. Who's going to lead off the discussion? Sometimes it's me, sometimes it's you. I'm going to throw your hat in the ring and ask you to launch into your thoughts about this episode. What did you think about this one? Very big picture.
First, just overall, did it land or did it not?
Matt Ferrell: I literally just watched this this afternoon before we recorded. So it's still very fresh. I think I liked it. I think it was. Overall, I think I enjoyed it. There were definitely some things about it that by the end made me go, oh, I don't know how I feel about this anymore. But if I take that reaction from by the end out, there were aspects of this that it just felt like a good Trek Trek, if you know what I mean. Good character dynamics between some of the characters. Shatner is Shatnering like Shatner's never Shatnered. I don't know what it is about season three, Sean. He seems to have dialed up the Shatner more than he wasn't. Like each season he's gotten more Shatner. And so it's like for me, I realized the joke of his overacting seems to be season three more than it was in season one and season two. And this one. Oh, Chef's Kiss. Some wonderful Shatner moments. But overall I think. I think it's an enjoyable episode. I thought there was enough there for like, there was an actual message that seemed to be being conveyed, an idea that was being kind of like, kind of debated. Not as. Not as in depth as I wanted, but there was a little bit of a debate around the kind of idea of, I don't know, it felt very prescient for today. I don't know if you felt that way. I felt as I'm watching it. Wow, this feels like this could have been a Strange New Worlds episode for talking about the current climate, political climate here in the US because it's talking about empathy and the other person is saying, empathy is a weakness. And it's just the battle of basically morality versus immorality. And I was just like, holy crap. This is clearly a issue that's just been percolating for generations. And it's just. It is what it is. It's not unique in the situation we're in today, but it feels unique because we're in it.
But here it is in the 1960s and very much present at that time as well. So this episode, thematically, I thought, holds true to what we're experiencing even now. So overall, I kind of give it a high mark for the Trekkiness of it, but we'll get into the details as to why it left a bad taste in my mouth by the end.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, I'll respond to that high level picture in reverse by saying, yeah, I agree. At the end of it, I was like, holy cow. This is really kind of like hitting this moment on the head. And as you said, everybody thinks that everything that's going on around them probably brings with the idea of nobody's ever faced this before. And the reality is we're all kind of just individual horses on a great big merry go round of time. And the things that happen have happened and the things that are happening will happen again. And it goes round and round and it's just our turn. So I found myself watching this figure who. I mean, you want to play with the metaphor of it being about political arguments. The message around strength is more important than anything. And if you're not wielding your strength, you're not actually in control and you're not doing anything worthwhile. Literally melting into a repugnant face that just can't sustain itself without adulation. I mean, we're talking about a potent metaphor for the moment. Yep. Boy. Moving backward from that to the performances, I not only give incredibly high marks for Shatner, who is Shatnering it up left and right. And, yeah, this is really. As you can tell by the lights, I'm going through my own read alert right now. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, an ambulance is parked out in front of my apartment. I felt like Shatner was doing Shatner stuff in a way that I was like, oh, this is. I'm watching a moment where it's being born. Cause he goes in the turbolift and has that meltdown. I agree with everything you said about Shatner, but I will also give pay some attention to and give high marks to Leonard Nimoy for his performance in this episode. I felt like Spock was particularly stony in this one. And I couldn't help but think.
I mean, as I was watching it, I was like, Nimoy and Shatner talked to each other about ways to highlight the tension by Nimoy playing it even colder than he normally did, so that the gap between him and Kirk would look like a chasm, as they are in the turbolift and Shatner is completely melting down, which then leads to a moment of no mind meld. Just reassuring. Literally, a hug from Spock to Kirk. And I found that an incredibly potent moment in the performance when it's Captain, Captain, and then Jim and you end up with this moment. I'm like. The actors worked together to say, like, what can we do to take the two of them so far apart so that when Spock reaches out, literally reaches out for Kirk, holds him and. And calls him by his name. It is the. They didn't go the magical thinking route of, well, Spock will go and use a mind meld, and everybody will say, like, the bullets aren't real, and therefore we survive. This is Kirk burning away. This terror of losing control. That's his, as they call it. What is it? They call it the beast. Everybody has their beast, and he's burned his beast out of himself. I like the fact that Spock's beast is effectively a kind of dismissal of human concern. Yeah, his beast is so subtle, they don't even give it a name. But he's just like, why are we bothering Starfleet? And why is anybody talking about anything? Everything here is running fine. No bigger beast for him than just dismissal of the people around him and the other people on the bridge. Everybody who has their beast evident in this episode, I felt like everybody got a chance to kind of chew the scenery a little bit because ultimately the beast is supposed to be an irrational thing. So when you get Sulu's cartoonish, we're flying through a space filled with knives. I was okay with it. I was okay with Chekov becoming kind of militant in his response to the threat.
Scotty becomes incredibly protective about the ship. You're gonna blow us up if you do. If you touch a dial. So get out of here or I'll kill you.
Matt Ferrell: But Uhura ends up.
Sean Ferrell: Uhura says, here's the thing shuts an eye roll. On the surface, it is an eye roll. It's vanity. But she. She doesn't say, I'm going to be ugly. She says, I'm going to suffer with a disease, with a painful death. So I felt like it was a weakness in the producers being able to come up with a better visual around that than it just looking like a loss of beauty. Because the writing was, I am going to die alone with a disease and terrible pain. And again, to connect it to what we often do now, to strange new worlds. Her family has died in a tragic accident. And I'm like, oh, this links back to that in a unique way, in a neat way. But it has to be my headcanon that does that. The show doesn't present in this moment. It's not in the text. It is, I think, a very poorly chosen visual of let's make her look ugly. And then she reacts instead of making her look ill. I mean, if she'd been covered with pustules and she had been like, I'm going to die of a disease I have. Like, if she had named something, it would have come through differently. I think the writers intended that. I think the producers on the. On the visuals dropped the ball. But I felt like everybody on the crew was given their opportunity to kind of demonstrate that. Interesting that they didn't give anything to Nurse Chapel because there was an opportunity there with that character. But she was very much a background character, obviously, in this series. But I felt like the performances landed. I also like the performance of the guy playing the spectral alien entity who plays it very grandfatherly. He's showing up with this kind of like, good job, children. It's this kind of. He's almost like a children's show host of, like, yes, we're all friends, and friends are what's important. And it's this kind of sickly sweetness that's leaking through the. The cultish behavior.
Matt Ferrell: If Captain Kangaroo went evil.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah, yeah, it very much.
Matt Ferrell: It's.
Sean Ferrell: It's. It's that kind of Thing like, gather round, children. Let me teach you how to kill your parents. So all of that being said, I want to jump into. For me, I think this one landed for me in a much better place than it did for you. On the whole, I understand what you were saying about toward the end. You felt like it was getting. Like it was kind of like walking in boggy territory. I was okay with that at the end because I felt like it set up such a interesting tension at the beginning. And what I found partially interesting for myself was the nostalgia watch of all of this. I didn't remember much of this one. This one really landed in an interesting place for me because I was like, oh, yeah, the one with the children. But what happens? And it took the children being on screen for me to say, like, oh, right. I think there's a scene later on where they cry. Like, that was how I watched this was like, oh, I think I remember them crying, but I didn't remember particular moments. And so for me, the setup, the kind of goofiness of some of the things, like the hammering of the hand, like, I got into that in a kind of like, this is a Twilight Zone. This is.
Matt Ferrell: That was my note on this.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: I felt like it was landing in a really kind of like, Twilight Zone. The Prisoner. A little surreal, a little symbolic, a little on the nose with the metaphor. We're literally talking about in 1968, somebody showing up and saying, the children are being led astray by charismatic leaders. Okay, what's going on in 1968? Oh, that's right. We just had the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. We just had riots around the Democratic National Convention. We just had, like, the Civil Rights movement, the women's rights movement. All these things are on the march. The anti war movement. And they make a TV show saying, children are being led astray by charismatic leaders, but the charismatic leader is effectively a warmonger. So it's a little bit like, which side is this landing on? Is this an anti counterculture episode or is this an anti establishment episode? Is it promoting peace and empathy or is it like.
Matt Ferrell: But that's what I liked about it, though, Sean. That's why I like this, too. Yeah, it feels very Trek to me, because they're dealing with a thorny issue, and they're not necessarily being crystal clear onto which side you're supposed to fall, but they're presenting it in a way to let you, the viewer, fill in the blanks for whatever makes sense for you.
Sean Ferrell: So it's like, I completely agree with that. Yeah. And I found myself buying in very early on because it was so creepily presented. And I was like, this is unsettling, the kids. The effectiveness of the children showing up. And again, I didn't really remember watching this one when I was a kid, but as I was watching it now as an adult, I was like, it is an unsettling horror scenario that they are literally standing around bodies, and the children come out and are playing a game and are having a great time. And it really, like, I'm like. For NBC Television to be broadcasting this, it's the kind of, like, horror edge that I'm kind of surprised made it to the air so.
Matt Ferrell: Well, this. This is my first note. Children are creepy. Yeah. Because, like, you think about all these, like, horror movies that have somebody's going into a haunted house, and all you hear is a faint child laughing off in the distance. It's creepy as hell. There's child laughing. If you were in the room with the kid and the kid's laughing, it's like, oh, we're having a great time. But you do something a little wacko with it. And suddenly it's like this discordant nature of children doing things they shouldn't be doing, but yet they're behaving like kids. They're laughing and having fun, but with the dead bodies around them and they're on the ship, you know, the whole, like, turning in a circle and going around a circle, and they're chanting this thing. It's like. It's kids having fun. But what the hell are they saying? This is creepy as hell. This is a Twilight Zone episode. And that's the part of this I really enjoyed. That's why I'm kind of giving this one a passing mark.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: Where I started to go straight, Sean, was the goofiness factor got ratcheted up by the end.
Sean Ferrell: So you had. Yeah.
Matt Ferrell: Like, you brought up the knives, Uhura's face thing. And it's like, okay, there's all these, like, goofy things that are happening that are undercutting it. And while I appreciated the ending of the way that they got through was to make the kids recognize what actually happened, and they had to basically destroy their own beast. So they had to basically grieve. And so once they grieve, they've severed their connection and he loses his control. I get it. But, damn, that's a dark way to end this, the show for, like, 1968.
Sean Ferrell: Whoa.
Matt Ferrell: Like, at the end, it's like they're playing the happy ending music of Star Trek. It's the happy ending music and the kids are bawling their eyes out, being carried off the bridge. And my note was, ah, children crying is such a happy ending. It's like, it was weird why they chose to end it with happy ending music with the children crying. They could have ended it with no music, made it really dramatic. They could have picked the more somber Star Trek music. It was like. But they didn't. It's like, why were they playing the happy music? So there was aspects of the way the show decided to do what they did that were like. The execution I found goofy and questionable at times. But if you take that away, I think it's a very solid morality tale. It's like what they're doing here. It's pretty impressive.
Sean Ferrell: I found it reminiscent for me of the Next Generation episode Skin of Evil, where that's the episode where they find the being on the planet that ends up killing Tasha Yar. And I found myself thinking about that. A lot of the similarities of saying there's something on this planet they talk about about the myth in this episode of what is the. What's the mythology around this part of space? Well, there used to be this nefarious, viewed as evil race that ended up dying on this world. And there's always been the worry that it would come back. And that's almost exactly the same setup of there were these beings, they cured themselves of their evil side and left it on this planet and it's still there. And so it's the question of Evil, a kind of philosophical episode that is wrapped up in action to keep you visually engaged while they kind of Trojan horse this deep question of the origin of evil is the evil within the children. And it is just being tapped by this thing. Is this thing taking motives that children would naturally have of I don't want. Adults are stupid. They don't care about things that I care about. I wish they would do what I want to do and I wish people would do as I say. Or is evil a manipulation to actually redirect? And they have the conversation where Spock says, well, evil is to take the direction of corrupt individuals. And then McCoy adds in or to trick the youth to trick the naive. And it becomes. They nicely never resolve it. And they boil down a lot of it to McCoy's understanding of psychology in saying the grief process needs to take place in a way that's they're ready for it. If we force this issue, it will be too much and it could do more damage than good. So there's this kind of biological argument going on. At the same time, it makes it a very complex set of circumstances. The nature of evil, the biology and psychology of grief.
What is a natural response? To have the children playing the way they are and have McCoy say, this kind of makes sense in the circumstance was kind of stunning. To have this moment of just like, yeah, they're acting really weird, but this might be the beginning of their grief response and we can't push it. And they have what is. I found a very effective. And again, reminiscent of Next Generation. The kids are having ice cream and Kirk comes in and kind of awkwardly is just like, well, you're all having so much fun. Do you mind if I join you? And it's this kind of like, I don't really know how to talk to children, but here I come. And I found myself thinking it feels very Picard. Like that moment.
Matt Ferrell: Yes.
Sean Ferrell: Of I need to deal with these children because these children may be a witness. And I found myself thinking not only of the skin of evil, but I found myself thinking about two different episodes. One in which Picard is on that awkward tour of the Enterprise with a bunch of school kids, and they end up having to get themselves out of a bad scenario where he's injured, and he ends up having to rely on these children to help him get out of it. And they wanted to be a part of Picard Day, which is part of their school project. And he's like, this is ridiculous. And by the end of it, he's come around to identifying his relationship as an adult and power figure in the lives of children and how the children are a part of his life as well. It's a really lovely episode. I also found myself thinking about the Next Generation episode, about the young boy who ends up emulating Data because he thinks he had a hand in the death of his parents. And that one, again, it's about grief. It's that one tragic. That one's a tragic story. And it's his. This kid's understanding of what's going on. I wish I could be like Data, because Data doesn't feel anything and I'm feeling too much. And so he leans into emulating Data and saying he is like Data, an Android. And as they piece together what has actually caused the death of the people on this other ship. And so for me, the fact that I kept thinking about all these other things, I was like, it's really kind of funny to me that I didn't remember watching this episode when as I was watching it, I was like, oh, my God, this is like baked in to Trek for me.
All of the themes of this episode feel like they are so present in so many good episodes that I found myself thinking, did I not remember this? Simply because when I watched it as a kid, did it not land? Because it landed with me as an adult? But as a kid, I think that maybe there was a part of, like, the kids are just goofy. They do a ring around the Rosie game and when they say let's play, they seem to just run in circles and push each other. And I think as maybe a kid, I was like, that doesn't make any sense. What are they doing? Yeah, but as an adult, it's like you said, you put a bunch of kids into a scenario and you say, like, they're gonna sing a running around the Rosie song while everybody around them is dead. And you're like, this is now taken on a whole other level of impact. So for me, this landed really, really well. I really liked this one. So do you want to talk a little bit about your response at the end? As you. As you said, things kind of like started to feel a little mushy and you weren't quite jiving with what they were saying.
Matt Ferrell: Well, it was kind of what I brought up before. It's like, it just felt like the execution got goofier. Do you know what I mean? As it went on. So, like, the decisions they made around the visuals, the decisions they made for some of the characters, I found kind of like questionable. Yeah, it was just. There was a tonal dissonance I don't think was intended, but it's there. And so the modern Matt had trouble disconnecting that and remembering. It's 1960s. This is. It's 1960s.
Sean Ferrell: It's the 1960s.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah, that's my problem with it.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah. I want to raise one suggestion that I think would have really hammered a more solid ending. I wish that the alien entities breakdown looked more like him, becoming more harshly lit and more. Less empathic and less charming in his depiction. Instead of melting, I felt like the melting was a little cartoonish. I felt like if it had turned into what if the figure had looked like it was slowly turning to stone or turning into a different actor who maybe was smaller and skinnier and more aged. Like to twist the imagery into one of not just, oh, I'm melting, which is kind of Wicked Witch of the west, but a little bit more of a. Yeah, we're seeing through you. We're seeing what you actually are as opposed to you're just this gross thing. Cause that was a little bit cartoonish to me. And then the last thing was for me, one of the most harrowing moments of the episode. Let's beam these two guys down to the planet.
Matt Ferrell: Oh, that scene.
Sean Ferrell: Sean.
Matt Ferrell: Oh, God, they're getting up. They're getting up on the transporter. I did not remember the scene, but they're getting up on the transporter and I actually almost out loud, oh, God, no. Those poor guys. They're just going to be dissipated into space. And then when they tried to beam the other people up and they're like, what's happening? It was like, oh, my God, that's awful. Those poor guys.
Sean Ferrell: Yeah. I found myself like. I think what would have happened is they would have been beamed as if they were being beamed onto a planet. And they would have. They would have materialized.
Matt Ferrell: Suffocated. Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: And then immediately suffocated in space. And it's.
Matt Ferrell: It was harrowing. It was.
Sean Ferrell: And the, the fact that they didn't have anybody in the room to forecast how terrible this could be. They left it up to you as the audience to be aware of what it meant.
Matt Ferrell: It was clear right up until Kirk.
Sean Ferrell: Says, what do you mean you can't get a lock on? If we're in space, then that means the people we just beamed onto the planet, we beam them to their death. And he's right about that. I thought the tension and buildup of that moment was perfectly done. And it was. I found.
Matt Ferrell: Here's, here's the thing that I thought about, Sean. If they did that in an episode today, they'd show them being beamed into space. You'd see the bodies contort and like dying in space. And I'm glad they didn't. I think it's more impactful. It's like, you know, Jaws, where they didn't show the shark and there's a bunch of stuff in Silence of the Lambs that's scarier because you don't see stuff. You hear it being described or you hear it, but you don't see it. And that makes it worse. So for me, keeping that in the transporter room, that entire scene, and you never see what happens to them. My imagination was going wild and it made it. It made it really tough. So I like that. The fact that they did it, pride to save money, didn't have to show anything. But second thing is it actually made it, I think, stronger as far as a kind of more horrific, scary thing to happen.
Sean Ferrell: Agreed. It was, I thought, a terrible yet well rendered moment.
Matt Ferrell: Yeah.
Sean Ferrell: So viewers, I would ask you to jump into the comments. What did you think about this episode? Do you agree with Matt and me that this one lands pretty squarely in Trekdom as a solid Trek episode? Do you agree with Matt that by the end it starts to get a little bit mushy with some of the depictions? Or do you think, like me, the initial setup is so striking and the lead into what everybody is experiencing is so well done at the beginning that by the end I was happy to be along on the ride, even as it got a little weird and goofy. Let us know in the comments. And don't forget, wrong answers only next time we're going to be talking about. Matt's going to be excited about this one. Spock's brain. Wrong answers only.
What is Spock's brain about? Let us know. As you can tell, the comments are a big part of the program. We love hearing from you, liking subscribing, sharing with your friends are also very helpful as far as supporting the program. We appreciate that. If you'd like to support us more directly, you can go to trekintime show. Click the supporter button there. It'll allow you to throw some coins at our heads. We appreciate the welts and we also sign you up for a spin off program Out of Time in which we talk about things that don't fit within the confines of this program. We're going to be recording an episode of that in probably two weeks, so you can look forward to a new episode of that next month. I say that as next month for me is January, but it'll be this month because you'll be watching this in January. So happy New Year, I think. Anyway, thank you so much everybody for taking the time to watch or listen. We'll talk to you next time.
I'm going to Shatner it up a little bit myself. Reed alert feel like let's see if I can fix that.
I kind of did. Now I look like Rudolph.