Fix an episode---Miri

[Poltargyst]

I think the OP is a wee bit negative about some things.

 

[plynch]

Have the kids act like real kids? Have Michael Pollan not be like 30? In that high squeaky voice of his: super-annoying: "but MEEAR-y. . ."

I can stomach the earth culture look-alike, but the continents. Yeah - that's a teaser hook. After the golden-throated announcer intones, "Brought to you by the makers of . . . Geritol . . . you gotta get them viewers to stick around.

Although I like that this is still in the scary/creepy/pausy/Man Trap-musicky Star Trek mode and not the chuckly-family in space mode.

 

[Nebusj]

Well, to be fair, I think it was the first episode to use backlot city street sets to suggest it was a planet similar to Earth, so the concept was still being tested. I think it was the first episode I saw in its entirety in 1966, and I was a bit disappointed it didn't take place on the spaceship which I had barely seen.

Yeah, it's easy to understand the production concept for why they'd be easing their way into alternate-Earth Planets With A Problem. But they probably could've got away with the backlot streets if they'd said it was a lost colony, the way the Blish novelization did. I'm curious if Blish changed that on his own, or whether earlier drafts of the episode used a lost colony and that was switched shortly before production. (Of course, that'd still leave unanswered whether they could use backlot planets and get away with it in-story, but they were going to do that anyway.)

 

[Vandervecken]

I must really need glasses because I KNOW I, Mudd can't be on that list.

Seriously, Grant--you mean when you first saw I, Mudd (for me that would be in syndication in the early 70s probably), you weren't delighted by it?

Man, just for Roger C Carmel it's worth it. And that moment when you remember Colonel Gumm from Batman. Or maybe it was the other way around. Many moons ago.

 

[Grant]

They should simply have not made the planet a duplicate of Earth. It's just left hanging there and never addressed.

I must really need glasses because I KNOW I, Mudd can't be on that list.

Seriously, Grant--you mean when you first saw I, Mudd (for me that would be in syndication in the early 70s probably), you weren't delighted by it?

Man, just for Roger C Carmel it's worth it. And that moment when you remember Colonel Gumm from Batman. Or maybe it was the other way around. Many moons ago.

I like humor in TOS but I don't episodes that are flat-out comedies.

I can abide Tribbles as a one-off but ---I, Mudd, Piece of the Action, Spock's Brain--I detest.

 

[plynch]

Spock's Brain is serious, though Gene Coon wanted to make it a comedy or floated that. Can't remember -- there's at least one thread about it somewhere here.

I too detest "I, Mudd."

 

[Warped9]

From what I've learned "Spock's Brain" was never intended as comedy. It was always meant to be serious, but some poor choices were made that undermined an otherwise solid SF idea for a story.

 

[BillJ]

When the three people in the world who any of the three of us knew were watching Star Trek sat down to watch it every Thursday night one of the things we hoped for were those "holy fuck that's weird!" moments. Twilight Zone had delivered; so had The Outer Limits. Not much else did until Star Trek, and the real awesomely weird or creepy moments were scarce on the show (and became more so as the seasons passed). "Miri" delivered.

This.

It's funny but I think the last time that Star Trek gave me a "holy fuck that's weird!" moment was TNG's "Time Squared" with the duplicate Picard from six hours in the future.

 

[Halifax]

Miri is great - it doesn't need "fixing."

They never did explain why her planet was a exact copy of earth, unless I missed something.

It's not important. It was cool.

When the three people in the world who any of the three of us knew were watching Star Trek sat down to watch it every Thursday night one of the things we hoped for were those "holy fuck that's weird!" moments. Twilight Zone had delivered; so had The Outer Limits. Not much else did until Star Trek, and the real awesomely weird or creepy moments were scarce on the show (and became more so as the seasons passed). "Miri" delivered.

I guess I'm kinda not surprised it doesn't pass muster with younger folk.

I like that answer, more so than lack of a budget. I can respect the need for that "crazy" moment of fantasy, imagining a planet just like ours out there. I just wish they would of gave me a stupid explanation for it, I dont need much. To me it just came across as a loose end in the plot.
As for passing the muster with us young folk , I think any fan of TOS has to be pretty open minded and throw conventional thinking out the window.
I just wish they would of givin me something.

 

[BillJ]

I like that answer, more so than lack of a budget. I can respect the need for that "crazy" moment of fantasy, imagining a planet just like ours out there. I just wish they would of gave me a stupid explanation for it, I dont need much. To me it just came across as a loose end in the plot.
As for passing the muster with us young folk , I think any fan of TOS has to be pretty open minded and throw conventional thinking out the window.
I just wish they would of givin me something.

I think part of Star Trek's long term charm is the fact that so many things went unexplained. It gave people a vehicle to allow their imaginations run wild.

There have been lots of good and bad theories over the decades. A single line of exposition dialogue would've killed that.