Would Miri Have Been Better If...

[ZapBrannigan]

Every time I turn around, somebody is saying Kirk was inappropriate with Miri. I'm in the camp (I think it's most of us) that says he was trying to win her over and get some cooperation. Flattering a kid of either gender is a pretty standard tactic. But to me, that's never been the main question.

My main question is, shouldn't Miri and Jahn have been played by talented children? Spock says the disease erupts at puberty. Kim Darby was 19 and Michael J. Pollard was 27. Both were fantastic actors and I love them, but come on. When Kirk says to Jahn "It's waiting for you. It may be only a matter of months," you're reminded that the subject is puberty, and Jahn looks like puberty is very old news to him. He could be giving this talk to a kid of his own!

I suppose the disease could start incubating at puberty and erupt massively years later. But that still leaves us to wonder how different the episode would be if they had cast it with kids like it was written.

• Pamelyn Ferdin ("I'll sting you!") was 9 at the time, and would have been terrific as Miri. And probably available.

• Angela Cartwright was 13 and would have been sensational. Dream casting. But she was busy shooting the worst season of Lost in Space. Veronica Cartwright was 17 and there'd be no age reason to favor her over Kim Darby.

• Mary Badham (To Kill a Mockingbird) was 14, might have been great. You can see what she looked like in 1966 in images from This Property is Condemned. She looks like a Miri type in that movie!

• Butch Patrick was 13. The Munsters and Munster Go Home! had wrapped when "Miri" was filmed in August, 1966. He'd be good as Jahn.

• Bill Mumy was 12 and one of the most talented actors of his age group. Busy making LIS Year 2.

• Ron Howard was 12 and still on The Andy Griffith Show. Great kid, but I don't like him for Jahn. Clint Howard (Balok) was too young.

• Jerry Mathers was 18. A bit old for Jahn. Jimmy Mathers was 11 and that's young for it.

 

[Maurice]

Mostly they cast young-looking adult actors because they don't have to work around the limited hours children are allowed to work, and that they have to go to school part of the day.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

They could've halved the length of the episode to match. It's win-win!

 

[T'Bonz]

Every time I turn around, somebody is saying Kirk was inappropriate with Miri. I'm in the camp (I think it's most of us) that says he was trying to win her over and get some cooperation. Flattering a kid of either gender is a pretty standard tactic. But to me, that's never been the main question.

My main question is, shouldn't Miri and Jahn have been played by talented children? Spock says the disease erupts at puberty. Kim Darby was 19 and Michael J. Pollard was 27. Both were fantastic actors and I love them, but come on. When Kirk says to Jahn "It's waiting for you. It may be only a matter of months," you're reminded that the subject is puberty, and Jahn looks like puberty is very old news to him. He could be giving this talk to a kid of his own!

I suppose the disease could start incubating at puberty and erupt massively years later. But that still leaves us to wonder how different the episode would be if they had cast it with kids like it was written.

• Pamelyn Ferdin ("I'll sting you!") was 9 at the time, and would have been terrific as Miri. And probably available.

• Angela Cartwright was 13 and would have been sensational. Dream casting. But she was busy shooting the worst season of Lost in Space. Veronica Cartwright was 17 and there'd be no age reason to favor her over Kim Darby.

• Mary Badham (To Kill a Mockingbird) was 14, might have been great. You can see what she looked like in 1966 in images from This Property is Condemned. She looks like a Miri type in that movie!

• Butch Patrick was 13. The Munsters and Munster Go Home! had wrapped when "Miri" was filmed in August, 1966. He'd be good as Jahn.

• Bill Mumy was 12 and one of the most talented actors of his age group. Busy making LIS Year 2.

• Ron Howard was 12 and still on The Andy Griffith Show. Great kid, but I don't like him for Jahn. Clint Howard (Balok) was too young.

• Jerry Mathers was 18. A bit old for Jahn. Jimmy Mathers was 11 and that's young for it.

Ferdin's voice always grated on me, but Angela Cartwright would have been delightful.

Darby wasn't too old though, TV-wise. Pollard was. I think they could have done a better casting job for Jahn.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Would Miri Have Been Better If...

They didn't do that bonk bonk blah blah bullshit.

But then we wouldn't have Kirk's classic rejoinder: "no BLAH BLAH BLAH!"

As for the casting, @Maurice has the real point. Miri and Jahn were in the bulk of the episode. You needed young looking adult actors. Miri was on point for the age they were going through. Jahn looked like he had a auto repair business going for 8 years already. The other options were guys like Lou Wagner, who was like 26 but looked and sounded younger.

Gary Tigerman was 20 and played a caveboy on the dire "A Day at the Zoo" on lost in space the next year. He could have done it I guess.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I still think putting actual kids in the leads is a good thought experiment, even with Darby and Pollard being so capable.

And I get the hours problem with child actors, but look at Bill Mumy on Lost in Space. Plenty of contemporary shows got mileage out of their minors. I doubt if Desilu had its own school for child actors the way 20th Century Fox did, but if legally required, Desilu might have hired a tutor. They got "And the Children..." on film somehow, even with the smaller budget and higher star salaries of Year 3.

So Pam Ferdin was 9. Craig Huxley was 12 and surely had not had his lanky "Tommy Starnes" growth spurt yet. They would have been great in this, it would be creepier, and the story logic would be preserved.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I still think putting actual kids in the leads is a good thought experiment, even with Darby and Pollard being so capable.

And I get the hours problem with child actors, but look at Bill Mumy on Lost in Space. Plenty of contemporary shows got mileage out of their minors.

Okay sure, but Mumy spent his life on the lot for the most part. And they could double up episodes and/or leave one of the other kids out. The War of the Robots vs The Magic Mirror for example. And, no kidding, Irwin Allen's material was less demanding on its child actors. A good performance was secondary. Just so happened Mumy was a natural. Stefan Arngrim not so much. Even Angela Cartwright struggled to give out a less than flat or whiny performance sometimes.

And remember, they could work Darby and Pollard later and longer with the other adults for close ups and inserts. Save all the kids for group shots at once early on. It really just easier all around for a production to fudge the issue with younger looking actors. Pollard was honestly the only one who stood out.

I doubt if Desilu had its own school for child actors the way 20th Century Fox did, but if legally required, Desilu might have hired a tutor. They got "And the Children..." on film somehow, even with the smaller budget and higher star salaries of Year 3.

Well, most of them weren't good either (one was Melvin Belli's son) and they could space them out for the mornings and get them out to school, leaving the adults to shoot into the later hours

Even allowing for your point, good child actors were harder to find.

So Pam Ferdin was 9. Craig Huxley was 12 and surely had not had his lanky "Tommy Starnes" growth spurt yet. They would have been great in this, it would be creepier, and the story logic would be preserved.

That's not allowing for the "close to puberty" appearance. Ferdin looked her age, so she's totally out of the question for Miri. Same with Huxley. At the time Miri was being shot, he also looked too young.

 

[Farscape One]

I think "MIRI" would have improved if it centered less on the kids and more on the fact it was a duplicate Earth. A great scifi hook for the episode in the teaser, and almost entirely forgotten during the rest of it.

 

[drt]

I think "MIRI" would have improved if it centered less on the kids and more on the fact it was a duplicate Earth. A great scifi hook for the episode in the teaser, and almost entirely forgotten during the rest of it.

yeah, the duplicate Earth thing is completely superfluous once they beam down.

I sometimes wonder if there was an early idea for the show that they would occasionally find multiple duplicate Earths, each with a different alternative history (like "Archons", "Omega Glory", etc. could have fit into the mold).

 

[FredH]

I think there also used to be a tendency (with major exceptions) to routinely have children played by older actors. That’s how you get all those old movies where teenagers are played by twentysomethings.

 

[Kor]

Yes, it's the same phenomenon that has all the shows set in high school with actors in their 20s and 30s playing the teenaged students.

Kor

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I sometimes wonder if there was an early idea for the show that they would occasionally find multiple duplicate Earths, each with a different alternative history (like "Archons", "Omega Glory", etc. could have fit into the mold).

The original pitch mentions that parallel worlds are the key to Star Trek's format. Cultures on different planets evolve down similar lines, allowing the production crew to use familiar costumes. Like how Bread and Circuses is extremely Roman.

It wasn't supposed to be literally duplicate Earths though, so I don't even know where that came from.

 

[Starflight]

Roddenberry seemed to love duplicate Earth stories:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Undeveloped_Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series_episodes

Gangster World, 1960s Earth, Racism But Ooh Look The Roles Are Inverted World, Japan Wins WW2 World...

 

[Ssosmcin]

Roddenberry seemed to love duplicate Earth stories:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Undeveloped_Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series_episodes

Gangster World, 1960s Earth, Racism But Ooh Look The Roles Are Inverted World, Japan Wins WW2 World...

It was baked into the premise to keep costs down and make the series more attractive to the network. This was never a secret. It's in his pitch.

 

[FormerLurker]

So Pam Ferdin was 9. Craig Huxley was 12 and surely had not had his lanky "Tommy Starnes" growth spurt yet. They would have been great in this, it would be creepier, and the story logic would be preserved.

That's not allowing for the "close to puberty" appearance. Ferdin looked her age, so she's totally out of the question for Miri. Same with Huxley. At the time Miri was being shot, he also looked too young.

It was a plot point that Miri had lesions from the disease. Jahn probably did too, but that was either left out of a script revision, or left on the cutting room floor.

 

[Frontis]

Miri wasn't bad imo. It had something of a horror movie with evil children.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

Real Life Lord of the Flies

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

It was baked into the premise to keep costs down and make the series more attractive to the network. This was never a secret. It's in his pitch.

At least his aliens of the week never lifted off in the very same rocket week after week like that other sci-fi '60s show CBS liked better.

 

[Just a Bill]

I think "MIRI" would have improved if it centered less on the kids and more on the fact it was a duplicate Earth. A great scifi hook for the episode in the teaser, and almost entirely forgotten during the rest of it.

Yeah, that disappoints me too, but this wasn't intended as a sci-fi concept; just a set and prop justification. With the unusually large number of children, and the need to explain the life prolongation experiment as well as provide a slow means of researching it in isolation, this episode, perhaps more than any other, needed a large number of instantly recognizable props. Tricycles, bats, dolls, army gear, test tubes, microscopes, file cabinets, manila folders, documents (and store windows) printed in English, pencil sharpeners, (Dixon Ticonderoga) pencils.... No way could they have afforded to make alien versions of all that stuff, nor alien-looking costumes and accoutrements for every child. Not to mention an entire post-apocalyptic ruined city the characters can walk through in extreme long shots, with streets/intersections, multiple buildings, burned-out vehicles, destroyed furniture, and so on.

shouldn't Miri and Jahn have been played by talented children?

I'll just add another thought to this thread. If all the children in the story had looked no older than 13 or 14, then the attacks by Louise and the tricycle boy would not have been very menacing, or monsterish. An adult crying about a tricycle is an interesting little puzzle at the beginning of the story, but a child doing the same loses that mystery. It also could have been problematic, if not prohibited, to show children being horribly disfigured and then killed. So these characters needed adult performers. (Stuntwoman Irene Sale was almost 28, and Ed McCready was 36.)

I think we have to assume that the virus not only slowed aging but also delayed the onset of puberty even more (disproportionately). So I'd say the failure was in not throwing in a couple of lines to establish that; perhaps something like this (though I haven't thought about whether or not there's a place for this to fit):

KIRK: Puberty? Bones, some of these ... children ... look like that ship has sailed.​

McCOY: I know, Jim, but biologically they are still pre-pubescent; peri-pubescent at best.​

[KIRK nods as he thinks about the tricycle incident; or if we really want to drive it home, he looks out a window toward the trike or the corpse]​

I think if they had leaned into the mismatches between their three channels of development – physical, emotional, chemical – it would have felt more believable.

 

[Henoch]

KIRK: All the adults are dead. Only the children are left alive.
SPOCK: But children become adults.
KIRK: At least they have up to now.
SPOCK: Doctor, there are certain glandular changes which take place upon entering puberty, are there not?
MCCOY: Of course. It changes the entire body system. You know that. Of course you know that. Why?
SPOCK: Is it not possible that these children here, as they enter puberty, contract the disease?
KIRK: That would explain why there are no adults.
MCCOY: Glandular, post-pubescent. Could be.
SPOCK: It's illogical. It does not follow. All the adults on this planet died three hundred years ago, but there are children in the streets.
KIRK: Who die when they enter adolescence.

My take, Kirk gives a poor explanation about the virus's progress: the virus is triggered by puberty, but doesn't progress to death until somewhere during the adolescence stages. According to The American Academy of Pediatrics, the stages of adolescence are: Early Adolescence (Ages 10 to 13); Middle Adolescence (Ages 14 to 17); and lastly, Late Adolescents (18-21). I can see Miri and Jahn entering the late adolescence stage when the virus rapidly progresses to death. YMMV .