I only vaguely remember having seen this episode before. Somehow, I've seen "Mudd's Women" like five million times but "Miri" always snuck past me and I don't think I've seen it since I was a kid.
Anyway, this episode feels a lot like Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Yeoman Rand all fell into Neverland and had a run in with the Lost Boys, Peter Pan, and Wendy. They wind up on an Earth-like planet where all the adults have mysteriously bit it and all that's left are a bunch of grimy, self-ruling children. The leader of these children, the oldest girl, is Miri. And, man, I really love this character.
Some of it, I think, is the casting. Kim Darby, most famous for playing Mattie in the original True Grit, plays Miri with innocence and honesty. She's a girl on the cusp of adulthood with the perfect mix of maturity and naiveté. Oh, and she's way in love with Kirk because... who wouldn't be?
I loved "Miri" even more as an adult than I did as a kid and I ended up just wanting to sit around and draw stuff from this episode. So, because I'm a self-ruling child, that's exactly what I did:
this 'sode creeped my shit out, but i loved it. i watched it with anthony, who has some kind of personal vendetta against kim darby (because of "true grit," which i have never seen). but even he liked it. well, as much as a curmudgeon ever likes anything.
ReplyDeleteoh, also, i watched this for the first time not long after my kid was born, and so by "creeped my shit out," what i really mean is it made me paranoid, imagining my poor baby taking care of herself in a world of children. and then i cried like an idiot. i don't think that's the way you're supposed to appreciate that episode, but i digress.
ReplyDeleteI think you appreciated it in exactly the right way. A world full of kids is creepy, especially when some of them are sick of being kids and the rest aren't. This episode was actually banned in the UK because it was considered "too disturbing" for the main viewing audience.
DeleteAlso, I'm glad The Curmudgeon liked it!