Okay, arguably one of the worst Star Trek episodes ever. Right up there with TNGs "Shades of Gray", Enterprise's "A Night In Sickbay" and Voyagers "Thawed", "Twisted"........and just about all the others. It features famous lawyer Melvin Belli (who dappled in acting for years) as Gorgon a "friendly angel" who influences a group of children to kill their parents. Part of an archeological expedition. But this episode is so bad I've loved hearing people come up with alternate titles "Melvin the Friendly Lawyer" "The Kids that Made Mr. Rogers Commit Suicide". "The Brats Who Make Wesley Crusher Look Good" and best "Kirk and Spock get tired of vampire clouds having all the fun and decide to kill two security guards in the most pointless way possible". Ah, but to the question. I've always wondered about this: At the end in the final confrontation with Gorgan, Spock says to it "Tommy's father (Professor Starnes, the leader of the Triacus expedition) would have destroyed you. But he recognized you too late". Question How was Professor Starnes supposed to have destroyed Gorgan? He couldn't have used Kirks tactic as that depended on reminding the children of how they killed their beloved parents at the behest of some weird shimmering guy. Did Federation archaeological expeditions carry some kind of "friendly angel zapper" as part of their regular equipment? If so why didn't Kirk use one to zap the Gorgan instead of traumatizing the kids by forcing them to face the fact that they murdered their parents?
Maybe Professor Starns invented a proton gun and ghost trap, but Gorgon had the kids dismantle them. He would have seen it coming if he'd invented the PKE meter to go with them.
Professor Starnes wasn't killed by the the kids or the by the Gorgan. He died by misadventure, he was on the brink of discovering who the Gorgan was. He was so excited, he locked himself in his lab and died from autoerotic asphyxiation. The kids being kids, misheard what was said, and came up with "Friendly angel come to me.".
Spock must have meant that Tommy's father had figured out Melvin Belli's space ghost's Achilles Heal, & would have succeeded in destroying Belli's space spook, but didn't move fast enough, & ended up being murdered by the evil children.
Even in an awful episode is does have one good point. Kirk saying aloud what will happen if they can't drive the evil out of the children. "We'll have to kill them." Now for people who want "grittier" and "edgier" Star Trek (mentioned in the Discovery thread) it really doesn't come much more than the hero and star talking about killing children (even though they don't do it).
I've finally figured it out: 1) It is apparent that the center of Gorgan's power was in the cave complex. We see this when he apparently manages to induce a panic attack in Captain Kirk in the complex when he and Spock enter it. This segment is often edited out with syndication cuts. But Professor Starnes in one of his taped messages indicates that the "effect" or something along those lines seems to be centered around the caves. It is obvious after watching it that the caves were the only place Gorgan could manifest its power without the childrens support. Professor Starnes had a phaser. So if he had realized this in time he could've destroyed the cave complex. 2) In one of his final messages Starnes seems to realize that "the children" are in some way involved in what he and the other members of the expedition are feeling. If Starnes had realized it earlier he probably could've sedated the children and thus vastly cut into Gorgan's ability to use its power. 3) Did Professor Starnes get too close to the truth? Is this why Gorgan had the children kill him and the other adults? Based on the actions aboard the Enterprise, Gorgan was more interested in manipulation than mayhem. The worst it did directly against any of the Enterprise crew was have an engineering crewman knock Scotty out. So was Starnes and the other adults killed because they were "too close to the truth"? All in all, while still a terrible episode from a logical standpoint it holds up much better than expected.
