"Miri"
Captain's Log: 10080.6. 1940 hrs.
The Trektastic Voyage continues this weekend with "Miri" and "Dagger of the Mind."
"Miri's" plot is simple yet intriguing. The Enterprise finds a planet that is identical to Earth of the mid-20th century. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Rand, and a few Redshirts (security detail) beam down to investigate, finding the planet seemingly deserted. This was the first episode to introduce Roddenberry's "parallel development" concept, which surmised that there were other planets with human beings living on them whose own planet developed uncannily like Earth itself. The concept seems more than a little flawed today, and was really just Roddenberry's way of using existing Paramount sets to save money so as to keep Trek going.
The inhabitants of this parallel Earth are all children. Kirk meets one, named Miri, and McCoy and Spock quickly learn that the reason the adults on the planet died hundreds of years ago was because of their genetic research into prolonging life. They created a virus that kills a person after puberty, though first succeeding in allowing a person to age one month every one hundred years. Thus, Miri and her ilk are hundreds of years old, but will die once they enter puberty. Kirk uses Miri's newly emerging womanhood to gain her trust, and he's able to reach the other "children" of the planet before he and the other members of the landing party are killed by the disease themselves.
"Miri" is a fairly lackluster episode in terms of action, but serves as an effective cautionary tale against attempting to prolong life. The episode provides some sinister scenes, particularly one in which the children beat Kirk mercilessly, bloodying his head and face. "Miri" also displays the first seeds of the Kirk/McCoy/Spock friendship, and the eventually friendly sparring between Spock and McCoy, which is still somewhat rough here.
From now on, I'm going to challenge myself to encapsulate each episode with only four screencaps. Let's see how that works the first time out.
The episode's title card. Note the alien planet which is for all intents and purposes another Earth.
Miri, who Kirk befriends and charms so as to gain her trust.
Kirk pleads with the "children" of the planet, showing them what will become of them if they fail to listen to his warnings.
Kirk assures Rand that Miri and her people will be fine once they've aged and received the aid of Federation advisors. Kirk also assures Rand that despite the fact of Miri's love for him, he doesn't "go for older women."
The Trektastic Voyage continues this weekend with "Miri" and "Dagger of the Mind."
"Miri's" plot is simple yet intriguing. The Enterprise finds a planet that is identical to Earth of the mid-20th century. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Rand, and a few Redshirts (security detail) beam down to investigate, finding the planet seemingly deserted. This was the first episode to introduce Roddenberry's "parallel development" concept, which surmised that there were other planets with human beings living on them whose own planet developed uncannily like Earth itself. The concept seems more than a little flawed today, and was really just Roddenberry's way of using existing Paramount sets to save money so as to keep Trek going.
The inhabitants of this parallel Earth are all children. Kirk meets one, named Miri, and McCoy and Spock quickly learn that the reason the adults on the planet died hundreds of years ago was because of their genetic research into prolonging life. They created a virus that kills a person after puberty, though first succeeding in allowing a person to age one month every one hundred years. Thus, Miri and her ilk are hundreds of years old, but will die once they enter puberty. Kirk uses Miri's newly emerging womanhood to gain her trust, and he's able to reach the other "children" of the planet before he and the other members of the landing party are killed by the disease themselves.
"Miri" is a fairly lackluster episode in terms of action, but serves as an effective cautionary tale against attempting to prolong life. The episode provides some sinister scenes, particularly one in which the children beat Kirk mercilessly, bloodying his head and face. "Miri" also displays the first seeds of the Kirk/McCoy/Spock friendship, and the eventually friendly sparring between Spock and McCoy, which is still somewhat rough here.
From now on, I'm going to challenge myself to encapsulate each episode with only four screencaps. Let's see how that works the first time out.
The episode's title card. Note the alien planet which is for all intents and purposes another Earth.
Miri, who Kirk befriends and charms so as to gain her trust.
Kirk pleads with the "children" of the planet, showing them what will become of them if they fail to listen to his warnings.
Kirk assures Rand that Miri and her people will be fine once they've aged and received the aid of Federation advisors. Kirk also assures Rand that despite the fact of Miri's love for him, he doesn't "go for older women."
posted by Christopher at 5:45 PM
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