Miri (TOS)

[Isaac Arthur]

I think I'm in the minority and that I rate this one as 'average', it's not one of the greats, but to me it is very classic TOS, 'par for the course', not that I disagree with Chuck's criticisms but maybe the mirror Earth thing just didn't bug me as much, its done so often in scifi that its a recognized plot device that bugs me no more than people speaking English.

[Durandal_1707]

Really? I've always thought the "duplicate Earths" thing that TOS had going on was weird, even for sci-fi. Sure, it's common to have planets with Earth-like breathable atmospheres, aliens that speak English, etc., but are there really any other franchises that duplicate the whole planet exactly, all the way down to the geography, without parallel universes or alternate dimensions or other such things to explain it?

[Rocketboy1313]

I know of no other duplicate Earths outside of comedy, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" does this, but it is a joke.

[raiken_]

Another comedy, and different method to get there, Futurama has an episode where they have a time machine that can only go forwards in time, which they take all of way to the end of the universe imploding, followed by a second (and third) Big Bang that somehow forms the universe exactly the way it was right down to Earth's history replaying the same way and producing duplicates of the time travelers.

[Durandal_1707]

Didn't Hitchhiker's explain it by way of some kind of multi-dimensional weirdness, though? What makes the TOS parallel Earths stand out to me is that there's no explanation for them. There's no time travel shenanigans, it's not a parallel dimension, nothing like that. They're just there.

[Rocketboy1313]

"Hitchhikers" had multiple Earths, but that is because they were built by a company that made custom planets. There was also time travel and extra-dimensional travel... But honestly "Mostly Harmless" is the book I liked the least of the series and considering Doug died before he could right write the intended sequel I choose not to accept it in my personal canon to the story.

The "Futurama" thing sounds delightful.

The reason this only appears in Early Star Trek... I guess it is just lazy anvil heavy writing.

"I want to show how our world could fall apart with just this one apocalyptic mistake."
"Yeah, Gene, we got that. But, we just think the audience doesn't need you to write in the script 'all things being equal' for the point to hit home. You can just make them aliens and establish similarities in the cultures."
"No. They have to be exact. I am making an important point."
"That Atomic war is bad."
"No. I mean, yes Atomic war is bad, but not in this episode specifically."
"Whatever."

[Nessus]

Were there actually that many mysterious duplicate Earths in TOS? I remember having the strong impression that it was a recurring trope, but when I actually stop to think about it, "Miri" is the only specific example I can actually remember.

There were a few time travel episodes where the show went to actual anachronistic Earth, and there was at least two where some alien species on a non-earth planets modeled their civilization on early/mid 20th century Earth after having been culturally contaminated by humans, but I can't recall an actual duplicate planet outside of this one episode.

Chuck's rant about the duplicate earth thing at the beginning of the video made me think of how I had the exact same reaction to all the "cracked planet" assets that're sprinkled throughout Star Trek Online. Every time I'd see one , my first thought would be "none of the people involved with making this actually knows why planets are round in the first place", followed swiftly by "y'know, finding ONE of these would actually be a great story hook, but putting them all over the place just makes it look like you don't even know that this is weird/unnatural/impossible, which is cringeworthy".

[Durandal_1707]

"Hitchhikers" had multiple Earths, but that is because they were built by a company that made custom planets. There was also time travel and extra-dimensional travel... But honestly "Mostly Harmless" is the book I liked the least of the series and considering Doug died before he could right write the intended sequel I choose not to accept it in my personal canon to the story.

“Most objects mutate and change along their axis of probability, but the world of your origin does something slightly different. It lies on what you might call a fault line in the landscape of probability which means that at many probability co-ordinates, the whole of it simply ceases to exist. It has an inherent instability, which is typical of anything that lies within what are usually designated the Plural sectors. Make sense?”

That's close enough to "alternate dimensions" for me. Agree on "Mostly Harmless" being my least favorite of the series, though.

Were there actually that many mysterious duplicate Earths in TOS? I remember having the strong impression that it was a recurring trope, but when I actually stop to think about it, "Miri" is the only specific example I can actually remember.

Off the top of my head, there's also the one with the Kohms and Yangs (notable for being considered as a pilot to the series) and the one with the space Romans, which already brings us to as many appearances as the Romulans had.

[Maximara]

i'm rather intrigued with the explanation chuck describes from the novelization: the earth from a parallel universe being displaced into that of the show. it'd make a pretty good premise for one of the patented Star Trek Cautionary Tales (TM) about the future

The parallel universe explanation appears in The Forgotten History book of the Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations series. But in the novel the Federation didn't try to return that world to its own reality (which given the technology the Federation has makes sense) but simply investigated the heck out of it because they weren't sure that whatever had brought in to their universe was constant.

Interestingly, that novel also dealt with "Omega Glory" and point out the artifacts were in too good condition to be the remnants of world devastated by a biological war well over 1,000 years ago and explained them as having been left behind by a ship that had vanished a 100 years previously.

[Wild_Kraken]

Interesting factoid about Miri: when Star Trek fans wanted to create an adult fanzine, they named it "Grup" after the word for adult from the episode. Grup was infamous within fandom, and in issue #3 had the first ever Kirk/Spock story.