Miri (Star Trek: The Original Series)

"Miri (Star Trek: The Original Series)"

"Miri" is the eighth episode of the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series, that was first broadcast October 27, 1966, and repeated June 29, 1967. It was written by Adrian Spies and directed by Vincent McEveety.

Overview: The Enterprise discovers an exact duplicate of Earth, where the only survivors of a deadly plague are some of the planet's children.

Plot

On stardate 2713.5, the starship USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, follows an old planetary distress call leading to a planet that looks exactly like Earth in every detail.

Kirk assembles a landing party consisting of himself, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, Yeoman Janice Rand, and two security personnel, to investigate this remarkable find. Upon their arrival, they find the planet is virtually a duplicate of Earth of the 1960s, but it all seems abandoned. As the team curiously inspects a tricycle, they are attacked by a ragged man who seems infected by a horrible disfiguring mutation, but shows incredible strength. Spock attempts to stun the man with his phaser, but the man drops dead at that point. The security guards then spot another figure running into a building.

The team chases the figure down, discovering that it's a terrified girl, who appears physically normal. She identifies herself as Miri (Kim Darby), and when asked why she ran away from them, she tells them because they are "grups" (a contraction of "grown ups"), and the grups killed and hurt the children before they died. When asked where her family are, Miri tells them that she is an "Onlie", and she and her friends are the "only ones" left as all the adults are dead.

Soon the landing party starts to notice painful blue sores are forming on their bodies; Spock however remains immune. Miri informs them that these are the first sign of the disease, and they will soon become like the other adults. The team searches an abandoned hospital for clues to the mysterious condition. They discover the disease infects only those who have reached puberty. It is an accidental side-effect of an experiment to prolong life; the technique works on children, but when they reach puberty, they enter a short period of violent rage and then die. Shockingly, they learn that the children are over 300 years old, having aged only one month's time every century.

McCoy also discovers that once the disease starts, they only have 7 days to live. Even though Spock seems immune to the disease, he believes he is still a carrier and could infect the Enterprise if he returns.

Meanwhile, the rest of the hiding children, who do not trust these new grups, decide to meddle with their plans. Their leader, a boy named Jahn, steals the landing party's communicators, which renders McCoy's search for a cure nearly impossible without assistance from the Enterprise computers. Miri however, doesn't agree with the other children's mischief and stays near Captain Kirk, whom she appears to have a crush on. However, when Yeoman Rand breaks down for fear of her life, and Kirk takes her in his arms to comfort her, Miri gets jealous and runs away to scheme with her friends. The children devise a "foolie" prank and kidnap Rand.

Returning later, Miri is confronted by Kirk, who tells her she and the others will eventually contract the disease just like the grups if they don't help him find a cure. In fact, he grabs Miri's arms and shows her the blue sores that are already forming on her skin.

Miri takes Kirk to the schoolhouse where Rand is held captive. He confronts the children and tries to get it through their heads that none of this is a game. At first the children don't listen and continue to harass him, encouraged by Jahn. They become increasingly menacing until one of them finally beats Kirk nearly senseless with a wrench. Bruised and bloodied, Kirk implores them to think of the youngest onlies, who will be left without resources when the older ones are dead. He warns them that the stores of food and supplies are nearly depleted. He also points out that the children have hurt him and now have blood literally on their hands, exactly like the grups they are afraid of. "I'm a grup," he says, "and I want to help."

Kirk rounds up the children and returns to the hospital, but finds that Spock has previously found that McCoy, unable to accurately test his experimental serum, has injected himself with a full dose and collapsed to the floor. Soon however, his sores fade away. The serum is found to be safe and completely destroys the disease. After curing the landing party and the children, Kirk informs Starfleet to send teachers and advisers to the duplicate Earth, to help the children start their lives over again.

40th Anniversary remastering

This episode was remastered in 2006 as part of the 40th anniversary of the Original Series. It was first aired September 16, 2006 on some network affiliate stations directly after "Balance of Terror" and was followed a week later by "The Devil in the Dark". Aside from remastered video and audio, and the all-CGI animation of the USS Enterprise that is standard among the revisions, the Earth-like planet was updated to appear more realistic.

Reception

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode an 'A-' rating, describing using children as the antagonists as one of the script's "smarter twists". Handlen felt that the sense of threat was maintained throughout as although the audience knew the crew wouldn't die, "they don't know that".

Production

The planetary exteriors were shot on the set used for fellow Desilu series The Andy Griffith Show.

Cast

Apart from guest stars Kim Darby and Michael J. Pollard, several of the children on Miri's world were portrayed by relatives of the Trek cast and crew. Among them were William Shatner's daughter Lisabeth, Grace Lee Whitney's two sons, and Gene Roddenberry's daughters. Two of the other child actors, Phil Morris and Iona Morris, later appeared in subsequent Trek shows as well. (They are the children of Mission: Impossible star Greg Morris.)

External links

• Miri at Memory Alpha
• Review of the remastered version of Miri at TrekMovie.com
• Full Episode of Miri - at CBS.com