Annoying children take over the Enterprise by shaking their fists. Yes, that pretty much sums up the whole episode; there is not much more to the plot than that. Kirk becomes a social worker and tries to help the children work through the grief of loosing their parents, but accomplishes nothing. There's a problem with putting children into adventure shows: they slow down the plot and they are typically very bad actors. I put this episode up there with Spock's brain and Hippies in Space as the worst Star Trek episodes. All three have one common element: annoying adolescent antagonists. If producers wants to put children or child-like characters in an episode, they should make the kids cute or smart or grappling with issues. Kids as evil villains just doesn't work.
Review of And the Children Shall Lead
