Or, The One with the Feral 300 Year Old Kids
Becoming a grown up really did seem like a fate worse than death as a kid. And it happened so fast!
One day, you’re playing My Little Ponies with your best friend and the next, she’s wearing lipstick and training bra and yapping about some boy at school she wants to marry. Those My Little Ponies? Abandoned. Kid stuff.
That drama is happening in a very literal sense in “Miri”. Due to a mishap in an experiment on prolonged life, kids’ development is stalled – in a year, they only age about a month. The moment they hit puberty, it’s all over. They become adults and die in a few days.
And it’s all happening here:
- DittoEarth!
Do we have an explanation as to why there’s a copycat Earth out there? DittoEarth is the real mystery to me in this ep, but I’m also a crotchety old school marm who’s had it up to here (holds withered old hand at eye level).
DittoEarth also has a DittoJohn C. Reilly.
- That tween is like 40 years old.
Kirk and the gang all get really dramatic once their down on the surface and figure out their adulthood spells certain death. BTW, great away team, there. Just take the ship’s captain, the first officer, and ship’s doctor down for the field trip. Who’s watching the Enterprise?
- Yeoman Rand does drama
Even Spock gets in on the drama action a little more than usual, even though it’s determined that he’s immune. Bones thinks he has the cure and announces his success. Spock uncharactaristically declares, “or it could be. . . a beaker full of death!”
- A BEAKER FULL OF DEATH!!!!!!!
Must be the thought of spending his days on a planet full of feral brats.
- Spock, trapped with children
Naturally, the crew solves the problem, saving themselves and restoring the kids back to normal. Still no answer on why DittoEarth is there, but I’ll have to just accept that as one of the Trek-verse’s mysteries, along with the whale probe from The Voyage Home.
Let’s round out with some Spockface!
Lastly, I’m pleased to announce that Yeoman Rand was not sexually harassed or assaulted in this episode.
Related Stuff:
Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
Yeah, Ditto-Earth is a real WTF!?! for sure! It’s a total “WHY FOR IS THAT?”! It’s like trying to understand the warmongering, woman hating, poor hating Republicans/Tea-Baggers. And didn’t Yeoman Rand refer to how the “guys” of the crew always admired her legs or some crap? That has to rate at least a tiny bit sexist–or could it be a sneakily LARGE sexist event?
And if you’re an old school marm, I’m a friggin’ mummy sealed in a pyramid tomb.
I read somewhere that there’s actual brain science behind the warmongering/woman hating/poor hunting repubs – something about fear response (but it doesn’t explain the inability to comprehend facts….).
Don’t underestimate mummies. Mummies are awesome and get to terrorize people and fight Brenden Frasier. I just get to write with red pen.
You’ll find versions of DittoEarth or places similar to and not unlike Earth in culture and history that the Enterprise runs across many times throughout the Galaxy. They disappeared in TNG.