3.5. Woof, this one was rough. There was about half an episode’s worth of incident in “Miri” but damn if the show didn’t try to stretch things out to a full hour anyway. This was an episode with tons of filler, tons of repetition, and tons of the worst, most pointless and time-filling exposition that just kept coming and coming.
It’s hard to find positives where. I guess it was interesting to see the enterprise crew on a facsimile of San Francisco set rather than another collection of foam rocks, though the episode never really explores, explains, or seems to care that they found a duplicate Earth. Seems like a convenient handwave to use that set.
In addition, I appreciate how the episode keeps a number of subtle inter-episode threads running. While the “I tried to get you to notice my legs” line is pretty cringe-y, I like that there’s a slowburning, forbidden attraction between Kirk and Rand, even if it requires ignoring some of the very sixties parts of the show (like let’s gloss over how a duplicate of Kirk tried to rape her) to make it work. And I like how Spock and Bones are drawn, with the two jousting about Spock not being human, but depending on one another when it counts.
And the idea of a planet full of people who age and mature at a much slower rate than humans is a quality science fiction premise, even if the episode only barely makes good on it.
But maaaaaan, Kirk perving on a pre-pubsecent girl, and having her do menial labor on top of it, is just all kinds of creepy. The entire group of Lost Boys, replete with their Peter Pan-esque leader are a cheesy misfire. And the ticking clock of the disease that makes everyone short-tempered just leads to some particularly bad action, with Shatner leading the pack as usual.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so dull and plodding. Kirk’s speech to the “children” seems to go on forever, and nothing happens, while the casts tells us about how nothing’s happening, for what feels like half the episode. I get that the episode is going for the difficulties of growing up through a sci-fi lens, but it can’t hit the beats of that kind of story with any precision. Rather, we just get this stolid excuse for an episode, replete with skin-crawling interactions between the Captain and a young girl who, however old she may technically be, is by definition not a grown woman yet. It’s not a good look, and it’s a particularly bad episode.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-01-04T23:50:51Z
3.5. Woof, this one was rough. There was about half an episode’s worth of incident in “Miri” but damn if the show didn’t try to stretch things out to a full hour anyway. This was an episode with tons of filler, tons of repetition, and tons of the worst, most pointless and time-filling exposition that just kept coming and coming.
It’s hard to find positives where. I guess it was interesting to see the enterprise crew on a facsimile of San Francisco set rather than another collection of foam rocks, though the episode never really explores, explains, or seems to care that they found a duplicate Earth. Seems like a convenient handwave to use that set.
In addition, I appreciate how the episode keeps a number of subtle inter-episode threads running. While the “I tried to get you to notice my legs” line is pretty cringe-y, I like that there’s a slowburning, forbidden attraction between Kirk and Rand, even if it requires ignoring some of the very sixties parts of the show (like let’s gloss over how a duplicate of Kirk tried to rape her) to make it work. And I like how Spock and Bones are drawn, with the two jousting about Spock not being human, but depending on one another when it counts.
And the idea of a planet full of people who age and mature at a much slower rate than humans is a quality science fiction premise, even if the episode only barely makes good on it.
But maaaaaan, Kirk perving on a pre-pubsecent girl, and having her do menial labor on top of it, is just all kinds of creepy. The entire group of Lost Boys, replete with their Peter Pan-esque leader are a cheesy misfire. And the ticking clock of the disease that makes everyone short-tempered just leads to some particularly bad action, with Shatner leading the pack as usual.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so dull and plodding. Kirk’s speech to the “children” seems to go on forever, and nothing happens, while the casts tells us about how nothing’s happening, for what feels like half the episode. I get that the episode is going for the difficulties of growing up through a sci-fi lens, but it can’t hit the beats of that kind of story with any precision. Rather, we just get this stolid excuse for an episode, replete with skin-crawling interactions between the Captain and a young girl who, however old she may technically be, is by definition not a grown woman yet. It’s not a good look, and it’s a particularly bad episode.