Episode Synopsis (from the official Star Trek website):
The U.S.S. Enterprise answers an old distress signal to find an unnamed planet that is almost an exact duplicate of Earth in the 1960s. A landing party beams down and discovers that 300 years before, the natives of the planet conducted experiments to prolong life, but had instead created a deadly virus. The virus killed all adults by rapid aging and madness. In children, the virus slowed the natural aging process greatly, leaving them in a state of prepubescence for centuries.
There are no adults on the planet, only children, and they survive the best they can without adults to aid them. The landing party contracts the virus, except for Spock, who becomes a carrier of the disease. Until a cure for the disease can be found and created, the landing party is confined to the planet. To return to the U.S.S. Enterprise would mean a rapid spread of the disease.
The landing party attempts to make friends with the children, but they vividly remember the horrible deaths of their parents and refuse to have anything to do with them. One of the older children, Miri, falls in love with Kirk and tries to help him with the other children until she begins to see Yeoman Rand as a rival for the captain's affections. Stung, Miri helps Jahn, one of the boys, to lead the children in a campaign to harass the U.S.S. Enterprise crew members. When Kirk tries to reason with the children, he is badly beaten.
Miri is an interesting episode, if only because it tries so very hard to be a science fiction homage to Lord of the Flies. Although the episode features strong performances from the lead and takes its subject matter seriously, as a whole the episode feels shallow, as if it lacks its own creative spark to keep it going, and it fails to live up to the quality of its inspiration. While there is a moral to the story, it is nowhere near as poignant or as urgent as it was in Lord of the Flies.
The episode also has some massive plot holes that are never filled. The planet where Miri is discovered is an Earth-type planet. I don't just mean a "M-class" planet, but a planet that has cities and vehicles and roads that all resemble the Earth of the mid 20th century. It is also populated by human children. While we know that Earth has likely hundreds if not thousands of colonies at this time in Star Trek, there is no reason for an Earth colony to look like it was the 20th century unless the people lived in some sort of purposely restricted and controlled fashion. Considering that all the children are human, the only other explanation would be some sort of convoluted theory of mass human abduction and relocation to a planet meant to replicate Earth. Neither explanation seems plausible, and the issue is not only not addressed specifically in the episode, it is barely even noticed but for a few throw away lines of dialog and scenes when they first arrive on the planet.
Another issue that irked me was Miri's infatuation with Kirk. It's not the actual plot device that bothers me so much as how it is portrayed. While it is absolutely reasonable to expect a young girl entering puberty to develop a crush on an older boy, I find the "young girl falling in love with 34 year old man" explanation that the official website provides as a little disturbing and slightly inappropriate. Again, this is likely more a result of the rather drastic change in socio-cultural norms in the 40 years since the episode aired then any impropriety in the subject matter, but it didn't stop me from thinking it wasn't the best angle to take given Kirk's reputation as a Lothario.
Nevertheless, Miri is a competent episode that features a compelling climax as Kirk finally is able to reach the "children", all hundreds of years old, and convince them that only trust in others will save them from their greatest fear. While Miri will never be one of my favorite episodes, it is far from the worst of The Original Series.
Continuity:
- Medical equipment is inconsistent with previous episodes and later episodes, although this is a common theme in Star Trek.
- Once again, several main cast members fail to make more than a token appearance or simply do not appear in the episode.
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