Star Trek (TV Series) Miri (1966) User Reviews

A beaker full of death

[snoozejonc · 7/10 · 12 November 2020]

Enterprise encounters a planet that is a duplicate of Earth and populated by children.

I enjoyed the themes explored in this episode and think it works pretty well as a medical drama with some impressive performances.

I like a ticking clock story and even though you know they will be okay in the end I felt the pressure along with the characters to get a resolution to the problem. As it all unfolds we have some classic Kirk, Spock and Bones interaction and this is the best aspect of the episode. There is also a good scene with Kirk and Yeoman Rand which works not just for the suspense, but also as character development for her and the young girl Miri.

The use of a disease as metaphor for all the negativity associated with adulthood is an interesting concept. Particularly the scenes of jealousy from Miri and violence from the other children. Although some of the scenes between Kirk and the children border on annoying, I have two children and know from experience that they can be just as difficult as portrayed here, just without the violence.

I also like the scene where the diseased adult attacks a member of the landing party and behaves aggressively whilst obsessing over a child's bike. I'm guessing this adult was desperate to get back to a simpler, more innocent and distinctly less diseased period of his life.

Miri is a good character and is portrayed well by Kim Darby. She is in adolescence and fast approaching adulthood and her scenes with Kirk are good. In fact it's too good, as I felt sympathy not just for her medical condition, but in the way Kirk interacts with her. Shatner on the other hand comes across as a little creepy due to his manipulation tactics. I'll be kind to him and put it down to the cheesy lines he's given and the old-fashioned Star Trek tendency to have male characters flirt in a rather patronising way. DeForest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy and Grace Lee Whitney are all excellent.

Visually it is pretty good with the colourful Enterprise interiors as striking as ever. On the ground my favourite image is of a hand wiping some mud off a glass door to reveal Spock in the distance before he approaches and peers through. Also the dusty laboratory set is pretty effective.

There are a few things that require suspension of disbelief. Particularly the duplicate Earth. I'm not really sure what it's all about other than the makers not being bothered with too much set design. Also, how the children have been surviving for such as long time and some of their behaviour is a bit silly.

I think overall this is a solid entry from the first series.

"I never get involved with older women, Yeoman".

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 4 October 2010]

Presumably, Captain Kirk might have been leaving the door open for possible future space romance in his remark to Yeoman Rand at the end of the story. Especially after she spilled the beans about her desire for the Captain to notice her legs before this adventure began. Actually, if the series was ever going to go in that direction, Kirk and Rand might have made a nice couple. I'm sure there was some Federation statute that prohibited that though.

The story had an interesting premise but had to come up with some contrivances to keep it going. Like the stolen communicators - come on! Would any member of the crew just leave one of those just simply laying around? Especially the Captain! Not buying it.

But hey, a death sentence for each child upon entering puberty - that's a compelling concept. Particularly when a hundred years only adds a month to your physical age in Earth terms. I'm thinking about how all of this had to fit into place to make the story work but it kind of falls apart when put to the test. The remaining food on the planet is about to run out JUST as the Enterprise crew arrives. The crew has ONLY seven days to find a cure or die. The story doesn't naturally play out so much as it is forced to a conclusion.

I liked Kim Darby in her role as Miri though. She had kind of a Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" quality about her which seemed to work. And if Michael J. Pollard wasn't a real person, I think someone would have had to invent him. He was one of the freakiest looking dudes to come on the scene in the Sixties and Seventies, with a perfect look for the types of roles he would eventually get to play.

Not bad, but occasionally I just wanted to hit the annoying kids--BONK, BONK!!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 5 December 2006]

This is a pretty good episode that is entertaining, but also a bit too poignant and creepy--with a very young Kim Darby falling in love with the ever-studly Captain Kirk.

The crew lands on a planet and oddly, the adults are all gone and the few kids that remain are all in hiding from the "grumps" ("grown ups"). Soon you see why, as the most hideous-looking moldy-looking crazed maniac attacks the crew! It seems that on this galactic hell-hole, once a child hits a certain age, a man-made bacteria makes them look like blue cheese and think like Charles Manson!!! The crew realizes that they, too, have become infected and can't leave unless they find a cure! The plot is excellent and the episode is quite interesting, but I also have to admit the kids were at times really annoying. After a while, I really wanted to see the crew slap them really hard--particularly that really ugly troll-like kid who kept yelling "Bonk, Bonk". But, despite this and a few embarrassing moments concerning the pubescent Miri's infatuation with Kirk, this was a fun and compelling episode. Plus, if you HATE Star Trek, you should STILL watch it because you get to see Kirk hit upside the head with a hammer--BONK, BONK!!

An interesting 'Lord of the Flies' theme but bad sci-fi writing

[starelf-1 · 6/10 · 10 April 2011]

**************Spoiler Alert******************************** Miri takes a few common sci-fi themes a world of children surviving after all the adults are wiped out, the race against time to defeat a medical enemy, having to befriend the wild children to solve the problem and the Frankenstein theme of biogenetic engineering gone wrong.

This really could have been a great episode, the drama was there and all the elements to pull it off but the writing fails to deliver. You can tell the writing is bad at the very start of the episode when they run across an 'exact' copy of Earth. The likelihood of running across and exact duplicate of Earth right down to the continents is just astronomical and stretches the imagination beyond the willful suspension. And it is so unnecessary, the author's intent is obvious, this is a moral story and he wants to set the here is our future if we don't pay attention setting for the story. But he could just as easily have done it on an 'Earth-like' planet and make it much more believable. The series abounds with parallel human planets, so an exact copy of Earth not only is not necessary but now begs for an explanation that we don't get.

The other issue is the age of the children, one would think that after 300 years they would have developed a little mentally even if their physical age was retarded. But that at least is something we could overlook as its not beyond imagining that the disease slowed mental progression as well.

The story overall is good ideas and the moral comes across well enough but it could have been done so much better with a little imagination towards just what a society of children would really be like after 300 years.

A planet with no adults

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 6 September 2015]

The crew of the Enterprise are surprised when they receive an old style SOS message in an area of space far beyond previous human exploration. They are even more surprised to discover it is coming from a planet that is a duplicate Earth; even the continents are identical. When a group consisting of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Yeoman Rand and a redshirt beam down they find an apparently abandoned city. They are not alone though; they are soon attacked by a hideous creature who seems strangely concerned about his broken tricycle! This creature soon dies and McCoy notes that it had an incredibly high metabolic rate.

They then meet a girl, called Miri, who appears to be frightened of them just because they are adults, or grups (grown-ups) as she calls them. It is soon established that about three hundred years previously the planets scientists had been working on a medicine that would give effective immortality… it didn't work as planned. It worked for the children who now only age a month for every century that passes but for adults, and children who reach puberty it means very rapid aging and madness. It isn't long before the away team start to show signs that they are effected; McCoy reckons they have a week to find a solution before they succumb to its effects. Not wanting to spread the disease to the rest of the crew they work in a local lab. It will be a race against time and it is made much harder when the other children steal their communicator. As the week passes Miri becomes closer to Kirk but gets jealous when she hears Yeoman Rand expressing her feelings for the captain.

This, the first of numerous 'parallel Earth' stories has an interesting premise if you can overlook certain details; there is no explanation of where the children have been getting food and clothes from for the last three hundred years nor are we told how they dealt with any injuries that they would no doubt have suffered. Guest star Kim Darby did a fine job as young Miri; I'd never have guessed that she was actually nineteen when this was made. The rest of the children weren't so good though; their leader was clearly played by somebody far too old to be alive in this world and the rest were just annoying and incredibly immature even given the lack of adult supervision… I found myself hoping Kirk might thump one particularly annoying brat. It was interesting to see Yeoman Rand finally tell the captain that she had been trying to catch his eye; I'd always rather liked Grace Lee Whitney's character; it is a shame she was dropped after a few more episodes. The effects of the disease were suitably unpleasant; the fully infected 'monster' that attacks in the early scenes was quite hideous! Overall a decent enough episode that would have been really good if most of the children weren't so annoying.

"I never get involved with older women"

[MaxBorg89 · 10/10 · 9 April 2009]

Miri is one of the strongest and most gripping episodes of the original Star Trek, providing a pretty shocking spin on the age-old post-apocalyptic Earth scenario (except for the fact that none of this takes place on Earth, obviously).

The location is a planet which is an exact replica of Earth: same continents, atmosphere, buildings (albeit a bit old-fashioned) and people. Actually, there's a problem with the people: the planet is inhabited exclusively by children. No Stephen King-like twists (à la Children of the Corn), though: as Miri (Kim Darby) explains to Kirk, all the adults were wiped out several years ago by a virus which doesn't affect children. Dr. McCoy quickly comes to the conclusion that the virus works only on individuals who have already reached puberty, and with every crew member of the Enterprise - apart from Spock, as usual - starting to show symptoms, their exploratory mission becomes a race against the clock to find an antidote before someone gets killed, be it by the virus or Miri's more uncooperative "peers".

A lot of science-fiction thrives on the idea of what our planet would be like without specific groups of people. In this case, however, the story serves as a much more potent reflection on a seemingly trivial theme like puberty: a simple plot gimmick like a virus becomes a powerful metaphor, using the opportunities given by the sci-fi context to explore previously uncharted territory and delivering a compelling portrait of young people yearning to be part of the grown-up world even though they aren't quite ready for that yet (this is most obvious in the case of the titular character and her feelings for Kirk). The fact that it's a tense and scary story helps a lot, too.

Just Who Made Their Clothes?

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 25 April 2014]

Kirk and the gang encounter a group of children, living on a planet where the adults seem to have disappeared a long time ago. Upon arrival, they find a man dying in agony and don't understand the how he arrived at his condition. Investigating further, they come upon what appear to be children who act like six year olds, even though they are actually 300 years old. Dr. McCoy comes to the conclusion that there is something about the planet that causes a horrible demise when puberty is reached. Kirk tries to negotiate with the kids because they think the adults are responsible. Kirk meets Miri (Kim Darby) who develops a crush on him. Unfortunately for her, she is beginning to show symptoms similar to the dying man. She has another ally, a young man played by the very strange Michael J. Pollard who was the driver in the "Bonnie and Clyde." The kids just won't trust the crew and this presents a problem for Kirk, who begins to turn on the charm. The kids are really freaky and play violent games and won't listen to reason. Why after 300 years they have not evolved any further than they have is a real mystery. Will the condition that is affecting Miri be circumvented? That is the question.

Biological Despair...

[Xstal · 8/10 · 15 February 2022]

A virus has swept another Earth, it's created a sizeable dearth, of adolescents or older, outlook is over, new offspring will not see a birth.

A virus developed in a lab on a doppelganger Earth kills off anyone entering puberty, shouldn't put ideas into the minds of certain folk would be my suggestion.

An Earth Where Children Play Eternally - Almost

[Bogmeister · 6/10 · 26 June 2006]

The science fiction premise in this one is faulty - it's better suited for one of those parallel dimension stories or alternate histories. In another part of the galaxy, the Enterprise comes across another Earth; this is an exact duplicate of the Earth we know, except that on this one, in the 1960s, an artificially-created plague wiped out all adults, leaving children who age only a month for every 100 years. This begs a question: if no plague had occurred, would this Earth's civilization have progressed to form its own Starfleet and then the two Starfleets would run across each other and..? Of course, it's ludicrous and just an impossible set-up - an Earth with the exact same continents - the odds are probably trillions to one against.

The set design was pretty good for a TV series: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Rand and two red-shirts beam down into the middle of a dilapidated city. So, we are to assume they weren't able to detect the still-lethal virus in the air; the landing party all contract the disease and are slated to die in a week, except Spock, who is a carrier and is stuck on the planet regardless. A bunch of kids scamper amid the ruins and cause some trouble by stealing the communicators. Kirk & McCoy start to swipe at each other in frustration as the deadline looms. I'm wondering if there is a correlation between no fatalities occurring during a Trek story and so-so episodes of the first season; there's some tension but a ho-hum tone by the end. With many of the characters being juveniles, there's too much 'bonk-bonk on the head' and repetitive-style silly dialog which was designed for children to verbalize.

These were early roles for Darby, playing the title character, and Pollard as the weird-looking main troublemaker with the strange name. She went on to "True Grit" in '69 and he to "Bonnie and Clyde" in '67. Darby was somewhat touching as the girl on the verge of womanhood, while Pollard...well, he applied some method acting but he seemed anywhere from 15 to 35 years old in his scenes; I couldn't decide on which. This episode was also probably the closest that Kirk and Rand came to admitting they had romantic feelings for each other. Rand (Whitney) was booted off the show soon after.

Duplicate Earth Made No Sense

[Bonz99 · 5/10 · 18 September 2019]

The basic storyline was fine, with the children & virus, but there was no point to their planet being a duplicate Earth.

The environment could just as well -- and more plausibly -- have been an Earth-like planet colonized by earthlings in the very early days of space travel, and forgotten by history. Some feature of the planet could easily have accounted for the longevity of its inhabitants.

There was no follow-up or explanation of the duplicate Earth aspect of the story, and the story would have been just as good without it.

Captain, look at my legs...

[Brucey_D · 8/10 · 13 July 2017]

A landing party visits a duplicate Earth, populated only by slowly-ageing children who are themselves doomed to die of a disfiguring genetically engineered disease as soon as they pass through puberty. Soon the landing party realise that they can't return to the Enterprise, being disease carriers themselves, and that they will start dying within a week if they don't find a cure.

OK, many parts of this episode are flawed, but overall I enjoyed it. It notably provided a good acting role for Kim Darby, who later had a starring role in the John Wayne film 'True Grit'. She was nineteen years old here, but doesn't look it.

Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Rand was, as ever, very fetching. Too bad she wasn't given more interesting parts, and likewise too bad that she wasn't included in later episodes. Rumour has it that off-stage entanglements were responsible for her leaving the show and that this perhaps precipitated a major downturn in her life. All very sad.

By this time in the first series, (in contrast with some earlier episodes), Spock's eyebrows had settled down, he'd stopped shouting, (not to mention smiling occasionally) and the other characters had similarly stabilised.

Some of the concepts in this episode are interesting, even if they are not explored thoroughly; for example the idea that adults might be responsible for everything evil in the world, that the passage through puberty is just a step towards death, and that the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children. There are numerous plot holes, and unexplained aspects of the whole situation. It could have been a better episode than it was, I am sure.

However in general the plots of the first series of Star Trek show the greatest leaps of imagination and some of the most dramatic moments. Very many of the later episodes seem more like variations on a previous theme by comparison.

I have just seen the restored version which has been converted to widescreen, mostly without obvious cropping. It looks pretty good for the most part, but without being told, future film buffs will be able to date the conversion very accurately; early on in the episode there is a fight scene, and the folk that did the conversion appear to have taken the opportunity to zoom in and then manipulate the image to give the effect of the (briefly popular, always dismal) 'shakey-cam' style of shooting (FFS). Thankfully this is not repeated.

Although this episode is flawed, I give it an 8/10.

Sci fi writing at it's best!

[mm-39 · 7/10 · 28 October 2017]

Science fiction writing at it's best. Miri has a devastated planet run by children. Kirk and the gang must investigate what happened. There is a virus which attacks when puberty hits on this planet. Bones has to find a cure before it's too late as the crew is infected. The relationships, cast interaction and the compelling mystery makes Miri a memorable episode. A strong story is hammered home with strong acting of the cast. I always remembered this episode. 7 out of 10 stars. Watching Spock's interaction with Bone's is memorable character development!

No More Blah Blah Blah...

[Aaronb00 · 5/10 · 22 November 2021]

Stardate 2713.5 through 2717.3 Approximately 2266

The crew of the Enterprise pick up a distress signal from a mysterious planet that is an exact duplicate of Earth. When Kirk, Bones, Spock, and Janice arrive on the planet they learn that not only is it an exact copy of their home planet Earth, but one that is stuck in 1960. Soon after their arrival they are attacked by an old man-child that Bone's determined has a very high metabolic rate which makes the attacker grow old abnormally fast.

Turns out this planet is fully occupied by children, and when the children enter puberty they contract a disease that makes them grow old rapidly and become violently insane. Luckily for the children who reside on this mysterious planet, it takes them hundreds of years to enter puberty, making each child hundreds of years old. Kirk and gang run into a frightened girl named Miri who is right on the cusp of a womanhood awakened by Kirk's charm.

I have a few gripes about this episode, the first being the simplistic view of children, Especially children who managed to become hundreds of years old. In this episode the children on the planet are significantly older than the crew who came down to investigate and for some unexplained reason the children act like caricatures of themselves. They sing silly songs to taunt, they play silly games, and they can't grasp concepts a impaired teenager could figure out. You would think with hundreds of years worth of experience under their belts these kids would be much sharper than the way they are portrayed. When Kristen Dunst was cast in Neil Jordan's "Interview with the Vampire" (1994), she was only 12 years old. But the writer, Anne Rice, understood that if a child became immortal and was permanently stuck in a 12 year old body she would have much of the same worldly wisdom as an immortal adult.

I guess the bigger complaint I would have concerning the children would be that they are all played by child actors. Child actors are generally the absolute worst and I hate seeing them on screen unless they are one of the rare talents. So when you give incompetent child actors a script that makes them act like what an adult thinks a kid acts like you'll more than likely end up with more than a few embarressing moments.

This brings us William Shatner. In many ways Willilam Shatner reminds me of Nicolas Cage. Love them or hate them both actors give whatever role they are in their absolute all. I happen to love this kind of "putting your whole naked self out there for the world to see" kind of acting. Shatner says the most absurd lines (like "NO MORE BLAH BLAH BLAH!") to a group of children with a hilarious amount of sincerity and conviction. This is not my favorite episode of TOS but it's another check in the "William Shatner is pretty cool" box.

All in all, there are far too many embarrassing, blatantly '60's, moments for me to give this episode a high rating. Cringe factor aside though, there are many unanswered and potentially more interesting aspects. The biggest unexplored question is why is there an exact duplicate of 1960's Earth floating around in open space? It seems ridiculous but it's never really answered, and the crew never seemed all that surprised that this planet exists. I feel that this would disturb me far more than old children.

No blah, blah blah !!!

[rcaliendo-424-345328 · 6/10 · 20 April 2021]

After reading some of the reviews, I see what I may have failed to previously consider in terms of the quality of the script and the acting in this episode. But, to be honest, I just never liked this one and always found it drab, slow and dull and the kid actors, extremely annoying. Never center a script around kids because they can't act; this one is no exception. I have to admit, though that as sci-fi drama, this is in fact a very good episode. I just never cared for it and found it hard to watch.

Kim Darby is very good in the lead role as the adolescent on the verge of womanhood - and death as it turns out, because of the disease. Michael J. Pollard's typical weirdness fits perfectly in this developmentally-warped environment. I'd say that the premise and the script are both very strong and the acting is as good as any we've seen in TOS.

The interplay between Spock and McCoy and also between Kirk and Yeoman Rand is entertaining. Its really a shame that G. L. Whitney was written out of the series, supposedly because of a sexual assault allegation against a network executive. Had she been able to stay, I'm sure she would have gone on to solidify her position as one of the main cast figures of TOS, like Sulu, Urhura, Checkov or Chapel.

Miri Shmiri.

[fedor8 · 23 April 2008]

You can find the rest of my TOS reviews on my "Star Trek TOS: All Episodes Rated & Reviewed" list.

A cliché but great-looking post-apocalyptic setting - that's the only positive aspect I can think of in this very annoying and rather dumb episode. (Oh, yeah, and there's no Chapel...) If the kids are 300 years old, then one could logically expect that they'd eventually have matured, their physical stagnation notwithstanding. Secondly, nowhere is it mentioned that they are retarded, yet I have to assume it because the brats think that only CERTAIN brats die when they reach puberty, but not all. Certainly, having lived there for 300 years they should have all realized many years before Kirk's arrival how things work, right? And check out the dumb way in which Kirk & co. Have their equipment stolen, the pathetic explanation being that the kids "move like mice". Yeah, right... "they're humanoids, see, but they occasionally move like hobgoblins with wings". Kim Darby's character makes little sense. "Miri" falls into the "annoying little bastards" category of episodes, of which there are fortunately only this one and the even worse "And The Brats Shall Lead".

Is Pollard supposed to look like a teen?

Grups

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 18 May 2013]

Kim Darby and Michael J. Pollard guest star in this Star Trek prime episode where Darby is in the title role. They are 300 year old children on this planet, a handful of survivors whose growth has been slowed, but not halted. When they reach puberty they will die of the same plague that their parents did.

When the Star Trek away team beams down, they all with the exception of Leonard Nimoy due to his Vulcan anatomy all start coming down with what killed the inhabitants.

William Shatner has an interesting problem, the only ones who can help are the kids, but they are children and reason like children. But Darby is entering puberty, we know because she finds the grown up captain of the Enterprise attractive.

By the way the Enterprise away team are referred to as 'Grups' a slang contraction for grownups. And Grups are the enemy of kids.

An interesting episode to say the least.

A REAL CHILLER

[zitacarno · 9/10 · 10 November 2018]

This was one of the most chilling episodes of the series. As I was watching this I got a sudden sense about those kids---and kids they were, with their fun and games and pranks, but with a strong undercurrent of fear. They were terrified of the fate that awaited them as they entered adolescence---and no matter what they did they were powerless to escape. So Kirk and Co. had to find a cure for the terminal illness, and it was Dr. McCoy who found it; he stuck his neck out and tested it on himself and discovered that it worked. And finally, when the captain, addressing the kids, said "I'm a grup---and I want to help you", they listened. So after all the trials and tribulations and anxieties all was satisfactorily resolved. A good story---and a message of hope.

"I never get involved with older women, Yeoman."

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 3 May 2021]

The Enterprise discovers the existence of an isolated planet identical to Earth. A landing party beams down to learn that the adult population has been decimated due to a plague. And the children remaining are still in danger, since they all end up contracting the disease as they enter puberty. Kirk and the others find out that as adults, they begin to show signs of the disease. With time running out (they only have a week), Bones and Spock have to work overtime to create a possible vaccine.

While not a great Trek episode overall, it is fairly entertaining. This viewer can fully understand the common criticism that the children can be annoying, especially with their repeated refrains of "Nyah, nyah, nyah" and "Bonk, bonk, bonk". Kirk definitely has his work cut out for him, trying desperately to get through to these kids and make them understand that he's trying to HELP them. Meanwhile, the source of the episodes' title is a girl (guest star Kim Darby of future "True Grit" fame), on the verge of womanhood, who clearly gets a crush on Kirk.

With Michael J. Pollard ("Bonnie & Clyde") hanging around to add his typical goofy, eccentric presence, 'Miri' is generally agreeable, and gets particularly fun when the characters such as Kirk, Spock, and Bones go about sniping at each other. Although the budget obviously allows for scant use of locations / sets, the filmmakers do their able best to create an apocalyptic feel; the sets and costumes are definitely adequate. The makeup effects are basically decent.

All of the performances are solid, especially from the adorable Darby and an appealing Yeoman Rand. It's such a shame that Grace Lee Whitney ended up being written off the show. In time, she could really have emerged as an iconic team member.

While this made for a reasonably good time, this viewer has been assured that there were definitely better episodes to come during the first season.

Seven out of 10.

Children Catch A Disease Entering Puberty

[Rainey-Dawn · 8/10 · 21 December 2016]

Season 1, episode 8. The Enterprise gets a distress call from a planet that just like Earth in every way except the only people there are children. The crew that beamed to the planet and found out that all adults have died from a mysterious disease and upon puberty the children will catch the disease and die as well. The captain and crew have caught the disease and it spreads fast. This disease also makes an adult angry - causing arguments. Mr. Spock seems to be the only one immune but as he clearly states he's still a carrier and wants to get back to the ship. To make matters worse Miri is entering puberty and starts to have feelings for Kirk... she is also jealous over Janis Rand. She wants to help the captain and crew, to find a cure but she is scared and jealous. Can Kirk find the rest of the kids get their help along with Miri? Can Dr. McCoy find a cure before it's too late?

If you want to see some very bratty and crazy kids... then this episode is full of them. Rather interesting episode how it all plays out.

8/10

One grub was hurt in the making of this episode.

[thevacinstaller-03350 · 7/10 · 15 December 2022]

The episode manages to have Captain Kirk seduce a teenage Miri but amazingly they write the scenes in a way that does not make it feel completely uncomfortable. These scenes help to soften Miri's view of the enterprise crew as insane 'grubs'.

For a second episode in a row we get to see the consequences of playing God. As a working man who has long lost his love of work, I do find the idea of living for hundreds of years as a child to be an attractive idea.

I am a big fan for the star trek impassioned speech saving the day plot device. Kirk delivers a great one here.

I liked the performance of Miri. She captured that wholesome/innocent/sweet vibe to great effect throughout the episode.

Behave yourself, Kirk!

[BA_Harrison · 5/10 · 12 May 2022]

A distress signal draws the crew of the Enterprise into a perilous situation (for a change). This time, the message emanates from a planet that is, for some unknown reason, an exact duplicate of Earth. Beaming down to the planet's surface, Kirk, Spock, Bones, Yeoman Rand, and two red shirts find a world in ruins, the only inhabitants a gang of almost feral children. They eventually discover the reason for the state of the planet: three hundred years earlier, scientists attempted to develop a way to prolong life, an experiment that went horribly wrong, achieving the desired results in the pre-pubescent members of the population, but causing a disease in the adults that resulted in madness and death. Kirk and company soon start to show signs of the sickness, and attempt to rustle up a cure, but their progress is hampered by the children (who are, in reality, several centuries old), who view adults (or 'grups' as they call them) as a threat. Miri (Kim Darby) is the only one to help the crew, the preadolescent girl having fallen for the dashing captain.

Miri is an entertaining episode, but it's a problematic one. The whole doppelganger Earth aspect is totally pointless - no explanation is given for this one-in-a-gazillion occurrence. The crew beaming down to the the exact location where the virus was developed is far-fetched in the extreme. The entire crew leaving their vital communicators unattended is an obvious and irritating plot contrivance. Kirk and friends arriving on the planet just as the kids' food supply is about to run out-what are the chances? Michael J. Pollard in his late twenties as one of the 'children' - give me a break! And as for Kirk's inappropriate flirtatious manner with Miri... it's such uncomfortable viewing that it's little wonder that the ever-cautious BBC played it safe by not airing this episode for a couple of decades.

All around outstanding performances...

[poe426 · 10/10 · 11 June 2012]

One of the very best of the first season episodes is MIRI. The reasons are many: the utterly believable sets, the basic premise (enter puberty and die), the level of craftsmanship that went into the making of this show, and, most outstanding of all, the performances. One of the saving graces of STAR TREK was often the acting- and, in this case, the performances all around are worthy of note. While I thought that Patrick Stewart was great as Picard (and Jeffrey Hunter as Pike would've made an interesting lead), the charismatic William Shatner remains my favorite Captain of the Enterprise. Shatner was capable of handling the most intense drama or the lightest of moments with equal aplomb. Grace Whitney even manages to show a bit of range here, as well, but it's Kim Darby and Michael Pollard as two kids teetering on the edge of adulthood who command center stage. And, lest I forget: both Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelly turn in their usual topnotch performances. Most definitely a Ten.

1960's ?

[ralphwesty-05921 · 7/10 · 15 August 2019]

Episode was fine. However it looked closer to the 30's or 40's based on the cars and a typewriter in the lab. Also, no phones or TV'S inside.

Jimmy Neutron: The Movie

[Samuel-Shovel · 5/10 · 28 March 2018]

In "Miri", the Enterprise discovers a planet identical to Earth, the main difference being that this planet is inhabited by only children. In an attempt to create immortality, the adults or "grups" of this planet created a disease that kills people when they hit puberty but slows down the aging process for children significantly. The crew must cure the disease to save themselves and the future adult lives of these children.

We never really discover why this planet is a clone of Earth (besides budgetary reasons) and this bugs me a bit. It'd be one thing if the world and its inhabitants just happened to resemble Earth and humans but we literally see Florida from space. Oh well...

The concept of this episode is pretty neat, like if Logan's Run was a disease. And I like the creepiness that the children portray, especially early on in the episode (they get a tad annoying towards the end). But the script overall could have really used a rewrite. The communicator theft made me roll my eyes and the pacing for this one is slow and prodding. The plot itself is porous when you give it serious thought.

Note: I'm sad our time with Yeoman Rand is coming to an end. I rather like her character.

No more blah, blah, blah.

[amusinghandle · 7/10 · 28 October 2023]

It's like a Greek tragedy --- attempting to find a cure for ageing but ultimately wipe out your entire civilization.

I am no mathematician but I am willing to bet there is not another exact copy of earth in our galaxy ---- sure, perhaps in the universe or multiverse or matrix or whatever reality is.

I find it alluring to be able to be a child or teenager for hundreds of years. Oh, oh to be transported to a time before a job, responsibilities, the grinding away of my passion and strength.

Yet again the writers of TOS manage to tip toe around sensitive subject matter. The Kirk/Miri interactions come off as cute / caring when it certainly had the possibility to go another way completely. That speaks to the strength of both actors.

I would probably would have been on board with finding a cure for aging ---- I like living! I don't believe in a celestial father figure with a beard and I need to consume drugs to buy into the theory that we turn into energy and reconnect to the universe through other means. I can see the attraction.

We are not quite there ... yet ... but genetic manipulation/engineering is certainly on the horizon. It will be interesting to see how that turns out. I hope we don't die!

It's a creative premise for an episode and I do enjoy creativity.