#12 (1-8): Miri

A sweet little domestic episode. Janice gets Kirk to look at her legs.  Later, she experiments with bondage, but Kirk turns out to be more interested in practicing a speech for school. Meanwhile, Spock and McCoy play with a new chemistry set.


THE PLOT

The Enterprise discovers a planet that is eerily like Earth. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Janice beam down to the surface, only to find that all the adults on the planet have died of a horrible degenerative disease, with only the children surviving. A teen girl, Miri (Kim Darby), befriends them, and fills in some background for them: the adults ("grups") become ill, then became violent, and finally died, leaving the children ("Onlies") to take care of themselves. When the landing party discovers that they have become infected, as well, McCoy uses the research that led to this disease - an unexpected side effect of a grab at immortality - to try to find a cure. But when the other "Onlies" decide to play a "foolie" on them by stealing their communicators, cutting off contact with the ship, the landing party is left with only the resources they have on-hand to try to save themselves.


CHARACTERS

Capt. Ham: "NO! NO... BONK-BONK!!!" In absolute fairness to William Shatner, lines such as this and his impassioned speech to the "Onlies" were probably unplayable in any other way, and he does bring conviction to his hammery. But this is the first significant time in the series (not counting doppelgangers) in which Shatner really starts to delve for his inner bacon. "LOOK AT MY ARMS! That's... what's going to happen to YOU!"

Dr. McCoy: Well, I suppose if one needs an explanation for how McCoy lived long enough to be in Encounter at Farpoint, then it rests with this episode: He and the entire landing party were exposed to the disease, one of whose aspects (apparently left intact after the cure) is a significantly prolonged life-span. Thus, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Janice, Spock, and the two more-or-less anonymous redshirts will live a long, long time, barring scaffolding accidents. Anyway, this episode shows another example of McCoy finding a cure to a massive disease with remarkable speed and efficiency. We also see McCoy's courage here, as he determines to test the cure - which will either save or kill - himself.

Janice: More of her attraction to Kirk here, as she confesses that she has always tried to get Kirk to "look at (her) legs." Until they became all splotchy with the disease, anyway. Shows compassion for the children, which is used by a jealous Miri to lead her into a trap. Then practices bondage in a classroom setting, only Kirk seems more interested in amateur oratory.

Alien Space Crush of the Week: The far-from-teenage Kim Darby does a reasonably effective job as Miri. It's obvious enough that she's older than the age she's playing, but wardrobe, hair, and the actress pitching her vocal level a bit high combine to at least suggest a girl who's probably around 13 (physically and emotionally, anyway). Her crush on Kirk is convincingly-played as a teen crush, with hero worship and a desperation to please replaced by fierce, dangerous jealousy when she determines that Janice is a (more realistic) rival for Kirk's affections.

Villain of the Week: Michael J. Pollard, also far from a teenager, plays Jahn, the leader of the "Onlies." Pollard does bring a certain creepy presence to the role, and there is a vague sinister cast when he and the other "Onlies" start chanting childish things like, "Lovey-dovey, lovey-dovey!" at a tied-up and terrified Janice. Still, even moreso than Darby, Pollard is very obviously far too old for the role he's playing.


THOUGHTS

Erm... What can one really say about an episode that has its hero declare, "No bonk-bonk!" with no trace of irony? It is fair to say that Miri is one of the weaker episodes offered thus far by TOS. The entire scenario has been rather poorly thought-through. Dr. McCoy's miraculous speed-discovery of a cure can be accepted as a plot necessity. But his ingested cure doesn't banish the life-prolonging disease, it simply makes it work the way it apparently was intended to. Given that the disease is obviously airborne, this indicates that our three leads are now effectively immortal... making a bit of a hash of their obvious later aging in the film series (one can fanwank that they only received limited exposure, I suppose).

Also, once Kirk's logs are read back at Starfleet, won't someone note that the Enterprise has discovered, effectively, the fountain of youth? Armed with McCoy's cure, I would think tons of ships would be descending on that planet to breathe in its chemical-tainted atmosphere and the centuries-long lifespans that will go with it. But apparently, we're to believe that Starfleet and the Federation are above such things.

Finally, at the resolution, Kirk leaves a bunch of children to continue fending for themselves, aging at such a slow rate that it will be centuries before even the oldest - Miri and Jann - are mentally adults. The morality of leaving the children in, essentially, a feral state is... hazy, to say the least. Also, poor Miri - Her only realistic choice of a mate is the hobgoblin-like Jahn, who's more interested in playing soldier and bonk-bonking people on the head. Centuries and centuries of Jahn... Turning into a "grup," complete with dementia and death, would probably start looking good by comparison.

In fairness, it's not all bad. Some of the desperation as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy hunt for a cure is well-played, and the actors do a good job of becoming increasingly irritable and irrational as the disease takes hold. DeForest Kelly is particularly strong in his snapped exchanges with Kirk as the two men begin to lose it. Credit also to the makeup department: the "disease" makeup does a good job of suggesting a horrible, degenerative illness without blotching the actors to such an extent that their physical performances are impeded.

But once we get to the "Onlies," and particularly to the schoolhouse... What was this made as? MST fodder?


Rating: 5/10. I probably should go lower, but it was entertaining - if in a rather blinkered sort of way.

Previous Episode: Dagger of the Mind
Next Episode: The Conscience of the King

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