My Trek of the Stars, Part 11: Miri

Guest Starring: Kim Darby, Michael J. Pollard, Keith Taylor, Ed McCready, Kellie Flanagan, Steven McEveety

First, the Lowdown: Kirk & Co. find a parallel Earth, that’s run like Lord of the Flies with a case of herpes.

So the Enterprise is receiving an old-style Earth distress call, but can’t figure out why because there’s nothing local to them older than a 1993 Ford Escort. A nearby planetary body seems to be the source of the signal, and it looks and tastes like Earth, except in a different part of the galaxy. (And it also doesn’t appear to have weather on it, either.) All of the Enterprise’s attempts to contact whoever is sending the signal have failed, so Kirk orders up a landing party to beam down. (“Besides, my butt was falling asleep from sitting in that chair.”)

They beam down into a deserted Hollywood backlot that looks like it’s survived a fire. Obviously some kind of cataclysm has occurred ages ago, and by happy coincidence it looks like civilization on the parallel Earth melted down around the 1960s – it’s really thoughtful that they found a way to implode culturally so as not to confuse the viewing audience. With the apparent lack of people present, Spock deduces that the distress signal they’ve been hearing is automated – and comes from the only building with working electricity.

Still investigating the surroundings, McCoy finds a dilapidated tricycle weld in the street – and is immediately assaulted by Boo Radley with third-degree burns. Kirk breaks up the scuffle to figure out who their new special friend is, only the poor sap ends up convulsing and choking on his tongue before they can get anywhere. The only conclusions that McCoy can make is that the late retard’s metabolism has completely gone out of whack, like he’s aged several decades in the last few minutes (kinda like that one year of “Rockin’ New Years Eve” when Dick Clark when batshit insane on camera.)

Attracted to a noise from a nearby building, the landing party breaks into the condemned structure and flush out the creature hiding there: a girl about 13 years of age. The girl’s name is Miri and the sight of adults has put her into hysterics – or maybe it is Kirk’s passing resemblance to Justin Bieber. The captain orders Spock and the guards to spread out and search for signs of pollution or radiation, that way Kirk won’t get any on him. Outside, there does seem to be something there, peering at the crewmen with beady, verminous eyes, but it is keeping well hid.

Meanwhile, Miri tells Kirk and his staff about the times before when “grups” roved the countryside burning, looting, and killing (kinda like Boston when they win the playoffs). Miri also refers to the adults present as “grups” and is suspicious of their motives – and any kid who has heard the line “this hurts me more than you” can hardly blame her. According to the girl, the “grups” (a mash-up of the word “grownups”) got sick and went as crazy as a Pentacostal in a snake farm, so the “onlies” (a mash-up of the word “kids”) hid until those who had achieved majority had annihilated themselves.

Spock and the two redshirts are continuing their search of the surrounding backlot (I guess they took a smoke break every 15 minutes because they’ve only just rounded the corner). They investigate an alleyway only to be greeted with a rain of debris and the taunts of children’s voices (“Apparrently they assume my mother is so obese that her own shadow has a mass of approximately 20 kilos.”) Returning back, Spock’s suspicions about the planet being populated by feral children is confirmed by Kirk, so they decide to check out the local hospital to gather more information about what made the people there sick (and probably see if they got any oxycontin around too.) But before they can get very far, Miri finds a gangrenous sore on Kirk’s hand – a sign of the plague that killed all of the adults (see, this is why you wash your hands after using the bathroom).

Once they reach the hospital, it becomes apparent that everyone – except Spock – has a “touch of the clap” somewhere on their bodies. Conveniently, the building that was sending out the automated transmission also happens to be a research hospital with a fully stocked laboratory! (Next they’re gonna find out that the liquor stores have all manged to evade destruction too.) McCoy takes a tissue sample of everyone’s sores and discovers that there’s more bacteria found there than you’d get from the salad bar’s sneeze guard at Sizzler. Kirk orders up supplies and equipment to help Dr. McCoy – and further orders that no one else is to beam down either (“You don’t want this. It’s like fire ants are fighting each other on my scrotum.”) Rifling through the hospital records, Kirk finds a file on a “life prologation project” that looks to be the likely cause of the plague. (I guess it wasn’t from a lack of Purell.)

According to the file, whatever the “life prolongation thingie” was it happened 300 years ago. Given that there are no adults and only children, Spock deduces that the case of the clap that everyone has only affects you post-pubescently – and you thought untimely erections were embarrassing. Spock has deduced that the planetary scientists created a virus that would alter human DNA to extend one’s lifespan so that you would age one month for every 100 years (I guess the idea of overpopulation never occurred to them). But due to a miscalculation, all of the adults came down with a disease that brought on embarrassing sores, insane behavior, and death – all in a short period of time (kinda like Scientology). So once a child hits puberty, they become susceptible to it (around the age when you figure out Hannah Montana isn’t as cool as you originally thought.) Kirk knows that it’s very unlikely that the surviving children are aware of the disease’s nature, and enlists in Miri’s assistance in locating them (the fact that she’s becoming more enamored with Kirk’s George Clooney-esque charm is a further clue here.)

Back at the children’s playhouse, Jahn, a Holden Caulfield stand-in, is upset about the presence of adults and Miri’s contact with them. Jahn wants to organize and scare the adults off like ghetto kids with a truant officer, but when Kirk and Miri approach their hideout, everyone scatters and hides. Furthermore, when Kirk enters the dilapidated building, he’s attacked by what appears to be a 90-year old Aimee Mann. Naturally the poor girl has gone full-blown “clap-tastic”, so when Kirk stuns her, it puts her down permanently.

Spock has concluded four things: First, the disease attacks when its carrier hits puberty; Second, the older you are, the quicker it takes effect; Third, Spock may not develop a case of the disease, but he is a carrier; Fourth, they have seven days to bail themselves out of this mess; and Fifth, he can’t count to four.

Day two of their contagion comes along and the taunting refrains of little kid voices lure Kirk, McCoy, and Spock outside. Jahn and some cohorts then sneak into the newly abandoned lab and take everyone’s communicators – which are conveniently left out in the open. (Some people can’t be trusted with fancy gadgets.) Without the communicators, Kirk has lost the ability to contact the ship and McCoy can longer access the ship’s computers to run tests. (So here’s an important investment tip: sell your stock in Apple, the iPad technology won’t make it into the 23^rd Century.)

Day four: the disease’s progress is making all of the humans as twitchy and irritable as a group Republicans at an STD clinic. Furthermore, a study of the area indicates that the food is running out – the preservatives in Twinkies and Oscar Meyer only last for so long. Kirk and McCoy are at each other’s throats and amid all the tension Yeoman Rand finally breaks down and runs out of the room screaming – but when Miri observes the captain gently holding the sobbing yeoman, a bolt of adolescent jealousy fires within her. Just then, McCoy makes a breakthrough in his analysis and has isolated the viral agent that’s affecting everyone, and a cure should be ready before the end of the episode.

Miri has returned to the Romper Room with a scheme of her own: she’ll tell Yeoman Rand that one of the children has been injured, the kids will tie her up, and when Kirk comes to rescue her, they’ll beat on him like he’s Johnny Knoxville in Jackass. The flaw in her plan, however comes when Kirk demands to know where his subordinate is – and because the disease raging ever onward in him, he has all the tact as a hungover dad looking for the TV remote. Another thing Miri didn’t count on is that ever since she started being interested in the Twilight books, she’s become susceptible to the virus and has started to develop embarrassing sores of her own. McCoy and Spock have some good news, though, they think they’ve come up with a serum – but the bad news is, without access to the ship’s computers they don’t know what the proper dosage should be. So, it’s like buying LSD from a source you don’t trust: you could achieve a Kundalini-like experience that leaves you enlightened for the rest of your days, or you’ll spend the evening screaming about having sex with dead relatives while the walls are bleeding.

Kirk has Miri go to the kiddie playhouse to confront Jahn and get his communicators and yeoman back, but Kirk’s impassioned pleas to their children’s better nature goes over about as well as a white suburbanite volunteer in a classroom full of inner city kids. Miri, however, points out that she’s come down with the disease too – and to further hammer things home, Kirk points out that with the food supplies diminishing, the rest of the kids will die as well. (“This disease is nothing compared to a life without Little Debbie, kids!”)

McCoy, meanwhile, has grown impatient and wants to try the damn cure now (“I’m sure it’ll be nothing but tracers and a strange desire to rub my face in something soft, gimme the shot!”), so Spock leaves to check on Kirk’s progress. In the Vulcan’s absence, McCoy shoots himself up with an armful of cure and collapses on the floor mumbling a Velvet Underground tune. Spock rushes to the fallen surgeon’s aid, and Kirk chooses that moment to burst in with the audience from Bozo the Clown in tow. Conveniently enough, McCoy’s blemishes disappear right before their very eyes – leaving the children in awe at the adults’ magic.

Back on the Enterprise, Kirk tells his command staff that the kids should be all right – having been left a cursory medical team to keep an eye on them (I’m sure there was a glut of volunteers for that assignment). Starfleet is sending out a team of disciplinarians to curtail any further rowdiness on the abandoned planet. Yeoman Rand points out to Kirk that Miri really had a crush on him, to which the captain postulates on whether Miri’s relationship with her father was sound.

Things to look for in this episode:

Miri: I don’t know if this is what the producers were looking for, but she comes off like that one girl in grade school you knew was in an abusive home.

Jahn: Great Googlimoogli – Michael J. Pollard is funny-looking at any age. He looks like a troll doll after it’s been melted with a blowtorch.

The “destroyed city”: It looks like Disneyland’s Main Street USA after the apocalypse. The architecture, layout, and antiquated ruined cars give one the impression that they landed in Lincoln, Nebraska around the 1940s.

What is McCoy not today? Able to fight his addiction to his hypo. The man is going to wind up like Lenny Bruce some day.

And what about Spock? Spock seems annoyed that he’s a carrier of this case of “space-herpes”. It’s like that time when your brother got the chicken pox, and you knew you were gonna get it too, it was just a matter of time.