Star Trek: The Original Series
"Miri"
Air date: 10/27/1966
Written by Adrian Spies
Directed by Vincent McEveety
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
The Enterprise encounters a planet that is an exact duplicate of the Earth, but a place where all the adults are dead, leaving behind children who age incredibly slowly ("one month every 100 years"). The problem: These children all have a disease causing them to die the moment they surpass puberty. The other problem: Kirk and the landing party have now contracted the disease, and must race against the clock in finding the cure before they die. Unfortunately, it's not much of race. "Miri" feels long, slow, and surprisingly uneventful (to the point where Kirk's speech near the end is particularly hard to sit through), and has far too many lapses in logic to make the emotional core ring true.
The notion of an "exact duplicate of the Earth" is put to absolutely no interesting use, and exists, apparently, for no other reason than so the plot could have a setting of "Earth, 1960." I had too many questions involving the children, like, just how is it they've managed to survive so long, yet don't have the capacity to grow beyond their childish ways? That's the paradox, and the story even acknowledges it at one point, but not effectively or believably on the given terms.
Still, just to hear Spock ominously say, "Without [the computer analysis of the vaccine], it could be a beaker full of death" [cue music of doom], makes it almost worth the hour spent.
Previous episode: What Are Little Girls Made Of?
Next episode: Dagger of the Mind
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61 comments on this post
Tue, Jul 17, 2012, 8:20pm (UTC -5)
Another great moment was when McCoy tests the vaccine on himself and collapses. Spock runs to him and can't really do anything, but just stays with him. Then he's got that great line, "I will never understand the medical mind." It's a good Spock-McCoy moment, building up that third side of the triangle.
By the way, should this be a vaccine? Shouldn't it be an antidote? Isn't it a little late to vaccinate them against the disease?
Tue, Jan 8, 2013, 12:42am (UTC -5)
Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 4:13am (UTC -5)
But weren't those kids just terribly annoying! Kirk is a much better human than I could ever be. I would have left the annoying brats to die (kidding... sort of...)
Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 4:14am (UTC -5)
make that "female emotions". Sorry.
Sat, Oct 5, 2013, 7:34pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Mar 7, 2014, 3:43pm (UTC -5)
But what bugs me the most is the whole "exact duplicate of Earth" thing, which they never even tried to discuss further, let alone explain. I mean the continents were the same and everything, and they commented on it leading up to the opening credits. . .and then they never discussed it again. Why?
Why not just have the same plot on a planet that happened to NOT be an exact duplicate of Earth? And the children could be aliens that are only slightly different from humans. Just seemed odd that they introduced and hilighted this huge plot detail and completely left it alone.
Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 10:02am (UTC -5)
Wed, Apr 2, 2014, 2:20pm (UTC -5)
Mon, Sep 8, 2014, 11:04pm (UTC -5)
In fact, it might be one of the best children-focused Trek episodes in all five series.
I liked how our crew encounters all sorts of dangers -- beings of godlike powers, but also a wild band of kids could bring them down if they didn't keep up their guard.
Wed, Sep 17, 2014, 9:52pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Nov 21, 2014, 3:47am (UTC -5)
But other than those two things, I liked it overall. Though there were times they didn't ask questions that I thought they should. Also… seemed like the Doc would have been more involved with things, but perhaps I'm nitpicking now.
That said… I seem to remember running into a bunch of kids like this in Fallout 3 (or maybe New Vegas). Not sure if it was a direct homage to this episode, but I found it interesting.
Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 8:30pm (UTC -5)
Mon, Mar 23, 2015, 10:42pm (UTC -5)
Also, the interaction between Kirk and Miri was kind of creepy; and Yeoman Rand exuded all kinds of sexist stereotypes.
The only thing that really held my interest was that some of the kids looked familiar. Particularly Miri and the older boy; and to some extent the bucktoothed younger boy.
Fri, Mar 27, 2015, 2:06am (UTC -5)
See Memory Alpha, "On the Set":
en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Miri_%28episode%29
Sat, Apr 18, 2015, 11:56am (UTC -5)
But it's worth watching, sort of, for Spock's line about the "Beaker of Death!!" Hahahahaha.
Thu, Apr 14, 2016, 11:22am (UTC -5)
Sun, May 29, 2016, 12:04pm (UTC -5)
"I wonder how many exact duplicates of Earth are located in, say, the Klingon Empire. 'Cause there's plenty in Federation space."
The writers created the fictitious "Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development" to "explain" why all the aliens were humanoid and all the "town" location shooting ("Miri," "Return of the Archons," "The City on the Edge of Forever") was done on the studio's back lot. Notably, this "Hodgkin's Law" was never mentioned in any of the subsequent incarnations of Star Trek.
Sat, Jul 16, 2016, 12:50pm (UTC -5)
For the overall plot, it's a tale as old as dirt. Seriously, mankind tries to gain godlike powers and fails miserably; just how often can you find that story? That's not to say that you can't come up with a new version of this plot, but the show doesn't actually do anything with it, given that everyone's dead. None of the children seem to know anything about what happened, so we don't see any insight into the people who worked on this doomed project. Ever read the Bible story about the Tower of Babel (another example of this plot)? It's about 8 sentences long. That's pretty much the extent of the depth we have on this story. It's understandable, given the approach this episode has. But it means that the sci-fi concept of "and man grew proud" has all the merit for this episode as the infamous "dual earth" part of it.
What about the planet of children aspect? Well, the kids were freaking annoying. Was their plot regarding attacking the Enterprise crew worthwhile? Was Kirk convincing them to stop antagonizing them really a worthwhile plot? Honestly, it all just felt like padding. We didn't really see enough of them to get a true Lord of the Flies like atmosphere, so never felt like enough of a plot. They are antagonistic because, well, grownups are scary I guess, then kidnap Kirk, then listen to Kirk. Hooray, I guess?
That leaves the finding a cure plot and the Miri crush plot. The first is necessary but frankly boring (not sure how to make it more exciting, but some more interplay between Spock and Bones would have helped, showing them working together despite their animosity. I guess the drama about McCoy testing the cure on himself redeems it somewhat.). The second is a little bit disturbing, given the age of Miri (emotional and physical age, that is). I guess they tried to just play it off as cute, but, it still didn't seem to be able to carry an episode. Miri has crush, then gets jealous, then does something stupid because of the jealousy, then gets better. That's about it.
So not the most exciting stuff here. And that's not to factor in all of the oddities of the episode as well. Yes, everyone mocks the mirror Earth thing, but what a coincidence that the children survived all along at the city that sent out the distress signal, and was also the city that had all the research to find the cure! Also, pretty useful, plot-wise, that one kid got the disease just before the Enterprise arrived so we could see what would happen and create some mystery, and that Miri was just about to get the disease too. What are the odds? Also convenient that Rand came along for absolutely no reason other than to get Miri jealous. Did she or any other yeoman ever go on another away mission? Also, what's with the security guards? They just disappear and reappear at random times throughout the story. Are they not cool enough to get communicators of their own? Pretty convenient that they weren't around providing security when the kids stole the communicators, and also convenient that they didn't have their communicators with them wherever they were.
One last point that was never brought up during the episode, which did seem kinda curious. These kids are 300 years old. The brains of children are, of course, quite adept at learning. Have they really just been playing games for 300 years? I realize that there are no adults, and that they probably weren't that mature when this plague started, but no one tried learning how to be an adult in all this time? There wasn't a quiet kid who liked school in the bunch? I wonder how a 300 year old child would really act, because I doubt it would be like this. Oh well, can't fault the episode for not going in that direction.
Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 3:40pm (UTC -5)
Thu, Jan 19, 2017, 7:29pm (UTC -5)
The kids are annoying and I'm not sure why they need to band together under the leadership of the oldest male kid.
I liked the Kirk-Miri-Rand subplot and Kirk reasoning with the kids with Miri's help. Rand has played a high-profile role in the first few episodes of Season 1 - she's a good actress though not particularly useful.
Of course, plenty of questions about what 300-year-old kids would actually be like - maybe the virus prevented them from learning and maturing despite still being in kids bodies? It would have been good to get more insight into the grown-ups who created the virus.
Anyhow, 2.5/4 stars for me -- interesting idea, some good parts but kind of a slow episode with not that much happening.
Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 12:30am (UTC -5)
So, I guess, I'd just say to all the witch-hunters: pack your torches and pitchforks and go home, because every interaction between an adult male and a female child is NOT the sick and perverted fantasy created by your own minds that you think it to be.
Fri, May 5, 2017, 3:42pm (UTC -5)
I think the crush is believable And Kirk handled it okay. And yes, a duplicate earth, if you’re going there, you should use it better. As a kid, I watched TOS occasionally in its original run and then in syndication. And seeing it all these years later, it’s clear that TV storytelling has evolved and that some stories don’t hold up. And yet they’re still better than some stuff that’s being created today. And knowing what I know now and didn’t then, I was awfully worried for those red-shirts when they started wandering about on their own.
Sun, Jun 11, 2017, 10:34pm (UTC -5)
As others have pointed out, the "duplicate earth" thing is probably unnecessary and no attempt is made to explain it. Also, I too found it implausible that 300 year olds would still act like children, even if they are in the bodies of children. Of course, we are dealing with an alien race (even though they look just look humans on a duplicate Earth) so their psychology may be somewhat different. Even Kirk contradicts himself in this episode, saying at one point that children need guidance and that they were dealing with children - immensely old children perhaps, but still children. Then at the end of the episode, when Rand expresses concern leaving the alien "children" to fend for themselves, Kirk says there are "children - hundreds of years old. They'll be fine." (I'm paraphrasing, I don't recall Kirk's exact words, but I'm sure my point is made.)
Interesting bit of trivia: Two of the guest actors in this show are Grace Lee Whitney's sons, and as mentioned by a poster above, Shatner's daughter appears in this episode. She's the little girl Kirk is carrying toward the end of the episode.
Sun, Jul 9, 2017, 2:14am (UTC -5)
Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 5:55pm (UTC -5)
Kirk flirting relentlessly with Miri. That's not creepy. (come on I do know these crushes happen but the adult reciprocating and calling them pretty? I'm pretty darn sure they didn't intend it to come across this way, but eww)
Once she starts "becoming a woman" he immediately sets her to work cleaning desks and sharpening pencils!
"I never get involved with older women" doesn't help him either.
And indeed a rather slow episode.
I do like the Spock+McCoy moments though.
Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 10:38pm (UTC -5)
Great guest stars here in Kim Darby (True Grit!) and Michael J. Pollard, who effect memorable characters. And I must say, rewatching these early episodes, that Grace Lee Whitney has real personality and chemistry as Yeoman Janice Rand -- she's very feminine but with a fiery personality that comes through when her eyes flash. She and Shatner play well off each other, continuing to keep their relationship on a professional level even at this point where it's clear that they both have feelings for each other, and I can see why Whitney was brough back for several cameos in the Star Trek movies after leaving the show prematurely in Season One.
The Spock-McCoy stuff is fun to watch, with McCoy's selfless humanism coming through in his willingness to test the "beaker of death" (love that Spock line) on himself and Spock's dry humorous-yet-reverential comment (McCoy has clearly earned his respect, almost against his own better judgment) later about "the medical mind." In this case, Kirk kind of stays in the middle while they fight things out, and it's fun stuff. Spock's line "and I *do* want to return to the ship" is also a great one in a particularly well-written script.
No Sulu, Scotty, or Uhura in this one, unfortunately, but we hardly notice since it's a McCoy-Spock-Kirk show. Side note: While it's true the women characters on TOS often serve food and coffee, as Rand does in her capacity as yeoman, it's also noteworthy here that Uhura's assistant/backup comm officer is a white man -- it's not strictly a "woman's job" to run the communications system. Little touches like this one remind us how TOS often subverted gender and racial divisions right under the noses of censors -- and why some families refused to watch the show in the 1960s because of its racial and gender integration.
But above all else, the story to "Miri" is an endlessly fascinating classic Sci-Fi yarn, inviting us to consider the moral implications of pushing science beyond moral limits for the sake of human vanity -- the idea here is to that people of present-day Earth (circa the episode's air date) accidentally wiped out the whole planet's population while pursuing a medical means of prolonging life indefinitely. Far from creating the Zombie apocalypse through a nuclear war, the people of this alternate earth created it through self-improvement medicine, and it's really clever how the disease partially succeeded by elongating the life of children until they reach puberty and are hyper-accelerated into a zombielike adulthood that kills them.
So there's kind of a space allegory about puberty here, too, playing on adolescent fears that adulthood will kill us because we're not ready for it. And the traumatized "elderly children" (love Kirk's "never date older women" quip to Rand at the end regarding Miri's crush) are clearly terrified and in distress, leading them to attack Kirk out of fear and confusion. All of this stuff, including Miri's girlish crush on Kirk and Kirk's efforts to earn her trust for the sake of the landing party, is astonishingly well-observed in human terms. There's even some real emotion in the Kirk-Rand scene, and in the escalating conflicts among the landing party when the disease wears them down, as things gradually start looking desperate. Very nice to see a real sense of danger on Star Trek, a hallmark of TOS.
As for the alleged plot holes, I really have to say with all due respect -- as a lifelong Star Trek fan who has seen every episode and movie of every series -- that I think we fans really start to lose the point when we insist on a line of dialogue to explain away every little uncertainty or unresolved thread in an episode. The point of TOS is to provide an abstract allegory, to raise more questions than it answers in order to make viewers think, and it's far more nourishing to the imagination to leave certain details (like what did the kids eat to survive?) unexplained rather than invent a technobabble solution -- see TNG, Voyager, and Enterprise for over-explanations if you're more concerned to harmonize the fictional universe of this franchise into a coherent self-contained bubble than to think about the big issues it raises. Watch TOS if you're more concerned to wrestle with big questions as you get to know a very warm and lovable cast of characters -- questions like how to care for traumatized children while working harmoniously with different personalities to save yourselves from the Zombie apocalypse that killed them and fend off a girl's first crush. And questions like whether there are any moral limits to risky procedures to prolong life, beauty, and other passing things which make us who we are as human beings.
Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 10:47pm (UTC -5)
Sun, Nov 5, 2017, 8:08pm (UTC -5)
Surprised that Spock didn't also hold an A-7 Expert Classification in Chemistry. He was, after all, the flagship Enterprise's Science Officer, not just its Computer Science Officer.
Great points about going out of its way to tell us, "Another Earth!" and then drop the meme completely. I guess I'd understand if I was ever tasked with cranking out an episode a week for national broadcast. I wonder if original scripts (before editing) exist. Seems like such a cavernous hole, more of a "collaboration" error than one of originality.
I liked the episode, the acting, Rand's part, and the Spock-McCoy development.
Mon, Nov 13, 2017, 8:08pm (UTC -5)
Some have complained about the episode being set on Earth. I thought the writers did this deliberately, the episode like a giant metaphor for our earth dying when man leaves aside his youth, love and innocense for adult forays into greed and desire.
Sat, Nov 25, 2017, 5:34am (UTC -5)
Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 7:33pm (UTC -5)
Wed, May 16, 2018, 7:22pm (UTC -5)
It is noted this was a M-Class Planet. Then they follow it up with a planet with a Earth-like conditions, climate, water, and oxygen just like Earth. Isn't that what a M-Class planet means?? There is no reason to say it is just like Earth. That's what the classification is for. Speaking of which, what planet have the crew ever visited that wasn't M-Class? Even the frozen planet in the Episode where Kirk was split into two Kirk's in a transporter malfunction, was Earth like. In Siberia.
Bonk, Bonk.
Sun, Oct 14, 2018, 5:56am (UTC -5)
But viewers of the day were new to it all. This was the first episode in all of Star Trek where the crew meets human-looking aliens, and only the second episode (or third, if you count "The Cage") where they meet aliens of any sort, besides Spock of course. So the "duplicate of Earth" planet does have a purpose, it's lampshading the fact that these "aliens" are basically just humans. Eventually, of course, this would go from a curiosity to a trope, and they stopped bothering to try to explain it. But here, it was still necessary to explain.
Sun, Jan 27, 2019, 5:10am (UTC -5)
This episode has the worst and least coherent writing I've ever seen anywhere. Why do the children keep wanting to kill Kirk? Is it purely because he is acting like an adult schoolteacher?
When we first hear the word "Only" used to describe the children, it is as if it is a natural part of the language; as though we are already meant to know what it means in that context, but I don't.
The icing on the cake here was the theft of ALL FOUR communicators. ALL of them are going to be left unattended on the table? Said communicators are normally carried by the crew wherever they go; I assume they have holsters for them. Yet they left all of them on this one occasion, purely because it was convenient for the plot?
I've seen "Spock's Brain," but truthfully I consider this episode worse. The reason why is because, while I felt that said rules were preposterous, it still at least felt as though "Spock's Brain," actually HAD some rules and followed them. The biggest problem with this episode, is that things just happen, without any foreshadowing or real context whatsoever.
My other problem with this episode, is that whoever wrote it apparently has an extremely negative view of children. Young children might be noisy and experience primal emotions, yes; but in my experience, pre-pubescent children are actually more capable of coherent logic than adults. I've talked a toddler down from a tantrum with reason before. It can be done. I simply explained to the toddler that there was no causal connection between it losing its' temper and getting what it wanted; so it could get as angry as it liked, but that would not help it. Once it realised that anger was futile for reaching its' objective, it tried another approach.
I've watched a lot of science fiction at this point, which means that my tolerance for incoherence and arbitrary explanations is very high; but regardless of how arbitrary an explanation might be, the one necessity is that there IS one. With "Miri," there isn't. There are far too many events here which occur with no context or previous establishment whatsoever, and I can not accept that.
Sun, Mar 10, 2019, 1:37pm (UTC -5)
Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:10pm (UTC -5)
--The Enterprise comes across a duplicate Earth! There's a distress signal. An intriguing start.
--They find a horrible looking person and the ruins of 1960s Earth. How are they going to manage to fit the requisite sex goddess into this scenario? There's just an adolescent girl, Miri. Kim Darby. I guess Rand must carry the sex symbol burden alone.
--A disease has killed all the adults and is killing Jim, Bones, and Rand. They have 7 days to live.
--Miri, who apparently is 300 yrs old or so, has a crush on Kirk. This is played out in a rather ooky, if innocent, way.
--Michael J Pollard: He is clearly not prepubescent, but OK. Haven't thought of him in decades.
--So far, they've given us no explanation, or shown any interest in, just how it is that an exact duplicate of Earth should exist.
--Rand throws herself into the designated sex pot role, hugging the Captain and telling him she always wanted him to look at her legs.
--"A Beakerful of Death!" a good line from Spock that should have been the title of the episode. These kids are immensely annoying.
--Shatner gives a standard dramatic Kirky speech to convince the kids they need help.
--McCoy finds a cure. All is well.
Not horrible, but the ooky and annoying factors are high in this one. Below average.
Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 12:40am (UTC -5)
@Petrus
Your question: Why do the children keep wanting to kill Kirk? Is it purely because he is acting like an adult schoolteacher?
They mention that the adults went crazy, hitting and whatnot, and figured they had to do something about the crew before they also went crazy. They had not realized they each would as well, as they (very) slowly grew up.
Regards... RT
P.S.: I hope you found some episodes you liked. :)
Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 12:00am (UTC -5)
They assume, without investigating further (as far as we're shown) any further than what would have been a few miles from that crumbling town. How do they know that, elsewhere—Fiji? the Himalayas? the Amazon? the Sahara? (whatever corresponds to comparable earth geography on this planet)—hundreds, heck thousands or even millions of kids, aren't alive and doing just fine? Why would the go-to presumption be that these 20 kids or so are the ONLY onlies? And that in every other geographic region of the world, 300-year old "child" survivors are all nothing more than a bunch of do-nothing brats?
[I know that sometimes, the Enterprise has some kind of power to "detect human life" in places, but in just as many other cases, it seems they cannot.]
Meanwhile...
If (perhaps taking place only "off screen") the Enterprise actual was able to and did do a thorough scan of the entire planet, and did confirm 100% that there were no other surviving children or adults except for these 20 or so 300-yr-olds...
Why on earth—or rather, why on double-earth—would the Enterprise leave these 20 "children" (dysfunctional people with no education, skills, training, medical care, etc., ALL ALONE on that planet (save for the "teachers" or whomever they left to help; can't be more than 4-5 of them) ? It's one thing for a group of adult space colonists to set up camp on a planet—by choice. But these elderly children surely deserved the opportunity to leave and experience actual functioning communities comparable to their own culture. Or any culture really, so long as it's not a planet where just about entire population was wiped out centuries ago?
Such a small group, there'd surely have been plenty of room on the Enterprise to transport them somewhere. And rightfully, they would have some advocate appointed to them to secure and protect their rights to a stake in their own planet, once outsiders learn of its existence and resources. (Seriously, what a prize for the Klingons to claim!)
One can only imagine the psychological warping of these "children" in all that time. Seeing all that violence of the gr'ups, the horrific extinction of all (at least sentient) life except for themselves. 300 years of festering emotional wounds. Teaching them to read, write, and farm aren't going to fix all that. They need role models and examples of possible ways to live and learn and thrive.
Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 5:26pm (UTC -5)
The premise is both intriguing and absurd. With a little more care with the writing, perhaps allowing some better character development and maybe playing off the whole Kirk, Miri and Jand love triangle with more aplomb may have led this episode becoming a true classic.
Unfortunately we have some jarring dialogue (Bones : I've never seen so much bacteria, enterprise, send down some virus scanners!) and kirks final speech is pretty lame. The ending left me agog with the Enterprise leaving orbit and leaving the kids there on the planet!
So a great start to the episode but it doesn't meet its promise of a true classic.
Sun, Nov 24, 2019, 8:02pm (UTC -5)
I immediately thought of this episode, where Pollard's baby face couldn't quite disguise the fact that he was 28 and not prepubescent.
An interesting and talented actor who distinguished himself from the pack. RIP.
Wed, Jan 1, 2020, 8:19pm (UTC -5)
Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 10:56am (UTC -5)
Quite a few creepy undertones or overtones, I'm not sure. Also this is not a how a vaccine works. No wonder that there are so many anti vaxxers in the US!
Is this a vietnam analogy? The children are the young people of the USA who need to trust the grups again?
The whole scenario is not explained at all. Why is there earth two? Why are there people on it who lived like earth 1? Why didn't the "guards (red shirts)" get sick?
Oh and of course there is a message from Queen Amidala to the Yeoman about how ridiculous her hairhat looks.
Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 9:12am (UTC -5)
Wed, May 6, 2020, 3:55pm (UTC -5)
The relationship between Kirk and Miri was enjoyable, and it leads to some interesting discussions about entering adulthood and what it means to be stuck as a child. I only wish the episode went a little further and capitalized on the children-versus-adults dilemma. Unfortunately, it seems like these children are too stupid to live which hurts feeling much sympathy towards them. Perhaps if we knew more of what kind of abuse they suffered, we could relate to them better.
I agree with Springy that Yeoman Rand being helpless and lamenting not being able to show off more skin to Kirk was pretty icky. Luckily, Rand gets better material in other episodes.
Some intriguing concepts and decent characters but missing the real polish of a classic. 2 stars seems about right.
Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 8:28am (UTC -5)
The weird thing is I really liked this episode much more when I was a little kid. Maybe the episode speaks to kids in a way it doesn’t to adults. But for years - well into my teens - I regularly called grown ups “Grups” - not that anyone had any idea what I was talking about :-) But then, isn’t that what it means to be a kid?
The episode has so many themes that have been picked up elsewhere over the years.
For a planet where everyone dies after adolescence, a great example is Farscape’s "Taking the Stone”, where Chiana runs after she learns her brother has died.
I really liked how the kids were portrayed in Miri. As many have noted, Kim Darby did a fantastic job. And she was only 18 at the time.
Kirk treats Miri with a gentleness that is necessary to handle a young crush if you are to keep her at arms length without crushing her. Yeoman Rand seems very taken with Kirk’s gentle hand. Kirk, very cleverly, puts the entire Rand situation to rest once and for all, with the almost throw-away line at the end:
KIRK: I never get involved with older women, Yeoman.
Yeoman Rand was more than a year older than Kirk. So that settles that.
But of all the pieces of this episode that really jumped out at me, it was that, the plague was engineered. Spock says,
SPOCK: According to their life prolongation plan, what they thought they were accomplishing, a person would age only one month for every one hundred years of real time.
SPOCK: Evidently through some miscalculation, this virus annihilated the entire adult population in a very short period, leaving only the children.
Can’t believe I had never caught that detail before.
Reminds me of Firefly. Specifically the Reavers:
https://youtu.be/U-NVs68X_S4
MAL REYNOLDS: "Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now? Ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people better. And I do not hold to that.”
Finally, as @Pete points out, there’s this
https://youtu.be/OZB8CB5seEs
which, let’s face it, makes Miri a 10 star episode. 11 stars even.
Tue, Mar 2, 2021, 2:36am (UTC -5)
Kirk positively leering at an adolescent girl near the start? Yuk, creepy.
The away team all abandoning their communicators in contravention of Starfleet Academy Protocol 223.45 (iv)?
Spock apparently not in possession of an iPad? 🤣
As so often, all senior crew members beaming down together? (At least they addressed this in TNG.)
Where were Uhura and Sulu at the beginning?
Why wasn’t the “duplicate Earth” scenario explored? That was a great story wasted.
It could have been a great episode but turned out one of the least in the end.
Thu, Apr 1, 2021, 9:52pm (UTC -5)
I guess they saved money by not having to pay someone to draw new continents on a fake globe?
{{ I immediately thought of this episode, where Pollard's baby face couldn't quite disguise the fact that he was 28 and not prepubescent. }}
Yeah, Kim Darby really did look 14 or so, but Pollard was so obviously an adult.
{{ Kirk flirting relentlessly with Miri. That's not creepy. (come on I do know these crushes happen but the adult reciprocating and calling them pretty? I'm pretty darn sure they didn't intend it to come across this way, but eww }}
Even worse is how he ends up ripping her shirt, and then later holding her by the hair while she screams "NOO!" ... I mean yeah it's all not like that in context (she's yelling in denial about having the disease, not saying don't assault me), but still - *shudders*
Sat, May 29, 2021, 3:47am (UTC -5)
A bunch of crazy kids who don't believe in Medical science and preventing an epidemic.
Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:41am (UTC -5)
I think some people here are reading way too much into the Kirk and Miri interactions. For God’s sake, he’s not “grooming her,” he’s trying to put a clearly traumatized kid at ease so she doesn’t fly off the handle every few minutes. Miri’s jealousy over Janice was pushing it a bit, but I didn’t take it as anything that grew from what Kirk did; I chalked it up to Miri’s unstable mind. I actually found Kirk’s crack at the end--”I don’t go for older women” or something like that--pretty funny. And Kim Darby did a great job; for some reason she reminded me of Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz movie.
I think SlackerInc touched on a good point above. While I liked the creepy vibe of the scenes with the bratty other kids, that particular storyline felt unfinished and undeveloped--”Miri” tries to be “Lord of the Flies” but comes off more as “Village of the Damned” or the Lost Boys from “Hook,” managing to not say much more than “These kids are so off-kilter, aren’t they?” And yeah, “Jahn” (which is how my subtitles named him) was clearly past puberty. I get that over-18 actors playing kids are easier to schedule and work with, but nothing in Jahn’s scenes convinced me, either in or out of the box, that he couldn’t have been played by an actor the same age as that annoying urchin who kept saying, “Bonk bonk bonk!” (As an added bonus, my son tackled me shortly after we finished watching the episode and pounded his fists into my shoulders while shouting “Bonk bonk bonk bonk,” so thanks, Star Trek.)
There are a few things to be said here about the dangers of playing God and experimenting with genetic engineering, and that’s okay, but the resulting jeopardy plot with the virus and “countdown” seemed a bit clumsy. Remind me again why they couldn’t simply find the security guards and use their communicators to contact the ship when they supposedly had “days” to accomplish this. The guards appeared at the end almost like an afterthought, like the writer forgot about them and didn’t have time to go back and explain it. They should have just had the kids kill them earlier when they separated from the group--I mean come on, that’s Horror Movie Plot Cliche #1, how do you not take advantage of that?
I did like McCoy’s arc and how his crazy “medical mind” responded to the crisis. And I’m sorry, but Janice was hilarious (and I’ll leave it at that).
Lastly, Star Trek sure has some obvious doom-and-gloom warnings weaved throughout it. Between “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” (the dangers of too-smart artificial intelligence) and “Miri,” (the dangers of screwing with nature) I’m starting to have concerns about what we’re headed for in our future as a species. I think I’ll hug my kids a little tighter tonight.
Best line:
Kirk -- “Why do you think the symptoms haven’t appeared in Mr. Spock?”
McCoy -- “I don’t know. Probably the little bugs, or whatever they are, have no appetite for green blood.”
Spock -- “Being a red-blooded human obviously has its disadvantages.”
My Grade: B
Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:41am (UTC -5)
"This is also the episode that gave us Kirk's immortal line "No Blah Blah Blah!" which rivals "Brain and brain, what is brain?" for the best of the worst lines of the entire series."
Wait, what?! Pete, stop it, you’re making that up! Are you telling me there is an actual line of dialogue that’s “Brain and brain, what is brain?” I can’t wait to get to that episode.
@Davidw
"Miri has become a great episode as of, say last year.
A bunch of crazy kids who don't believe in Medical science and preventing an epidemic."
Hah! Good one.
Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 4:01pm (UTC -5)
"Wait, what?! Pete, stop it, you’re making that up! Are you telling me there is an actual line of dialogue that’s 'Brain and brain, what is brain?”
Yes he is. And he ain't joking.
"I can’t wait to get to that episode."
Be careful what you wish for. The episode in question is even worse then the above quote implies (some people regard it is the worst episode of TOS).
Sun, Feb 27, 2022, 9:12am (UTC -5)
One thing that drove me crazy was trying to figure out who the oldest "boy" was (I put boy in quotes because he was actually 27 years old in this episode) and where I knew him from; he was so recognizable and I never could place him. Now through the magic of the internet I was finally able to look it up. He played "cousin Virgil" on an episode of the Andy Griffith show, the clumsy relative who always goofed everything up. I've seen that episode so many times I can't believe I couldn't make the connection.
Mon, Mar 7, 2022, 11:01pm (UTC -5)
Within that context I have to say that TOS S1 is surprising me a little. I obviously know the episodes like the back of my hand but seeing them all in exact sequence (something I've rarely if ever done) is showing me something I hadn't noticed. So far we're 8 episodes in and TOS really has a lot of elements that I would consider to be very reminiscent of 50's and 60's science fiction stories (not pulp stuff but real science fiction). Take Miri, for example, which has a lot in common with The Omega Man (made in 1971), based on I Am Legend from the 50's. The type of contemporary-dystopia set not in the future but in the near-present after a technological disaster is a sci-fi trope that use to be quite popular but has since fallen out of fashion (other than in reboots). Most of the plot development in Miri is the unfolding of what these people did to themselves with genetic experimentation, which puts it squarely in the sci-fi camp and quite far from the 'space western' genre which so many people have suggested TOS was. Previous episodes are likewise tonally absolutely not space westerns, such as The Man Trap (an Outer Limits style creature feature), Charlie X (a chilling story, certainly not an 'adventure'), and Where No Man Has Gone Before (a supremely cerebral look at human weakness ballooned to godlike proportion). So it's quite striking that 'adventures in space' is hardly the tone of the show up until this point, and in fact it has yet to establish a common tone. Each guest submitted script is really quite different in approach and even banter style, and certainly none of them seem to be in the mindframe yet of making statements about the Cold War or anything else directly contemporary.
Another thing I'll mention is that at this juncture I'm a bit surprised at how many people call TOS 1 the best original season without any qualification. Now it's my favorite Trek show so I'm not complaining about it, but so far out of eight episodes most of them are in the least-enjoyed category, relatively speaking (absolutely speaking I'd watch any of them any day). I rather enjoy The Enemy Within, but looking ahead it won't be until The Menagerie that the show gets into what I think of as prime TOS mode, and two episodes after that with Balance of Terror that we get a thrilling classic, halfway through the season. Granted, the second half of the season does include The Galileo Seven, The Squire of Gothos (which I like more than some people perhaps), Space Seed, Devil in the Dark, Errand of Mercy, and City. So that's a heavily backloaded season, but nevertheless it takes 12-13 episodes IMO for it to hit its stride and find a truly original type of story to tell. Don't get me wrong, I like Miri, but it's a known scenario in sci-fi terms at this point in history and in a sense nothing new.
Check out S2's roster by contrast, which although obviously is not perfectly even (no Trek season is) there is a huge assortment of episodes that exemplify Trek. Even the least of the S2 episodes seems a bit more 'Star Trek' than The Man Trap does, which makes sense of course. I had just never noticed before that TOS did take maybe half a season to hit its mark of originality. That's still much better than most TV shows do, and it's the rare show putting out classics even within its S1 (Babylon is a notable example of a fairly quick ramp-up period). S3 is definitely more uneven again, maybe on par with S1 on average. Both are excellent, but TOS S2 is the equivalent of TNG S3-4, more or less, with winner after winner.
Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 11:20am (UTC -5)
Synopsis
This is a trek episode that I vaguely remember watching as a kid. This episode starts with the Enterprise following an old SOS distress signal to a planet that is seemingly identical to earth both visually and in terms of readings. After beaming down to an abandoned 1960’s earth duplicate and being attacked by a zombie looking dude who has a kid’s mind and seems rather upset at a bike being broken, the away team find a girl called Miri and learn about a disease that killed off all the “Grups” or grown ups as Yeoman Rand points out. Some quick research of local records quickly reveals a virus created 300 years ago that was originally intended to prolong life, but kills off anyone who has hit puberty. It turns out the kids are 300 years old and age a month per 100 years, however as soon as they hit puberty they age rapidly (which explains our zombie friend at the beginning). The away team have seven days before they will all die (except for Spock who will be stranded since he’s a carrier of the virus), mean while the local kids and their ringleader plot against the away team. The communicators get stolen, Rand gets captured, Kirk goes after Rand, gets in a scuffle with some kids, does a Kirk speech to appeal to both their sympathy and fear, all while Spock and McCoy make a vaccine for the virus. (Wouldn’t a vaccine be too little too late, I think they mean cure?).
Review
Overall a disappointing episode. My biggest quibble being the fact that they didn’t explain the planet being identical to earth even though according to Kirk it was further away than any Earth colony - although they never did tend to dwell on such things back in TOS. I’ve noticed this is another TOS episode which would have had a key obstacle removed had it been incarnated in a recent Trek series, ie: Spock: “we can’t capture them, they know the area too well” – ever heard of a transporter lock and site to site transport? I found the children’s annoying repetition of phrases strangely similar to ‘Lord Of The Flies’, and the communicators being left laying about even though they normally always get put back into their pockets was just silly. The adult-looking ringleader was never explained either. Kirk gets hit several times over the head with what looked like a spanner yet he escaped largely unhurt - not even a Borg drone gets up after being violently assaulted with a spanner. About the only good that came from this episode was phrases like “The before time” which was reused in ENT: 1 x 06 – Terra Nova, a similarly themed episode and Yeoman Rand under the influence of the virus, admitting to trying to get Kirk to look at her legs back on Enterprise, oh and Kirk saying that he “never gets involved with older women” at the end.
There was no real moral dilemma to be drawn from this episode, unlike the previous episode which had a clear “is controlling criminals by altering their minds really the right thing to do” – (even if it wasn’t a scratch on ‘A Clockwork Orange’) was still better than don’t try to prolong life in case you make a zombie virus that will kill everyone off and leave your kids to grow up as jibbering idiots due to lack of parental care and prolonged boredom. They could have easily added to the excitement of the episode by adding more zombie and phaser action but instead the cream of Starfleet nearly loses out to a bunch of pre pubescent kids.
Memorable quote: Spock: “Being a red blooded human obviously has its disadvantages”.
Final Score: 1/10
Tue, May 24, 2022, 7:58pm (UTC -5)
Mon, Nov 21, 2022, 10:20am (UTC -5)
Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 10:10pm (UTC -5)
I'm afraid there is more I dislike here than like. The "another Earth" aspect is wasted. I wish Kirk had found a way to gather information other than exploiting Miri's crush. We don't see him say goodbye to her, a scene that probably was intentionally omitted. Kirk's repeated attempts to make rational arguments to an irrational gang grow tiresome. I alternate on whether Rand's "I used to try to get you to look at my legs" is cringeworthy, or an appropriate way of expressing her fear of death in that situation. Net result, 1 of 4 bonks on the head.
Sun, May 28, 2023, 6:10pm (UTC -5)
Wed, Jun 7, 2023, 2:33pm (UTC -5)
There’s a lot of unfortunate plot mechanics here that further distract from the story. The wandering/randomly reappearing redshirts, the communicator blunder, McCoy’s apparent lack of understanding in microbiology, etc…what makes these goofy things tough to ignore is how easily avoidable they are, you can’t even fall back on the whole “tv in the 60s” defense because, honestly, even one of those bonkbonk kids could probably have spotted the logic lapses in the script.
However, if you can side step the sillier elements of Miri, it’s a pretty good show, with a very good core idea. I found the interplay between rand, Kirk, and Miri to be well done overall. While I get why some people might find the Kirk/Miri dynamic uncomfortable, I for one thought it was well executed in a less than creepy way. I’d also mention that if one’s life and the lives of one’s friends depended on it, most people would eagerly exploit a puppy crush if necessary, so I find Kirk’s behavior actually fairly restrained.
The Spock/McCoy character work was good too, nice to see that frenemy relationship develop. Spock continues to shape up. Beaker of death indeed.
Lastly I like this episode for the simple fact that after I watch it I spend the next week or so inexplicably saying “bonk bonk on the head” to people around me.
Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 8:02pm (UTC -5)
Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 11:47am (UTC -5)
"Captain, look at my legs". This statement really doesn't make a lot of sense to me, considering the desperation of the situation. However, like the theft of the communicators, I chalked up all of the unusual behaviors of the landing party as the result of the disease. No one was thinking clearly once it took hold.
Having gone through and still dealing with covid over the past four years, it makes me wonder how this virus could stay relatively stable for 300 years and not mutate into something else entirely during that time period, or mutate itself out of existence. Likewise, there were many people on this planet for a long time, judging from the tall buildings around. It stands to reason that some adults were immune, or even managed to overcome the disease.
As a kid, I never thought much of the "another earth" silliness. As an adult, I know an earth exactly like ours is unlikely, unless the beloved crew ended up in an alternate universe. That actually could have made for a great story, in my opinion. Certainly better than "Mirror, mirror".
I have to wonder at the people who populated this planet and why they would try to create a chemical to give them a sort of immortality. That sounds really shallow to me. On the flip side, there's a planet of murderous children. That in itself would have been an idea to explore. It'd be interesting for the episode to ask the question of whether it's normal for children to develop in this fashion, or if the virus altered them.
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