Miri (TOS)

[Killerbee256]

Another thing that also bothers me about this episode besides the copy of earth thing. So Kirk and company helped those few children in one small town in North America, great. But what about all the survivors in the rest of North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa and Australia. Despite the low number of survivors that is still a huge amount of child that need cured and taken care of. Also while I like idea that the copy is from a parallel universe and that it gets sent back, that has issues as well. In that universe the federation never formed, all the people on that copy of earth when it gets sent back might end up at the mercy of Romulans, if that time line is anything like the alternate one from DS9's "past tense" where O'brien picked up Romulan reading at alpha centauri.

[Rocketboy1313]

Presumably they will be looking over the entire planet and gathering up the children from everywhere.

In the event of restoring it to its proper timeline I can almost imagine a "Voyager" esc "Time and Again" scenario, that the act of sending it back snapped everything back to what it was before the distortion.

[Durandal_1707]

Another thing that also bothers me about this episode besides the copy of earth thing. So Kirk and company helped those few children in one small town in North America, great. But what about all the survivors in the rest of North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa and Australia. Despite the low number of survivors that is still a huge amount of child that need cured and taken care of. Also while I like idea that the copy is from a parallel universe and that it gets sent back, that has issues as well. In that universe the federation never formed, all the people on that copy of earth when it gets sent back might end up at the mercy of Romulans, if that time line is anything like the alternate one from DS9's "past tense" where O'brien picked up Romulan reading at alpha centauri.

Well, if it really is a parallel universe:

1) You can't police the whole multiverse. No, really, you literally can't. It's physically impossible, since there are an infinite number of them. And a lot of them are going to suck. Not a lot we can do about it.

2) Being under Romulan jurisdiction isn't the worst fate imaginable, is it? Our guys may not see eye-to-eye with them a lot of the time, but the Romulans are basically just people. It's not like they're leaving them to the Borg or something (which our heroes have actually done, once, if you consider “Parallels”).

3) Did the Miri virus affect Spock? I don't remember, and I have no desire to watch this episode again. However, if it did, that probably means that even if the Romulans found the Miri planet, they'd probably just quarantine the place and leave it alone once they noticed there was a planet-wide plague virus in the atmosphere. Heck, even if it doesn't affect them, they still might not want to mess with it in case it mutates. I know I probably wouldn't.

[rickgriffin]

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.

The only kind I can think of is a formerly-more-common trope of a parallel earth on the exact opposite side of the sun. Even cheap sci-fi that had earth-like fauna for budget reasons still avoided saying it was exactly the earth unless they had a reason.

[Maximara]

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

Counter-Earths that happen to be very similar to the point only the minute details are different are a long held stable of sci-fi. Doppelganger aka Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969) and the Twilight Zone episode "The Parallel" cases in point.

[pilight]

I just rewatched this episode and realized something. They two redshirts down to this plague ridden planet and both of them survived! That's gotta blow the hell out of the actuarial tables!

[Deledrius]

I just rewatched this episode and realized something. They two redshirts down to this plague ridden planet and both of them survived! That's gotta blow the hell out of the actuarial tables!

The whole redshirt thing is more a social meme than anything supported by the statistics (and really only remotely resembles reality near the end of the show's run, IIRC). Common knowledge would seemingly have us believe two redshirts die per-episode.

Personally, I think the most horrifying example is in "And the Children Shall Lead". No one on the bridge even wants to bring them up or collect the corpses. Tragic.

[clearspira]

I just rewatched this episode and realized something. They two redshirts down to this plague ridden planet and both of them survived! That's gotta blow the hell out of the actuarial tables!

The whole redshirt thing is more a social meme than anything supported by the statistics (and really only remotely resembles reality near the end of the show's run, IIRC). Common knowledge would seemingly have us believe two redshirts die per-episode.

Personally, I think the most horrifying example is in "And the Children Shall Lead". No one on the bridge even wants to bring them up or collect the corpses. Tragic.

I do love Ex Astris Scientia. Here's the breakdown: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/datab ... deaths.htm

TL;DR - of the 56 deaths we know of, 26 of those were red.

[Deledrius]

Oh, thanks! I couldn't remember a good online source for the stats. That will come in handy.

[Alex]

3) Did the Miri virus affect Spock? I don't remember, and I have no desire to watch this episode again. However, if it did [...]

The episode clearly established, in spoken dialog, that Spock was merely a "carrier" - i.e., he would not develop any symptoms, but carried the pathogen in his bloodstream and hence could not return to the Enterprise.