Phil wondered where all the security guys went in this episode. Why weren't they any help? Well, they were redshirts! Here's what happened.

1 Kidnapped by Vians
1 Killed by a local predator.
2 Kidnapped by the Briori from "The 37's", VOY.
5 Fell into a boobytrap set by some of the little brats
7 Fell through a spacewarp and landed on the Nausicaan homeworld.
9 Fell through a timewarp to 900 years in the future, where they're kept as pets by advanced aliens.
12 Fell through a space-time warp to the Tellarite homeworld 200 years in the past.
19 Kidnapped by an energy being blob for study, then released on that Kelvan planet just after the end of "By Any Other Name."

There may have been other redshirts in the episode, but you get the idea.<g>

Guest Star Patrol--

Kim Darby (Miri) starred in the John Wayne classic, "True Grit".

Michael J. Pollard (Jahn) was in the film "Bonnie and Clyde".

TRIVIA: The young girl Kirk carries to safety is Shatner's daughter.

Spock says that the children age 1 Month for every 100 Years, but the experiment which caused this happened 300 Years ago. So does this mean that the children have only aged 3 Months? If the women on this planet get pregnant will it take them 9 Centuries to give birth? And what about PMS? ("Watch out for Miri. It's that time of the century, again.")

Jahn (allegedly) hasn't entered puberty. But he has sideburns!

Oh yeah. I believe that there is an episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun that pays homage to this episode. The gang go camping, Dick runs off in a huff over something, meets a bunch of boyscouts, and quickly turns them into something from 'Lord of the Flies'. At some point the children shout in unison "Blah blah blah!".

Is there not also a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode that contains the line "Bonk bonk to the head!"

In "Mudd's Women" and "The Enemy Within" Lt. Farrell is the navigator. However, in this episode he is the communications officer.

The Enterprise was shown orbiting a planet in a clockwise direction once...in "Shore Leave."
(Twice if you count the alternate Enterprise in "Mirror, Mirror.")

When he is talking to the kids at the end of the episode, Kirk tells them they only have six months of food left. Did it say how he know this?

Guest star actress Kim Darby's real name is Derby Zerby.

Don't forget....

Roddenberry's kids & Whitney's kids show up
in this episode too.

GREAT MOMENT & GREAT LINE (2 for 1 sale)

Great moment: In a private conversation with Kirk, Rand starts "bubbling" about how she's tried to get the Captain's attention. PROOF POSITIVE... Rand has the "hots" for Kirk....

Great Line: "Look at my legs" -Rand

My reaction? "I'm lookin'! I'm lookin'!"

Despite her plague, Rand's (Whitney's) legs shine in the midnight like a supernova.

Another great line: "It seems impossible, but there it is." -Kirk in his log entry.

For some unknown reason Kirk's black collar does not go all the way around his neck as it usually does

Rhetorical question:

Does the young lady in this episode ever look at her reflection and say, "Miri, Miri on the wall, who's the fairest of us all?"

I know the producers had to emphasize that Miri's planet was a duplicate of Earth, but I gotta wonder where the cloud cover is! Every single part of the planet has a beautiful sunny day!
My favorite scene is when the deformed teenager tackles McCoy because he touches his bike, and then dies insanely babbling, "Nevernevernevernever!", while Kirk looks on helplessly.
Oh, and Rand's legs are nice, too.

Near the end of the episode after McCoy injects himself, Kirk comes in with the children...
One of the kids in the background has glasses on.
Nowhere in the school room was there any kids with glasses on. (It was the same kid who nodded to the kid with the club in his hand that had the glasses on now.)

This episode establishes Kirk's fondness for antiques...he gazes very intently at the piano and asks, "How old is it?" Also, he definitely looks like he wants that piano beamed up right now.

What were her parents thinking? Probably the most justifiable name change in screen history.

They really must have had some problems in wardrobe in this episode...McCoy's blue shirt doesn't go all the around his neck...it looks like he's unzipped a little there.

When Kirk fights with the mutant boy, the boy's shirt lifts up a little bit and you can see his stomach...with normal looking flesh....not a scar in sight...yet his hands & face are scarred beyond recognition. Does that seem right?

CLASSIC SCENE----

In the classroom, one of the kids spits in Kirk's face, then the whole gang of kids beat the Captain to a pulp. The camera then focuses on one little girl standing on the desk smiling broadly.

I have no problem with Miri's planet looking just like Earth, but was the fact that is looked like Earth at ALL relevant to the plot? Just what was the point of making it look that way in the first place?

They needed a hook for the teaser.

That teaser at the beginning of the episode was a bit of a cheat as the episode went on, since the identical continents became irrelevant in favor of the disease scenario. The planet could have had different continents from Earth but looked like an American town where they beamed down.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY:

When Kirk sees Rand tied up, he SHOULD HAVE said, "Aha! Now I've got you the way I want you! Pucker up, baby!" Then dive in.

I think the kids tied her up with her own hair.

Hey, she's Yeoman Rand, not Yeoman Rapunzel!

For what it's worth, given the original post was made over two and a half years ago..

-- I'm surprised the censors didn't object to Kirk's manipulation of Miri's budding sexuality. I mean it was a little bit . . . slimey. --

I think the word you're looking for is "exploitation". To manipulate something you have to control it.

You're right. Kirk should've injected her with a neurogenic pathogen.

He's be leader of Miri, or to be precise, "in control" of her, as the Spectre mentioned.

Finally! An explanation for why Miri's planet looks like Earth! (And come to think of it, why there are Yangs and Kohms on Omega 4 in 'The Omega Glory'. Check out Shatner's 'Preserver' novel for details.

RUMINATION: This is the last episode featuring Lt. John Farrell. (That's what you get Farrell for stealing Uhura's job!---You get ejected from the show! Ha! That'll fix ya'!)

NIT: Not exactly a brainy idea for everyone to leave the room when the brats create a diversion to steal the communicators. Is it?

MISSED OPPORTUNITY:

Rand grabbing Miri by the collar of her dress and shaking her real hard and saying, "Hands off! He's mine! Understand?"

At one point in the story, Jahn speculates that the "grups" in Kirk's landing party are using those "little boxes they talk into" to communicate with someone "Up in the sky...maybe"

Not too bad for a "kid" (sic) who never saw a Starship.

Unless...the people on this planet picked up old "Star Trek" reruns on Sci-Fi...that might explain it!

GREAT MOMENT: When Spock wants the guards to "fan out", all he does is genture his hand in certain directions and the guards go where he pointed.
You'd EXPECT that kind of authority seeing Spock is the first officer. However, this kind of authority is missing in other Trek incarnations.

When the mutant boy attacks McCoy, Kirk strikes the mutant three times. McCoy is standing with Rand(does anyone know why she is in the landing party?, in case someone wants coffee maybe?) anyway, Look at McCoys Tricorder strap, his right arm is through the strap but after the third hit it suddenly appears just dangling around his neck.

Rand is there to show off her legs...
...and she did a darn good job at it too!

Seriously, she was added to add tension between herself and Miri over Kirk.

So Kirk said Rand you are beaming down in case I meet a girl? I mean has there ever been another episode where Rand gets to go on a landing party? I wonder if M-5 would have suggested Kirk take Rand on this mission?

This might be a good time to ask a question I've wondered about off and on for awhile now...just what are a Yeoman's duties, anyway?

BESIDES having good legs, John A.

I get the distinct impression that they're sort of militaristic secretaries...but would Starfleet really waste a precious starship posting on somebody who all she knew how to do was take dictation? I mean, even if she did make the best cuppa in the galaxy.

So Rand is at least in theory a trained Academy graduate. Which means she should have the qualifications to at least be considered for landing parties.
But there have to be at least fifty other females ahead of her in line for this particular mission, beginning with Marla McGivers the historian and Helen Noel the doctor.
(And if you absolutely insist on the 'tension' angle, Uhura would have made a fine and far more believable source of friction between Kirk and Miri. If only the creators hadn't been so uptight about who Kirk could be 'involved' with...)

I mean, the secretary in love with her boss...this whole subplot so 50's. I'm pretty sure even Doris Day had dropped that plot by this point.

Yeomen have other duties BESIDES having good legs?!?!

WOW! What a concept!

kerriem,

It's not cannon, but I always assumed a Yeoman was like a bat man in the British army last century. (That is short for "battalion", I think, although a cape and mask would be very British) If I understand it right he was some sort of butler for the officers.

A Batman is a servent to an officer in the British Army. Bat coming from the French for pack saddle.

A Yeoman (believed to derive from young man) is a US Navy petty officer who perfoms the duty of a clerk, typist, or stenographer.

Aren't dictionaries interesting?

BTW William while you can't use quotation marks in your Username you can use Option-E-Space or that lower case mark on the Tilde key (left of the number 1 key).

Remember, in feudal times, the people who were kind of in the middle were referred to as the yeomanry.

Scott N, Thanks. I forgot that in Chaucer the knight had a Squire and a Yeoman. (The Yeoman in Chaucer didn't have pretty legs though.)

A Batman is also a caped crusader that fights crime in Gotham City :P

Holy final frontiers!

ScottN, Yeoman also refers someone who is not yet a Gentleman. Which seems more appropiate for feudal times.

Yeoman was a masculine term, there was the feminine Yeowoman or Yeomanette, although the Navy refered to them as Yeoman (F).

I think Rand was definitely a Yeomanette.

Now you've done it! Between Lea and me we'll find more information of this topic than you ever cared to know!

A yeoman, (according ot the source of all secular knowledge, the OED) is "a man holding a small landed estate; a freeholder under the rank of a gentleman; hence vaguely, a commoner or countryman of respectable standing." This is treated synonmously with, "a servant or attendant in a royal or noble household, usually of a superior grade, ranking between a sergeant and a groom or between a squire and a page." The term came to refer to "a attendant or assistant to an official," or "an inferior naval officer who has charge of the stores in a particular department" before it took on the meaning that KAM supplied. The term was in use as early as the 800's C.E, and the OED agrees with KAM that it seems to have been derived from "young man."

Apparently, by the 23rd century, it will have come to mean "a Babe with Legs who pours coffee, brings people reports to sign, and provides romantic/sexual tension." Personally, I think the Mirror Universe title of, "Captain's Woman" is a much more accurate descriptor.

Kira---You "left out" part of the 23rd century definition....

A Yeoman: A Babe with GORGEOUS legs, who wears a B-57 HAIRDO & NO BRA who pours coffee, brings people reports to sign, and provides romantic/sexual tension."

(It's the ACCESSORIES That makes the Yeoman a YEOMAN!...) They make you stop & say, "Yo! Man!"

John, all women in the 23rd century wear no bras... it's part of the culture, to say nothing of the fashion sense. To say that yeomen specifically wear no bras is redundant!

Kira--I see you've read the "Things we'll remember about TOS" board.

Say..How come Rand wasn't in the "return to the lab" scene when McCoy injected himself? I hope Kirk remembered to untie Rand. (Unless he was going to try something kinky later)

I also thought Rand deserved to be in the last scene of "TMP," as Grace Lee Whitney has her own fans.
Isn't that a "B-52" hairdo, John. The 1980's group ("Love Shack") was named after the hairdo.

Yeah..B-52...that's what I meant.
And I agree 100% that Rand should have been in the last scene in STTMP too. But not only that scene, but also the V'ger flyover scene AND the cloud penetration scene too.

Rah-Rah Rand!

So, John, basically any shot she could have conceivably been in?


Not that I don't agree....

Heh-heh-heh-huh-huh-huh...you said 'penetration' and 'Rand' in the same sentence! Heh-heh-heh-heh-uh-huh-huh-huh-heh-heh-heh!

No, John didn't Beavis. :\

Kim Darby (Miri) blows one of her lines....

When Kirk first gets the disease, Miri states that he (Kirk) will end up like the rest of the GRUMPS (emphasis mine).....it's GRUPS!

But I guess with the short temper scene, it might be considered a prophetic statement. :P

i think john s luvvy duvy with yeoman show me my legs rand bumb bump on the head, john, yr a very bad citizen, blah blah blah!

just kidding john, i sentance u to watch spocks brain,brain and brain what is brain

i think john s luvvy duvy with yeoman show me my legs rand

Only in his dreams, Anon. And only when he's not busy drooling over Uhura, and Troi, and Crusher, and...has he got to Dax or Kes yet?

Hey! Dax and the DS9 crew are mine! (for now at least...)

They're all yours, Kerriem & Sven.
Phasers at ten paces. Winner take all.

Whoa, hey, thanks John, but I don't want 'em. I'm too busy drooling over Patrick Stewart.

john, yr a borg ! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE U WILL SERVICE US

My mistake...Rand WAS INDEED in the lab scene. She comes in thru the door and holds the younger kids back from the traumatic scene where McCoy is on the floor.

FYI...Resistance to Rand's legs is futile!

john that was the b52s, u must b an oldie grump..(just kiddn again).

john s missed line : resistance to rand is futile she will service u lol holy moly

kerriam, which crusher? not wesly i wanna b on dat bridge crusher ....(just kiddn john)dr beverly and cpt baldy outta hook it up

Why were their communicators even off their convenient Velcro belt thingy? Even the security guards, who weren't even in the room-- they went out scouting and left their communicators behind! They should be busted down to yeoman for that.
Of course, maybe someone on the Enterprise would be smart enough to surmise what had happened when the landing party stopped calling and beam down some extra communicators.

By the way, Phil Morris (son of Greg Morris, Mission:Impossible) was one of the kids in this episode as well.

Maybe after seeing those scars on Janice's legs, Kirk could never look at her the same way again. That's why she left soon after.

Kim Darby (Miri) blows one of her lines....

When Kirk first gets the disease, Miri states that he (Kirk) will end up like the rest of the GRUMPS (emphasis mine).....it's GRUPS!

In another scene, I think she says "bunninsky" when she meant "buttinsky."

AIDS-scars or not, Rand's legs were hot. Steaming. Smouldering. The sexy leather boots just add to my excitement. Egads.

Ummm...Rand didn't have AIDS, she was infected with the virus on Miri's planet. But I agree with your observation though.

What's wrong with Spock's tricorder? (or Spock for that matter)
Rand asks, "You mean there's no one alive?" and Spock replies, "Inconclusive, Yeoman." My God..you just used the tricorder! What's wrong with it? (or you?)

Also I must add regarding my post on 5/3 that it sure doesn't say much about the Enterprise's sensors. They're supposed to be so sensitive they can detect a match (from The Man Trap)

True, the word "sensor" would indicate that the appliance can "sense" things, possibly many, and would not be limited to a certain number of them, as is the case with a "tricorder". I've often wondered why Starfleet never developed a "multicorder".

My God..you just used the tricorder! What's wrong with it? (or you?)

Down, boy! Even assuming Spock's aiming at an area that can be comfortably scanned by a small, handheld device...IIRC a tricorder reading can be mucked up rather easily. As Derf says, 'multicorders' are probably long overdue in the Trek universe.

So much has been said about yeoman rand, but has anyone noticed her running style? Its both hot and cool at the same time.

Great line -- Kirk: "we still don't know what we're fighting". McCoy: "no, but we know what it is and how fast it does it".

HUH ???, WHAT ??? For not knowing what it is, they sure know a lot about what it is.

CG enhancing: Following up on an idea in the Space: 1999 threads, if Star Trek the Classic Series could be enhanced with CG, these are ideas I have for this episode.


Miri's Earth seems to be completely cloudless. As usual, we never see any of it in darkness.

Shots of the Enterprise orbiting the planet are not very convincing. The Enterprise could not be that low and be in synchronous orbit to be in constant touch with the landing party. I can be corrected on this, but I doubt that the ship has enormous anti- gravity systems to hold it in position; since the planet is identical to Earth, its synchronous orbit altitude would be approximately 23,000 miles above the surface. Shots of the Enterprise passing over India and Saudi Arabia just don't cut it!

Ad hominem post removed by the moderator

Moderator! Insult detected!

By the way, Phil Morris (son of Greg Morris, Mission:Impossible) was one of the kids in this episode as well
According to IMDB, it was his first acting job. He was also in Star Trek III, as the trainee who asks Kirk if there will be a celebration upon the Enterprise's return. Could they be the same character?

GCapp may have gone a little overboard with ideas to change every episode, but let the guy have his fun. It's all just in good fun, anyway, and not meant as a backhanded slap in the face to the SFX guys that tried their best with 1966-69 technology. GCapp is just putting in print what alot of us would have liked to see; we missed alot of space battle action in The Ultimate Computer, and got a spinning light for an Orion ship in Journey To Babel, but nobody's about to contact Paramount and have them retroactively 'fix' every episode.
Just scroll past GCapp if you'd rather not read his ideas. Other nitpickers will return to the usual nits eventually.

The episode title was in a different typeface than any other episode. (Some first season episodes used small, thin lettering, some used bolder lettering. This one used angled lettering.)

After the brats took the Communicators, why didn't Spock use the transmitter inside the doctor's office to send a Morse Code message to the Enterprise and have the ship send a message back?

(There was a transmitter mentioned in the beginning of the episode)

According to Startrek.com, this episode was also run as a special edition on the same day as Balance Of Terror- but it never showed up in our TV Guide or on our local affiliate. However, the episode was obviously prepped- the special edition trailer with re-done Digital Earth is clearly visible. Anyone catch this?

It ran here (Phoenix). "Miri" isn't really an effects-heavy episode, so the only real change was the realistic "Earth". The makeup effects were the same.

Interestingly, they preserved the nit noted above -- the episode title is still in a slanted font, despite being over an all-new shot of the E orbiting the planet.

G4 don't even show up on our local tv guide or Tv now.

How the times have changed.
Just 2 years ago on January 5, 2005 Anonymous II said, 'nobody's about to contact Paramount and have them retroactively 'fix' every episode.'
Amazing that that is exactly what's now happening, although 'fix' can be replaced by 'remastered'.

I think I might have an explanation as to how the food was able to last 300 years; with such a slowed down metabolism wouldn't the kids lack an appetite and not feel hungry? Possibly for weeks at a time? Of course, we don't know what kind of 'food' Kirk is talking about. Can canned vegetables and fruit last 3 centuries, not to mention candy and chocolate? I doubt it. Have the kids raided all of the nearest fruit trees and farmland to point that nothing is left? Even more, doesn't this mean that the kids are probably vegetarians? Would they go out and hunt for meat?

Nobody mentioned this but Phil did in the Guide; why wouldn't the Enterprise just beam down a couple spare communicators when the first set went missing? Why would they twiddle their thumbs and not become concerned that the landing party, with still about 3 days left, would suddenly go to radio silence? Is the crew so order-conscientious that they wouldn't do this unless specifically instructed? Phasers I can understand, but communicators? This would also seem to indicate that the landing party's portable computers aren't linked to the one on the ship.

In case you missed the original sneak peek showing, the remastered "Miri" will be rerun next weekend. As I mentioned above, the only change is the updated space shots. The "Earth" no longer looks like a globe.

NASTY MOMENT: One of the kids SPITS in Kirk's face in the schoolroom scene.

GREAT ENHANCED MOMENTS

New footage of Miri's planet

The fading scars on McCoy's face is improved.

I love how they order a scan for radiation and/or toxic polutions AFTER they've made planetfall... this, along with the lack of lifeform scans apparently done (sinc ehtey had no idea if anyone was alive) would suggest a "Overly Excited To Beam Down To The Duplicate Earth Syndrome." :-)

Perhaps Rand was beamed down because of her peculiarly strong knowledge of Earth? She seemed to recognize it just from Spock's descriptions of it's diameter and mass! (Yes, she could have seen it on the screen, but to me, the way the scene is staged suggests she recognizes it's measurements!)

It's a shame that the duplicate Earth concept is never re-explored or fleshed out, ecept in the Shatnerverse novels... and perhaps "Cry of the Onlies"- it's been so long since I've read it I can't remember a thing about it! :-)

Repeating a query from the Turnabout Intruder board, is anyone familliar with a location that the remastered trailers are mirrored? It seems as if when Startrek.com went down, the trailers stopped coming... :-(

RUMINATION: As corny and hammy as Shatner is supposed to be, his delivery of the classic line, "No Blah, Blah, Blah," demonstrates why he was brilliant in this role. Totally committed and "stuck-in" to the moment as an actor.

Rewatching this after many years, thoughts that I had watching this as a teenager came back to me. It was nitpicking way before Phil invented the concept. They're all covered above.

I haven't seen the remastered version. It's suggested that this was corrected, but it always bothered me that Spock tells Kirk to "look at McCoy's face" long before there's any visible reduction in the blotches.

The years have not been kind to Kirk's smarmy treatment of Miri, as chronicled above. I'm additionally made uncomfortable by the crew racing around the town with phasers drawn chasing every sound they hear. What kind of first contact is that? If we accept the excuse that they're simply looking to provide aid in response to the distress call, it adds fuel to the "what-the-heck-is-Rand-doing-on-this-away-mission?" fire.

Hard to believe Spock wasn't all over the scientific ramifications of this mirror-earth. I have to believe he'd be obsessed with determining what set of circumstances could lead to such an "unbelievable, but there it is" occurrence. Well, maybe there'll be a couple of physicists and cosmologists among the teachers and truant officers.

When Farrell contacts the landing party with the figures as to the crew's life expectancy, Spock's communicator beeps, Farrel's voice says, 'Landing party come in', and THEN Spock opens up his communicator. I thought to establish to receive a message one had to flip open the communicator first?

It never occurredf to me that because of the very short appearance of two teenagers that are infected (first the boy who owns the tricycle, and then Louise) that they might in fact be brother and sister-- twins, perhaps.

I saw a show recently about what would happen to the Earth if everyone instantly left, leaving nature to take over. Judging by that show's theories, none of the cars in the background should still be elevated on their rubber tires, and alot more vegetation should have overwhelmed the inner city than was seen.

I mentioned the kid's appetite before, but now I'm wondering about their teeth. How did they manage to keep all of their teeth from decaying for 300 years?

Maybe someone can explain this line to me. Janice watches Kirk leave with Miri, and she says to Spock, "That little girl--", to which Spock interrupts with, "Is at least 300 years older than you are, Yeoman. Think about it."
Think about what, exactly? Don't be jealous of Miri? Does anyone else have an idea of what Spock is implying?

Cool new scenes of the Enterprise flying over Earth-2, but they were all over the place-- South and Central America, roughly near New York and Pennsylvania, the Middle East. Weird orbit.

If it's an exact duplicate of the Earth, why didn't they ever show the moon as the Enterprise orbited?

Another nit is why were the security guards out patrolling without their communicators? Did they not want to show the children mugging the security guards? Given the obvious indifference or hostility of the children, it would make sense to maintain some kind of alert condition and keep communicators on their belts.

This is kinda obvious, and surely has been mentioned elsewhere, probably by the Chief, but, uh, despite their dirty faces, aren't these kids remarkably well groomed? Most of them should have hair so long, even the hippies would be saying, "Like wow, man, that hair is really long." Or are they cutting their own hair? In which case, their hair should look really, really bad. Ragged.

"Live long and prosper."

Forget the idea that there's six months left to the food supply, after 300 years, how is it there's any food left at all? Any refrigerated food would have spoiled within the first few weeks after the last of the grups had died, and it wouldn't take much longer, a few months maybe, before the boxed and canned goods ran out on the onlies. Unless the disease severely curbed their appetites or the kids became expert hunters/gatherers very quickly, they'd've been without food long before the Enterprise got there.

So, just before McCoy injects himself, Spock goes to check on Kirk's progress. Does Spock even know where the Captain is?

How many diseases are cured by a serum that causes such severe pain and causes one to pass out? Not to mention are cured so quickly. Whatever it was McCoy conjured up to cure the Miri Planet disease, seems it worked at an incredibly fast pace, and quite painfully, too.

Am I the only who gets a little nervous whenever Kirk tells the Enterprise to clear the computers? It almost sounds like he's telling Farrell to erase them. Then again, are the ship's computer so primitive that they can only solve one problem at a time? They're unable to multi-task? That's a little worrisome, too.

"Bonk, bonk!"

I was also kinda bugged about them remaining children mentally. Their brains are still 300 years old, even if their bodies are prepubescent.

That, too, bugged me, Alan. The only explanation I can give - and it's a weak one - is they grew one month for every one hundred years, so, too did their mental processes.

"Bonk! Bonk!"

Or they didn't have any grownups (Grups) to teach them how to behave.

The landing party finds a broken tricycle and what may be a burial plot beneath it. Kirk calls over Spock, and hands him the broken tricycle, who then gives it to McCoy.
Why did he call over Spock? Spock didn't make a comment or report anything, so why did Kirk call him over?

The landing party hears a sound in a building and runs into it. Just before they find Miri hiding, Kirk walks up to a dusty old piano, and asks Spock "How old is this?" Spock replies "About 300 years."
First-- Kirk seems distracted. He was chasing the origin of the sound, but he suddenly needs to know how old a musical instrument is?
Secondly-- Spocks gives a figure of 300 years, just by looking at it and not using his tricorder to scan it. Is that even relevant to their search for the mysterious sound?

Adam Sandler and Kevin James have made a sequel to their 2010 movie, 'Grown Ups', called 'Grown Ups II'
As per orders from Starfleet Command, Star Trek fans must now refer to these two movies as 'Grups' and 'Grups II'.

In response to some of the queries relating to this episode, I give your my deductions.

1) Failure of the crew to send down more communicators. They can’t risk communicators falling into the wrong hands by blindly beaming them down, without knowing exactly where Kirk and the others are located.

2) Given that the Captain's Log stated that the SOS Transmitter was found in the same building as the Lab, why couldn't someone (probably Mr. Spock) have used this to signal the Enterprise to beam down some more Communicators, thus solving their dilemma? He will make a computer out of local items from an even earlier time period in The City on the Edge of Forever. Either the transmitter stopped working after sending the SOS, but before Spock could use it, due to lack of maintenance over the last 300 years, or one of the children broke it after they stole the communicators.

3) When the children steal the communicators, they only get three - presumably Kirk's, Spock's, and McCoy's. Rand and the two security men are not present, and therefore probably have their communicators with them - it is highly unlikely Kirk would let them go off into unknown territory without standard equipment. They probably took Rand's when she was captured, and snatched the ones belonging to the guards when there were - presumably - captured off screen while searching for Kirk and the others.

4} What did the two security guards that came with the landing party do? They aren't present when the away team is attacked or in any other scene. Did they go AWOL? We see them again at the end and they aren't sick with the purple sores, either, when they return. As stated above, they were probably captured off screen, and presumably cured off screen as well.

http://explaining-errors-in-star-trek.wikia.com/wiki/Miri

Kinda hard to miss those TWENTY-SEVEN-year old attributes, huh?
Michael J. Pollard was that old when he made the episode. He did a good job, but he never seemed just 17 to me.

Another side effect of that life prolongation experiment, no doubt.

---

quote:

Despite supposedly being a kid, Jahn has sideburns, which human males only get after puberty.

---

And, as I said, the life prolongation thing may have had a few side effects.

I wonder if Miri and Jahn's names were originally Mary and John.

Over the centuries, they changed into the current versions, like grown up became "grup".

The stuff about language drift is also a nit with Doctor Who's "State of Decay". Miri and Jahn are still the originals! Surely, you wouldn't forget your *own* name, even after 300 years?

Those are entirely different situations.

The Three Who Rule were well aware of their former human identities. When the Doctor said to Aukon that he was once O'Connor, Aukon said "You know?" He was wondering just how the Doctor had figured out his original name. No doubt Zargo and Camilla knew they were once called Miles Sharkey and Lauren MacMillan. They probably abandoned their original names when they came under the sway of the Great Vampire.

In the case of Miri and Jahn, look at what those poor kids must have gone through. They lived through the bleeding apocalypse. In a short time, they saw their whole civilization collapse into chaos and anarchy. And were no doubt traumatized by the whole thing. It possible that they repressed some memories, including their original names, or they remember just enough to have new names close enough.

We only see a small part of an entire planet. Are there African and Asian "Onlies" that we never meet?

Most likely, yes.

Kirk said that the Federation would be sending aid, no doubt part of that aid will be tracking down other enclaves of children.

If you look at the groups of kids during the episode you will see a black boy and an Asian boy amongst all the white Onlies.

What i mean is that most of the planet - the mirrored Europe, Africa and Asia - we never see. And Tim is right that on those other continents there will also be children survivors.

Since the Enterprise crew are the stars, we stayed with them throughout the episode as they met Miri and her lot. And when the Enterprise left at the end of the show, we left with it.

When the people the Federation are sending arrive, they will locate and aid all the children of this planet, no matter where they are.

Oh, I see, Judi.
Of course, if we try to think of it in reality terms, the Onlies in the African nations probably died out from starvation, if their land mimicked ours, with deserts, poor growing conditions, lack of rain, and the Onlies's inability to farm
The colder regions probably did so, too, but died from the harsher, colder conditions.
Kirk said that his group had eaten almost all of the food, so they were on the verge of starving, too.
Under those conditons, I wouldn't expect there to be millions of Onlies left-- more like thousands, if they were lucky, and not slacker like Miri and Jahn's group.

Also, it is possible that some groups of children could have learned to live off the land.

I've read of feral children being discovered living in forests (mind you, it doesn't happen so much now as it did centuries past). For whatever reason, they ended up there and managed to adapt.

So something could have happened on this world. Perhaps some children sought refuge in the woods when the adults started going bonkers and just stayed there. Over time they adapted to this new life.

And, aside from berries and such, there would have been much more wild game available, as hunting season was permanently cancelled.

Mind you, it wouldn't be easy, and some of those children would perish in harsh weather, accidents, and such. However, we humans are an adaptable race, and others would manage to survive and adapt.

So, the Federation folks might think to check the forests and such to find such colonies of feral children.

It occurs to me (and it may have been mentioned somewhere else), but since the Onlies age just one month for every hundred years, that means that Miri, Jahn, and all the rest look virtually the same in Picard/Sisko/Janeway's time as they did in Kirk's time, not to mention looking the same in Archer's time, earlier.

Probably not, since McCoy figured out a cure for the virus that was keeping them young (and killing anyone entering puberty). They must have resumed aging normally after being given that cure.

Steve, his name is spelled Jahn, not Jawn. I've gone in and fixed it.

Of course, the big question, a duplicate Earth is never addressed.

The out of universe reason was for the budget (so they could film on the Paramount lot and just dirty up the 1960's streets to make them look centuries old). However, we don't deal in reality.

As I have mentioned, the original outline was for Miri's world to have been a colony world that had severed relations with Earth centuries earlier (this was long before the Trek time line was firmly nailed down). Since they choose to settle in an isolated system, their distressed signal went unheard for 300 years, until the Enterprise picked it up.

Francois - "They must have resumed aging normally after being given that cure."

Oh, yeah...the cure. I guess they would end up sharing it with 'the kids'! D'OH! Never considered them sharing it!

Another thing they didn't focus on was the distress signal...sent into space? Why would a 1960's, pre-warp planet do such a thing? Maybe they had alien visitors before and for 300 years were trying to bring them back, but I guess that didn't work out too welll.
Which makes me wonder, if Earth (in our real world) experienced such a catastrophe, would we send a distress signal out into space, hoping that SOMEBODY would answer it?

Steve: Tim explained. Different writers and the series progressing meant that the Trek universe was all over the place with regard to continuity and backstories.

it's kind of like how most of the Hartnell era of Doctor Who is ambiguous as to whether the Doctor is an alien or an evolved human. Even the "renewal" in The Tenth Planet was said to be technologically brought about by the TARDIS in the very next serial.

Until the 1980s, American television actually frowned upon continuity and story "arcs" because of the mess that was syndicated reruns.

The whole distress signal thing really didn't make a lot of sense.

Assuming that Earth was on the same tech level as ours, they would have only had conventional radio at that time. That meant the signal would travel for years, decades even, before being picked up (it would take a radio signal nearly five years to reach our nearest neighbour system, Alpha Centauri).

As it was, the signal travelled for three hundred years before the Enterprise received it.

The distress signal was clearly a holdover from the original concept, of the planet being a lost Earth colony. The colonists would have been well aware that humanity was now a space faring race and sending out that distress signal made sense in context.

it would take a radio signal nearly five years to reach our nearest neighbour system, Alpha Centauri

Four years, three or four months. The closest star of the system is 4.2 ly and the main stars are 4.3 ly, so you'd round down to 4, not up to 5.

That being said it was probably a desperation ploy more than anything else, they probably tried everything else so what have they got to lose by sending out a distress call?

The thing about the distress call... How quickly did the virus overwhelm the adults? from what we see in the episode, once that child entered puberty, they went nuts pretty fast. Was there much time to send out a call?

From what I see, the virus overwhelms its victims in a matter of days.

However, I think sending the signal was just a matter of pointing the dish and pressing a button. Which brings up another nit.

It was stated that the Enterprise crew had found where the signal had been transmitted from. Uh, how?

What I mean is how it could still be transmitting after three hundred years? Electricity was long gone and any battery would have long since run down. There is no was that radio could still have been functioning by the time the Enterprise arrived.

Well, first the sensors should know what direction they intercepted the signal.

If the message repeated for any length of time they could more easily narrow down the point in space it originated from.

Astronomers these days know how fast and in what direction stars are traveling, so locate the nearest star(s) to where the message appears to have originated and do some calculations.

Makes sense. However, they specifically mentioned the building said signal was sent from.

That should not have been possible, as there is no way it would have still been functioning.

all the rewrites during "Miri"s gestation process is why it's "an awful, awful, awful mess" to quote BTTF's Doc Brown.

Aside from the duplicate Earth thing (which has absolutely no relevance to the plot), there are really no problems with this episode.

Non canon, of course, but the novel "The Cry of the Onlies" is a tad depressing. We learn very quickly that Miri died.

Some people make such a big deal about "Plato's Stepchildren" having TV's first interracial kiss (which technically isn't even true), but I keep wondering if "Miri" has TV's first use of the word "puberty."

Ugh, you're right. That novel was total rubbish.

Thank the dead gods of Krypton that it's not considered canon.

That's one good thing about the Star Trek novels. We already know they're not canon since it was stated as much by Paramount decades ago. Not so with Doctor Who, where the BBC has never bothered to declare the novels, short stories, comics, and audios non-canon, which effectively leads each fan to decide on her/his own canon. Although that being said, I don't expect any TV episode to ever require the viewers be aware of an event in the novels.
But back to Star Trek...

Yeah, Paramount was very clear on that.

You know the melody by which kids, including the ones in this episode sing, "Nyahh, nyahh, nyahh, nyahh, nyayy?" Have you ever noticed that in Queen's song "We Are the Champions" it's the same melody that the line "No time for losers" is sung to?

Interesting.

Mind you, Queen never existed on Miri's world. Civilisation had collapsed before the group formed (which happened in 1970).

I think kids had been doing that taunt to the same melody long before Miri. I have to wonder if it was a conscious decision by Queen, as if they were taunting the losers.

Perhaps one of more of the band saw this episode and liked it.

You never know.

but I keep wondering if "Miri" has TV's first use of the word "puberty."

It a good thing that nineteen year old Kim Darby could pass for younger even if the producers had to strap her down. She would famously play a fourteen year old at age twenty one against John Wayne in "True Grit".

Miri was over 300 years old.

So Kim Darby was playing someone older, not someone younger

The BBC pulled four episodes off rotation in 1970 - "Miri", "The Empath", "Plato's Stepchildren" and "Whom Gods Destroy". They weren't reinstated until the 1990s. This article explains why.

Fascinating.

And yet, the Brits were okay producing a sci-fi series of their own about a man with a blue box that encountered monsters so scary that the kids hid behind the sofa.

Think I've seen that show.

Miri's Earth no longer appears to have working electricity, which would certainly be the case if all the adults had been dead for hundreds of years. However, somehow a working radio has been broadcasting an SOS into space for three centuries.

Solar powered, perhaps? Wind turbine powered? Not many explanations for that major nit.

Eveready batteries? ;-)

We actually talked about this a couple of years ago.

To me, it makes sense that an SOS beacon would have its own power source.

Yeah, but would said power have lasted for 300 years?

How could food for the Onlies last for 300 years, as well?
I guess we just have to look the other way to accept some of this episode's concepts.

Yeah, most foods would have long since spoiled.

Miri's people survived by eating cockroaches, rats, pigeons, and Twinkies. ;-)

I wonder if the plague killed animals, as well as humans.

I know it was made for humans, but, as we have seen, viruses can jump species (like with AIDS, bird flu, and, yes, COVID).