miri star trek banned

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Star Trek: Looking Back at the BBC’s Ban and Censorship

With a new Star Trek TV series incoming, we revisit the show's long history of censorship at the BBC...

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This article comes from Den of Geek UK .

Star Trek  is not a franchise you’d normally associate with controversy. Nevertheless, between 1969 and 1994, four episodes of the original series – Empath , Whom Gods Destroy , Plato’s Stepchildren and Miri – were not aired on the BBC, and other episodes were heavily redacted.

It’s difficult nowadays to appreciate just how sacrosanct terrestrial television was until the 1990s. Even though   Star Trek  was first broadcast in the UK on BBC One on July 12 1969, with the episode Where No Man Has Gone Before , repeats were rare and VHS tapes were expensive, and difficult to get hold of after the show was cancelled.

The BBC, which controlled the distribution rights to air the series in the UK, was the most accessible means by which most fans could enjoy the show until Sky One began broadcasting the complete series in 1990. Even so, for many years afterwards cable TV was a costly luxury and the banned episodes remained unseen for a majority of fans.

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Some episodes were shown at early conventions in Britain, but only after copies had been brought over from the U.S. Due to word of mouth and comments from the producers and the stars themselves, knowledge of the omissions was widely shared amongst the fan community. In June 1976,  Star Trek  fans launched a letter campaign petitioning the BBC to show the banned episodes. The Star Trek Action Group , a fan newsletter, reprinted the BBC’s response in which they explained that:

“After very careful consideration a top level decision was made not to screen the episodes entitled Empath , Whom Gods Destroy , Plato’s Stepchildren and Miri , because they all dealt most unpleasantly with the already unpleasant subjects of madness, torture, sadism and disease.”

Not to give up the ghost there, the fan petitioning continued and in August 1979, the BBC again expounded its position:

“We have no plans to show the banned episodes as we have stated several times before. I am afraid every big organisation comes in for a little ridicule from time to time, but we are a public service broadcasting organisation with great responsibilities, and if after very careful consideration we decide not to show a particular programme, you may rest assured that it is in the best interest of viewers in this country.”

Credit to both fans’ and the BBC’s patience, the latter again issued a statement in 1984 saying that:

“You will appreciate that account must be taken that out of   Star Trek ’s large and enthusiastic following, many are juveniles, no matter what time of day the series is put into the programme schedules. A further look has been taken following the recent correspondence, but I am afraid it has been impossible to revise the opinion not to show these episodes.”

The BBC has something of a reputation for coming down hard on science-fiction, particularly with  Doctor Who , throughout the 1980s. Yet, rewatching the banned   Star Trek episodes there is a niggling feeling that the broadcaster might have had a point with some of its red-taping.

In the first instance, the BBC had actually originally aired Miri in 1970 as part of its original run. However, it was not broadcast again until the 1990s after several viewers wrote to complain about its content. Heeding caution, the channel determined that the other three episodes were also unsuitable.

With some irony, Miri (episode 1.8) is the least deserving of its notoriety and is actually quite tame. Captain Kirk comes across a  Lord Of The Flies -type society of children where all the adults have died from an unknown disease. While the episode teeters on the edge of being a full-blown   Battle Royale  with some segments of violence, it’s more unpleasant because of its emotional punch of lonely orphaned children facing disease and starvation. That said, Kirk and co. save the day and why the BBC thought the ending didn’t mitigate its unpleasant aspects is curious.

By comparison, Plato’s Stepchildren (3.10) sits more curiously on the list. The episode is synonymous with the iconoclasm of the 1960s because it featured television’s first inter-racial snog between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura. NBC, the U.S broadcaster, was worried that the scene might provoke a backlash from the more conservative elements of the country, but the scandal was not forthcoming. Instead, and with almost satirical deliberation, the episode was banned in the U.K because of its ‘violent’ elements.

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While the episode does indeed have plenty of action, there’s little in it to set it apart from most others in   Star Trek . While there’s no evidence to suggest that the BBC surreptitiously blocked it for its seminal scene, it’s not a far cry to imagine that in an office on a floor in Britain’s national broadcaster sat an official keen to avoid the ire of the Great British public.

Whom Gods Destroy (3.14), on the other hand, ups the ante and there is a legitimate claim that the episode contained elements not suitable for a family show. Not only does it feature Kirk, Spock and several supporting characters being tortured in a mental asylum, it also contains one of the most famous and sexualised moments of television history with Marta’s exotic dance (the green-skinned Orion slave girl).

Empath (3.12), by contrast, still has the power to disturb and is the episode which unequivocally proves the BBC had a point. In an underground laboratory, Captain Kirk, Spock and McCoy are brutally tortured by aliens in a bid to find out if a mute woman is compassionate and worthy of the aliens’ technological bequeathment. From start to finish the episode is a cerebral exploration of the themes of sacrifice and loyalty. Standard enough, save for the horrific methodology it uses as a crucible.

As any horror aficionado will tell you, what is implied is more brutal to the imagination than looking at fake blood. Off-screen shots are limited to seeing characters dangling from chains, torso stripped (Shatner’s scene, naturally) and writhing in agony. There is no gore, few screams and no focus shots on wounds. While there are no guns or knives, and the aliens have plastic pain devices, it’s the enclosed black set and the clinical script that leave a lasting impression.

Spock’s cold, logical descriptions of McCoy’s horrendous injuries are so matter of fact that audiences can all but hear him scream in the torture chamber. The constricted budget, so often mocked, is the key here to creating a rustic realism and it’s staggering how unnerving it is to see these indestructible characters reduced to their component parts; something of a rarity in the history of the franchise as a whole.

The episode is deeply unpleasant, not least because of the willingness by which each character subjects themselves to myriad agonies. That, of course, is the point of the episode but it also happens to create one of the most unpleasant depictions of pain ever put to screen.

At a news conference in 1984,   Star Trek   creator Gene Roddenberry was asked what he thought of the continuing ban on the four episodes:

“… I disagree [with the ban] very much. Empath to me was a beautiful story… If someone is to say to me, ‘You can’t have hurt and pain’, I say, ‘Nonsense!’ Suffering and pain are a part of life. They should be handled and handled well. I feel the same way about violence and sex.“My objection to violence and sex is on the shows where it goes on for a while and someone says, ‘Well, it’s going slow now, why don’t you have a fist-fight or a shooting?’ Then they put it in to raise the ratings.“What I hate about violence are… shows where grown men strike out and hit each other in the face with their fists… and after hitting themselves for thirty minutes with all their strength in the face, they grin and say, ‘Wow, wasn’t that fun!’ That’s not how life is!”

While there’s a logic to what Roddenberry has to say, the BBC were not wrong about Empath even if they were overzealous with Whom Gods Destroy , off-the-mark with Miri and cowardly with Plato’s Stepchildren . It remains difficult to stomach and Empath is up there with Theon Greyjoy’s tête-à-têtes with Ramsay Bolton in  Game Of Thrones .

While an outright ban was employed only four times of the original series’ 79 episodes, it danced with the BBC censors many more times throughout the show’s run in the U.K. The Man Trap (1.1), Patterns Of Force (2.21) and Bread And Circuses (2.25) were all redacted because of violent scenes, including the shocking attempted rape of Janice Rand by Kirk’s doppelganger in Enemy Within (1.5).

Many other episodes, including  Court Martial (1.20), Return Of The Archons (1.21), The Alternative Factor (1.27), A Private Little War (2.19),  And The Children Shall Lead (3.04),  Lights Of Zetar (3.18) and The Cloud Minders (3.21) were mostly edited for time, with little attention given to the subtleties of detail, introductions or the sense of scenes. There was a split at the BBC between the convenience of time-saving and logical duty, such as with Arena (1.18) which, as the BBC explained to the Star Trek Action Group newsletter, was edited because “it is not BBC practice to show the exact process by which gunpowder is made… to prevent the children emulating their heroes”.

Eventually, the BBC showed the banned and edited episodes and showed the episodes in 1994, over twenty years after their original broadcast in the U.S.

However, Star Trek ’s courting of controversy, like the franchise itself, was not to end with the original series.   Star Trek: The Next Generation  likewise suffered from curious bouts of gruesome violence which were removed from the episode Conspiracy (1.25), showing the aftermath of a character being shot with phasers, and The Icarus Factor (2.14) in which ritualistic ‘pain sticks’ are repeatedly used.

Most infamously, the BBC refused to screen season 3’s The High Ground (3.12). When discussing the empirical evidence of the merits of terrorism to achieve political ends, Data lists “the Irish unification of 2024” as a definitive example. Given the Anglo-Irish issues of the day, the episode was only broadcast unedited on Sky One in 2006 and finally shown in full on the BBC Two in September 2007 (nine years after the Good Friday Agreement).

Certainly, by the 1990s, there was a change in the compulsive editing of   Star Trek at the BBC, highly likely due to a wider evolution in the public about the expectation and tolerance of more explicit content on television. The psychological elements were given more of a free pass, largely explaining why some moments of  The Next Generation  escaped the editing floor. The Best Of Both Worlds , for example, seemed to represent a greater acceptance from the BBC about the surrealness of science-fiction, probably why any analogy between Picard’s assimilation and rape was overlooked (the solitary tear running down his face still remains harrowing).

After 1992, the first-run rights of TNG , followed by  Deep Space Nine  and  Voyager , went to Sky One, with the BBC showing the episodes several months later. While TNG was never challengingly violent, the two-parter Chain Of Command (6.10 & 6.11) was a brutal psychological take on Alan Rickman’s Closet Land and pitted Picard against his less than savoury Cardassian interrogators.

The Next Generation  lead to DS9 which was undoubtedly more mature as it encompassed genocide, rape, terrorism, torture, and a religious and political subtext. Numerous episodes, particularly Duet (1.19) and Tribunal (2.25) deal with these themes rather graphically. Season 4’s To The Death (4.23), which featured an en masse battle between Starfleet and the Jem’Hadar, was cut by a staggering 45 seconds by The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) in the U.K because the scenes of hand-to-hand combat were too violent.

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Voyager , often derided as the weakest incarnation, likewise contained genuinely disturbing elements. Season 2’s Deadlock (2.21) saw the deformed organ harvesting Vidians board and murder the crew. In the same episode, and eerily reminiscent of Empath , Tuvok, a Vulcan, stoically states that “he regrets to report’ the death of an infant after an attack. Likewise in Resistance (2.12) he’s heard screaming as he’s tortured by Nazi knock-offs, has his face melted in Cold Fire (2.10) and is driven insane by a psychotic in Meld (2.16).

The BBC lost out in the bidding to broadcast   Star Trek: Enterprise  on terrestrial TV to Channel 4 in 2001 and did not renew its repeat rights for the other series until 2006. While it has not been seen on terrestrial television in the UK since then, BBC America did run a marathon of uncut, digitally remastered HD episodes of  Star Trek in 2016.

In any event, the legacy of   Star Trek  at the BBC is to serve as a marker for how attitudes to violence, sex and television, in general, have evolved. More importantly, looking back at this is a reminder of what   Trek can do to explore topical issues while flag-bearing as a family show.

Alastair Stewart

Star Trek: Why the BBC Stopped Airing Four Original Series Episodes for Decades

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Television was a different entity in the 1960s, and networks had to adhere to strict censorship rules for content aired. Star Trek was conceived as a family-friendly show, and while its suggestive themes were quite open for its day, it still adhered to the established boundaries for language and content at the time.

American broadcasters have different guidelines than overseas networks, however, and one of the world's biggest decided to pull not one but four Star Trek: The Original Series episodes. The BBC aired Season 1, Episode 11, "Miri," in December 1970, but refused to air it again until the 1990s, while adding three more to the list for good measure. These entries remained off the air until the mid-1990s, which meant denying fans a considerable portion of Star Trek  content for decades.

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The BBC’s initial broadcast of “Miri” triggered several letters from viewers who were troubled by its content. The episode concerned a parallel Earth whose adult population wiped out by a disease, which led to children living for hundreds of years without aging. The complaints apparently centered around the plot points of disease and insanity, and the BBC agreed the content was "unpleasant."

But the network went beyond that, pulling three other episodes -- Season 3, Episode 1, "The Empath," Season 3, Episode 12, "Plato’s Stepchildren" and Season 3, Episode 16, "Whom Gods Destroy" -- for what it deemed to be similar content. "The Empath" finds the away team tortured by aliens called the Vian as part of an experiment designed to test the compassionate capability of another species to determine if they are worth saving; “Plato’s Stepchildren” concerns aliens who claim to follow the teachings of Plato, but who use their psychokinetic abilities to force Kirk and the crew to obey their commands; and "Whom Gods Destroy" left Kirk and Spock in an Federation facility for the criminally insane that's controlled by the inmates. The BBC cited themes of "madness," "sadism," "torture" and "disease" for each of the episodes.

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The pulling of these episodes seems outrageous by today’s standards, mostly because the content was almost entirely thematic and consisted of little more than obvious makeup for the diseases, and actors thrashing and screaming. Regardless, the episodes remained off the air in the United Kingdom until the 1990s, which had far more of an impact than most fans realize.

Today,   The Original Series can be streamed, while Blu-rays and other physical media are readily available. That wasn’t the case in the '80s and '90s, as  The Original Series wasn’t available on VHS tape in the United States until 1986. However, the United Kingdom, which used PAL VHS tapes instead of the NTSC formatted tapes, didn't even have access to that. That meant fans who wanted to watch the show had to turn to the BBC, which decided four episodes wouldn’t be aired.

Sure, the ban was lifted in the '90s, and the episodes aired again, but when the franchise was soaring to new heights around the world, U.K. fans didn't have access to its full catalog. Fortunately, with the surge in streaming platforms and modern broadcasting guidelines, this issue is unlikely to repeat itself.

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Why the BBC refused to air these Star Trek episodes

By rachel carrington | jun 1, 2021.

The BBC banned these Star Trek episodes

Star Trek: The Original Series produced episodes that some people didn’t like. In fact, many fans don’t rewatch certain episodes of the series. However, BBC didn’t give their viewers the option of watching three episodes that were originally aired in the 1960s, and one was pulled from future viewings after the BBC had received a number of complaints.

Miri, Season 1, episode 8

When “Miri” aired on British television on December 1970, viewers complained to the BBC about the content. Though the exact nature of the complaints weren’t revealed, when fans wrote to the BBC to complain when the episode was banned when Star Trek was airing in the mid-1980s, they received a standard reply that indicated the episode dealt “most unpleasantly” with the “already unpleasant subject” of disease. It reminded viewers that Star Trek’s “large and enthusiastic” viewership included “juveniles who would watch the programme no matter what time of day the series is put into the programme schedule.”

BBC finally lifted the ban in the early 1990s, and in 2020, this episode was shown in Britain on the Horror Channel.

Plato’s Stepchildren Season 3, episode 10 

This was the first episode that wasn’t shown at all on the BBC due to what it considered “sadistic” elements in the plot. According to a statement by BBC, “after careful consideration, a top level decision was made” not to air the episode. Those protesting the ban were given a standard reply for this and the other three episodes.

“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.” Viewers were also reminded repeatedly of the juvenile viewership.

The Empath, Season 3, episode 12

This episode was originally scheduled to air in the UK on December 16, 1970, but “Miri” had aired two weeks prior, and, after the complaint, BBC took a closer look at Star Trek. This particular episode involved the torture of Dr. McCoy, and that led the BBC to cancel the screening. The torture was something that the BBC did not want children to see. “The Empath” did not air in the UK until the mid 1990s.

Whom Gods Destroy, Season 3, episode 14

While the United States dealt with censorship in the 1960s, it wasn’t quite as strict as the United Kingdom at the time as this episode wasn’t aired during the first third season showing, either. The censors objected to Kirk being tortured, and Marta’s dance scene at the banquet was considered “too sexual for children.” BBC viewers didn’t get to see this episode until the mid-1990s.

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Star Trek: Which Episodes Were Banned in the UK?

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Star Trek is one of the most popular sci-fi franchises in the world alongside Star Wars , spanning several movies and television series. The original TV show in the late 1960s ran for three seasons, but there were four episodes that were banned in the UK for some time.

As writer Stephen Bell states in his essay, Star Trek is primarily an adult program that’s not necessarily intended for young children, but kids have become fans of the franchise just as much as their parents. The four banned episodes provide curiosity as to what the UK saw in them that was offensive or unwatchable for spectators of Star Trek .

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Which Star Trek Episodes Were Banned in the UK?

The Star Trek episodes that were banned in the UK were “Miri,” “Whom Gods Destroy,” “Plato’s Stepchildren,” and “The Empath.” “Miri” was an episode from season one of Star Trek: The Original Series , while the other three were from the third and final season of that show.

“Miri” was about Captain Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the Enterprise crew encountering a dying planet in which disease causes children to stay young for hundreds of years, but then age rapidly afterward.

“Whom Gods Destroy” involves Kirk and Spock being trapped on a planet that serves as an asylum which is controlled by Garth (a former starship captain who intends to take over the Enterprise due to his intentions of being powerful and immortal). Garth is a sneaky Star Trek villain who can also change his appearance and become anyone, especially when trying to fool Kirk and his crew, so he can get on the Enterprise and commandeer the ship.

"Plato's Stepchildren" focuses on aliens with telekinetic powers who force McCoy to stay on their planet as their primary doctor (since they have no other medical professionals). When McCoy refuses, the aliens control the Enterprise crew and force them to commit rude and unruly actions.

"The Empath" is another episode in which aliens set up controlled experiments on the Enterprise crew. There's also a mute female alien named Gem, who's an Empath (meaning she can adapt her nervous system to someone else's and feel the other person's pain in her own body). Gem's power is tested in order to make the difficult decision to save her own planet or another.

Why Were the Episodes Banned?

These Star Trek episodes were banned by the UK because, according to the BBC, the subject matter was considered too intense for minors due to the themes of disease, torture, madness, sadism, and other unpleasant content that was considered controversial , especially during that time period. The BBC would continue to reject airing these episodes for several years in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet, despite the longtime ban, there were British Star Trek conventions for several fans of the show, including one American fan who brought a copy of "The Empath" to have it screened at the second convention in 1975.

In 1976, there was a convention report mentioning that both "The Empath" and "Miri" were showcased, receiving a positive reception from cheerful fans. Along with conventions, Star Trek fans set up clubs, campaigns, and petitions, writing letters to the BBC urging the corporation to reverse the ban and air all four episodes on television for UK viewers. The BBC continued to ban the episodes, but several fans were able to get their hands on copies of the episodes thanks to the evolution of rental VHS videotapes. The VCR and VHS tapes were examples of new technology that allowed fans to buy and/or rent episodes without having to wait for the BBC's approval (or disapproval), or rely on scheduled programming.

While most fans overall to see all four episodes and disagreed with the ban, there was negative criticism of certain episodes. Bell mentions in his essay that he enjoyed "Miri" and "Whom Gods Destroy," but that "The Empath" and "Plato's Stepchildren" did have distasteful and suggestive content that should be aired later in the evening for mature audiences. Another fan disliked "Whom Gods Destroy" due to the story's average predictability, unconvincing villains, and the typical concept surrounding an asylum. On the contrary, the same fan liked "Plato's Stepchildren" as a unique and outside-the-box episode with strong villains. However, they noted embarrassing moments involving Captain Kirk and his crew committing inappropriate actions, like characters being flirtatious with each other or Kirk crawling on all fours and pretending to neigh like a horse.

Gene Roddenberry (the creator of Star Trek: The Original Series along with a couple of other spin-offs) was adamant in his disapproval of the ban. However, he also stated that shows involving violence and sensual content must be done the right way without senseless inclusions or exaggerations. Gene also argues that TV shows like Star Trek will inevitably have characters and stories with pain and suffering, because everyone goes through it in their daily lives. This proves that Gene is a storyteller who deeply cared about his show and stood by how it was presented to a high-viewing public.

When Was The Ban Lifted?

The ban was finally lifted by the BBC in the early 1990s, thanks to enough complaints from fans of Star Trek to demand the airing of all four episodes. While this case was finally resolved, this is one example of the BBC and how firm the corporation is when it comes to censorship and determining what content they consider watchable and inappropriate for their UK television viewers.

The UK's standards on TV censorship seem to be stricter than those in the U.S. However, the evolution of technology (like VCRs and VHS tapes at that time) and increased fandom and conventions prove that spectators and devoted viewers of shows like Star Trek can make a case for the content they want to see. Perhaps current fandom for the DC Universe can take notice and learn from this situation, so they can argue for the DC characters and stories they intend to view more of in theaters and on the small screen.

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These Star Trek Episodes Were Banned in the U.K. for Almost 20 Years

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The Big Picture

• Star Trek: The Original Series faced censorship in both the U.S. and U.K. due to controversial content, including the first televised interracial kiss.
• The UK's Office of Communications (Ofcom) banned several episodes of The Original Series for nearly 20 years, citing concerns about violence and negative influence on children.
• While later iterations of Star Trek also feature controversial themes like torture and mental illness, they have not faced the same level of censorship as The Original Series .

Censorship has been front of mind in culture recently, as books and other forms of media have come under scrutiny from all sides . As one of the most famous depictions of Utopia, it might seem surprising that Star Trek faced censorship as far back as The Original Series . Networks and regulatory bodies of various nations review content before making it available to the broader public. The United States' Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates our airwaves, and states frequently apply their own added layer of regulatory oversight, causing censorship to be applied unevenly across the country. This is not the case for other countries with more centralized governments.

Star Trek: The Original Series ran from 1966 to 1969, during one of the most culturally tumultuous times in the world. A Utopian picture of a galactic future, the show frequently pushed boundaries. Season 3, Episode 10, “Plato’s Stepchildren,” found itself banned across much of the Southern U.S. for featuring the first televised interracial kiss . Interracial marriage was only legalized across the U.S. in 1967, so as norms shifted, so did censorship . This was not so in the United Kingdom. The regulatory body in charge of television content moderation across the pond, Britain’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) banned four episodes of The Original Series for nearly 20 years .

Star Trek: The Original Series

In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets.

Star Trek's History of Censorship in the U.K.

The hubbub began in 1970, during the initial U.K. run of the Original Series. The BBC aired “Miri” (Season 1, Episode 8) in which the crew of the Enterprise receives a distress call from a planet experiencing a violent plague. They arrive to find that the illness affects only adults, leaving a planet full of children to fend for themselves. Filled with homages to Lord of the Flies , the children are far less innocent than they seem.

Ofcom was flooded with complaints about the violence of the episode and the risk of influencing children to behave with similar malice toward the adults in their lives , especially since The Original Series was considered to be more of a children's show in the U.K. The episode never aired on the BBC again, and the affair led Ofcom to be much more discerning about future episodes. The series’ third season became a particular victim to Ofcom’s censors, with Episodes 10, 12, and 14 of Season 3 being banned from airing entirely , all for similar reasons.

"Whom Gods Destroy" Was Banned in Several Countries for Decades

Season 3, Episode 14, “Whom Gods Destroy,” is an interesting example. The episode was banned from airing in several countries for decades . The U.K. was the last to release the episode, unavailable to British citizens until 1994, but it was banned from Germany and Japan for nearly as long.

In the episode, the Enterprise arrives at Elba II, a Federation asylum for the “criminally insane,” to deliver important medication. Captain Kirk ( William Shatner ) and Science Officer Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ) beam down to meet with the director of the facility, Donald Cory ( Keye Luke ). It quickly becomes clear that he is an impostor who has locked the real Cory in a cell. Fleet Captain Garth ( Steve Ihnat ), a decorated Starfleet officer with violent tendencies and the ability to shapeshift, has led the inmates in a takeover of the facility.

Garth’s intentions are far broader than mere freedom or control of Elba II. He takes Kirk’s form and attempts to have the Enterprise beam him up, but he cannot provide Kirk’s passcode and is denied. Garth attempts multiple forms of coercion to get the code, soliciting the help of Marta ( Yvonne Craig ), an Orion slave, to gain the information through seduction. Garth tortures Kirk and Cory for information. Using misdirection to boost confusion, Garth takes Kirk and Spock’s forms at various points throughout the episode. The episode culminates in Spock shooting the impostor Kirk and Cory administering the medication to cure his patients .

When asked about the decision to ban this episode, the BBC stated they banned the episode because it “dealt most unpleasantly with already unpleasant subjects of madness, torture, sadism, and disease.” The episode is not particularly well-loved and appears on lists of the worst episodes of TOS . It is not derided for what makes it stand out but for its replication of so many Trek tropes. Garth even uses the same torture chair used in Season 1! However, the chair’s first appearance in Episode 9, “Dagger of the Mind,” was not banned in the U.K. It may come as a surprise that nearly no episodes of subsequent Trek shows were banned by U.K. censors , even though torture and mental illness are frequent themes throughout.

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Other Controversial Star Trek Episodes Have Featured Similar Themes

Star Trek is infamous for its depictions of torture, which appear in nearly every Trek series. Nearly every captain falls victim to torture in their career. It is often referential or analogized: the four-light torture of Picard ( Patrick Stewart ) in Star Trek: The Next Generation is iconic in its own right while still paying homage to 1984 , and the Cardassians of Deep Space Nine are clear stand-ins for Nazis. Even 21st-century Treks engage in torture. The agonizer booths of Discovery bear an indisputable resemblance to the torture chairs of TOS.

It is no coincidence that the other two banned episodes from The Original Series S eason 3 featured torture prominently. All three episodes are interesting because the type of torture they feature spans the brain, body, and spirit, which may explain why these episodes were deemed so inappropriate for viewers for so many years. Realistically, the torture in these episodes pales compared to the depiction of torture in later series , but changing social norms have protected those from censors.

Try as it might to build a positive view of the future , depictions of mental health are also a struggle for Trek. Even though the stated purpose of the Enterprise’s trip to Elba II was to deliver a medication that would “cure” the mental illnesses of those imprisoned there, mental illness is another recurring theme throughout the franchise. While most post- TOS depictions of mental illness shy away from characterizations like “criminally insane,” they aren’t totally gone. Voyager 's Lon Suder ( Brad Dourif ), a Betazoid with psychopathic tendencies, is a criminal when he is introduced as a member of the Maquis. He spends most of his time onboard Voyager trying new coping tools for keeping his own violence at bay. If the medication provided at Elba II had worked, it is perplexing why Suder would be so affected. Other depictions of mental illness in later Trek series include Lt. Barclay ( Dwight Schultz ), who is never violent but is depicted as creepy, much like Elim Garak ( Andrew Robinson ) in Deep Space Nine.

Almost no episodes from later Treks have been banned outright by the U.K.’s censors . Many got cut down slightly for excess violence, but the only one to be banned in the second Trek era is one episode of TNG , not for its depictions of torture or violence or mental illness, but for an off-hand reference to a unified Ireland . “Whom Gods Destroy” is an example of how the application of censorship in media changes. In the thirty years the episode has been available in the U.K., no mass hysteria has ensued. Episodes of newer iterations of Trek air without note, even when they include unpleasant depictions of unpleasant topics.

Stream all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series on Paramount+ in the U.S.

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• TV Features

Star Trek: The Banned Episodes

Star Trek: The Banned Episodes is an essay by Stephen Bell about the Star Trek: TOS episodes "Miri," "Plato's Stepchildren," "The Empath," and "Whom Gods Destroy" which were banned in the UK for a time.

The essay was published in Beta-Niobe in February 1985 and gives a little history, describes the four episodes, and ends with the opinion that all four episodes should be shown, but two are objectionable enough to be kept away from the children.

The Article

In the summer of 1984, the BBC announced that they would be showing once more the entire series of Star Trek. It had been several years since the world's most famous SF TY programme had been seen in the UK, and the news was greeted with enthusiasm by its legions of fans. There was also the certainty of capturing an entirely new audience among younger viewers. Although it is not a children's programme, Star Trek's popularity with children cannot be denied. In one respect, however, the BBC's announcement was inaccurate; they have never yet shown the entire series of Star Trek. There are three episodes which have never been seen on TV in the UK, and after one showing in 1970, a fourth had had a similar ban imposed on it. When asked if these four episodes would be included in the current re-run, the BBC replied that they would not, as the content of all four was "considered unsuitable". This reply provoked a storm of protest in the 'Radio Times', to such an extent that the situation is being reviewed with the possibility that the episodes will be shown at a later date. All this must be rather perplexing to anyone who is not a regular fan of the series. How can four episodes from a series which had prime-time scheduling in the conservative American TV networks of the sixties be deemed unsuitable for family-time viewing in the UK in 1984? The problem started when the BBC showed the episode "Miri" in 1970. This provoked such a furor of protest from parents that it has not been shown since. It also prompted them to look very closely at the content of all the other episodes, with the result that three more ('The Empath', 'Whom Gods Destroy' and 'Plato's Stepchildren') were removed from the schedules. Except for the first season episode 'Miri', all of the banned stories are from the programme's third and final season, which by common agreement was the worst and contained some appalling scripts, Whether or not the BBC does decide to show them remains to be seen; but those who feel they have waited long enough will be interested to know that all four episodes are now available on two video cassettes from CIC, After 15 years of waiting, the fans now have a chance to see these notorious episodes. So what is so objectionable about their content, and were the BBC justified in banning them? I saw 'Miri' in 1970, and while I did not think it a particularly good episode, I could see nothing objectionable about it. In this story the Enterprise crew find a formerly civilised planet in a state of advanced decay. Only children still live there, and on entering puberty they succumb to a disease which causes them to age and die rapidly, Kirk, Spock and McCoy discover that the disease is a by-product of experiments in longevity by the planet' inhabitants. The experiments went wrong and all the adults died, leaving the children with a drastically reduced ageing rate. They remain as children for about 300 years, and then the ageing process suddenly accelerates. Aided by Miri, one of the children, Kirk persuades them to trust him and McCoy develops a cure for the disease. Parents apparently assumed that this story was a bad influence on their children. The point to make here is that Star Trek is not, and never has been, a children's programme, and the story is science fiction sufficiently removed from reality to make such complaints groundless. 'Whom Gods Destroy', probably the best of the four, sees Kirk and Spock trapped on a planet used as a lunatic asylum which has been taken over by Garth, a former starship captain who is now one of the inmates. Garth has insane delusions of immortality and conquest, and tries to force Kirk to reveal the code phrase which will provide him with the chance to take over the Enterprise. He has developed the power to transmute his appearance, and masquerades as both Kirk and Spock in turn in an attempt to trick his way aboard the starship. The story has one or two surprises and this is quite an enjoyable episode. The ban on it is completely unjustified. By contrast, 'Plato's Stepchildren' must rank as one of the series' most execrable episodes. Beings with telekinetic powers order McCoy to remain on their planet as their full-time doctor, since they have no medics of their own and a small scratch can prove fatal to them, when he refuses, the beings use their mental powers to force Kirk and Spock into undergoing humiliating and degrading actions until McCoy agrees to stay. We are subjected to the sight of Spook doing a tap dance and crooning a romantic ballad, and Kirk crawling around on all fours neighing like a horse. The aliens bring down Uhura and Nurse Chapel from the ship and force them into passionate embraces with Kirk and Spock. Aided by the aliens' servant, a dwarf who hates his masters and does not possess their powers, Kirk and Spock discover the secret of the telekinetic power and use it themselves to defeat their tormentors. It is difficult to understand how such a bad script was ever accepted, and the scenes of humiliation are embarrassingly pathetic. Finally we turn to 'The Empath' which, although quite an interesting story, is definitely the grimmest episode of the whole series. Two aliens conduct a bizarre experiment involving Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a mute alien girl called Gem. Gem is an Empath, a being capable of attuning her nervous system to that of another and absorbing the other person's pain and injuries into her own body. At the end we discover that Gem's planet is one of several threatened by a star going nova. The two aliens have the power to save only one planet, and the object of their experiment is to discover whether Gem is willing to sacrifice her own life by absorbing fatal injuries from another, thereby demonstrating her race's fitness to be saved. The injuries are inflicted by the aliens on McCoy, who in the process is subjected tc appalling torture. Spock's subsequent diagnosis of his condition leaves little to the imagination. McCoy is later restored to full health, but the story is not by any means a pleasant one. To sum up, then, I believe that 'Miri' and 'Whom Gods Destroy' contain nothing to offend; but 'Plato's Stepchildren' and 'The Empath' have a certain nastiness about them, both implicit and explicit . I would not ban them, but I do believe that a later evening broadcast time would be better; certainly I do not think they should be shown in the early evening time slot of 5.10 which the BBC selected for the latest re-run.

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Miri was a young woman from a planet originally almost identical to 1960s Earth . Like all survivors on her world , Miri was infected with the life prolongation project . When a landing party from the USS Enterprise encountered her in 2266 , she was over three hundred years old.

The landing party discovered Miri hiding in an abandoned building. When first encountered, she was terrified of these " Grups ", and begged them not to hurt her. Eventually, they won her trust. From her, they learned that the grups had become insane , and the children, or " Onlies ", learned to fear them and hide from them.

The landing party had become infected with the life prolongation project, and could not return to the ship . Miri helped them find the building where scientific research had been conducted, and performed various small tasks for them, mostly because she had developed a crush on Captain Kirk .

Ultimately, Miri became jealous when she saw Kirk embracing Janice Rand , who was crying in fear of the disease — having now contracted it herself. Miri took this the wrong way and arranged with the other Onlies to kidnap Rand. Kirk managed to convince Miri to take him to the children by explaining to her that she and the rest of the surviving onlies would eventually develop the fatal disease when they reach puberty, and before then, starvation would likely kill the younger Onlies. Miri was starting to develop the disease on one of her arms, but she was cured of the infection by a vaccine developed by Doctor McCoy .

When the Enterprise left their world, Miri and the other Onlies were left in the care of a team of medical specialists from the Enterprise , with teachers , advisors , and (hopefully, according to McCoy) truant officers en route. ( TOS : " Miri ")

• 1.1 Background information
• 1.2 Apocrypha
• 1.3 External links

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

Miri was played by actress Kim Darby .

In the first draft of the "Miri" teleplay, Miri had more of a relationship with Jahn than is depicted on screen. In their distorted reality, Miri was similar to Wendy from Peter Pan , while Jahn represented the titular character from that story. Also, when the Onlies learned she was approaching the end of her childhood, Miri was denounced, by them individually, as an unsuitable playmate. ( The Star Trek Compendium , 4th ed., p. 42)

In the final draft script of "Miri", the character of Miri was initially described as "a young girl" with a "pretty face" and "lovely eyes." The script also regarded her as having hidden "maternal instincts." It was also established that she used to play with a boy creature that the Enterprise landing party encounters prior to meeting Miri, and that the house where she is found by the landing party used to be her home (an abode which was described, in the scripted stage directions, as "middle class"). Even in the final draft script, there was more between Miri and Jahn than in the final version of the episode, with the teleplay stating about them, " There is something between these two – 300 years ago, if everything hadn't gone wrong, they would have been childhood sweethearts, we feel. Somewhere deep inside of them, they know this, too. "

Apocrypha [ ]

In the novel The Cry of the Onlies , Miri was still on the Onlies' homeworld when Jahn rebelled against the Federation educators left there to help the Onlies into adulthood; she and several other Onlies were killed as a result of Jahn starting a fight by grabbing a security guard's phaser . Kirk is devastated by the news, so much that Spock mind melds with him to temporarily suppress his memories of his role in Rayna 's "death" before the Enterprise rendezvous with Flint , calculating that two such traumatic memories would be more than Kirk could handle at once.

The William Shatner novel Preserver featured a return to this planet, wherein it was revealed the planet had been duplicated from Earth on a subatomic level by the Preservers . However, Forgotten History states that various subspace anomalies indicated the planet was from an alternate timeline.

External links [ ]

• Miri at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Calypso (episode)

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10 Star Trek Episodes That Were Banned

Frist of a four-parter here, with episodes of the Star Trek Original Series that were deemed unsuitable for audiences by the BBC. While each has their own "offending" themes and scenes, the core of the problem was that the UK broadcaster thought of Star Trek as a children's show, and would thus screen it for anything it felt too mature a topic.

Easily the tamest of the four is Miri, a Season 1 episode that sees the crew encounter a Lord Of The Flies-inspired society comprised entirely of children. All the planet's adults have perished from some lethal, unknown plague, and the episode does throw in the odd violent scene, but besides that, there's nothing remotely troublesome from a visual perspective.

The problem with the episode though was it focused on large groups of orphaned children facing their deaths from either the virus that killed their parents or simply just starvation. The BBC insisted the episode didn't do enough to soften the edges of this grim subject matter and refused to show it.

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekS1E8Miri

Recap / Star Trek S1 E8 "Miri"

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Original air date: October 27, 1966

The Enterprise answers a distress beacon from a planet that seems to be a carbon copy of Earth. No one answers their hails, so they beam down to investigate. What they find looks like downtown Detroit on a bad day. As Bones forlornly inspects a decaying tricycle, a strange person covered in blue lesions attacks him. The person cries over the broken trike after being wrestled into submission. And then he dies. Further searching brings them to a building where a young girl named Miri ( Kim Darby ) has been hiding in a closet. She tells the landing party about the "Grups" who all got sick and killed each other. Even the animals died, leaving the "Onlies", children of pre-pubescent age.

Soon after, Kirk realizes he has a blue lesion on his hand. They have to find a way to cure the disease, to save themselves and all the Onlies. Unfortunately, their communicators have been stolen by Miri's friend Jahn, the little bast—uh, scamp!

• Actor Allusion : Janice Rand says she always wanted Kirk to notice her legs. The Starfleet costumes went from sensible slacks in the second pilot ("Where No Man Has Gone Before") to miniskirts solely because Grace Lee Whitney complained they were hiding her "dancer's legs".
• Adult Hater : The Onlies are violently suspicious of all adults who they refer too as "Grups".
• A planet that is an identical copy of Earth, right down to the same positions of the continents. Despite this startling and very implausible discovery, the planet doesn't have much relevance to the plot itself.
• When James Blish wrote the novelization of the episode, he changed the planet to being a long lost human colony that lost contact with Earth, and not an identical copy. The plot of the story largely remained the same. He was working from early drafts of the script.
• And in the book Forgotten History , it's explained as being a displaced Earth from an alternate timeline that ended up in the main timeline somehow.
• The Before Times : The Trope Namer , in regards to the times before The Virus killed all of the adults.
• Big "NO!" : Shouted by Rand when she realizes she has lesions, too. Miri also when Kirk points out one on her arm.
• Blah, Blah, Blah : Used by the children as a stock response whenever any of the crew tries to tell them something.
• Cobweb of Disuse : Spock and Kirk pull the hospital files (as in, manila envelopes) out of 300 years of cobwebs. Did the disease spare the spiders?
• Continuity Nod : To "The Enemy Within", as Kirk is deeply uneasy being alone with a crying Janice, and awkwardly pats her on the back in a crappy version of a hug.
• Creepy Child / Enfant Terrible : The Onlies, even if they're Really 700 Years Old .
• Creepy Children Singing : Combined with Mocking Sing-Song .
• Creepy Doll : One hangs in the window of the building where the Onlies hang out.
• Depopulation Bomb : A genetic engineering project got out of hand and killed off everyone over puberty. The children are still around, because the intended effect of the project was to drastically slow the rate of aging and it worked fine on anyone it didn't kill, at least till you reach puberty.
• Disaster Scavengers : How the children have survived for over 300 years. Kirk and his team note that the surviving canned goods are starting to run short and that the children will soon starve to death unless they intervene.
• Emotional Maturity Is Physical Maturity : The locals not only look like children, but act like children, despite being many times older than Kirk or his friends.
• Fiery Redhead : Jahn, the little ginger brat!
• Future Slang : Adults are "Grups" (a corruption of "grown up") and children are "Onlies" because they're the only living beings left. "Foolie" is a violent game with about as much structure as Calvin Ball .
• Ghost City : The place where Kirk and crew first beam down.
• Green-Eyed Monster : Miri betrays Kirk to the other Onlies after she sees Kirk give Rand a comforting hug.
• Growing Up Sucks : Especially when it means you're gonna die.
• Hand Wave : An infamous one. The concept of an alternate version of Earth existing elsewhere in the galaxy is invented just to explain why the outdoors scenes were filmed on the Desilu Productions backlot.
• Hate Plague : The disease causes its victims to be progressively short-tempered, culminating in outright violence.
• Held Gaze : Kirk and Spock held each others' gaze for a full twelve seconds, in complete silence, as the camera flicked back and forth between closeups of their faces, after engaging in extremely flirty dialogue.
• Hero Antagonist : Jahn. Annoying little brat though he may be, he had every reason to suspect the landing party’s motives and to assume that they would be just as much of a threat to the Onlies as all the other Grups had been, and that they needed to protect themselves. Had McCoy not managed to find a cure in time, he would have been right (it would have been somewhat academic by then, as the Onlies would have run out of food within months, but Jahn didn't know that either).
• He Who Fights Monsters : The children accused their adult overlords of violence. Then they inflict violence on Kirk and make him bleed, and he proceeds to point this out.
• Immortal Immaturity : The Onlies still act like children despite being hundreds of years old.
• Long-Lived : Due to the effect of a life-prolonging virus, the children are three hundred years old.
• Mocking Sing-Song : The Onlies are fond of annoying Kirk and co. with the standard "Nyah Nyah!"
• Mysterious Waif : The eponymous Miri.
• Never Land : The episode contains a fairly dark example: a planet of long-lived, unaging children who sicken and die upon reaching long-delayed adolescence.
• Nightmare Face : The face of anyone who is in the last stages of the fatal disease.
• Older Than They Look : The children on Miri's planet are all much older than they look, with Miri herself being over 300 years old in 2266.
• Only Fatal to Adults : The plague doesn't affect children; Spock theorizes that the changes involved in puberty are a factor in susceptibility.
• The Plague : The disease that killed all the adults.
• Precocious Crush : Miri has one on Kirk. He tells her she's pretty, but he may be flattering her in order to get her to be more co-operative.
• Professor Guinea Pig : Our heroes are trapped on a planet and slowly dying from a disease that kills all adults. The McCoy has mixed up what may very well be the antidote. Only problem is, he's not sure, and the only way to be sure is to check the Enterprise 's computers, which can't be done because the local Creepy Children have stolen the communicators. What to do? Why, wait until Spock leaves and inject yourself, of course!
• Really 700 Years Old : Miri appears to be a chestless 12-and-a-half-year-old. Actually, she's at least 300 years old.
• Red Shirt : Averted; not only do the two in the episode survive to the end, but they don't even get visibly sick. McCoy tries out the antidote; the one who doesn't come in with Spock comes in with Kirk and the crowd of Onlies, hidden near the back.-->
• Rules of Orphan Economics : The Onlies have been living out of the supplies left by the original colony for three hundred years. Captain Kirk tells them they would not be able to survive much longer this way, because the food's running out. Some fans speculate that they could have made it a while longer. Many children are capable of learning to take care of themselves, and space colonists would have emphasized this. Learning how to plant and grow food in gardens would have been a big deal; they would even have had books on it, and older kids would have taught younger ones to do this. Whether they'd have the patience to do so, however...
• Selective Obliviousness : When Kirk tries to convince Miri that every single one of the Onlies will eventually catch the disease and turn into a feral Grup, she desperately insists that it only happens "sometimes". Kirk manages to get through to her by pointing out the blotches that have begun appearing on her own skin.
• Shaming the Mob : ...is easy when they're all emotionally under 13. Kirk pointed out that he was hurt and bleeding and it's their fault. They've become no better than the Grups who murdered each other.
• Staring Kid : When the Onlies gang up on Kirk, one girl in a green wig just stares dispassionately.
• Still Wearing the Old Colors : Jahn wears an army jacket. Given his age, it's unlikely he was in any branch of the (now obviously defunct) military.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome : Everyone warns Kirk that manipulating a three hundred year old childlike girl entering puberty will end badly and with her thinking she's in love with him. And it does, despite him thinking she just wants comfort, she's upset when she sees him (awkwardly) hugging Janice, betraying him to the other kids and scornfully calling him "Mr Lovey Dovey".
• Technicolor Science : The laboratory where McCoy studies the virus includes an elaborate set of tubes containing a bubbling blue liquid with no apparent purpose beyond adding visual interest.
• Teenage Wasteland : A planet where a virus had killed off all the adults, leaving the children to look after themselves.
• There Are No Adults : See above.
• Typhoid Mary : Due to his Bizarre Alien Biology , Spock cannot be infected by the disease but he can carry it.
• Transatlantic Equivalent : Really cool coincidence: Two days after the airing of this episode, over in Great Britain Doctor Who would air the fourth episode of " The Tenth Planet ", a serial that featured a twin-planet of Earth and one of the main characters dying of a slow-acting disease.
• For that matter, Star Trek has frequently used stock sets and background locations without bothering with such an explanation; just because the buildings and rocks generally look like Earth buildings and rocks doesn't mean the entire planet has to have the exact same geography as Earth.
• We Will Not Have Pockets in the Future : Not made explicit, but affects the plot in its own way. When the entire crew leaves to investigate a noise, their communicators are all left on tables, allowing them to be stolen. Actually a point in Roddenberry's initial concept for the show; "A Starfleet officer should never be seen putting anything in his pockets," because they don't have any. Hence the use of velcro (standing in for a more futuristic technology) to attach things to people's belts.
• Eventually explained, decades later, in reference materials. A Federation scientist studying this planet discovered that at some point in the past, the Sol system passed through a Negative Space Wedgie that caused the entire solar system to be duplicated at the subatomic level. One nearly perfect duplicate (this planet) was created near the center of the anomaly, while two less perfect duplicates (the planet featured in " The Omega Glory " and the 20th-century Roman planet in " Bread and Circuses ") were created closer to the edges — the duplicates appearing out of subspace in different areas. All ended up diverging from Earth at different points in history, with the nearly perfect duplicate being identical to Earth until the mid 20th century. It should be noted that Voyager encountered a Negative Space Wedgie very similar to this, which resulted in near-perfect duplication of the ship. The presence of the anomalies actually explain "Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planet Development" proposed in the original series.
• Star Trek S1 E7 "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
• Star Trek S1 E9 "Dagger of the Mind"

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Star Trek: The Original Series

“Miri”

Air date: 10/27/1966 Written by Adrian Spies Directed by Vincent McEveety

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

The Enterprise encounters a planet that is an exact duplicate of the Earth, but a place where all the adults are dead, leaving behind children who age incredibly slowly ("one month every 100 years"). The problem: These children all have a disease causing them to die the moment they surpass puberty. The other problem: Kirk and the landing party have now contracted the disease, and must race against the clock in finding the cure before they die. Unfortunately, it's not much of race. "Miri" feels long, slow, and surprisingly uneventful (to the point where Kirk's speech near the end is particularly hard to sit through), and has far too many lapses in logic to make the emotional core ring true.

The notion of an "exact duplicate of the Earth" is put to absolutely no interesting use, and exists, apparently, for no other reason than so the plot could have a setting of "Earth, 1960." I had too many questions involving the children, like, just how is it they've managed to survive so long, yet don't have the capacity to grow beyond their childish ways? That's the paradox, and the story even acknowledges it at one point, but not effectively or believably on the given terms.

Still, just to hear Spock ominously say, "Without [the computer analysis of the vaccine], it could be a beaker full of death" [cue music of doom], makes it almost worth the hour spent.

Previous episode: What Are Little Girls Made Of? Next episode: Dagger of the Mind

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64 comments on this post.

I liked the "And I do want to return to the ship, Captain," Spock moment. Another great moment was when McCoy tests the vaccine on himself and collapses. Spock runs to him and can't really do anything, but just stays with him. Then he's got that great line, "I will never understand the medical mind." It's a good Spock-McCoy moment, building up that third side of the triangle. By the way, should this be a vaccine? Shouldn't it be an antidote? Isn't it a little late to vaccinate them against the disease?

I wonder how many exact duplicates of Earth are located in, say, the Klingon Empire. 'Cause there's plenty in Federation space.

I thought this was one episode I basically would have to suffer through - annoying children, an unbelievable plot set on a planet that looks like earth ca. 1960 - but it turned out I liked it much more than I expected. Particularly I enjoyed the scenes with Miri and Kirk - her infatuation was completely credible and well acted and he showed great character in dealing with her. I guess I still remember what it's like to be a young girl with a crush. Sometimes plots and scenes that deal with females motions come across as incredibly awkward or even silly in Star Trek (I won't make a guess as to why that is....), but this was well done by all involved. But weren't those kids just terribly annoying! Kirk is a much better human than I could ever be. I would have left the annoying brats to die (kidding... sort of...)

*with females motions* make that "female emotions". Sorry.

This is also the episode that gave us Kirk's immortal line "No Blah Blah Blah!" which rivals "Brain and brain, what is brain?" for the best of the worst lines of the entire series.

The episode was Ok overall. But what bugs me the most is the whole "exact duplicate of Earth" thing, which they never even tried to discuss further, let alone explain. I mean the continents were the same and everything, and they commented on it leading up to the opening credits. . .and then they never discussed it again. Why? Why not just have the same plot on a planet that happened to NOT be an exact duplicate of Earth? And the children could be aliens that are only slightly different from humans. Just seemed odd that they introduced and hilighted this huge plot detail and completely left it alone.

I found this to be an excellent episode. Very grotesque, creepy and horrific, especially for 1960s TV. Note too that the episode's post apocalyptic zombie themes predate even Romero's "Night of the Living Dead".

Agreed... the whole creepy kid thing worked well to me. I can see where many would be put off by this ep and rate it low but its always been 1 of my favorites. Somebody should take clips from this and set it to a rob zombie song. Id pay 99 cents for that. 3+ stars.

Minus the unnecessary and bizarre duplicate Earth thing, I liked "Miri" pretty good. It was well-acted, especially by the two lead children. In fact, it might be one of the best children-focused Trek episodes in all five series. I liked how our crew encounters all sorts of dangers -- beings of godlike powers, but also a wild band of kids could bring them down if they didn't keep up their guard.

Actually Jammer, the psychology and brain makeup of children is demonstrably, significantly different of that of adults. Even after 300 years, their society might still differ from what we would expect of adults...though I agree this episode doesn't render the concept in a way that rings true.

Just watched this episode. I, too, was annoyed by the whole unnecessary "duplicate earth". And also pretty annoyed that the entire crew left their "cell phones" when they walked out of the room. Really?!?! But other than those two things, I liked it overall. Though there were times they didn't ask questions that I thought they should. Also… seemed like the Doc would have been more involved with things, but perhaps I'm nitpicking now. That said… I seem to remember running into a bunch of kids like this in Fallout 3 (or maybe New Vegas). Not sure if it was a direct homage to this episode, but I found it interesting.

Captain I was always trying to get you to look at my legs, captain look at my legs!!! (Kirk looks upon legs with diease with doom music in background)......oh the burdens of being the captain!!!! Makes me laugh everytime!!

I should have listened to Jammer. I am doing a selective rewatch of the series with my kids, using these reviews as a guide, but I think there was something in the premise and in the comments that gave me hope that we should try this one. But both my kids fell asleep halfway through, and I had to fight off the drowsiness myself. Just slow and boring. Also, the interaction between Kirk and Miri was kind of creepy; and Yeoman Rand exuded all kinds of sexist stereotypes. The only thing that really held my interest was that some of the kids looked familiar. Particularly Miri and the older boy; and to some extent the bucktoothed younger boy.

@SlackerInc: Funny you mention that; one of the little girls was Bill Shatner's daughter. See Memory Alpha, "On the Set": en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Miri_%28episode%29

I'm re-watching TOS , and started with the most well-regarded episodes and with my personal favorites. Now I'm going through the rest of the not-so-hot episodes. This one is dull and creepy, with an "ick" factor regarding Kirk's manipulation of Miri's crush on him. Looks like he's grooming her for something. I agree with others that the "duplicate Earth" thing was a clanger--all they had to do was say the planet was an M-type, and they could have made it look a little like Earth without showing the continents…and it would have been fine. Also thought that all four leaving their communicators in the empty room was an obvious device to move the plot forward. The crew never would have done that. (And didn't the two redshirts have communicators? Where did they go, anyway?) But it's worth watching, sort of, for Spock's line about the "Beaker of Death!!" Hahahahaha.

grumpy_otter

I pretty much agree with what others have said--I'd just like to point out that Miri is played by the talented Kim Darby, well-known for her Oscar-worthy performance in "True Grit." I think her nuanced performance shines in this otherwise tedious episode.

@Grumpy "I wonder how many exact duplicates of Earth are located in, say, the Klingon Empire. 'Cause there's plenty in Federation space." The writers created the fictitious "Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development" to "explain" why all the aliens were humanoid and all the "town" location shooting ("Miri," "Return of the Archons," "The City on the Edge of Forever") was done on the studio's back lot. Notably, this "Hodgkin's Law" was never mentioned in any of the subsequent incarnations of Star Trek.

I'm with Jammer on this one; this episode is slowwwww. Everything was boring, whether it be Bones and Spock trying to find a cure or Miri crushing on Kirk or the other "kids" (seriously, the oldest one looked about 30 years old) threatening Kirk. Yes, this is probably a matter of preference, but I think part of the problem was that the plot can't really sustain a full episode. For the overall plot, it's a tale as old as dirt. Seriously, mankind tries to gain godlike powers and fails miserably; just how often can you find that story? That's not to say that you can't come up with a new version of this plot, but the show doesn't actually do anything with it, given that everyone's dead. None of the children seem to know anything about what happened, so we don't see any insight into the people who worked on this doomed project. Ever read the Bible story about the Tower of Babel (another example of this plot)? It's about 8 sentences long. That's pretty much the extent of the depth we have on this story. It's understandable, given the approach this episode has. But it means that the sci-fi concept of "and man grew proud" has all the merit for this episode as the infamous "dual earth" part of it. What about the planet of children aspect? Well, the kids were freaking annoying. Was their plot regarding attacking the Enterprise crew worthwhile? Was Kirk convincing them to stop antagonizing them really a worthwhile plot? Honestly, it all just felt like padding. We didn't really see enough of them to get a true Lord of the Flies like atmosphere, so never felt like enough of a plot. They are antagonistic because, well, grownups are scary I guess, then kidnap Kirk, then listen to Kirk. Hooray, I guess? That leaves the finding a cure plot and the Miri crush plot. The first is necessary but frankly boring (not sure how to make it more exciting, but some more interplay between Spock and Bones would have helped, showing them working together despite their animosity. I guess the drama about McCoy testing the cure on himself redeems it somewhat.). The second is a little bit disturbing, given the age of Miri (emotional and physical age, that is). I guess they tried to just play it off as cute, but, it still didn't seem to be able to carry an episode. Miri has crush, then gets jealous, then does something stupid because of the jealousy, then gets better. That's about it. So not the most exciting stuff here. And that's not to factor in all of the oddities of the episode as well. Yes, everyone mocks the mirror Earth thing, but what a coincidence that the children survived all along at the city that sent out the distress signal, and was also the city that had all the research to find the cure! Also, pretty useful, plot-wise, that one kid got the disease just before the Enterprise arrived so we could see what would happen and create some mystery, and that Miri was just about to get the disease too. What are the odds? Also convenient that Rand came along for absolutely no reason other than to get Miri jealous. Did she or any other yeoman ever go on another away mission? Also, what's with the security guards? They just disappear and reappear at random times throughout the story. Are they not cool enough to get communicators of their own? Pretty convenient that they weren't around providing security when the kids stole the communicators, and also convenient that they didn't have their communicators with them wherever they were. One last point that was never brought up during the episode, which did seem kinda curious. These kids are 300 years old. The brains of children are, of course, quite adept at learning. Have they really just been playing games for 300 years? I realize that there are no adults, and that they probably weren't that mature when this plague started, but no one tried learning how to be an adult in all this time? There wasn't a quiet kid who liked school in the bunch? I wonder how a 300 year old child would really act, because I doubt it would be like this. Oh well, can't fault the episode for not going in that direction.

I quite liked this episode, but the oldest male "child" looked about 30!

Just saw the episode for the 2nd time in the last 3 months or so. I liked it more the 2nd time than the 1st time but it's not a particularly strong episode. The kids are annoying and I'm not sure why they need to band together under the leadership of the oldest male kid. I liked the Kirk-Miri-Rand subplot and Kirk reasoning with the kids with Miri's help. Rand has played a high-profile role in the first few episodes of Season 1 - she's a good actress though not particularly useful. Of course, plenty of questions about what 300-year-old kids would actually be like - maybe the virus prevented them from learning and maturing despite still being in kids bodies? It would have been good to get more insight into the grown-ups who created the virus. Anyhow, 2.5/4 stars for me -- interesting idea, some good parts but kind of a slow episode with not that much happening.

I would venture to guess those complaining about the Miri-crush on Kirk as "disturbing" or "creepy" are a) men (who have no idea what this feeling is, because they conveniently forget when they had this exact same thing when they were young teens with a very good-looking adult woman in their life) and/or b) have never worked with kids of that age before (as a teacher, etc.), because a young girl getting a puppy-love crush on an older man, especially one she looks up to, is entirely believable, real, and occurs every day with human beings. The "disturbing" or "creepy" part would be if the man used that crush to take advantage (romantically, of course, or even with just plain power-abuse, like using her infatuation to con her out of money, etc.), which Kirk patently does NOT do in this episode. So, I guess, I'd just say to all the witch-hunters: pack your torches and pitchforks and go home, because every interaction between an adult male and a female child is NOT the sick and perverted fantasy created by your own minds that you think it to be.

Sometimes the best part of watching TOS is that it’s like attending a reunion: all these familiar people that I haven’t seen in forever. In this particular episode: Kim Darby and Michael J Pollard. (Michael J Fox at one point claimed that he took the middle initial J because of Pollard. I think Darby was probably about 20 here, and Pollard not quite 30.) I think the crush is believable And Kirk handled it okay. And yes, a duplicate earth, if you’re going there, you should use it better. As a kid, I watched TOS occasionally in its original run and then in syndication. And seeing it all these years later, it’s clear that TV storytelling has evolved and that some stories don’t hold up. And yet they’re still better than some stuff that’s being created today. And knowing what I know now and didn’t then, I was awfully worried for those red-shirts when they started wandering about on their own.

I think this episode is pretty good (probably 2.5 stars). As others have pointed out, the "duplicate earth" thing is probably unnecessary and no attempt is made to explain it. Also, I too found it implausible that 300 year olds would still act like children, even if they are in the bodies of children. Of course, we are dealing with an alien race (even though they look just look humans on a duplicate Earth) so their psychology may be somewhat different. Even Kirk contradicts himself in this episode, saying at one point that children need guidance and that they were dealing with children - immensely old children perhaps, but still children. Then at the end of the episode, when Rand expresses concern leaving the alien "children" to fend for themselves, Kirk says there are "children - hundreds of years old. They'll be fine." (I'm paraphrasing, I don't recall Kirk's exact words, but I'm sure my point is made.) Interesting bit of trivia: Two of the guest actors in this show are Grace Lee Whitney's sons, and as mentioned by a poster above, Shatner's daughter appears in this episode. She's the little girl Kirk is carrying toward the end of the episode.

So, they want to know how to make it so this disease doesn't kill kids when they hit puberty. Why not just study this Jahn guy, since he's clearly way past puberty and he hasn't been afflicted yet?!

Did I miss the explanation for how this second Earth came to.... be? Kirk flirting relentlessly with Miri. That's not creepy. (come on I do know these crushes happen but the adult reciprocating and calling them pretty? I'm pretty darn sure they didn't intend it to come across this way, but eww) Once she starts "becoming a woman" he immediately sets her to work cleaning desks and sharpening pencils! "I never get involved with older women" doesn't help him either. And indeed a rather slow episode. I do like the Spock+McCoy moments though.

Star Trek does the zombie apocalypse in Miri, but ekes genuine warmth and drama out of it. Great episode that Leonard Nimoy once called a lovely and sensitive story, and I agree with him. It's also perhaps the first in a long line of "Kirk, McCoy, and Spock get stranded and must work together to survive" shows -- in this case with Yeoman Rand and two red shirts for company. I give it 3 1/2 or 4 stars. Great guest stars here in Kim Darby (True Grit!) and Michael J. Pollard, who effect memorable characters. And I must say, rewatching these early episodes, that Grace Lee Whitney has real personality and chemistry as Yeoman Janice Rand -- she's very feminine but with a fiery personality that comes through when her eyes flash. She and Shatner play well off each other, continuing to keep their relationship on a professional level even at this point where it's clear that they both have feelings for each other, and I can see why Whitney was brough back for several cameos in the Star Trek movies after leaving the show prematurely in Season One. The Spock-McCoy stuff is fun to watch, with McCoy's selfless humanism coming through in his willingness to test the "beaker of death" (love that Spock line) on himself and Spock's dry humorous-yet-reverential comment (McCoy has clearly earned his respect, almost against his own better judgment) later about "the medical mind." In this case, Kirk kind of stays in the middle while they fight things out, and it's fun stuff. Spock's line "and I *do* want to return to the ship" is also a great one in a particularly well-written script. No Sulu, Scotty, or Uhura in this one, unfortunately, but we hardly notice since it's a McCoy-Spock-Kirk show. Side note: While it's true the women characters on TOS often serve food and coffee, as Rand does in her capacity as yeoman, it's also noteworthy here that Uhura's assistant/backup comm officer is a white man -- it's not strictly a "woman's job" to run the communications system. Little touches like this one remind us how TOS often subverted gender and racial divisions right under the noses of censors -- and why some families refused to watch the show in the 1960s because of its racial and gender integration. But above all else, the story to "Miri" is an endlessly fascinating classic Sci-Fi yarn, inviting us to consider the moral implications of pushing science beyond moral limits for the sake of human vanity -- the idea here is to that people of present-day Earth (circa the episode's air date) accidentally wiped out the whole planet's population while pursuing a medical means of prolonging life indefinitely. Far from creating the Zombie apocalypse through a nuclear war, the people of this alternate earth created it through self-improvement medicine, and it's really clever how the disease partially succeeded by elongating the life of children until they reach puberty and are hyper-accelerated into a zombielike adulthood that kills them. So there's kind of a space allegory about puberty here, too, playing on adolescent fears that adulthood will kill us because we're not ready for it. And the traumatized "elderly children" (love Kirk's "never date older women" quip to Rand at the end regarding Miri's crush) are clearly terrified and in distress, leading them to attack Kirk out of fear and confusion. All of this stuff, including Miri's girlish crush on Kirk and Kirk's efforts to earn her trust for the sake of the landing party, is astonishingly well-observed in human terms. There's even some real emotion in the Kirk-Rand scene, and in the escalating conflicts among the landing party when the disease wears them down, as things gradually start looking desperate. Very nice to see a real sense of danger on Star Trek, a hallmark of TOS. As for the alleged plot holes, I really have to say with all due respect -- as a lifelong Star Trek fan who has seen every episode and movie of every series -- that I think we fans really start to lose the point when we insist on a line of dialogue to explain away every little uncertainty or unresolved thread in an episode. The point of TOS is to provide an abstract allegory, to raise more questions than it answers in order to make viewers think, and it's far more nourishing to the imagination to leave certain details (like what did the kids eat to survive?) unexplained rather than invent a technobabble solution -- see TNG, Voyager, and Enterprise for over-explanations if you're more concerned to harmonize the fictional universe of this franchise into a coherent self-contained bubble than to think about the big issues it raises. Watch TOS if you're more concerned to wrestle with big questions as you get to know a very warm and lovable cast of characters -- questions like how to care for traumatized children while working harmoniously with different personalities to save yourselves from the Zombie apocalypse that killed them and fend off a girl's first crush. And questions like whether there are any moral limits to risky procedures to prolong life, beauty, and other passing things which make us who we are as human beings.

PS -- And I almost forgot to mention the most sumblime Shatner moment in the episode: His showdown with the "Lord of the Flies" gang at the end while they hold Rand hostage is a classic. It even gets scary when the kids start beating him, a rare shocking moment on Star Trek when you see Kirk's life is possibly in danger from a distressed group of children who have bruised and bloodied him. But Shatner is brilliant in this one, playing it straight, and his desperation escalates gradually in each scene of the story -- he progresses from amused to concerned, from irritable to despairing, and finally from desperate to heroic with great believability. It's probably one of the strongest Kirk character arcs of any episode in the series, when you think about it, because Shatner really gives you a sense of Kirk's helplessness in this one.

Yes, indeed, Spock's comment about "a beaker of death" always prompted my friends and I to yell at the screen, laughing as others have for its over-the-top drama, but also because, "Dammit, Spock, it's an Erlenmeyer flask!" Surprised that Spock didn't also hold an A-7 Expert Classification in Chemistry. He was, after all, the flagship Enterprise's Science Officer, not just its Computer Science Officer. Great points about going out of its way to tell us, "Another Earth!" and then drop the meme completely. I guess I'd understand if I was ever tasked with cranking out an episode a week for national broadcast. I wonder if original scripts (before editing) exist. Seems like such a cavernous hole, more of a "collaboration" error than one of originality. I liked the episode, the acting, Rand's part, and the Spock-McCoy development.

Surprised at the negativity here. I've always regarded this as one of the better episodes from the season; it's like a creepy, post-apocalyptic Lord of the Flies, with some very graphic Zombie make-up effects thrown in. Some have complained about the episode being set on Earth. I thought the writers did this deliberately, the episode like a giant metaphor for our earth dying when man leaves aside his youth, love and innocense for adult forays into greed and desire.

What a prize for the Federation, another Earth to colonise.

Anyone else see Kirk toss that bucktooth kid to the floor? That looked pretty real.

This episode just gives me the opportunity to say what my main pet peeve of Star Trek. It is noted this was a M-Class Planet. Then they follow it up with a planet with a Earth-like conditions, climate, water, and oxygen just like Earth. Isn't that what a M-Class planet means?? There is no reason to say it is just like Earth. That's what the classification is for. Speaking of which, what planet have the crew ever visited that wasn't M-Class? Even the frozen planet in the Episode where Kirk was split into two Kirk's in a transporter malfunction, was Earth like. In Siberia. Bonk, Bonk.

fluffysheap

There are a lot of complaints in the review and thread about the planet, but don't forget just how early in the run of TOS this episode was. 50+ years later, we're all used to seeing planets where everyone looks and acts human, and everyone knows what a class-M planet is. But viewers of the day were new to it all. This was the first episode in all of Star Trek where the crew meets human-looking aliens, and only the second episode (or third, if you count "The Cage") where they meet aliens of any sort, besides Spock of course. So the "duplicate of Earth" planet does have a purpose, it's lampshading the fact that these "aliens" are basically just humans. Eventually, of course, this would go from a curiosity to a trope, and they stopped bothering to try to explain it. But here, it was still necessary to explain.

Am watching this episode for (I think) the first time. I've only seen a few episodes of TOS in the past; this is the first time I'm sitting down and watching it in sequence. Based on this, however, I'm questioning whether it will be worth it. This episode has the worst and least coherent writing I've ever seen anywhere. Why do the children keep wanting to kill Kirk? Is it purely because he is acting like an adult schoolteacher? When we first hear the word "Only" used to describe the children, it is as if it is a natural part of the language; as though we are already meant to know what it means in that context, but I don't. The icing on the cake here was the theft of ALL FOUR communicators. ALL of them are going to be left unattended on the table? Said communicators are normally carried by the crew wherever they go; I assume they have holsters for them. Yet they left all of them on this one occasion, purely because it was convenient for the plot? I've seen "Spock's Brain," but truthfully I consider this episode worse. The reason why is because, while I felt that said rules were preposterous, it still at least felt as though "Spock's Brain," actually HAD some rules and followed them. The biggest problem with this episode, is that things just happen, without any foreshadowing or real context whatsoever. My other problem with this episode, is that whoever wrote it apparently has an extremely negative view of children. Young children might be noisy and experience primal emotions, yes; but in my experience, pre-pubescent children are actually more capable of coherent logic than adults. I've talked a toddler down from a tantrum with reason before. It can be done. I simply explained to the toddler that there was no causal connection between it losing its' temper and getting what it wanted; so it could get as angry as it liked, but that would not help it. Once it realised that anger was futile for reaching its' objective, it tried another approach. I've watched a lot of science fiction at this point, which means that my tolerance for incoherence and arbitrary explanations is very high; but regardless of how arbitrary an explanation might be, the one necessity is that there IS one. With "Miri," there isn't. There are far too many events here which occur with no context or previous establishment whatsoever, and I can not accept that.

Forget that pollard was almost 30 and miri was almost 20, or that the clothes dont look too bad for being 300 years old,this is a good episode.Of course we still have the problem that how did these kids feed themselves??With so few kids around and the food supply exhausted centuries ago we really only have one conclusion...Cannabilalism .

Watching and commenting: --The Enterprise comes across a duplicate Earth! There's a distress signal. An intriguing start. --They find a horrible looking person and the ruins of 1960s Earth. How are they going to manage to fit the requisite sex goddess into this scenario? There's just an adolescent girl, Miri. Kim Darby. I guess Rand must carry the sex symbol burden alone. --A disease has killed all the adults and is killing Jim, Bones, and Rand. They have 7 days to live. --Miri, who apparently is 300 yrs old or so, has a crush on Kirk. This is played out in a rather ooky, if innocent, way. --Michael J Pollard: He is clearly not prepubescent, but OK. Haven't thought of him in decades. --So far, they've given us no explanation, or shown any interest in, just how it is that an exact duplicate of Earth should exist. --Rand throws herself into the designated sex pot role, hugging the Captain and telling him she always wanted him to look at her legs. --"A Beakerful of Death!" a good line from Spock that should have been the title of the episode. These kids are immensely annoying. --Shatner gives a standard dramatic Kirky speech to convince the kids they need help. --McCoy finds a cure. All is well. Not horrible, but the ooky and annoying factors are high in this one. Below average.

RandomThoughts

Hello Everyone! @Petrus Your question: Why do the children keep wanting to kill Kirk? Is it purely because he is acting like an adult schoolteacher? They mention that the adults went crazy, hitting and whatnot, and figured they had to do something about the crew before they also went crazy. They had not realized they each would as well, as they (very) slowly grew up. Regards... RT P.S.: I hope you found some episodes you liked. :)

As a child in the '80s, this was always a favorite episode - so rewatching it with a critical grown-up eye does disappoint a bit for the reasons noted here, to which I'd like to add the following: They assume, without investigating further (as far as we're shown) any further than what would have been a few miles from that crumbling town. How do they know that, elsewhere—Fiji? the Himalayas? the Amazon? the Sahara? (whatever corresponds to comparable earth geography on this planet)—hundreds, heck thousands or even millions of kids, aren't alive and doing just fine? Why would the go-to presumption be that these 20 kids or so are the ONLY onlies? And that in every other geographic region of the world, 300-year old "child" survivors are all nothing more than a bunch of do-nothing brats? [I know that sometimes, the Enterprise has some kind of power to "detect human life" in places, but in just as many other cases, it seems they cannot.] Meanwhile... If (perhaps taking place only "off screen") the Enterprise actual was able to and did do a thorough scan of the entire planet, and did confirm 100% that there were no other surviving children or adults except for these 20 or so 300-yr-olds... Why on earth—or rather, why on double-earth—would the Enterprise leave these 20 "children" (dysfunctional people with no education, skills, training, medical care, etc., ALL ALONE on that planet (save for the "teachers" or whomever they left to help; can't be more than 4-5 of them) ? It's one thing for a group of adult space colonists to set up camp on a planet—by choice. But these elderly children surely deserved the opportunity to leave and experience actual functioning communities comparable to their own culture. Or any culture really, so long as it's not a planet where just about entire population was wiped out centuries ago? Such a small group, there'd surely have been plenty of room on the Enterprise to transport them somewhere. And rightfully, they would have some advocate appointed to them to secure and protect their rights to a stake in their own planet, once outsiders learn of its existence and resources. (Seriously, what a prize for the Klingons to claim!) One can only imagine the psychological warping of these "children" in all that time. Seeing all that violence of the gr'ups, the horrific extinction of all (at least sentient) life except for themselves. 300 years of festering emotional wounds. Teaching them to read, write, and farm aren't going to fix all that. They need role models and examples of possible ways to live and learn and thrive.

Paul Hardwick

I watched this episode today for the first time since I was a kid and I was genuinely impressed with the build up. Very eerie setting and the kids playing havoc with the new grups by throwing things at them at singing the "nyah nyah, na nyah nyah" was just brilliant. When the zombie like creature first enters at the start when Bones takes an uncharacteristic interest in the wheel of trike was an excellent action sequence with some great (for the day) makeup. The premise is both intriguing and absurd. With a little more care with the writing, perhaps allowing some better character development and maybe playing off the whole Kirk, Miri and Jand love triangle with more aplomb may have led this episode becoming a true classic. Unfortunately we have some jarring dialogue (Bones : I've never seen so much bacteria, enterprise, send down some virus scanners!) and kirks final speech is pretty lame. The ending left me agog with the Enterprise leaving orbit and leaving the kids there on the planet! So a great start to the episode but it doesn't meet its promise of a true classic.

Just making a comment here because I just read that Michael J Pollard died on the 20th of Nov - i.e., Wed. I immediately thought of this episode, where Pollard's baby face couldn't quite disguise the fact that he was 28 and not prepubescent. An interesting and talented actor who distinguished himself from the pack. RIP.

This episode has a huge plot hole... the Enterprise would surely have beamed down more communicators after receiving no response from the away team?

That is one of those: "We don't have any money but we have a set we can use for free" episodes. Quite a few creepy undertones or overtones, I'm not sure. Also this is not a how a vaccine works. No wonder that there are so many anti vaxxers in the US! Is this a vietnam analogy? The children are the young people of the USA who need to trust the grups again? The whole scenario is not explained at all. Why is there earth two? Why are there people on it who lived like earth 1? Why didn't the "guards (red shirts)" get sick? Oh and of course there is a message from Queen Amidala to the Yeoman about how ridiculous her hairhat looks.

I call dibs on the band name, “Beaker Full of Death” lol

I agree with the comments calling this one a sort of Zombie Apocalypse story, and I think it's engaging on that level. Despite the low budget reuse of an NBC set and yet another Duplicate Earth, the costumes and makeup are nice and we get a rare treat of fine Star Trek kid actors. That said, I'm with Jammer in that there are some mind-blowing lapses in logic for the drama to work in the episode. Everyone is on the clock trying to cure the disease and yet they let days pass without searching for the communicators which are apparently vital to the cure. The relationship between Kirk and Miri was enjoyable, and it leads to some interesting discussions about entering adulthood and what it means to be stuck as a child. I only wish the episode went a little further and capitalized on the children-versus-adults dilemma. Unfortunately, it seems like these children are too stupid to live which hurts feeling much sympathy towards them. Perhaps if we knew more of what kind of abuse they suffered, we could relate to them better. I agree with Springy that Yeoman Rand being helpless and lamenting not being able to show off more skin to Kirk was pretty icky. Luckily, Rand gets better material in other episodes. Some intriguing concepts and decent characters but missing the real polish of a classic. 2 stars seems about right.

There is so much going on here! Add me to the list of folks who would have rated Miri higher - I’d say 2 1/2 stars, just for all the fascinating ideas. The weird thing is I really liked this episode much more when I was a little kid. Maybe the episode speaks to kids in a way it doesn’t to adults. But for years - well into my teens - I regularly called grown ups “Grups” - not that anyone had any idea what I was talking about :-) But then, isn’t that what it means to be a kid? The episode has so many themes that have been picked up elsewhere over the years. For a planet where everyone dies after adolescence, a great example is Farscape’s "Taking the Stone”, where Chiana runs after she learns her brother has died. I really liked how the kids were portrayed in Miri. As many have noted, Kim Darby did a fantastic job. And she was only 18 at the time. Kirk treats Miri with a gentleness that is necessary to handle a young crush if you are to keep her at arms length without crushing her. Yeoman Rand seems very taken with Kirk’s gentle hand. Kirk, very cleverly, puts the entire Rand situation to rest once and for all, with the almost throw-away line at the end: KIRK: I never get involved with older women, Yeoman. Yeoman Rand was more than a year older than Kirk. So that settles that. But of all the pieces of this episode that really jumped out at me, it was that, the plague was engineered. Spock says, SPOCK: According to their life prolongation plan, what they thought they were accomplishing, a person would age only one month for every one hundred years of real time. SPOCK: Evidently through some miscalculation, this virus annihilated the entire adult population in a very short period, leaving only the children. Can’t believe I had never caught that detail before. Reminds me of Firefly. Specifically the Reavers: https://youtu.be/U-NVs68X_S4 MAL REYNOLDS: "Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now? Ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people better. And I do not hold to that.” Finally, as @Pete points out, there’s this https://youtu.be/OZB8CB5seEs which, let’s face it, makes Miri a 10 star episode. 11 stars even.

An episode with real potential, b completely wasted in my opinion. There were some nightmarish scenarios straight out of “Lord of the Flies “ (sinister kids’ chanting off screen for example), but... Kirk positively leering at an adolescent girl near the start? Yuk, creepy. The away team all abandoning their communicators in contravention of Starfleet Academy Protocol 223.45 (iv)? Spock apparently not in possession of an iPad? 🤣 As so often, all senior crew members beaming down together? (At least they addressed this in TNG.) Where were Uhura and Sulu at the beginning? Why wasn’t the “duplicate Earth” scenario explored? That was a great story wasted. It could have been a great episode but turned out one of the least in the end.

{{ The notion of an "exact duplicate of the Earth" is put to absolutely no interesting use, and exists, apparently, for no other reason than so the plot could have a setting of "Earth, 1960." }} I guess they saved money by not having to pay someone to draw new continents on a fake globe? {{ I immediately thought of this episode, where Pollard's baby face couldn't quite disguise the fact that he was 28 and not prepubescent. }} Yeah, Kim Darby really did look 14 or so, but Pollard was so obviously an adult. {{ Kirk flirting relentlessly with Miri. That's not creepy. (come on I do know these crushes happen but the adult reciprocating and calling them pretty? I'm pretty darn sure they didn't intend it to come across this way, but eww }} Even worse is how he ends up ripping her shirt, and then later holding her by the hair while she screams "NOO!" ... I mean yeah it's all not like that in context (she's yelling in denial about having the disease, not saying don't assault me), but still - *shudders*

Miri has become a great episode as of, say last year. A bunch of crazy kids who don't believe in Medical science and preventing an epidemic.

Proud Capitalist Pig

The best thing about this episode is its eerie atmosphere. As many have mentioned, it’s a postapocalyptic abyss of a world, with “creatures” (crazy kids) vocalizing from the rafters and hiding around every corner. And Jamahl is right--the “duplicate Earth” presentation was a clumsy 1960’s way of explaining the existence of a planet that has Earth-like structures and people simply so that Desilu could save on set pieces and models. It’s a made-up science fiction show; forget about it. I think some people here are reading way too much into the Kirk and Miri interactions. For God’s sake, he’s not “grooming her,” he’s trying to put a clearly traumatized kid at ease so she doesn’t fly off the handle every few minutes. Miri’s jealousy over Janice was pushing it a bit, but I didn’t take it as anything that grew from what Kirk did; I chalked it up to Miri’s unstable mind. I actually found Kirk’s crack at the end--”I don’t go for older women” or something like that--pretty funny. And Kim Darby did a great job; for some reason she reminded me of Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz movie. I think SlackerInc touched on a good point above. While I liked the creepy vibe of the scenes with the bratty other kids, that particular storyline felt unfinished and undeveloped--”Miri” tries to be “Lord of the Flies” but comes off more as “Village of the Damned” or the Lost Boys from “Hook,” managing to not say much more than “These kids are so off-kilter, aren’t they?” And yeah, “Jahn” (which is how my subtitles named him) was clearly past puberty. I get that over-18 actors playing kids are easier to schedule and work with, but nothing in Jahn’s scenes convinced me, either in or out of the box, that he couldn’t have been played by an actor the same age as that annoying urchin who kept saying, “Bonk bonk bonk!” (As an added bonus, my son tackled me shortly after we finished watching the episode and pounded his fists into my shoulders while shouting “Bonk bonk bonk bonk,” so thanks, Star Trek.) There are a few things to be said here about the dangers of playing God and experimenting with genetic engineering, and that’s okay, but the resulting jeopardy plot with the virus and “countdown” seemed a bit clumsy. Remind me again why they couldn’t simply find the security guards and use their communicators to contact the ship when they supposedly had “days” to accomplish this. The guards appeared at the end almost like an afterthought, like the writer forgot about them and didn’t have time to go back and explain it. They should have just had the kids kill them earlier when they separated from the group--I mean come on, that’s Horror Movie Plot Cliche #1, how do you not take advantage of that? I did like McCoy’s arc and how his crazy “medical mind” responded to the crisis. And I’m sorry, but Janice was hilarious (and I’ll leave it at that). Lastly, Star Trek sure has some obvious doom-and-gloom warnings weaved throughout it. Between “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” (the dangers of too-smart artificial intelligence) and “Miri,” (the dangers of screwing with nature) I’m starting to have concerns about what we’re headed for in our future as a species. I think I’ll hug my kids a little tighter tonight. Best line: Kirk -- “Why do you think the symptoms haven’t appeared in Mr. Spock?” McCoy -- “I don’t know. Probably the little bugs, or whatever they are, have no appetite for green blood.” Spock -- “Being a red-blooded human obviously has its disadvantages.” My Grade: B

@Pete "This is also the episode that gave us Kirk's immortal line "No Blah Blah Blah!" which rivals "Brain and brain, what is brain?" for the best of the worst lines of the entire series." Wait, what?! Pete, stop it, you’re making that up! Are you telling me there is an actual line of dialogue that’s “Brain and brain, what is brain?” I can’t wait to get to that episode. @Davidw "Miri has become a great episode as of, say last year. A bunch of crazy kids who don't believe in Medical science and preventing an epidemic." Hah! Good one.

OmicronThetaDeltaPhi

@PCG "Wait, what?! Pete, stop it, you’re making that up! Are you telling me there is an actual line of dialogue that’s 'Brain and brain, what is brain?” Yes he is. And he ain't joking. "I can’t wait to get to that episode." Be careful what you wish for. The episode in question is even worse then the above quote implies (some people regard it is the worst episode of TOS).

It seems really convenient that they just happened to beam down to the one town on the entire planet that had the very hospital where this plague was developed. One thing that drove me crazy was trying to figure out who the oldest "boy" was (I put boy in quotes because he was actually 27 years old in this episode) and where I knew him from; he was so recognizable and I never could place him. Now through the magic of the internet I was finally able to look it up. He played "cousin Virgil" on an episode of the Andy Griffith show, the clumsy relative who always goofed everything up. I've seen that episode so many times I can't believe I couldn't make the connection.

I've convinced my wife to watch TOS with me, start to finish, which is quite neat, especially since I think she'd only seen the odd episode until now. Of course when watching it for the 50th time you'd think evaluations would already be a foregone conclusion, but it's amazing how much a fresh pair of eyes makes you really watch as if for the first time. Within that context I have to say that TOS S1 is surprising me a little. I obviously know the episodes like the back of my hand but seeing them all in exact sequence (something I've rarely if ever done) is showing me something I hadn't noticed. So far we're 8 episodes in and TOS really has a lot of elements that I would consider to be very reminiscent of 50's and 60's science fiction stories (not pulp stuff but real science fiction). Take Miri, for example, which has a lot in common with The Omega Man (made in 1971), based on I Am Legend from the 50's. The type of contemporary-dystopia set not in the future but in the near-present after a technological disaster is a sci-fi trope that use to be quite popular but has since fallen out of fashion (other than in reboots). Most of the plot development in Miri is the unfolding of what these people did to themselves with genetic experimentation, which puts it squarely in the sci-fi camp and quite far from the 'space western' genre which so many people have suggested TOS was. Previous episodes are likewise tonally absolutely not space westerns, such as The Man Trap (an Outer Limits style creature feature), Charlie X (a chilling story, certainly not an 'adventure'), and Where No Man Has Gone Before (a supremely cerebral look at human weakness ballooned to godlike proportion). So it's quite striking that 'adventures in space' is hardly the tone of the show up until this point, and in fact it has yet to establish a common tone. Each guest submitted script is really quite different in approach and even banter style, and certainly none of them seem to be in the mindframe yet of making statements about the Cold War or anything else directly contemporary. Another thing I'll mention is that at this juncture I'm a bit surprised at how many people call TOS 1 the best original season without any qualification. Now it's my favorite Trek show so I'm not complaining about it, but so far out of eight episodes most of them are in the least-enjoyed category, relatively speaking (absolutely speaking I'd watch any of them any day). I rather enjoy The Enemy Within, but looking ahead it won't be until The Menagerie that the show gets into what I think of as prime TOS mode, and two episodes after that with Balance of Terror that we get a thrilling classic, halfway through the season. Granted, the second half of the season does include The Galileo Seven, The Squire of Gothos (which I like more than some people perhaps), Space Seed, Devil in the Dark, Errand of Mercy, and City. So that's a heavily backloaded season, but nevertheless it takes 12-13 episodes IMO for it to hit its stride and find a truly original type of story to tell. Don't get me wrong, I like Miri, but it's a known scenario in sci-fi terms at this point in history and in a sense nothing new. Check out S2's roster by contrast, which although obviously is not perfectly even (no Trek season is) there is a huge assortment of episodes that exemplify Trek. Even the least of the S2 episodes seems a bit more 'Star Trek' than The Man Trap does, which makes sense of course. I had just never noticed before that TOS did take maybe half a season to hit its mark of originality. That's still much better than most TV shows do, and it's the rare show putting out classics even within its S1 (Babylon is a notable example of a fairly quick ramp-up period). S3 is definitely more uneven again, maybe on par with S1 on average. Both are excellent, but TOS S2 is the equivalent of TNG S3-4, more or less, with winner after winner.

EventualZen

Here's a review I wrote back in 2008 when I was 24: Synopsis This is a trek episode that I vaguely remember watching as a kid. This episode starts with the Enterprise following an old SOS distress signal to a planet that is seemingly identical to earth both visually and in terms of readings. After beaming down to an abandoned 1960’s earth duplicate and being attacked by a zombie looking dude who has a kid’s mind and seems rather upset at a bike being broken, the away team find a girl called Miri and learn about a disease that killed off all the “Grups” or grown ups as Yeoman Rand points out. Some quick research of local records quickly reveals a virus created 300 years ago that was originally intended to prolong life, but kills off anyone who has hit puberty. It turns out the kids are 300 years old and age a month per 100 years, however as soon as they hit puberty they age rapidly (which explains our zombie friend at the beginning). The away team have seven days before they will all die (except for Spock who will be stranded since he’s a carrier of the virus), mean while the local kids and their ringleader plot against the away team. The communicators get stolen, Rand gets captured, Kirk goes after Rand, gets in a scuffle with some kids, does a Kirk speech to appeal to both their sympathy and fear, all while Spock and McCoy make a vaccine for the virus. (Wouldn’t a vaccine be too little too late, I think they mean cure?). Review Overall a disappointing episode. My biggest quibble being the fact that they didn’t explain the planet being identical to earth even though according to Kirk it was further away than any Earth colony - although they never did tend to dwell on such things back in TOS. I’ve noticed this is another TOS episode which would have had a key obstacle removed had it been incarnated in a recent Trek series, ie: Spock: “we can’t capture them, they know the area too well” – ever heard of a transporter lock and site to site transport? I found the children’s annoying repetition of phrases strangely similar to ‘Lord Of The Flies’, and the communicators being left laying about even though they normally always get put back into their pockets was just silly. The adult-looking ringleader was never explained either. Kirk gets hit several times over the head with what looked like a spanner yet he escaped largely unhurt - not even a Borg drone gets up after being violently assaulted with a spanner. About the only good that came from this episode was phrases like “The before time” which was reused in ENT: 1 x 06 – Terra Nova, a similarly themed episode and Yeoman Rand under the influence of the virus, admitting to trying to get Kirk to look at her legs back on Enterprise, oh and Kirk saying that he “never gets involved with older women” at the end. There was no real moral dilemma to be drawn from this episode, unlike the previous episode which had a clear “is controlling criminals by altering their minds really the right thing to do” – (even if it wasn’t a scratch on ‘A Clockwork Orange’) was still better than don’t try to prolong life in case you make a zombie virus that will kill everyone off and leave your kids to grow up as jibbering idiots due to lack of parental care and prolonged boredom. They could have easily added to the excitement of the episode by adding more zombie and phaser action but instead the cream of Starfleet nearly loses out to a bunch of pre pubescent kids. Memorable quote: Spock: “Being a red blooded human obviously has its disadvantages”. Final Score: 1/10

This episode is certainly watchable, its just not great. The pace is slow and the story a bit weak.

Overall, just a decent episode. Annoying children. Now that Kirk knows that Rand wants him to look at her legs, I think he should get right on it. Michael J Pollard will always be known to me as the driver ,C W Moss, from the Bonnie and Clyde movie.

An AI that watched all of Star Trek would conclude all children are obnoxious. Miri initiates Trek's support of the "Children should be seen and not heard" proverb. At least the eponymous character breaks from that mould, but as is important for the episode, Miri's not really a child any longer. I'm afraid there is more I dislike here than like. The "another Earth" aspect is wasted. I wish Kirk had found a way to gather information other than exploiting Miri's crush. We don't see him say goodbye to her, a scene that probably was intentionally omitted. Kirk's repeated attempts to make rational arguments to an irrational gang grow tiresome. I alternate on whether Rand's "I used to try to get you to look at my legs" is cringeworthy, or an appropriate way of expressing her fear of death in that situation. Net result, 1 of 4 bonks on the head.

Irrespective of guest stars, complete garbage. Unwatchable.

The duplicate earth thing must have been some sort of production gaffe, like the original script had that as a major plot concept but then they started filming and were forced to pivot away from their original idea when all the feral kids started breaking shit on set or something. It just makes no sense that they would make such a note of pointing it out, even showing an image of the earth, continents and all, only to drop it outright and never touch on it again. It’s too bad also, because it starts the episode off on such a weird footing. There’s a lot of unfortunate plot mechanics here that further distract from the story. The wandering/randomly reappearing redshirts, the communicator blunder, McCoy’s apparent lack of understanding in microbiology, etc…what makes these goofy things tough to ignore is how easily avoidable they are, you can’t even fall back on the whole “tv in the 60s” defense because, honestly, even one of those bonkbonk kids could probably have spotted the logic lapses in the script. However, if you can side step the sillier elements of Miri, it’s a pretty good show, with a very good core idea. I found the interplay between rand, Kirk, and Miri to be well done overall. While I get why some people might find the Kirk/Miri dynamic uncomfortable, I for one thought it was well executed in a less than creepy way. I’d also mention that if one’s life and the lives of one’s friends depended on it, most people would eagerly exploit a puppy crush if necessary, so I find Kirk’s behavior actually fairly restrained. The Spock/McCoy character work was good too, nice to see that frenemy relationship develop. Spock continues to shape up. Beaker of death indeed. Lastly I like this episode for the simple fact that after I watch it I spend the next week or so inexplicably saying “bonk bonk on the head” to people around me.

It's amazing how the blemishes on McCoy's face magically disappear before your eyes.

This is a silly episode, but I have always liked it. I never saw the relationship between Miri and Kirk as "icky", but as an adult, I really have a hard time believing Miri would simply cave just because an adult is being nice. She's had 300 years to evolve. It seems more likely to me that she'd bolt at the first sign of freedom and remain hidden from the unusual visitors. "Captain, look at my legs". This statement really doesn't make a lot of sense to me, considering the desperation of the situation. However, like the theft of the communicators, I chalked up all of the unusual behaviors of the landing party as the result of the disease. No one was thinking clearly once it took hold. Having gone through and still dealing with covid over the past four years, it makes me wonder how this virus could stay relatively stable for 300 years and not mutate into something else entirely during that time period, or mutate itself out of existence. Likewise, there were many people on this planet for a long time, judging from the tall buildings around. It stands to reason that some adults were immune, or even managed to overcome the disease. As a kid, I never thought much of the "another earth" silliness. As an adult, I know an earth exactly like ours is unlikely, unless the beloved crew ended up in an alternate universe. That actually could have made for a great story, in my opinion. Certainly better than "Mirror, mirror". I have to wonder at the people who populated this planet and why they would try to create a chemical to give them a sort of immortality. That sounds really shallow to me. On the flip side, there's a planet of murderous children. That in itself would have been an idea to explore. It'd be interesting for the episode to ask the question of whether it's normal for children to develop in this fashion, or if the virus altered them.

David Brilliance

Love this episode. It stands out for me, and no doubt other UK ST fans as it was one of the four episodes banned by the BBC, after it's one screening in 1970 caused an uproar.

Count me among the ones who really enjoyed this one. Like others have said, the atmosphere here is really good. Post-apoc in 1966! This episode is probably the grandfather of many video game franchises and movies. I'm pretty sure stuff like Mad Max borrowed some (if not most!) of that flavor from this one. Mutated children, deserts, industrial ruins, rundown labs, plague. Yup, this episode has been recycled and reused by pop culture for decades now. Sure, the plot is not that great and Jammer and the comments went through all the problems in that regard, but at least it gave plenty of opportunity for us to run around this world and see the set pieces. We visited a lot of different locations on this one and I quite enjoyed it for that. Guest actors were really good, too, especially Miri. That little romance with Kirk was very well played and I found it sweet. I agree it’s accurate at how those teenage infatuations go. The way they included Yeoman to cause some extra drama was also effective, at least for my own taste. The children! Others have commented on this of course, but they really managed to make a bunch of little, weird, scary band of kids here! Second time we have youngsters as a menacing, threatening force on Star Trek. Charlie X and now this! It can’t be a coincidence. A few years prior to this episode Village of the Damned premiered. It’s fun to watch how this crew falls apart. It’s not rare they reach the point where they're shouting at each other and throwing things around. Quite a shock for me, transferring from NCC-1701-D. I didn’t know you’re allowed to shout at people like that. What Spock meant by not understanding the medical mind? Isn’t the medical mind the scientific mind for the most part? I would guess Spock would be the one to understand it. McCoy doesn’t inject himself with the antidote out of medical mind reasoning, he was desperate. Anyway, one of my favorite episodes so far. @David Brilliance I wonder what particular scene or plot point caused the ban.

"It’s fun to watch how this crew falls apart. It’s not rare they reach the point where they're shouting at each other and throwing things around." This is a good point. It is fun.

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1 star trek: tng episode was so dark, it got banned.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation Cast & Character Guide

What happened to robert shinn from netflix's dancing for the devil, bridgerton season 3, part 2 will have the colin & penelope scene i've wanted to see for 22 years.

• "Conspiracy" episode of TNG was banned by the BBC for being too violent, with a head-exploding scene deemed too gory.
• Producers were concerned about the episode's dark tone, but a child's positive reaction led to its airing as is.
• Several Star Trek episodes, including TOS's "The Empath" and "Miri," were also banned in the UK due to their disturbing themes.

Star Trek is often family-friendly, but one early episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation was banned by BBC for being too violent. Following the adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the USS Enterprise-D , TNG is not known for being particularly dark or gory . Captain Picard usually attacks problems with words and diplomacy rather than phaser fire, but he takes a different approach in TNG season 1, episode 25, "Conspiracy. "Conspiracy" almost didn't air at all because even some of the producers worried it was too much.

"Conspiracy" picks up on a plot thread first mentioned in TNG season 1, episode 19, "Coming of Age," which revealed a possible conspiracy within the highest levels of Starfleet . With the help of Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) and Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Captain Picard discovers that several high-level Starfleet officers are being controlled by parasitic aliens . When Picard and Riker confront the leader of the parasites, Lt. Commander Dexter Remmick (Robert Schenkkan), they fire their phasers at him at point-blank range. Remmick's head explodes in a surprisingly gory display, and then a large parasite creature pops out of Remmick's stomach, before being similarly dispatched. It's all much more violent than a typical episode of TNG , and the BBC banned the episode outright when it first aired.

Star Trek: The Next Generation has one of the most beloved cast of characters in all of science fiction. Here are the major characters of the classic.

TNG's "Conspiracy" Was Deemed Too Violent For The BBC

The scene where remmick's head explodes was deemed too gory..

According to Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Continuing Mission, A Tenth Anniversary Tribute, producers Rick Berman and Peter Lauritson were concerned about "Conspiracy" being too dark. To see how children would react to the episode, Berman and Lauritson showed "Conspiracy" to the six-year-old son of the special effects supervisor, Dan Curry. The child apparently responded: "I really liked the part where the guy's head blew up! You know, you could make a Remmick action figure where if you pressed the button, his head blows up!" So the episode aired as it was, and while this may have delighted many six-year-old Trek fans, the BBC felt differently about the head-exploding scene .

"Conspiracy" first aired in the United States in May of 1988, but the episode was banned in the United Kingdom at the time. The BBC did eventually air "Conspiracy" in 1991, but several minutes of footage were cut from the episode, including most of Remmick's death scene. In Canada, a viewer discretion warning aired before the episode. Although the gore in "Conspiracy" may seem tame by today's standards, it was very atypical for Star Trek at the time . While the episode is certainly an entertaining one, it feels somewhat out of place among the other episodes of TNG season 1 .

Despite ending with a hint that the parasites would return, they are never mentioned again in any Star Trek television show or movie. However, a series of tie-in novels did pick up the storyline, connecting the parasites to Trill symbiotes.

Several Other Star Trek Episodes Have Been Banned In The UK

Tos episodes "the empath," "whom gods destroy," "plato's stepchildren," and "miri" were all banned..

Although TNG's "Conspiracy" may be the most well-known episode to have been banned, this kind of censoring wasn't new to Star Trek . Several episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series were banned in the United Kingdom, much to the consternation of many Star Trek fans. The BBC network apparently received so many letters from Trek fans urging them to air the episodes, that they sent out their own letter in 1976 . The letter stated: "After very careful consideration a top-level decision was made not to screen the episodes entitled 'Empath,' 'Whom Gods Destroy,' 'Plato's Stepchildren,' and 'Miri,' because they all dealt most unpleasantly with the already unpleasant subjects of madness, torture, sadism, and disease."

Dedicated Star Trek fans eventually found other ways to watch the banned episodes, and they were shown at several conventions in the UK over the years. The four banned episodes of TOS did not air on the BBC until the early 1990s. Another Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, season 3's "The High Ground," was also banned in the UK because of one line delivered by Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner). When discussing examples of terrorism that brought about political change, Data references "the Irish Unification of 2024." Because of the conflict in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles, the BBC did not air an unedited version of "The High Ground" until 2007.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: The Next Generation