I'm partial to "Eden". Being a musician, I thought Adam's axe was great and seeing Spock get into the jam was priceless. Sure, Sevrin's ears were ridiculous and nothing says "the 60's" like space hippies, but I enjoy it all the same. I reach, brother. It's real now, brother.

"Turnabout Intruder" is a quagmire trapped in a morass in the middle of soulless mass of fuzzy logic surrounded by some indefinable, yet profoundly icky, substance. But Scotty comes off well; the 'sit-down' strike Sulu and the crew instigate was consistent with the times; I though both Shatner and Miss Smith sold their mind switch roles. It is great to hear Scotty say, "It may not be scientific, but if Mister Spock thinks it happened, then it must be logical.," and later, when LesterKirk says "... I was on the bridge," Scotty gets to say "The bridge is where you belong." But, good heavens, what a silly story. Mind switching? That's straight out of "Gilligan's Island."

I share some of your fondness for "Way to Eden," which tries to be relevant to the 60s, and deserves some credit for the effort. It might be remembered more fondly if they had been able to film on location, and had spent more time on the poisonous 'Eden." (Although, that is part of the story's weakness - how did this awful planet ever become associated with Eden?) The Severin character is too villainous, too unprincipled, and not nearly charismatic enough to be believable at the center of the episode.

We are in complete accord about "And the Children Shall lead." Every time I consider watching it, I realize I'd rather watch almost literally anything else (the exception being the woeful "Plato's Stepchildren.)"

We are in complete accord about "And the Children Shall lead." Every time I consider watching it, I realize I'd rather watch almost literally anything else (the exception being the woeful "Plato's Stepchildren.)"

I found ATCSL to be an eerily and predictive episode of what would would happen a year later with the Tate -Labianca murders and the Manson Family and even later with the whole Jim Jones thing.Or what would happen in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime there(The Killing Fields).

And the Children Shall Lead is one episode I am trying to forget and I absolutely refuse to watch it ever again. It's taking up valuable space on the bluray set as far as I'm concerned. There aren't many TOS episodes for which I feel that much vitriol, but if someone were to ever toture me, this episode would send me over the edge and I would confess to assassinating Abraham Lincoln if it'll get them to stop.

By ....? can't seem to find the author , anyways:

We are in complete accord about "And the Children Shall lead." Every time I consider watching it, I realize I'd rather watch almost literally anything else (the exception being the woeful "Plato's Stepchildren.)"

I find "And The Children Shall Lead" irritating , at times , straight out boring ..on the other hand "Plato's Children has the merit to bring me to tears laughing..now that's quite a feat per se😅.

I agree that "Plato's Stepchildren," while being far from a masterpiece, does have some redeeming characteristics. It is a guilty pleasure that has made me laugh.

Michael Dunn's performance is kind of touching. He raises his character above the script material at times.

The interracial kiss thing is definitely overrated, though. I would have been a lot more ground breaking if Kirk had willingly and eagerly kissed a black woman rather than having to be forced into it.

But I still prefer And The Children Shall Lead and Plato's Stepchildren above Turnabout Intruder especially since it was the last TOS episode during my yearly TOS binge I usually swap Turnabout Intruder with All Our Yesterdays which I find is a far more worthy final episode since the story focuses more on "The Main Three" rather than the Kirk centric TI .Plus All Our Yesterdays is one of the better episodes of season 3 plus the ending when Spock and McCoy have to leave Zarabeth is heartbreaking knowing she is left totally alone.