Star Trek: 20 Worst Episodes Ever

8. And The Children Shall Lead (TOS)

CBS

On the surface of And The Children Shall Lead there's an interesting premise, but like many third season outings of the original Star Trek, the episode doesn't come close to exploring it in any meaningful way. Instead, it opts for depicting the crew as a bunch of morons and other such nonsense until the episode clocks out at fifty minutes. Worse, still, is Melvin Belii's "performance" as the nefarious Gorgan.

At the time, Belii was a well-known attorney, but hardly an actor, which is painfully obvious in every one of his scenes. To call his performance robotic would be a disservice to mechanised beings everywhere. Star Trek was Belli's first on screen role (one wonders how he even landed it) and he is simply terrible.

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Michael is one of the founders of FACT TREK (www.facttrek.com), a project dedicated to untangling 50+ years of mythology about the original Star Trek and its place in TV history. He currently is the Director of Sales and Digital Commerce at Shout! Factory, where he has worked since 2014. From 2013-2018, he ran the popular Star Trek Fact Check blog (www.startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com).