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- The initial scene has the Enterprise picking up an \u201cold-style SOS\u201d from a planet hundreds of light years out from Earth \u2013 then reaching the planet, and seeing it is another Earth<\/strong><\/em>, a sphere with exactly the same continents as our Earth.<\/li>\n
- But no clouds! More like a globe than a real planet. A limitation of hurried special effects at the time, apparently. (The enhanced graphics version, linked above, adds clouds.)<\/li>\n
- This is surely the most absurd<\/strong>, and needlessly so, coincidence<\/strong> in the entire series. Later in the series we got planets patterned after Chicago in the 1920s, and Nazi Germany, and Rome advanced to the 20th<\/sup> century, but a duplicate Earth is far more unlikely than any of those. And it\u2019s a pointless coincidence, because the story that follows in no way depends on the planet being a duplicate Earth.<\/li>\n
- Well, maybe except in a couple ways, implicitly.<\/li>\n
- First \u2013 well, first, let me step back. When I was obsessed by this series, in my high school and college years, there were scant resources that explored the development and production of the series. There was Stephen E. Whitfield\u2019s The Making of Star Trek<\/strong>, in 1968 (published before the show\u2019s third season, and cancellation), and then in 1973, David Gerrold\u2019s two books, including The World of Star Trek<\/strong>, published at exactly the right time for my obsession in watching Trek reruns five days a week. (And there were \u2018concordances\u2019, by Bjo Trimble, that compiled references to every person and planet and stardate mentioned in the entire series \u2013 as I already had been compiling on my own, to an extent.) I devoured these books and read them repeatedly. And then, as I\u2019ve said, by the time I left college, I\u2019d turned my attention to literary SF, and my obsession with Trek mostly evaporated. I did dutifully watch every Trek movie that came out\u2026once\u2026 though I think I gave up after the first NextGen movie. I watched the NextGen series when it was on, once, and have never rewatched any of it (though I still might, since I think general consensus is that it was superior to the original in some ways). I\u2019ve looked back on TOS, The Original Series, fondly over the decades since, and read occasional memoirs by the actors involved (Nimoy, Shatner, Takei), but only occasionally watched it.<\/li>\n
- Now that I\u2019m returning my attention to TOS, there are far more resources available, including detailed websites like Memory Alpha<\/a>, and also, as I\u2019ve recently found out, the immensely detailed books by Marc Cushman, These Are the Voyages<\/strong>, that document in detail the creation of the series and the production background of every single episode \u2013 from early drafts of each script, to how the scripts were revised, to the casting, to the production and how the directors worked, to the post-production issues about music scoring and special effects. And including the Nielsen ratings for how each episode fared, against the competition on the other two networks.<\/li>\n
- So: only in recently reading such resources, have I learned that one of series creator Gene Roddenberry\u2019s selling points, to pitch the show to a network willing to finance and broadcast the show, was a so-called \u201cparallel-world hypothesis<\/strong>\u201d, the notion that other planets would evolve species similar to humans, and their history would evolve similarly to our own, even to the extent of parallel societies — to justify the idea of filming episodes supposedly set on other planets using existing studio backlot sets of western towns or city streets. Because though the Enterprise was \u201cseeking out new life and new civilizations\u201d, we could imagine that these new civilizations would be so much like our own that the production crew could use existing sets to film episodes supposedly set on alien worlds.<\/li>\n
- His pitch worked; the show sold, after a couple tries, to NBC.<\/li>\n
- And I think that\u2019s why this episode starts with the absurd premise that another planet, hundreds of light years from our Earth, might have developed in exactly the same way. That way, when the Enterprise crew beams down, they can land on a street that looks like a mid-20th<\/sup> century street \u2013 using the Desilu backlot, in Culver City. It\u2019s cheaper to do that than to create an entire imaginary alien planet.<\/li>\n
- Second \u2013 and also, to justify that the people on this planet speak English<\/strong>. Here\u2019s another Trek cheat<\/strong>, that encounters with aliens invariably involve the human language English. We saw this first in \u201cThe Corbomite Maneuver\u201d, wherein the alien Balok spoke English to the Enterprise, first via his scary puppet, and then in person \u2013 without explanation. We next saw an alien in \u201cCharlie X\u201d, as the Thasian appears on the Enterprise bridge, at the end \u2013 but the Thasians were advanced, cerebral creatures, and perhaps spoke telepathically (so that the humans on the Enterprise bridge only *thought* he was speaking English). Then there was \u201cBalance of Terror\u201d, in which scenes aboard the Romulan ship used spoken English, perhaps simply as a cinematic convention, until the end of the story, when Kirk and the Romulan commander speak directly to each other \u2013 in English. With no suggestion as to how this was plausible.<\/li>\n
- Later episodes of Trek suggested the use of a \u201cuniversal translator\u201d, a cylindrical, hand-held device that would automatically translate the language of any alien being to English, and vice versa. But I don\u2019t think that was invoked in the series\u2019 first season, which \u2013 remarkably, looking back now \u2013 involved only another couple episodes, after this one, in that entire season, that involve visiting truly alien species, who might not be expected to understand English.<\/li>\n
- Another resource I\u2019ve recently acquired is La-La Land Records\u2019 original series soundtrack collection<\/a>, which I\u2019m now following. For now, point is, this episode uses tracks form earlier episode, and has no original music.<\/li>\n
- Back to this episode in particular. The early plot has the Enterprise crewmen beaming down onto this planet, seemingly in ruins resembling mid-20th<\/sup> century Earth, populated only by children who talk about \u201cthe before time\u201d and \u201cgrups\u201d and \u201conlies\u201d; and then quickly becoming infected by the disease that has killed all the adults on the planet, leaving only children. This suggests a recurring problem<\/b> that the show might have taken more seriously: how do our people from the Enterprise, beaming down to *any* planet, protect themselves from pathogens? Apparently they don\u2019t think about it. (Actually, they did think about it in “The Naked Time”, and screwed up anyway.)<\/li>\n
- The development of this story is reasonably intelligent \u2013 stuck down on the planet, infected and unable to beam back up to the Enterprise, Kirk and Spock and McCoy sift through records left by the deceased adults, and piece together the planet\u2019s \u201clife prolongation project\u201d that led, 300 years ago, to the deaths of the adults, and the extended lives of children, who age only one month in 100 years. But as they do age, once reaching puberty, the disease affects them, and they develop blue sores on their skins, and quickly go insane and die, as we see two examples of in this story. As adults, the landing party quickly develops the blue sores \u2026<\/li>\n
- They beam down a couple portable computers \u2013 toaster-sized boxes with a couple rows of buttons across the top. As with the control panels on the Enterprise bridge, there was no thought, back in the mid 1960s, to the kind of keyboard entry<\/strong> we take for granted on our computers today\u2014these boxes, and the Enterprise control panels, consisted of rows of on\/off switches, or buttons to push. So it\u2019s amusing to see Spock, hearing computations from Farrell over his communicator and then punching three or four random buttons on his box to somehow enter that data.<\/li>\n
- This scene entails a bit of mathematical illiteracy \u2013 the line \u201c12 to the 10th<\/sup> power\u201d. What could that possibly mean?<\/li>\n
- Noticeably, these scenes as the crew compiles data and deduces what happened on this planet are conducted in rather hushed tones \u2013 a directorial decision, presumably.<\/li>\n
- And then the show depicts scenes among the \u201conlies\u201d, the children who are hiding themselves from the Enterprise intruders, led by \u201cJahn\u201d, played by the quirky actor Michael J. Pollard, who assumes, as they all do, that the adults, these new \u201cgrups\u201d, are dangerous and must be fought. So he decides to steal the \u201clittle boxes\u201d they use to talk to their ship. Which he does. This leaves the landing party, disconnected from the Enterprise, with only 170 hours, 7 days, to devise a cure for their infection, all by themselves, without the Enterprise computers\u2019 help.<\/li>\n
- Their mission is to devise a \u201cvaccine\u201d to cure their disease. Though script-writer Adrian Spies (pronounced Spees, I just learned from Cushman\u2019s book) was an admired scripter in Hollywood at the time, neither he nor the producers were much studied in science. A vaccine prevents someone from acquiring a disease; it doesn\u2019t cure someone who already has the disease. (Perhaps a vaccine would prevent the kids from developing the disease as they hit adolescence, but the problem at hand is curing the Enterprise crew, who\u2019ve already acquired the disease.) See Blish comments below.<\/li>\n
- And the plot develops with several dramatic scenes, as Miri\u2019s crush on Kirk, compromised by Kirk\u2019s comfort to Yeoman Rand\u2019s infection on her legs, leads Miri to go back to Jahn\u2019s kids, and plan a betrayal.<\/li>\n
- Then follows several scenes in which these kids chant, describing Kirk as \u201clovey-dovey\u201d, how they should \u201cbonk bonk\u201d him on the head. Miri develops the same blue sores. Kirk confronts the children, and they mock Miri\u2019s advice: \u201cTell them Jim, tell them Jim\u2026\u201d<\/li>\n
- But Kirk pleads with them, perhaps connecting with Jahn by pointing out that the food stores are gone, that they\u2019ll all die soon, even if they won\u2019t one by one get the disease. This is one of the great dramatic Kirk scenes<\/strong>, as he pleads with them: \u201cPlease let me help you\u201d, and, \u201cYou\u2019re gonna be *just* *like* *them*\u201d<\/strong> he tells them, about their fear and hatred of the adults, grups, whom they still remember.<\/li>\n
- McCoy manages to concoct the ‘vaccine’ anyway, even without communicators to double-check calculation using the Enterprise computers. He injects himself with it, collapses… and his sores fade away.<\/li>\n
- The story finishes with the Enterprise departing, with reference to a medical team left behind to rehabilitate the kids.<\/li>\n
- Of course a recurring Trek flaw<\/strong> here is that we are left to presume that this collection of children, 20 or so, on these few streets that the landing party visits, somehow represent the entire planet. Are there not hundreds or thousands of other children who have survived across this planet, given this scenario? We never know. Again and again, throughout the series, a single crater or valley or soundstage set is supposed to represent an entire planet, even though we know from our own Earth that any one location is hardly representative of the variety of locations and cultures that we know here.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Blish\u2019s Version<\/strong><\/p>\n
With this story I\u2019ve begun re-reading the James Blish adaptations of the Trek scripts, which he was contracted by Bantam Books to write, and which were published beginning in January 1967 \u2013 part way through Trek\u2019s 1st<\/sup> season \u2013 even though the show was not yet shown in the UK, where Blish lived, and Blish\u2019s stories were often based on preliminary versions of the scripts (again, as indicated by Cushman\u2019s book), not the final shooting scripts.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve mentioned before that my impression was that Blish often improved<\/em> the scripts, especially in his earlier books. (In the later books \u2013 the books generally included short story versions of half a dozen episodes, and so extended through 12 volumes \u2013 he became much more literal about almost transcribing the scripts, rather than novelizing them, since that\u2019s apparently what the readers wanted.) My hypothesis about this was temporized by understanding, via Marc Cushman, that Blish was often sent early drafts of scripts, and not final versions.<\/p>\n
That might explain some deviations of plot points. But in rereading his version of \u201cMiri\u201d, I stand by my initial claim that Blish \u2013 as great a genuine science fiction author as any of those Roddenberry hired to write for Trek (Robert Bloch, Jerry Sohl, Richard Matheson, and even, eventually, Theodore Sturgeon and Harlan Ellison) \u2013 did actually improve on the scripts he was sent. Reading, in Cushman, about how the scriptwriters we do multiple drafts based on producer feedback (mostly to make their idea consistent with the vision of the show and the characters), what Blish did was, in this sense, doing a final rewrite \u2013 or a rewrite based on some draft \u2013 that noticeably improved plot and scientific plausibility. (In particular, checking Wikipedia, Blish’s formal education was in biology.) Too bad he wasn\u2019t at Desilu to help with the production of the show.<\/p>\n
Case here\u2014Blish\u2019s \u201cMiri\u201d<\/p>\n
- \n
- Blish jettisons the absurd notion of a duplicate Earth, replacing it with a much more plausible idea that the planet visited in this story is an early Earth colony (in particular, a planet around the star 70 Ophiuchi), which explains the resemblance of Earth architecture and the natives\u2019 speaking of English. In his story, the landing party beams down to the \u201ccentral plaza of the largest city\u201d on the planet.<\/li>\n
- His dialogue about the landing party\u2019s investigation of the disease is more detailed and intelligent that the version that was filmed, and more likely than any earlier script. He discusses the idea of a \u201cvaccine\u201d, but then stresses the development of an \u201cantitoxoid\u201d to cure the adults.<\/li>\n
- There is much more intelligent discussion of the details of the biomedical investigation \u2013 biopsies of the blue lesions; discussion of spirochetes as secondary invaders that cause the mania; reference to Koch\u2019s postulates; discussion of antibiotics to treat the mania; discussion of virus reproduction; and so on. Blish’s training as a biologist lent this story especially some scientific credence that Hollywood scriptwriters could not provide.<\/li>\n
- On the other hand, Blish tends to omit entirely scenes that don\u2019t involve the Enterprise crew \u2013 here, e.g., scenes among the kids as they deride Kirk and wonder what Miri is doing with him. We get some of Kirk’s dramatic plea to the children, but only in a scene directly with Miri.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Music<\/strong><\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to be paying closer attention to the musical scores in each episode, and will edit or amend earlier posts with such discussion. I had not realized, until examining that La La Land Records soundtrack compilation, and reading Cushman, how relatively few Trek episodes had scores written directly for them \u2013 some 30 out of 79 episodes over the three seasons. As was the practice at the time, and may still be for all I know, musical cues written for one episode were usually recycled for later episodes, via a gradually growing \u2018library\u2019 of musical cues by various composers. \u201cBalance of Terror\u201d and \u201cThe Corbomite Maneuver\u201d, for example, had custom scores, albeit \u2018partial\u2019; both by Fred Steiner, both with strongly identifiable themes, as I think I\u2019ve mentioned.<\/p>\n
Of course anyone watching all the episodes over and over in syndication, usually in random order, would hear familiar musical cues again and again, without being able to place where each theme ‘originated’. Only now watching the shows in production order, and having these other resources at hand, am I finally able to recognize certain themes as belonging to particular episodes, and composers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMiri\u201d was a \u201ctracked\u201d episode \u2013 no music written especially for it, but with lots of music drawn from earlier episodes. In fact, the scenes in which the maniacal young man runs out to protect his broken tricycle is scored with the \u201cBalance of Terror\u201d theme\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Enterprise discovers an Earth-like planet populated only by children, infected by a disease that doesn\u2019t affect them until puberty, but a disease that affects the Enterprise landing party within hours. The initial scene has the Enterprise picking up an … Continue reading