Kirk wasn't flirting, he was being the 60s form of empathetic. Times were different then.

It's sad that a man showing kindness has to be seen as creepy or grooming in today's world.

Kirk wasn't being creepy towards Miri. He was acting fatherly. This is how men behaved once.

Whenever I see this episode, it always reminds me of the book, Lord of the Flies... Which is about a bunch of children stranded on a desert island and have to learn to look after themselves... With disastrous results.

"Maybe we should leave". Undoubtedly the greatest advice that Starfleet has never once taken. :)

The uniform skirt / dress worn by female Starfleet personnel was designed specifically for Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Janice Rand) because she was quite proud of her "dancer's legs". Her unique woven hairstyle is also a specific trademark of the character in TOS. When remembering the TOS cast, Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) deserves to be included as much as Checkov and Uhura.

good lord Bunny, Kirk was not Flirting! 😂 He knew she had a crush but she also was afraid to see him and his crew so he used empathy to cooperate so he can find out what happen to her planet... just because an older guy smiles and be a little more attentive to a young girl doesn't mean he's pervy, he was trying to gain her trust.

Love seeing a young Kim Darby and a young Michael J. Pollard, in this classic episode of Star Trek.

Kirk wasn't being inappropriate as he wasn't flirting. He was trying to gain her trust and make her feel safe as she had obviously seen tramatic events.

One of the problems with television productions about children (not just Star Trek, but TV and movies in general) is that it is difficult to get actual children for some of the key roles that require some significant acting. In the movie Grease, for example, the so-called teenagers were all pushing 30. In the case of Miri, Kim Darby, who played Miri, was 19 at the time, and Michael J Pollard, who played Jon, was 27. Obviously neither of them were "just going through puberty". But I think people just have to go with the premise. 13 year old actors couldn't handle the emotional depth they wanted for the leads in this story. Despite its fame, Star Trek was a TV show. They had limited budgets and compromises had to be made, hoping audiences would understand. Both of these actors were actually outstanding young actors of that period, though they certainly weren't as young as the story suggested they were. Miri "betrayed" Kirk out of jealousy after she saw him with Yeoman Rand. She had a crush on Kirk, and she wanted the competition (Rand) gone, but she certainly didn't want to hurt Kirk.

You mentioned being creeped out by the kids. You may notice a theme with these episodes about a fear of the youth, the younger generation. This was a reflection of the 1960s. Older generations were looking at the counter culture rejecting societies rules and wanting to build a 'new' society. Many adults felt it would lead to destruction, with civilization reduced to a "Lord of the Flies" system of tribal violence.

When Spock was exploring the town and the hidden children began mockingly chanting "Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah", I could only think about "Warriors, come out and play!"

Watch for William Shatner's daughter as one of the "children". He holds her in one scene

IIRC, the actress who played Miri here shortly afterward played a starring role in the John Wayne film "True Grit." And the young man (yes, not a child) leading the "lost boys" shortly after played a supporting role in the classic film "Bonnie and Clyde." So, can you imagine the Enterprise coming across Earth in 2020 and seeing that the people were suffering from some kind of plague and also behaving strangely?

"Where no bunny has gone before" just makes me think of a bunch of rabbits in space uniforms on an interstellar starship, exploring the stars as rabbit explorers. This episode reminds me of this comic I used to read called Tom Strong. Tom was your science hero, based on pulp adventures, saving the world from super science villains one story, discovering some lost tomb in another to time traveling to the Pangea billions of years ago. One adventure took him on this massive space adventure where on the other side of the galaxy, he discovered another Earth, with a Tom Strong counterpart called Tom Strange. It was similar in a lot of ways to Tom's Earth but had a fair share of differences. There was one bit of dialogue the two Tom's shared regarding their planet's, wondering which planet was the original and which one the copy, or were both original, does every planet in the universe have a counterpart on the other side of their galaxy, what does it mean? It was an Alan Moore series so sometimes it got a little heady despite the light-hearted, pulpy, Saturday morning cartoon surface level aesthetics. You should check out Tom Strong if you ever get the chance, very under-rated comic series

Kim Darby was also in the original "True Grit"... great performance. You should put that on your reaction list.

I’m gonna guess it’s an Earth duplicate because they had a few choices and genuinely thought it was interesting to think about parallels in sci fi at the time. But, much more likely it was the easiest way to explain the use of available and affordable sets, props, vehicles, etc.. nothing bespoke, which costs a ton of time/money.

This is one of those episodes that shows the 1960's vibe. From the clothes the kids wore to the rebelling from the authority of the GRUPS (Grown Ups). After 300 years or so the twisted lives and morals from a long isolation begin to show.

This is one of my favorite episodes. The part towards the end where Kirk tells Miri about how she's becoming a young woman has lots of emotion and is done really well 👍

4:00 - That young actress is Kim Darby, Bunny. A few years later, she would become famous for starring in TRUE GRIT, opposite John Wayne, in his Oscar winning role as Rooster Cogburn.

You're "It's dead Jim" with the tricycle made my night!

I first saw this episode when I was maybe 12 years old or so. I had an instant crush on Miri, I thought she was about as beautiful as beautiful could be. So, there's a soft spot and a very fond memory for this episode for me.

Episodes like this always attract me just due to the “what if?” element of them. My mind always starts churning away with concepts like this.

This episode was banned in the UK as being too horrific for many years, because of complaints received after the original transmission. - They are forced to address the parallel Earth issue through dialogue in a future episode, as they come across them so often. The real explanation was that it was cheaper to use existing props, sets, and costumes, than to create 'alien stuff' from scratch.

Looks like you're due for "Shore Leave". I hope you enjoy it. That's a fun one!

The child William Shatner is carrying in the climax is his real-life daughter

Yes, this was a good episode. This episode aired a few years after the Lord Of The Flies movie in 1963 and that was still fresh in people's minds, hence the lawless children. The idea of a counter earth goes back to the Ancient Greeks. In modern times, there was an episode of The Twilight Zone in 1963 where an astronaut lands on a counter earth orbiting the sun. In August 1966, we see this in Doctor Who where the Cybermen come from a counter earth, and then, this episode aired a few months later. We see this theme again in the Marvel Comics in the early 1970s. There was a TV movie in the 1970s with this theme as well. In the later episodes, they visit planets that are Earth-like but are not counter earths. This episode offered a warning of the dangers of trying to prolong human life and to try to achieve immortality. On this planet, they tried to make people live for centuries, but instead, it extended life only for the children, and killed off all the adults very quickly. When a child enters puberty, they contract the disease and die. When Miri saw Kirk hold and comfort Janice, she became jealous. This was why she helped the other children steal the communicators and to kidnap Janice. Miri was about to enter puberty which accounted for her crush on Kirk. As Spock said, she was becoming a woman. Janice Rand was supposed to be Kirk's personal yeoman, but then, the writers decided that they wanted Kirk to be like James Bond, going from woman to woman. This left no place for Janice Rand on the show and she leaves half way thru the first season. This episode did get some criticism when Kirk seemed a little too friendly with Miri, suggesting hints of hebephilia. This is different from pedophilia which is a sexual attraction to children. Hebephilia is an attraction to children entering puberty, 11-14 years of age. Ephebophilia is an attraction to girls in their mid-teens, still very much underage. Yes, there were zombies back in the 1960s. Even back in the 1940s, there were a few movies where people became zombies. The 1968 movie Night Of The Living Dead made this theme much more popular. This was George Romero's first zombie film and set the stage for many more to be made. I don;t have children either, for reasons similar to yours. I decided early in my life that I didn't want to be a parent. If I had had children, I wouldn't have been able to travel to all of the countries that I did.

"this is such a bizarre episode" - eagerly awaits Plato's Stepchildren and Spock's Brain

I like this episode because these post-apocalyptic narratives weren't overplayed in film and rare in TV. The idea was still fresh and strange. The first _I Am Legion_ movie was released in the early '60s, but _Night of the Living Dead_ wouldn't be released for two years after this episode. So, the futuristic crew exploring this Earth that died in 1961 was eerie. Even when I saw it in reruns, the setting wasn't a common trope. It's a cool idea.

When the original Star Trek was cancelled after season 3, the show continued as an animated cartoon. The cartoon was voiced by the original cast. Some of the cartoon episodes were quite good. Some of the episodes were already written as live action episodes. The animation is not great, but the voices and stories make up for it. I haven't seen one in decades though.

Love your insights on the difference between gender portrayal in the 60s and today. Your spot on, and I too wonder if a balanced outlook is in our future. In regards to Kirk flirting with Miri: I think what we're seeing here is him trying to gain her trust - She's the only "native" communicating with them, at the moment, and she can provide important information. He's basically playing her - Captain Lovey Dovey trying to manipulate the teen girl, because she can be of value.

Fan Fact: The little blonde girl Kirk picks up towards the end of the episode is Shatner's own daughter Lisabeth. His other two daughters, Leslie and Melanie were also children in the room. They are his daughters from his first wife ... Gloria RAND. I'm only guessing that the character Janice Rand got her last name from her. Fan Fact2: Lt. Leslie is a recurring red-shirt character on the show. He was named after Leslie Shatner.

The exteriors are the same sets that depict Mayberry in the Andy Griffith Show

This episode is really easy to understand. The producers must have told the writers: “What episode could you write that takes advantage of Paramount’s back lot?”

Trivia … the set they landed in was “Mayberry NC” set from the Andy Griffen Show.

I think it’s definitely one of the better episodes. Has a tight plot, an interesting situation, giving the actors a chance to act. Kim Darby is very good. Kirk was not putting the moves on the girl. I think that contemporary people have received a lot of conditioning to be suspicious of all men: Assume all are rapists, when in doubt. Anyway, I understand being cautious but Kirk was just trying to nurture a relationship with flattery, working an angle while the options were few and time was short.

Oh for Pete's sake, Kirk wasn't flirting with Miri, and he sure as hell wasn't coming anywhere even close to "grooming" her! Jeez, young people today.

I for one love the "subpar" episodes. 'cuz dangit, they're _still_ mostly pretty decent, which lets you get _so_ excited about the *great* ones.

I’m late to the party with this, and maybe someone in the comments has already expressed my take… Kirk wasn’t creeping on Miri. He was showering her with compliments, telling her what every awkward teenage girl wants to hear, in order to gain her trust. Kirk was simply doing his job in order to gain information.

Miri wanted Janice kidnapped because she was jealous.

I swear, when i was a kid, i thought Kirk called him "Bones" because he was skinny....tell no one😅

Very surprised that Miri's jealousy flew right over bunny's head. Didn't she recall the scene where Lt. Rand and Kirk embraced when she told him to look at her legs?

A Bit of TRIVIA for you - the exterior town sets where they filmed the planet scenes were better known as the sets for the town of 'Mayberry' on "The Andy Griffith Show". When the landing party first beams down you can see Sherriff Andy courthouse colums in the middle of the background - the Music Loving Klingon...

The real reason they had another Earth was because they had the set for the Andy Griffith show on the same lot at Desilu.

Fun Fact: Originally, Janice Rand was supposed to be Kirk's love interest, but they decided to get away from that idea...but she was actually named after William Shatner's wife of the time, Gloria Rand. (and the mother of that little girl Kirk was carrying in the episode)

16:22 Fun fact: This little girl that Kirk is holding is Lisabeth Shatner, his daughter.

As mentioned below, Shatner's daughter was one of the children as well as Grace Lee Whitney's (Rand) sons plus anyone who works as Desilu who has children were in the group of children. Greg Morris who played on Mission Impossible at the time, son Phil was the kid in the football helmet. Phil Morris by the way has played with most of the future crews of Trek and has the record of playing the greatest number of characters in the series and movies, I think.

Miri is probably best known and remembered for its guest stars. As to societal role of women on television, that of course has evolved over time. The “ideal” woman of the ‘60s is very different from that of the 21st Century. Ronald D. Moore grew up watching TOS and then got to work in the world of Star Trek beginning with TNG then DS9 but left for creative reasons on VOY, went on to co-create the award-winning, reimagined Battlestar Galactica (2003). He then went on to do Outlander and then the outstanding alternative history series currently showing on Apple TV, For All Mankind. If you look at his extensive body of work, the role of women does evolve from what was portrayed in the 1960s. The difference between the original Battlestar Galactica (1978) and the 2003 series is an excellent example of evolving storytelling about women’s roles in society. Another excellent example as how multicultural societies evolve is (in my opinion) perfectly portrayed in The Expanse (2015), one of the best Sci-Fi series ever written and adapted to television.

I've seen the 2 lead children in other works. 2 of Shatner's daughters, Leslie & Lisbeth, appeared in this episode.

As you will learn, Kirk's powers of persuasion are irresistible.

FUN FACT: Towards the end of the episode, when Kirk re-enters the lab with the kids, the little girl he's holding is one William Shatner's real-life daughters. ❤️

Just to clarify, the actress who played Miri was around 19 years old (born 1947) when this episode was produced. (Re-watching now, the Miri / Kirk dynamic is pretty creepy when viewed through a modern filter, but Kirk's never been much of a "father figure", more often he's working the flirty angle with female characters.)

The little girl that Kirk picked up was one of William Shatner's daughters. And two of the little boys were sons of Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yeoman Rand.

Your comment about bunk-bunking these kids on the head...seconded. The oldest one, John, annoyed the crap out of me the first time I saw this; and he did again today. Casting did a good job of picking someone who looks like a punk. Really enjoying how you are doing these in a way that allows us to virtually see the whole episode over, not just a short, severely edited version. Hated this episode, but love what you're doing.

Kim Darby has many TV and film credits. She is, perhaps, best known as Mattie Ross in the first "True Grit".

The cars in the set are more like 1930s into 1940s. Most of the building sets show bits of details from the 1820s through the 1950s. Although this was the RKO Forty Acres backlot (Desilu). The original King Kong was shot here. This set is the main street ("Chicago Street") and side street ("short street") intersection area which is also the Town of Mayberry from the Andy Griffith Show, the 1950s The Adventures of Superman, The Green Hornet, Bonanza, The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible,. If you walked about 2-3 blocks up the road you would encounter a big train station/shed from Gone With the Wind and next to that an old farm house. On the other side of all that is the old western exterior sets. Beyond the western area are the marine Camp Henderson sets from Gomer Pyle, and Hogan's Heros prison camp (Stalag 13). If you instead walked toward the downtown/clocktower/courthouse area you would encounter a big house/church/town hall on a hill, and a bunch of varied rural and suburban looking areas. And to one side a "War Set" with crumbling buildings (used in later episodes). Of course the areas changed often and bits were rebuilt every few years. This area of downtown was also sometimes used for some of the Adam West Batman shots although at that time it had been The Culver City Studios as Desilu was purchased by Paramount/Gulf+Western (although Batman also used WB backlot in Burbank, and the Fox backlot in Westwood). We see this set in The Cage, Miri, The Return of the Archons, Errand of Mercy, and The City on the Edge of Forever.

The existence of a half-way finished immortality treatment on an Earth-like world would suggest and interesting 'second contact' for the Lower Decks guys...

One of my favorite lines from all of Star Trek is Kirk saying, ‘No blah blah blah!’

Parallel Earths: Sometimes due to budget cost, lazy writing, etc., several episodes were made existing sets and costumes from the studio backlot. In TOS, some episodes gave an explanation, like accidental or intentional cultural contamination. For others, like Miri's "Earth" no explanation is given in any of the show. The is a series of Star Trek novel series that addresses this directly.

Many of the children were sons and daughters of the cast and crew. Grace Lee Whitney's (Janice Rand) sons Jon & Scott were two of the kids. The director Vincent McEveety's nephew Stephen McEveety played a red headed boy. Start Trek's creator Gene Roddenberry's daughters Darleen & Dawn were also kids. William Shatner's middle daughter Lisabeth can be seen being held by her dad. The cast & crew also tried to convince Nimoy to bring his children to the set, but Nimoy wanted to keep his kids away from show business. Ironically, later Adam Nimoy directed a couple of Next Generation episodes. On a sad note . . . in Grace Lee Whitney's book The Longest Trel: My Tour Of The Galaxy, she wrote about being sexually assaulted by a member of the show that she identifies only as "The Executive" during the Friday night end of the week party after filming this episode. She was fired soon afterwards which worsened her depression and alcohol addiction. Soon Yeoman Rand was not to be seen again in this series. She did come back to a number of cameos in the movies.

You're so kind to answer the comments here. This must take a lot of time to do. On behalf of you're fans I think its fare to say, we all enjoy watching you and thank you for watching these star trek shows. Its really fun for us old retired federation officers😅😅😅😅😅. Sincerely...Thank you !!!

*The little girl in the green pants that Captain Kirk carries in at **17:30** is one of William Shatner's real-life daughters.*

Wow! Many reactions to your reaction. I was certain you knew better of the intentions of a Starfleet Officer and you were voicing aloud what at least thousands of others have. Crazy 🤪 Anyway the Miri character is played by Kim Darby who did a superb job on the movie 🎥🍿 TRUE GRIT starring JOHN WAYNE and singer GLENN CAMPBELL who plays a Texas Ranger. Great GREAT movie!! Peace 🕊️☮️♾️😎

BunnyTails - its not Kirk being Creepy . just , using the Kirk charm , to win over Miri, gain her Trust , get Information .

"Bunk, bunk on the head...."😆

15:49 my grandma would have taken a switch to all of these little rascals

"Naughty Grup! Bonk-Bonk on the head! BLAH BLAH BLAH!"😆

Most people consider this one of the weakest episodes despite 2 well known movie actors playing the lead children! You are not alone thinking this episode stinks! Thanks for the reactions!

John Megna ("Little Boy") was in "To Kill A Mockingbird".

Kirk will employ strategic space rizz if the mission calls for it 🦄✨🛸

2 of the children , were Shatner's daughters, Adam Nimoy was in this as well as other cast members children.

Amazing that this stuff was thought up and done nearly 60 years ago. Man hadn't even landed on the moon yet! The presentation of advanced technology and friendly alien colleagues was one thing, but the story lines were BRILLIANT. Complex, humanistic, messianic, you name it: Star Trek original series covered it. Even racial prejudice! In a few short seasons they provided entertainment that has lasted nearly 3/4 of a century! From the writers, to the film crew to the actors, this was just mind-blowing for its time.

Not one of those episodes to remember......i give it a Bonk! Bonk! Look forward to the real good ones in your travels.

At 65 years of age, Star Trek has "come back" to my present day many, many times :D

10:24 - The zombies we know and love today, Bunny, were first seen in 1968, in George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.

the budget for the tv show wasn't huge,so a lot of times episodes were set on "earthlike" planets. that way they could use sets on the paramount studios lot for exterior scenes. in one episode you haven't seen (no spoiler, just something to watch for) kirk and a guest star can be seen walking by floyd's barber shop from the andy griffith show. i don't think it was something the producers thought viewers would notice,but it's a fun little easter egg.

The unnamed "other Earth" planet is never referred to again in the series.

"but officer, she's over 300 years old" 😂

Back in the TOS Era they didn't care about continuity, or universe building. They just did shit and forgot about it the next episode. You just have to suspend your belief and go with it.

Those old cars are from the 1940's -But in the 1960's a lot of them were still on the road.

The "Earthlike" set was the set from The Andy Griffith Show.

This was filmed on the same set as Andy Griffith. This Janice Rand's last episode. Grace Lee Whitney was alone on the set when she was sexually attacked by one of the producers. She fought him off, but he was the one who got her fired from the show. He said Kirk couldn't have any other love interests. When Rand was on Star Trek the Motion Picture, Gene Roddenberry told her it was a mistake to fire her.

Great reactions and puzzlement, from BT! :) Interesting to note, that this was one of the four original Star Trek episodes banned in the UK, during the 70's and early 80's.

There was Shatner's and Roddenberry's girls as extras/kids!

There are many such planets in Star Trek. They are called "M class" planets. Earth like planets are called M class because of a Vulcan word starting with M. Some M class planets have been colonised. Some by people from Earth. However: there are some weird planets in Star Trek that are a bit like an alternate Earth from another dimension. No spoilers.

yes, planets can be shaped like an egg, flattened, asymmetrical, etc.

Desilu studios had a very limited budget to make Star Trek, so they would borrow sets from other productions on the lot they were shooting to save cost on "Away Missions"

The duplicate earth thing was entirely to save money, so they could reuse globe footage and also explain why so many planets they land on suspiciously resemble Paramount's backlot. They even gave it a name at some point, "Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development".

From Wikipedia: "several of the children on Miri's world were portrayed by relatives of the Trek cast and crew. Among them were William Shatner's daughters Lisabeth and Melanie, Grace Lee Whitney's son Scott, Vincent McEveety's son Steven, and Gene Roddenberry's daughters, Darleen and Dawn."

The young girl Kirk was holding/carrying in the scenes near the end was Shatner's real-life daughter. Trivia!

The planet's exact similarity to Earth, far away from the "actual" Earth, is a huge plot hole which is never subsequently explained.

A lot of the creative decisions made during production came down to one thing: budget. If they can explain an alien planet away as an exact duplicate of Earth, they can use existing sets on the back lot and they don't have to spend money creating a new one. And not spending time on explanations leaves more room for other things.

think the actress who played Miri did a great job with this role...

Earth-like planets will become quite common in the original Star Trek series. Mainly because it was much cheaper to film on existing backlot sets than to create whole new alien planets. It happens so often that they would come up with a name for it in a future episode - Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development - and even have a reason most alien species look human with the exception of bumps on their heads or faces in a later episode of The Next Generation. But what it really all comes down to is money and the budget required to film a weekly television series. You're going to notice that for the most part, episodes filmed during the original series feature planets that look a lot like the late-1960's. Episodes of TNG visited planets that looked a lot like the late-1980's and early 90's.

On the left is Andy'scourthose. From Bayberry. In my family, we all all gronumps as Grumps, for real.

Some of those kids were named Shatner, Whitney, and Roddenberry.

I didn't remember this one at all until the guy who looks about 35 but is supposed to be prepubescent shows up. Now I have the internet I can look it up - Michael J Pollard was born in 1939, so he was about 26-27 at the time. Still looks much older to me. Then I remembered, Miri is played by Kim Darby, who went on to star in True Grit with John Wayne. Kim was about 19 at the time. You can imagine Shatner getting this script, going home and throwing it on the couch, and saying to whoever was around, "You know what I have to say? 'No blah blah blah.' With my shirt slightly ripped, so at least there's that. I'm going to play it with my arm out and an anguished look on my face, like I'm Laurence Olivier playing Hamlet." "Captain, we discovered another Earth. Aren't we going to tell the Federation?" "No, Yeoman, no one's going to be interested in that." In the UK this was first shown in 1970. I did watch it then, but I can report my surroundings looked like suburban London, not some Paramount backlot. Interesting fact: after its first showing, people complained to the BBC about this episode, and during the 70s and 80s it was excluded from any re-runs - effectively, it was banned. (Three others were also banned.) The BBC said: "There are no plans to screen the four episodes because we feel that they deal most unpleasantly with the already unpleasant subjects of madness, torture, sadism and disease." (source, Wikipedia) So I've probably only seen this once or twice, no wonder I didn't remember it. Great review. The past WAS a different country.

McCoy injecting himself and hollaring "Spock"!!! Is one of the great McCoy moments in TOS. As well the time lapse camera work of the blemishes fading is very well done.

OH AND THOSE CARS WERE FROM THE 50S !

This sort of thing is actually super common in the whole of Star Trek lol Random planets with Humans and Earth-like culture/architecture.