Miri (TOS episode)
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| Star Trek: TOS episode | |
| "Miri" | |
 Miri befriends the landing party. Miri |
|
| Episode no. | 8 |
|---|---|
| Prod. code | 012 |
| Remastered no. | 2 |
| Airdate | October 27, 1966 |
| Writer(s) | Adrian Spies |
| Director | Vincent McEveety |
| Guest star(s) | Grace Lee Whitney Kim Darby Jim Goodwin Michael J. Pollard David L. Ross |
| Year | 2266 |
| Stardate | 2713.5 |
| Episode chronology | |
| Previous | "What are Little Girls Made Of?" |
| Next | "Dagger of the Mind" |
"Miri" is a first season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, that was first broadcast October 27, 1966, and repeated June 29, 1967. It is episode #8, production #12, 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 the planet's children.
Contents |
[edit] 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. The man suddenly seems to drop dead from the excitement. The security guards then spot another figure running into a building.
The team chases the figure down, discovering that it's a girl, and she appears physically normal. She identifies herself as Miri, 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; all the adults turned to monsters and died.
Soon the landing party starts to notice painful blue sores are forming on their bodies; Spock however remains immune. Miri informs them that is how it all starts, and they will soon become like the others. The team explores an abandoned hospital and looks for clues to the mysterious condition. They discover the disease seems to infect only those who have reached puberty. They also uncover that the disease was an accidental side-effect in an experiment to prolong life; however, it only worked on children, but when they come of age they soon 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 hammer. 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 McCoy, unable to accurately test his serum, has injected himself 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.
[edit] 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, specific changes to this episode also include:
- The Earth-like planet has been updated to appear more realistic. Other shots and effects are enhanced but remain unchanged.
[edit] Trivia
- This episode was the second to be remastered with new CGI effects and conversion to HDTV in 2006.
- Some fans speculate that "Miri" is derived from "Miriam." In the Bible, Miriam was the sister of Moses and Aaron, and was stricken with leprosy (Numbers 12.10): "And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous." However, the name of Michael J. Pollard's character, "Jahn", suggests that the two names are deliberate twistings of two standard Earth names: "John" and "Mary". (Miriam and Mary are different forms of the same name; Miriam being from the Hebrew form found in the Old Testament, and Mary being from the Greek form found in the New Testament.) [1]
- William Shatner's daughters also had small parts in this episode, as did Gene Roddenberry's daughter Dawn, and Grace Lee Whitney's twin sons. Other members of the "Onlies" were children of the studio crew.
- A sequel to this episode was written in the non-canon book The Cry of the Onlies by Judy Klass; (Simon and Schuster). However, due to editorial interference from Richard H. Arnold, much of Klass' planned explanations and background to explain how Miri's "Parallel Earth" had come into being was ordered deleted, and all references to the planet even being a parallel Earth were deleted as well. The book's editor even went so far as to give the planet a name - "Juram V" - without Klass' approval. Unlike other novels that underwent content revision under Arnold's tenure as the show's marketing supervisor - such as Margaret Wander Bonnanno's Probe - the original version of this book has yet to be released through alternative means.[citation needed]
- The existence of the duplicate Earth has never been explained, and the fact that the planet looked exactly like Earth ultimately had no bearing on the episode's story and conclusion. Presumably, it was cheaper to establish an Earth parallel than to create an entirely new alien culture. In non-canonical material, the book "Worlds of the Federation" suggested that our solar system passed through a dimensional rift that essentially had two exits, and our solar system was duplicated completely identically to the maximum diameter of the rift.
- The outdoor shots were filmed on "the back forty", Desilu Studios' film backlot, which was also used for shooting "The Return of the Archons" and "The City on the Edge of Forever".
- The episode's first broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom drew complaints for "sadistic violence" (the show was broadcast in a Saturday evening slot long used by Doctor Who). It was skipped in subsequent runs of the series in the 1970s and 1980s, along with other episodes deemed too violent. It was however released on home video in the 1980s with other "banned" episodes, and was broadcast by Sky One in 1991. It was broadcast by the BBC for the first time in 20 years during the 1992 series run.
- The Cloud 9 series The Tribe parallels "Miri" in many ways: adults are wiped out by a "genetic enhanced virus" that only affects those that have gone through puberty, and the children form "tribes".
- The term "grup", used by the children in this episode as a corruption of "grown-up", has entered slang as a term for adults who refuse to conform to the generation gap. [2] It was also the name of a Star Trek fanzine publishing adult fiction.
- Although Spock says that the planet is 1960s era, the architecture and wrecked vehicles they see are pre-1960s.
- In a long shot down the street, what appears to be studio buildings are visible beyond the backlot.
- Though essential to the plot, it is strange that the landing party leave their communicators on table tops rather than clip them onto their belts. How would they be able to communicate with anyone else in the landing party?
[edit] External links
- Miri article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.
| Last produced: "Dagger of the Mind" |
Star Trek: TOS episodes Season 1 |
Next produced: "The Conscience of the King" |
| Last transmitted: "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" |
Next transmitted: "Dagger of the Mind" |
