Duplicate Earth in Miri

Point being, they had already done that with several episodes by the time of "Miri", and didn't resort to the extremity of the Earth Clone that "Miri" did.

 

"Miri" is listed as the 11th regular episode. Looking at the list on Memory Alpha I'm not seeing a "Near Earth-like Planet" episode ahead of it. Looks like it was the first. "Bread and Circuses" and "Omega Glory" weren't till Season Two.

 

I figured it was just a pretty cool, imaginative and uh, somewhat disturbing skiffy TV story.

The more energy the Trek people and the fans put into explaining every little thing over the decades, the less imaginative and interesting Star Trek became. I don't suppose the two are related.

 

It doesn't have to be a literal Earth clone for 'Miri's plot, a similar-developed world will do, and there are lots of them. There wasn't anything about 'Miri's backstory that required Earth parallel history after all.

 

Thats true. So we are left with it being a dramatic hook for the teaser and keeping expenses down. Beyond that, I'm not sure the writers or producers gave it much thought. Nor did they expect people to be nitpicking it decades later.

 

Since someone already brought up the Q, you could explain Miri-Earth as an early Q "trial" for humans. Confront them with something that radically improbable and see how they respond.