Miri (Star Trek: The Original Series)

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

In the plot, the Enterprise discovers an exact duplicate of Earth, where the only survivors of a deadly man-made plague are some of the planet's children.

Plot

The Enterprise answers a distress call from a planet resembling Earth in every detail. Captain Kirk assembles a landing party of himself, First Officer Spock, Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy, Yeoman Janice Rand and two security personnel to investigate. They find an apparently-abandoned, 1960 Earth. When they examine a tricycle they are attacked by a strong, disfigured man. After Kirk hits the man three times, the man has a seizure and dies. A mysterious figure catches their attention, and they investigate.

They discover a terrified, apparently-normal girl, Miri (Kim Darby), who says that she ran away from them because "grups" ("grownups") killed and maimed children before dying. She and her friends are "onlies", the only ones left; the adults are dead.

The landing party, except for Spock, notice purple lesions on their bodies; Miri tells them that these are the first signs of the disease and they will soon become like the other adults. The party searches a hospital for clues to the mysterious disease, and discover that it is a side effect of a life-extension experiment, affecting those who have reached puberty; death follows a brief period of violent rage. The "children" are over 300 years old, aging one month every century.

Spock learns that when the disease begins, its victims have seven days to live. Although he is apparently immune, he considers himself a carrier who could infect the Enterprise if he returned.

The other children, mistrustful of the "grups", meddle with their plans. Jahn (Michael J. Pollard) steals the landing party's communicators, rendering McCoy's search for a cure impossible without the Enterprise's computers. Miri opposes the mischief and remains near Kirk, to whom she is attracted; when Yeoman Rand panics at their impending fate and Kirk comforts her, a jealous Miri runs away and schemes with her friends to kidnap Rand. Another girl goes insane and attacks Kirk before she collapses and dies, covered by blue sores.

Miri is confronted by Kirk, who tells her that she and the "onlies" will contract the disease if they do not help him find a cure; he grabs her arms, showing her the blue sores already forming on her skin. She brings Kirk to where Rand is being held; he confronts the children, telling them that this is not a game. They do not listen at first, becoming increasingly menacing; one beats Kirk nearly senseless with a hammer. Kirk begs them to think of the youngest "onlies", who will be helpless when the older ones are dead, warning them that their supplies are nearly gone; they literally have blood on their hands, like the "grups" they fear.

He rounds up the children and returns to the hospital, finding that McCoy (who injected himself with an experimental dose of serum) has collapsed. The doctor's sores begin to fade, proving the serum is safe and effective. After curing the landing party and the children, Kirk asks Starfleet to send teachers and advisers to help the children improve their lives.

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."^[1]

Production

The planetary exteriors were shot on the set used for fellow Desilu series The Andy Griffith Show,^[2] part of what had originally been known as the RKO Forty Acres backlot in Culver City which had been acquired by Desilu.

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 and Iona Morris, later appeared in subsequent Trek shows as well. (They are the children of Mission: Impossible star Greg Morris.)

This was child actress Kellie Flanagan's first television role. She played the Blonde Girl standing on the table in the schoolhouse. Between takes her agent, Dorothy Day Otis, got her a line to deliver during the scene, which led to Flanagan receiving her SAG card.^[3]

One of the children was played by John Megna, who also played Charles Baker 'Dill' Harris in To Kill a Mockingbird in 1962.

See also

• The Cry of the Onlies, a Star Trek novel by Judy Klass which includes events occurring after the episode Miri. (In this novel, all references to Miri's world being a copy of Earth were ordered removed; Miri's world is presented as a long-abandoned colony of Earth.)
• Forgotten History, a Trek novel by Christopher L. Bennett. It reveals that Miri's world is not merely a copy of Earth, it actually is Earth - of a parallel timeline. Miri's Earth had briefly drifted into the main timeline due to instability in the fabric of spacetime.

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: "Miri"

• "Miri" at StarTrek.com
• "Miri" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Miri" at TV.com
• "Miri" at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• "Miri" Review of the remastered version at TrekMovie.com
• "Miri" Full Episode for viewing at CBS.com