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Miri

Best line:
SPOCK: Without them (the computers), it could be a beaker full of death.

Runner up:
KIRK: (intensely) Haven't you found a thing yet?
MCCOY: (furiously) Would you like to take a crack at it?
 
Miri is not one of my favourites but there is a lot of potential. In a modern show, they could have spent five episodes or so, moving out of the town to track down the research they needed, encountering feral adults like in 28 days later, and using the characters on the ship to follow up the duplicate Earth angle. The kids could have been a lot more sinister too.

Poor Rand though; she doesn't get to think for herself at all. We don't see how she was captured and she just sits like a sack of spuds waiting for Kirk to do all the hard work.
 
There aren't any episodes of Star Trek that I hate, but there are a handful that annoy me and this one and Charlie X tie for most grating episodes of the first season. Always in the bottom batch for me.
Charlie X is like Where No Man Has Gone Before, in that it's about a human who randomly got godlike powers and turned bad. The difference is that Charlie X has a character who's bad with a motivation and a character, while Mitchell is just plain a bad guy.
@johnnybear, that is a fascinating fact! Silly BBC's restrictions! And before I joined this forum, I knew nothing about any of those restrictions!
@Pauln6, I agree about the unrealized potential, but I think 5 episodes is not the way to go about it.
@Spock's Barber, lucky Phil Morris!
 
I love how Spock rattles off all of the technical data about the "mean density" and planet circumference and Rand yelps "EARTH!" Like, you KNOW this? Brilliant. I mean, if she was looking at the viewscreen and saw North America (sans clouds), I'd get it...

The remastered take on the episode made a good call there, even if it works to the detriment of Rand's perceived scientific superpowers. The place is visually recognizable as a potential Class M from the distance where Spock starts his litany of specs, but not yet as Earth. Then we get a good view of a hemisphere with Middle East at the focus, but at that point Kirk has already turned away, fascinated by Spock's figures. And then Rand yelps "Earth!", a few moments before the ship swings to that side of the planet that looks like North America. Basically, confirmation that she has good eyes while Kirk sort of misses the obvious.

Timo Saloniemi
 
I love how Spock rattles off all of the technical data about the "mean density" and planet circumference and Rand yelps "EARTH!" Like, you KNOW this? Brilliant. I mean, if she was looking at the viewscreen and saw North America (sans clouds), I'd get it...

I always thought it was fine. To me it just meant that Rand was one of the 430 astronauts aboard who had terrific science educations. It's a spaceship, right? She should be smart. And Kirk recognized the numbers, too.

It's like in "Space Seed," when Kirk, Spock, and Uhura all knew Morse code by ear. As often happened in the vintage James Bond movies, the heroes just know stuff. They represent what we wish we could be, without putting in all the work.
 
I always thought it was fine. To me it just meant that Rand was one of the 430 astronauts aboard who had terrific science educations. It's a spaceship, right? She should be smart. And Kirk recognized the numbers, too.

It's like in "Space Seed," when Kirk, Spock, and Uhura all knew Morse code by ear. As often happened in the vintage James Bond movies, the heroes just know stuff. They represent what we wish we could be, without putting in all the work.
Maybe Rand is like Pamela Stephenson's character in Superman 3 - constantly frustrated at how long it takes Spock to catch up?

"How did you end up serving coffee on a starship, Yeoman?"

"Well, with a degree in maths and another in astrophysics, it was either that or the dole queue again on Monday morning."
 
It definitely is interesting in many ways. There are some flaws, like the "identical Earth", but that setup creates an interesting story, and it even become more relevant in today's COVID-19 times. What? A virus that kills the older people and spares the youth? Hmmm.

My favorite part is the end where Kirk keeps trying to use logic to convince the children, but in the end he turns to an argument that appeals to their emotions.

Not all the young won't die, though with weaker immune systems it would be more common for people in their 70s onward.
 
The remastered take on the episode made a good call there, even if it works to the detriment of Rand's perceived scientific superpowers. The place is visually recognizable as a potential Class M from the distance where Spock starts his litany of specs, but not yet as Earth. Then we get a good view of a hemisphere with Middle East at the focus, but at that point Kirk has already turned away, fascinated by Spock's figures. And then Rand yelps "Earth!", a few moments before the ship swings to that side of the planet that looks like North America. Basically, confirmation that she has good eyes while Kirk sort of misses the obvious.

Timo Saloniemi

What I just watched the other day was the remastered version. Africa was immediately on the viewing screen, so when Spock was stating all the numbers, he was simply confirming what the crew already saw, and showing the eerie resemblance to Earth includes all the details the sensors pick up too.

I don't recall the first moment of the non-remastered version, that I saw when I was a kid, but I think there was a map of North America on the viewing screen, with maps on it and everything.
 
I love how Spock rattles off all of the technical data about the "mean density" and planet circumference and Rand yelps "EARTH!" Like, you KNOW this? Brilliant. I mean, if she was looking at the viewscreen and saw North America (sans clouds), I'd get it...

There aren't any episodes of Star Trek that I hate, but there are a handful that annoy me and this one and Charlie X tie for most grating episodes of the first season. Always in the bottom batch for me.

The remastered take on the episode made a good call there, even if it works to the detriment of Rand's perceived scientific superpowers. The place is visually recognizable as a potential Class M from the distance where Spock starts his litany of specs, but not yet as Earth. Then we get a good view of a hemisphere with Middle East at the focus, but at that point Kirk has already turned away, fascinated by Spock's figures. And then Rand yelps "Earth!", a few moments before the ship swings to that side of the planet that looks like North America. Basically, confirmation that she has good eyes while Kirk sort of misses the obvious.

Timo Saloniemi

What I just watched the other day was the remastered version. Africa was immediately on the viewing screen, so when Spock was stating all the numbers, he was simply confirming what the crew already saw, and showing the eerie resemblance to Earth includes all the details the sensors pick up too.

I don't recall the first moment of the non-remastered version, that I saw when I was a kid, but I think there was a map of North America on the viewing screen, with maps on it and everything.

I'm not sure what you mean by a map of North America on the viewing screen in the original version but I am picturing a map with border lines and names of places. :biggrin: :hugegrin:

Looking something like this, I guess. http://www.geographicguide.net/america/north-america-map.htm

:nyah::lol:

Actually they used a globe of Earth in the original version of "Miri".

And here is a link to a discussion of images of Earth in TOS and in TOS-R.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/tos_planets2.htm

And here is a link to a page with screencaps of "Miri" including several showing her planet.

http://www.trekcore.com/tos/hd/thumbnails.php?album=9

Those screencaps may be from the remastered version.
 
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Those Ex Astris pictures were definitely from the remastered version.

And if I recall correctly, what they saw on the viewing screen in the original version was a map with lines on it, not the globe they showed in the scenes outside the spaceship.
 
...plus that part at the beginning with the tricycle, that freaked the bejesus out of me as a kid.

Oh....you mean this....

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That site was very, very interesting and I've been reading a lot about Klingon head ridges as well! :klingon:
JB
 
What I just watched the other day was the remastered version. Africa was immediately on the viewing screen

...Yes, immediately after Rand yelped "Earth".

There was a moment before that when Kirk, Rand and McCoy were looking at what was a cloud-covered Indian Ocean, with the as such distinct shores of Middle East to the side, and then Rand looked at Kirk, and then Kirk turned away to look at Spock. But that wasn't yet a screen-filling, in-your-face Earth, only a bluish planet that warranted further study.

Whether Kirk at that point was already aware that the continents had the Earth shapes or not is unknown. It would definitely be an "I can't believe my eyes" moment, which he confirms with his dialogue. But the very fact that he brings up the impossibility of this being Earth may be taken to prove that he already saw it was. Or then not.

Either way, he isn't exactly floored when Rand makes her exclamation. But he's not the type to be floored by giant green hands or floating Lincolns, either.

McCoy never bothers to make a comment. And Rand may or may not be referring to Spock's figures or the testimony of her eyes, but certainly we don't have to think she would be mysteriously ahead of the game in comparison with the officers, or mysteriously slow on the uptake.

I don't recall the first moment of the non-remastered version, that I saw when I was a kid, but I think there was a map of North America on the viewing screen, with maps on it and everything.

No maps. It's just that there were no clouds, and the lines indicating rivers were pretty dark against the overall beige. But Ex Astris Scientia definitely has both TOS and TOS-R side by side. And TrekCore still has the original full sets, under the "DVD" folder rather than "HD":

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=29

The remastered version has slightly improved pacing, with the Indian Ocean view inserted before Rand gasps the obvious, and the African vista right afterwards.

...It would be interesting if our heroes really did see a totally cloudless Earth, and one basking in bright sunlilght from all the sides simultaneously to boot, as originally shown. Now that would be alien enough to throw them off!

Timo Saloniemi
 
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