1x08 Miri (Cult Tv Boards)

Title: 1x08 Miri

Crichton Kicks - September 6, 2004 10:31 PM (GMT)

QUOTE

Stardate 2713.5: The Enterprise answers an old-style distress signal from an unknown planet and discovers a world that is virtually identical to Earth of the 1960's. Beaming down, the landing party finds a civilization populated only by children. After McCoy is attacked by a diseased humanoid, the landing party manages to corner and question a young female, Miri, and quickly learns that 300 years ago scientists attempted a life-prolongation project which instead created a virus that wiped out the adult population. The children, however, were altered in that their aging is slowed considerably until they reach puberty where the virus rapidly destroys their changing bodies. Soon thereafter, all members of the landing party contract the virus except for Spock who becomes a carrier. McCoy begins work on an antidote while Kirk tries to contact the other children, all of whom are afraid of adults after witnessing their violent behaviors when affected by the virus. Miri, however, becomes interested in Kirk and spends more time with him until she learns that Yeoman Rand has had an interest in the captain as well. She then helps Jahn steal the landing party's communicators and abduct Rand. When Kirk shows Miri that she too is contracting the disease she agrees to help him recover Rand and the communicators. Meanwhile, McCoy and Spock have developed what might be the antidote, but without the communicators to interact with the ship's computers they are unable to know if the antidote will cure or kill them. Frustrated, McCoy tests the antidote on himself and fortunately becomes the first of the landing party to be free of the disease. With the virus eliminated, the Enterprise leaves the planet in the hands of Federation truant officers who will help the inhabitants rebuild their civilization.

Crichton Kicks - September 18, 2004 03:39 PM (GMT)

This is probably the episode I've enjoyed most since The Naked Time. It's also nice to see a little location shooting, even if it does look like they just used the Paramount lot :lol: It's still a lot better than the polystyrene boulder-laden set of What Are Little Girls Made Of ? and Mudd's Women. Quite amazing as well, two red shirted security guards beamed down to the planet with Kirk and co. and both made it back to the ship :o

Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley are as usual outstanding in their respective roles, and there are even decent performances from the guests, of particular note, Michael J Pollard who still had that cheeky smug grin even at that early age :rolleyes: :lol:

Although, I must admit, as much as I enjoyed the episode, and Rand's order to Kirk to "look at her legs", delighted, I did find the Kirk/Miri interaction a little worrying. Granted in the 60s, with times being simpler it possibly wouldn't have come across in the same way as it does now, but there were times where Kirk was in genuine danger of earning himself a 'paedo' tag :rolleyes: :fear:

One other thing of note, they never did clear up why and how the planet looked liked Earth, exactly.

All in all, I enjoyed this one, a few moments aside, it looks to have picked up the pace of the series again.

willowroolz - September 20, 2004 12:46 AM (GMT)

Yeah, the "Kirk as paedophile" thing is a bit disturbing. One minute he's looking at her with his "come-to-bed" eyes, the next he's getting her to clean up after him. Seems like a typically chauvanistic 60s attitude to me. Aaah, those were the days. :lol:

Anyway, I actually thought this might be the first episode we disagreed on, James, but I actually pretty much think the same as you. It is never explained as to why this planet is identical to Earth. I think it's an early example of Roddenberry's obsession with his parallel world theory, something which became more and more prevalent during the second season (Bread & Circuses, A Piece of the Action, Patterns of Force, The Omega Glory, etc etc, yadda yadda yadda).

The location shooting takes place on the same set they always seemed to use on the Paramount backlot, so it's no real surprise to see Spock start to climb the same fire escape that Kirk later ascends in The City On The Edge Of Forever, or the same streets used in Return of the Archons.

The fact is I love this episode. When I first got into Trek it had been mercilessly "banned" by the BBC for a number of years and was only available on a video that was quite hard to track down (coupled with the similarly banned Plato's Stepchildren and The Empath). The Beeb obviously deemed the scene where Kirk is beaten by the children, whilst a smiling little girl looks on in delight, was unsuitable for viewers and might be a bad influence. Strange how tame it seems now.

The make up effects are brilliant for the time. It's great to see two young actors before they were famous, too, in Kim True Grit Darby and Michael J Bonnie & Clyde Pollard.

I guess a lot of the things we've seen in recent episodes are problems that Roddenberry tried to address in TNG, which consequently made the first two seasons of that show so dull. Here we have the three most senior officers beaming down into a potentially deadly situation, the result of that being that Riker always had the right to overrule Picard in such situations and make him stay on the Enterprise. It makes sense, but it's no fun. Where would we be if Kirk couldn't deck the first humanoid he sees? Which he does here, and it's actually very sad. All the poor thing is trying to do is rescue its tricycle. At least McCoy gets to say "He's dead Jim", although not for the first time cos that was in The Enemy Within and I forgot to mention it! :lol:

This is the point where they decided that Rand's relationship with Kirk had become too much of a hindrance to the main character. It is, effectively, her last appearance - if you go by production order, rather than the air date order, she only makes one more brief appearance in Conscience of the King. It's a shame, and is more a sign of the times than anything else.

Anyway, a top episode, very enjoyable.

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