Miri (Star Trek: The Original Series)

"Miri"
Star Trek: The Original Series episode
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 8
Directed by Vincent McEveety
Written by Adrian Spies
Featured music Alexander Courage
Cinematography by Jerry Finnerman
Production code 12
Original air date October 27, 1966 (1966-10-27)
Guest appearance(s)
Episode chronology

"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 an automated distress call from a planet resembling Earth in every detail. A landing party of Captain Kirk, First Officer Spock, Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy, Yeoman Janice Rand and two security personnel find an 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 an adolescent Miri, who ran away from them because "grups" ("grownups") killed and maimed children before dying. She and her friends are "onlies", the only ones left.

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 find a medical research laboratory and look through documents for clues to the 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 madness. 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 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; 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. Jahn's line while banging the hammer on the table is "bonk, bonk on the head (repeated continuosly)." (from watching the episode many times)

McCoy and Spock, drawing on their own knowledge, pursue a discovery of McCoy's that may lead to a vaccine that can prevent the fatal disease from killing them and the onlies. However, without the ability to check their work with the ship's computers, the vaccine they create may not be a cure, but a deadly poison. They have no way to tell.

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. She brings Kirk to where Rand is being held; he confronts the children, but one beats Kirk with a hammer. Kirk begs them to think of the youngest onlies, who will be helpless when the older ones are dead. He points out that almost all of the food in the town has been eaten, and soon there will be none left. The children will starve within six months. Convinced, Jahn gives the communicators back to Kirk.

He rounds up the children and returns to the laboratory, finding that McCoy has collapsed after injecting himself with a dose of experimental serum. The doctor's sores begin to fade; the serum McCoy devised without the assistance of the ship's computers is the cure for the disease the scientists 300 years ago had been searching for.

Back on the Enterprise after vaccinating everyone, Kirk asks the Federation to send teachers and advisers to help the children improve their lives. Dr. McCoy suggests that they also send a few truant officers.

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

References

  1. ↑ Handlen, Zack (January 22, 2009). ""What Are Little Girls Made Of?"/"Miri"". The A.V. Club. Retrieved August 15, 2009.
  2. ↑ "Mayberry in Star Trek". Mayberry.com.
  3. ↑ Gerace, Adam. "...And Then I Wrote". AdamGerace.com. Retrieved 29 October 2014.
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