Rewatching Miri

[ZapBrannigan]

Amazon Prime's captions have it as "baninski", and I clearly hear two N sounds and no T sound.


It seems to me like she was trying to sell the children on this plan, and she pulled on a word from the slang of this planet to underscore she was one of them and to avoid saying what exactly the landing party was working on.

Where do you think Amazon got it from? Their young typists didn't know the word, so they checked the Chakoteya site. And Darby's line reading is throwing you off. She says the word very quickly and doesn't articulate it. And she didn't need to, because buttinsky was in common use in the 1960s among working class Americans. Nobody misheard it at the time.

If someone can find it, I'm confident the script will say buttinsky. Unless I'm wrong, of course.

 

[cgervasi]

Is that a "caught looking dumbfounded on 'Jeopardy' before a live studio-audience expression" emoji?

That was the look on my face too because I think you were saying something interesting, but I could not follow it at all.

You are talking about different kinds of "duplicate" earths. The characters say that this planet is extremely similar to earth in appearance and composition, more so than they're used to seeing due to things like Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development. They never follow up and tell us if the similarity went further, so much so that individuals were duplicated, as if by some sort of space anomaly that made an exact copy of Earth. I think the idea was just to suggest "imagine if this happened right now on earth." The way they did it calls for a payoff explaining why this happened, but I think that was unintentional. It would have worked better if they had just mentioned in passing that M type planets are common and industrialized but non-spacefaring civilizations are common, but this just so happens to be remarkably earthlike.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's a "parallelquel" to Voyager.

If John Kelly, from Voyager: One Small Step, a 20th century Astronaut lost in the Delta Quadrant, was a doppleganger of the immortal kid on Miri's world that looked like Phil Morris who who grew up to join Star fleet in Search for Spock, then Miri had a Doppleganger on regular too maybe?

Starting to think that even Kirk's Earth is fake.

Some Aliens made a hundred duplicate Earths and then threw Doomsdays at them, until one stuck.

For science.

 

[Captain Tracy]

No, it's a WTF at the non-sequitur word salad about "agency" and "critical to quality story-telling".

The only remedy I can offer you, is commending you to the services of the English Department of an accredited university in your local area; and, see if they can assist you in extracting yourself from the big-literary-words-and-terms salad bowl;

Or,

Seriously, if you have agency, you might choose to Google for yourself: Character Agency

That was the look on my face too because I think you were saying something interesting, but I could not follow it at all.

Well, yes, it was very interesting!

Sorry to learn you "couldn't follow it at all"; however, you should be aware that I have an insurance policy which indemnifies me from being held liable with regard to others, who, upon interacting with me or my posts, would claim to suffer to be caused to feel obtuse.

Seriously, I would have appreciated reading your comments or questions.

 

[MAGolding]

It's a "parallelquel" to Voyager.

If John Kelly, from Voyager: One Small Step, a 20th century Astronaut lost in the Delta Quadrant, was a doppleganger of the immortal kid on Miri's world that looked like Phil Morris who who grew up to join Star fleet in Search for Spock, then Miri had a Doppleganger on regular too maybe?

Starting to think that even Kirk's Earth is fake.

Some Aliens made a hundred duplicate Earths and then threw Doomsdays at them, until one stuck.

For science.

"A hundred duplicate Earths"? You think small.

Possibly Star Trek happens in the Cthulhu Mythos universe. PossiblyI it is known throughout the Cthulhu Mythos universe that there is prophacy that Eldrich horrors will spread out from one planet and cause universe wide devastation. Possibly it is known that the planet in the prophacy is called Earth, and other details about Earth are known.

So possibly there are many advanced space travelling societies in the universe which have goals that include the goal of finding the planet Earth and destroying it, before the Cthulhu Spawn can erupt from Earth and contaminate the universe.

So possibly certain evil forces who want that eruption of the Eldrich horrors to occur have created countless millions and billions and trillions of duplicate Earths throughout the universe, so that each of the space travelling civlzations will find and destroy a fake Earth and think they destroyed the real Earth and will stop searching for Earth.

 

[Guy Gardener]

"A hundred duplicate Earths"? You think small.

Possibly Star Trek happens in the Cthulhu Mythos universe. PossiblyI it is known throughout the Cthulhu Mythos universe tha tthere is prophacy that Eldrich horrors will spread out from one planet and cause Universe wide devastation. Possibly it is known that the planet in the prophacy is called Earth, and other details about Earth are known.

So possibly there are many advanced spacetravelling societies in the universe which have goals that include the goal of finding ht eplanet Earth and destroying it, before the Cthulhu Spawn and erupt from Earth and contaminate the universe.

So possibly certain evil forces who want that eruption of the Eldrich horrors to occur have created countless millions and billions and trillions of duplicate Earths throughout the universe, so that each of the space travelling civlzations will find and destroy a fake Earth and think they destroyed the real Earth and will stop searching for Earth.

The Xindi didn't seem troubled by the cornucopia of Earth's on display.

 

[Timo]

Having compound eyes desensitizes you that way.

That our veteran heroes find amazement in Miri's Earth is good support for it being something not covered by any parallel evolution model they'd believe in. But it's a work in progress: later on, amazement will fade, and a planet where folks speak English and dress Roman will be shrugged off as an example of (un?)Natural Law.

Humans work that way: they slap a label on an unknown and pigeonhole it, as the first step in the process of understanding it. And perhaps Miri's Earth contributed to Hodgkin's formulating of his or her law in a major way.

But our heroes aren't the first veterans out there, or at least never claim to be. I doubt their adventures were that major a source of input for the theoreticians in the end. No doubt Hodgkin was dead wrong, and Magna Roma existed for reasons other than parallel evolution. But those reasons aren't the exact same as those behind Miri's Earth, and I for one would want to believe in diversity there. Xeroxing for Earth for eldritch purposes is fine, and perverting of alien worlds into Earths for selfish or alien reasons is fine as well. What's not just fine but excellent is the aspect of "Miri" where the heroes face multiple mysteries but only solve one... Leaving that other Earth hanging is a great way to keep up the quoted Twilight Zone feel, and something TNG or even DS9 or VOY never really got right.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BK613]

I attended one of those accredited universities and IIRC, the emphasis was on clear and succinct communication, not erudite verbosity.

I also find it amusing that someone would lecture @Maurice of all people on script writing.

 

[Maurice]

The problem was it was all over the place, hence the . The topic wasn't quality writing or character agency...that certainly wasn't what the OP was talking about, and why we were suddenly in a McKee screenwriting pamphlet was beyond me.

 

[alchemist]

If someone can find it, I'm confident the script will say buttinsky. Unless I'm wrong, of course.

I did, it did, and you're not.

 

[Captain Tracy]

I attended one of those accredited universities and IIRC, the emphasis was on clear and succinct communication, not erudite verbosity. I also find it amusing that someone would lecture @Maurice of all people on script writing.

I find it amusing that someone attending one of those accredited universities could confuse their professor's intent of repeating the instruction:"Get Out!", for the purpose of providing individualized instruction in "clear and succinct communication".

The problem was it was all over the place, hence the . The topic wasn't quality writing or character agency...that certainly wasn't what the OP was talking about, and why we were suddenly in a McKee screenwriting pamphlet was beyond me.

To Quote: "Fascinating."

From the OP:

cgervasi said:

Was there any point to their food being on the verge of running out?

Whereby,

CaptainTracy said:

The mentioning of the food is three-fold writer's device:

a. It is how the writer justifies how these 300 year-old children remain alive on their own; and thereby, supports and encourages the willing suspense of disbelief in his story;

and, pointedly mentioning that the food is running-out in a specific amount of time;

b. Is to increase to tension of the conflict, as the Enterprise crew races against the clock to find a serviceable serum with which to escape the danger of story; and, increases the level of tension of their peril by time-constriction - by the writer imposing limitations on both Time and Resources.

and,

c. Eliminates any option of not solving the crisis facing the children on the planet, by continuing on as they did before the Enterprise arrived; for with this limitation placed on the children's food supply, serves to impose an additional 2nd delayed death-sentence for the children - the infectious disease itself being the other death-sentence - again, heightening the jeopardy of the story by the writer.

The problem was it was all over the place, hence the . The topic wasn't quality writing or character agency...that certainly wasn't what the OP was talking about, and why we were suddenly in a McKee screenwriting pamphlet was beyond me.

"Well, you've got a real problem there. It must be tough having to walk around with a problem like that." - John Wayne, 'The Green Berets'; 1968

 

[Neopeius]

I first saw Miri when I was a little kid. I re-watched it the other day, and I wondered if there’s more to it than I thought.

Good timing! We just watched it in group. For several of us, it was our first time.

Are they going for it being a horror episode? The kids chanting and demeanor seemed creepy. Could that be why they said this planet is an exact duplicate of Earth in the 1960s? Maybe it’s to make audiences of that time imagine this is something that could happen to their world right now.

It is possible they were going for a horrific episode. It was the Halloween-week episode (same date Catspaw would be shown the next year).

They chose the "exact duplicate" route to make use of the extensive Desilu backlot city set. But the story, in general, is part of the growing mistrust of science (and the overly optimistic propaganda attached thereto) that pervades a lot of science fiction in this time.

Is there any meaning to the changed vocabulary: onlies, grups, foolie. Is that supposed to signal that over the 300 years the kids have been without adults their morals have decayed along with their language? At one point Miri says They have such little time to do this dumb thing of theirs, this baninski thing. Is baninski supposed to be a real word or one of those words the kids made up?

Mostly to represent the passage of time. "Buttinsky" was a real slang word at the time. Someone who "butts in". Peak usage was the 20s through the 50s.

Was there any point to their food being on the verge of running out? Mentioning the food raised the question of how they have any food if they’re not producing it. When I first saw it I imagined they had loads of TV dinners, but that would be the stores would have to have hundreds of years of supply. It also raises the question of energy for refrigerating and cooking. I suppose they wanted to have a ticking clock so that all the kids would be in peril if the Enterprise crew couldn’t save them. Otherwise you could think if the Enterprise fails to find a cure, the Federation could send teams to spend decades figuring it out, which wouldn’t be so bad for the kinds not reaching puberty since they had survived for centuries already. @alchemist posted some cut dialog at this link that explains they ate canned food.

The time scale doesn't really work for 300 years. Maybe 3 or 30. "Miri" was the first script to do the alternate Earth thing, so the writer made the natural assumption that Miri-Earth and Trek-Earth diverged chronologically in the 60s. Since Trek was set several centuries in the future, that meant the Miri kids had to be several hundred years old.

The story makes a LOT more sense if the time frame is reduced.

Did Miri give them the idea of stealing the communicators out of jealousy? Did she know they were working on a cure that would let her development return to its normal rate, and part of her didn’t feel ready to be an adult? I got the idea the other kids thought it was just a prank, but Miri knew she was sabotaging their efforts to find a cure. Plotting to stop them from saving their lives seems so dark. I wonder what her motivations are supposed to be.

Jealousy was definitely a prime motivator. That and a lingering doubt that what the grups were telling her was accurate.

 

[Neopeius]

Its been awhile.... do they actually state that the kids are 300 years old, thus putting the planets 1960s styles contemporaneous to our 1960s, or is it possible that their disaster was only 80, 150, 200 years ago?

What's interesting is Spock deduces the age of the disaster through analysis of the decay of the city. But that city don't look 300 years decayed. Nor the microscopes, pencils, paper, etc. they purloin for their own purposes.

Another reason the 300 year time frame works less well than a 30 or 3 year time frame.

 

[Kor]

I think the "Baninski" captioning error goes back to the DVD days. Captions still get stuff wrong all the time, like some show that had the captions say "pouring over" some documents instead of "poring over."

Kor

 

[fireproof78]

I think the "Baninski" captioning error goes back to the DVD days. Captions still get stuff wrong all the time, like some show that had the captions say "pouring over" some documents instead of "poring over."

Kor

Captions are hilarious. I have always enjoyed how wrong they kept stuff. On "The Pacifier" DVD captions they call one character the entirely wrong name during a phone conversation. Guessing from a script revision.

 

[MAGolding]

What's interesting is Spock deduces the age of the disaster through analysis of the decay of the city. But that city don't look 300 years decayed. Nor the microscopes, pencils, paper, etc. they purloin for their own purposes.

Another reason the 300 year time frame works less well than a 30 or 3 year time frame.

No, it doens't look 300 years decayed.

Some ideas:

1) Since the immortality project seems to have been very advanced for the 1960s on Earth, and even for the 2020s on Earth, it is possible the society was much more advanced. Possible there was a theme park with sections reproducing the look of previous eras. But the buildings and machines were built with the advanced, low maintainance materials of that advanced era, and merely made to look like they were made out of 20th century materials.

The immortality project, and their children, moved into the theme park after it was abandoned, the virus got out and kiled everyone on the planet except for the children, and the buildings and autos decayed much slower than they would have if they were made out of 20th century materials.

2) Since the immortality project seems to have been very advanced for the 1960s on Earth, and even for the 2020s on Earth, it is possible the society was much more advanced. POssibly an ancient neighbood with afew blocks of old buildings was preserved for later generations by having a weather proof building built around it. We only see a few blocks worth of buildings in the peisode, so there is no proof that there were more than afew acres of buildings in the community. Even today we have already built enclosed spaces large enough to hold a few blocks of buildings.

And possibly the ceiling depicts the blue sky during the day, and a black starry sky during the night.

And maybe the immortality project and their children moved into that preserved ancient community, the virus got loose, and everyone on the planet died except for the children.

3) I once read that the Mormon Church requires members to keep stocked food enough to last their families for a year, in case of emergencies.

Maybe there was a survivalist mentality on the planet, and everyone kept food supplies for 30 years. And maybe 200 researchers and 20 of their children moved into the area for the immortality project with 30 years worth of preserved food for 220 people. Then the adults all died, leaving the 20 children with enough food for 330 years.

4) There was a thread about that several years ago, I think. And I think it was stated that with modern preservation techniques, food keeps for just a few years, and it is impossible for food to be edible for centuries.

So either the society on Miri's planet had very advanced food preservation techniques, or the disaster was only a few years earlier.

5) Maybe Spock said that the society there collapsed 300 years earlier, and maybe Spock said that when the society collapsed it had been about as advanced as Earth had been 300 years before the episode"Miri".

If Spock thought hte society was like Earth about 1960 (but with much more advanced medical science) and if Spock's 300 years was a time span between 200 and 400 years, the date of "Miri" would be between about 2160 and 2360.

If KIrk, in the late 1960s (1965-69) wasn't joking when he implied that his era was 200 years in the future in "Tomorrow is Yesterday", and if KIrk's 200 years was sometime between 100 and 300 years, Kirk's era would be sometime during the period of 2065 to 2269.

If Khan was from the 1990s, (1990-99) and if the two centuries between then and "Space Seed" were 100 to 300 years, "Space Seed" would happen sometime during the period of 2090 to 2299.

So together, those three episodes indicate the era of TOs is sometime during the period of about 2160 to 2269. For what it is worth.

 

[Neopeius]

NO, it doens't look 300 years decayed.

5) Maybe Spock said that the society there collapsed 300 years earlier, and maybe Spock said that when the society collapsed it had been about as advanced as Earth had been 300 years before the episode"Miri".

If Spock thought hte society was like Earth about 1960 (but with much more advanced medical science) and if Spock's 300 years was a time span between 200 and 400 years, the date of "Miri" would be between about 2160 and 2360.

If KIrk, in the late 1960s (1965-69) wasn't joking when he implied that his era was 200 years in the future in "Tomorrow is Yesterday", and if KIrk's 200 years was sometime between 100 and 300 years, Kirk's era would be sometime during the period of 2065 to 2269.

If Khan was from the 1990s, (1990-99) and if the two centuries between then and "Space Seed" were 100 to 300 years, "Space Seed" would happen sometime during the period of 2090 to 2299.

So together, those three episodes indicate the era of TOs is sometime during the period of about 2160 to 2269. For what it is worth.

I'm just gonna squint my ears and assume Spock just made a mistake.

 

[Timo]

Well, he directly refers to "natural deterioration" of centuries when consulting his instruments. When he gets to see with his very own eyes, he already has preconceptions, so any curious lack of decay would merely be nuances to the theme of "300 years old".

What lack do we see, though? Basically just relative lack of rust (but they might have painted them horseless wagons real thick on this Earth), failure of a few inflated tyres to collapse (but these folks might have used solids, at least on that ancient jalopy at the very center) and of vegetation completely taking over the Mayberry streets (but perhaps the disease keeps the trees, too, as mere saplings?).

Not that I'd object to Spock getting it wrong and just deadpanning even after his mistake becomes evident to himself while his colleagues remain unaware and convinced. For all I know, he does that all the time.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[cgervasi]

She says the word very quickly and doesn't articulate it. And she didn't need to, because buttinsky was in common use in the 1960s among working class Americans. Nobody misheard it at the time.

If someone can find it, I'm confident the script will say buttinsky. Unless I'm wrong, of course.

I did, it did, and you're not.

Thanks for looking it up. I find this fascinating because I had never heard the word.

I'm fascinated by how language changes. Some of the kids in the episode have the accent that I believe is early 20th century New York. They sound like old people to my ear. Kirk does a similar temporal accent in The Deadly Years, sounding sort of like an old radio drama.

In this episode, was Miri saying whatever the landing party was working on was butting in on things that were not their business? Or was she just demeaning their activities in general? The word sounds silly to my ear, and I wish I knew how it sounded to someone who knows the word well.

 

[Captain Tracy]

What's interesting is Spock deduces the age of the disaster through analysis of the decay of the city. But that city don't look 300 years decayed. Nor the microscopes, pencils, paper, etc. they purloin for their own purposes.

Another reason the 300 year time frame works less well than a 30 or 3 year time frame.

Agreed.

Captain's Log, Stardate 2717.3. Three days, seven hours left to us. Investigation proves that the supply of food in the area is running dangerously low.

Depending on what the Captain means when he says: "food supply", the children would have required a 300 year supply of canned-goods for each child; or, the children had been eating 'Rat-on-a-Stick' on a daily basis - for a very long time.