Miri (Star Trek TOS - S1E09)

[Hailing Frequencies Open]

 In this week’s episode, we boldly go where puberty has gone horribly wrong. Join us as Kirk, Spock, Janice and McCoy beam down to a planet full of kids who haven’t aged in 300 years—but still somehow manage to form a full-blown Lord of the Flies cosplay group. We’ll talk tricycles, purple plague spots, and why screaming “Bonk! Bonk!” might be the least effective communication strategy in Federation history. 

[End Transmission]

Chapters

• 3:55 Initial Impressions
• 4:43 Treking Through the Episode
• 52:59 Final Thoughts
• 56:13 Tribble Tidbits
• 1:01:30 Episode Ranking
• 1:04:30 Turbolift Tease
• 1:05:29 Socials/Outro

Transcript

0:00

[Music] Haleym Frequencies open and welcome aboard Trex and Tangents. I'm your co-host Brian and I'm your co-host stacking. I'm your Star Trek Newbie who treks off on Tangents. And I'm your Star Trek expert who is here to get the tangents back on Trex. Each episode we watch and talk about a different Star Trek episode and this week we watched Star Trek the original series season one episode eight Mary. So welcome back everyone to another episode of our podcast. Thank you all for tuning in and listening wherever you happen to choose to consume our content. We thank and appreciate you. Don't forget to share the podcast with a friend. Don't forget to comment on your thoughts to the episode. Review our podcast. All of that engagement helps us and we appreciate you. Thank you. Oh yes. The more engagement the better I get paid and cookies. So looking forward out in our plans and things that we want to do with the podcast. We've hinted I think a couple times in past episodes about wanting to dive in and look at the animated series for the original series. It's a fun campy series. It doesn't have any real effect on the main show. It has its own separate stories and its own separate timelines. And I think it'd be fun if we kind of branched out and did some of that. Am I going to be even more confused with all these characters? I think you're gonna find some of the characters familiar. You'll certainly see new characters, but I think that'll be part of the fun. Okay. Sounds good. So no firm release date on that except to say that the first episode for us diving into the animated series is going to release by the end of this month. That is December. So it is also going to be available and is something that we are going to create for our supporters over on Patreon our crew member level of Patreon. That's patreon.com/treksandtangents. We'll have more details to that as the month progresses. So tune in next week for more information. But diving into this episode, let's revisit our turbo lift tease as we always do to start things off. That's where last week we gave Jackie the title of this week's episode and Jackie without any other information or having seen the episode before tried to give her best educated guess to what the plot of this episode is. I happen to have it here in front of me kind of like last week. It's a little chaotic, but when I first presented Jackie with the title, Meary, Jackie asked us to please spell it and use in a sentence, which I did. I spelled it and then the sentence used was next week's episode is entitled Meary. Cheater, which you promptly pointed out last week because the rest of your turbo lift tease was this is not fair because I would think that Meary is a person's name, but from what I've learned it is going to end up being a planet, some alien, a disease, or even a kind of money. It is going to be something weird. We then pressured you to narrow it down to one and your final turbo lift tease was I'm going to say that they are going to save something named Meary. So Jackie, how close do you think you were with your prediction? Well being reminded of what I said, I kind of thought pretty close. I mean I was all over that at the beginning, but then you made me narrow it down and I still kind of touched it maybe like a C plus. C plus? Okay, we'll give you that, but Jackie, what did you think of this week's episode? Why did they do it? Why would you why do you say that? I don't understand why they put it in this order like the show was going high and on a trajectory and then oh dropping some weirdos and off we go, I didn't get it. I particularly did not like this episode. I think this episode is extremely poorly paced. It's extremely boring. It's incredibly drawn out. We'll touch on it a little bit in the triple tidbits to some of that, but it's just an episode that never gets off the ground and never provides any real entertain, but with that in mind, Jackie, why don't you walk us through the episode? The crew is on the Enterprise Bridge while they're hearing a distress call that actually sounds very earth like, and they're all a little confused. Yeah, Kirk specifically refers to it as an SOS Earth signal. Yes, and they're like, hmm, and then of course my man's spot fits out all these facts about the planet, how basically is the replica of Earth? Well, it matches all of the characteristics and measurements of Earth that has the same atmosphere, the planet is the same size, and we quickly see through the view screen of the ship that it is identical. The continents are laid out. We even seen North America and I'm like, hey, there's our home. Yeah, at first, the first shot that we see is not immediately recognizable because it's India in the Indian ocean, but then as the planet continues to revolve, we see of course recognizable Africa, then it continues to revolve and we see North America. So, duplicate Earth. And I'm so excited because my girl Janice has returned. She must have been hiding the last few episodes because she hasn't been there. This is probably her Paramount episode. I'll just say that without spoiling anything further. Paramount, because they're on Paramount, the streaming. Yes, not a sponsor. Paramount plus, join today, don't. It's the only way that we can watch Star Trek. But it's fun. So then we have the beautiful opening credits. I mean, I can listen to the soundtrack forever, as I've said, every single time. But if anybody needs to be in their band to play this, I got you. So of course, we have our captain's log and it is 2713.5 and basically he tells us the same thing. We found a duplicate Earth and we're going to see what's happening. And then he announces to his crew that we are just going to beam down there, get ready. And we're going to go exactly where the distress signal is because we don't really know who's calling. What's happening? It just seems to be on the loop because no one's returning back. And I notice that your horror is not there and that little earpiece is in Pharrell's ear. Yes, while she's not, it's not her shift. Oh, I like that. Cross training. Yes, while they fill in different roles, everyone has cross training on different systems of the ship because not everyone can work 24 hours a day. So there are people who fill in to the different stations on different shifts. That makes sense because I never really thought that this is a ship in the middle of the abyss just floating around. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, at no point at the end of their eight hour work day, they just turn the turn the ship off and go to bed. Yeah, I'll get it all in my head one of these days. So now they've all been to the planet, not all of them. We have Captain Kirk. We have my gal Janus. We have Dr. McCoy who for some reason they call bones. I have yet to figure that out. We have Spock and then two random men that are just titled red shirts. Yep, security officers. Do the security officers ever get names other than the ones that died last episode? Yeah, I think if you pay close enough attention, these two crew members have names. I don't recall off the top of my head their specific names, but they do get names. They're just not prominently mentioned, especially in this episode because after the first few scenes, we rarely see these guys. No, they've like disappeared. They're exploring where they are. So they're on, in this plant on the on the planet, it's like a ghost town. When I saw it, I imagined like Midwest. Yeah, it's a huge outdoor set and does dirt everything. And Kirk was like, this is from 1900 and Spock corrects him. I say, no, no, no, it's 1960s era. And then from then on, we go on with that. Yeah, let's ignore the fact that part of the debris and items that are littering the streets of this town are motor vehicles from the 1920s and 30s. No modern quote unquote 1960s vehicles. And as they're wandering around, they come across a tricycle and they're so intrigued by this tricycle. It's just sitting there far too intrigued on this tricycle like it's magical or something like it's a forced way to trigger the next scene. Far too engaged because out of nowhere, this man, woman, man, we don't know, long hair, this figure face, they're purple, they're screaming, this is mine, this is mine. Don't don't touch it like a child, but a grown man. And they're just confused. So they, they like try to like calm the gentleman down. And then McCoy says he's having a seizure. And then poof, he's dead. Yeah, the also of note when they subdue this attacker and he falls over onto this tricycle mound of debris, his shirt rides up and you can clearly see that while his hands and his face are disfigured and scarred, his stomach is perfectly normal. We decided to use that take, I guess, instead of reshooting it. But I don't know, I didn't look into it any further, but it definitely feels like an adult actor, but in the context of the show, in the episode, the plot, this is obviously we learn and put two and two together. This is a child. This is a teenager at best, who has succumbed to some kind of disease. Yes. And while I mean, as he's dead, McCoy uses his little scanner and he's confused because the metabolic rate that he's decomposing is actually just like aging 100 years, like awkward. Definitely the body chemistry of this now deceased attacker is perplexing. And then they hear footsteps. So they forget about the dude, the child that just they killed basically. And they're like, let's go follow that those footsteps. And now we're in another building. It's like a house. Yeah. And one, the one child runs away, but then we still hear noise. So everyone's looking around and while they're looking around though, they're still noticing all these weird items. There's a piano. But on top of it is a skateboard. Right. Okay. Well, and the piano itself, Spock says or Spock makes the comment that somehow he's able to determine that the age of the piano is 300 years. No idea how he knows that, but anyway. Oh, that's true. But you know, vintage piano approaching a closet. They carefully open it. And inside they find a young lady, young child. And she's very, very scared. But Janice starts to come for her. They're not going to hurt her. She's okay. And while they are trying to get her out, Spock and the two security men go outside and continue looking around the ghost town of the area. So we have her Janice, Dr. McCoy and our young lady. They finally coax her out. And yes, she is acting exactly like a young child, like 10 year old. She is very confused. She doesn't know what's happening. She calls them mean names as she, you know, is what someone would say is she calls them grubs until it's what her grow up. But and she refuses to play whatever game they're trying to play. And again, they have no idea well, there's this disconnect between this young woman and the way team because as the young woman explains that they're asking where are the adults who's taking care of you, what happened. And in this young child's mind, she's trying to figure out, well, how do you not know what happened? Your grownups. And all the grownups are mean, all the grownups are violent. And I'm scared of you because that's all I know about grownups. But the comment of, I don't want to play this game because I don't know the rules kind of alludes to this idea, I think that these children have been abandoned for, we'll find out a very long time. And so no adult supervision, no external stimulation, they have to entertain and exist themselves. So they make up all of these games. They're playing make believe. And so she's saying, well, I don't want to play your make believe game where you ask me questions and I provide answers because I don't know what the rules are. I don't understand how you don't know what all this is. So I don't know what answers you want to hear. And while this is happening, McCoy is trying to figure out what, why are they all alone? Like what that have happened, maybe a plague. And he and Janice leave the young gal with Kirk just to maybe lust, stimulus to keep her calm. And he's like, my, what is your name? And she tells us, Mary. So the title of the episode, to tie it all in. And Kirk says, well, that's a very pretty name. And you're pretty too. And then he introduces himself as Jim, Jim. And Mary says that she thinks Jim's name is very pretty too. This is the first, this is the first instance of an ongoing theme back and forth where we see this relationship, start to form where Mary becomes and develops these feelings of attraction toward Jim that can come from the fact that again, this is probably the first time in a very long time. If ever, that Mary has any recollection of an adult being kind to her, they're building rapport. Right. But it is at least for me on the first viewing and knowing what the episode was about and knowing what comes later in the episode. This obviously, even the way that the camera is set up, it's very romanticized in this scene. So it's obvious that Mary is developing attractive feelings toward Kirk. Kirk is going to use those feelings later in the episode to get what he wants and get information about what's going on. But Kirk doesn't reciprocate those feelings. No, he just uses that pretty smile and words of affirmation. And we got the pink lights going for production. Yeah, very charismatic, our captain Kirk. I love it. But anyways, while they're chatting, trying to build a trust, we are now outside with Spock and the guards. They are just, you know, continuing their walk. They try to go up a fire escape. Because Spock will Spock hears something, an object is disturbed at the top of the fire escape, so he goes to investigate. Yes, but then the sound is somewhere else, so they pop down. And all three of them are walking out of the, they're in the middle, like two buildings, I got alleyway and then rocks just raining down on them while all of these children are chanting. Yeah, so annoying every time that came up. Very creepy. It scared me the first time, but finally they stop. But the children are still chanting and being naughty children. I must say comment, but the pants that Spock and the men are wearing super high waters. I have never noticed that. Yeah, I think you're right. So like the children just scurry away so Spock cannot find them, but they're still wandering, trying to find and look around. Or back, we're going back and forth, so quick again. It's very, yeah, it's confusing for me because I'm not knowing what I'm watching. But we, Kirk asked Mary, where, where do the doctor, where do you go for the doctor if you're harmed? Or is there a hospital lab? What happened? Well, you specifically asking where the adult doctors used to work because again, they think they've narrowed this down to some kind of plague. And so they obviously want to go to the epicenter of any kind of medical facility to learn anything further about this plague. And then they, so that they can be friends, of course. And she puts her head down, you know, all embarrassed light and Jim's like, oh, it's okay. Don't be sad as he lifts her head and we see a purple lesion on his hand. And she starts freaking out because that apparently is the beginning of the end for the adults. Yeah, that's one of the first symptoms of this mysterious plague. And we get more information out of Mary is she's panicking the fact that she says that this is the start. This is something that will spread across all of his body. And as it does so, he will become aggressive. He'll start yelling at everyone. But more specifically, he'll start becoming violent and hurting people. And then he'll die. Spoiler, just like we saw the unnamed attacker character attack over this tricycle from a couple scenes before. It's also interesting to point out that when Kirk first asks about where the doctors work, hospital, so forth, Mary acknowledges she knows where it is, but she refers to it as the quote, bad place. We also never find out why exactly it's the bad place. There's no indication that it is anything other than an abandoned laboratory of some kind. So again, just another thread that they kind of dangle out there and never follow through on. I think it just adds more to that their children and they really don't have the vocabulary to explain what they're trying to say. Sure, but again, then why doesn't the show ever expand on that for us? If like you find, well, if Mary is trying to say that this is a quote unquote bad place, and we don't know exactly what that means, and it could mean several things, why don't we ever get that? Does Mary somehow know that that was the epicenter of the release of this plague? Is it a place where infected people congregate before they die? Is it just the fact that there's lots of harmful things in that place and their children and they don't understand what they are? So they just avoid it to avoid getting hurt. Again, so many things that they could have expanded on and they choose not to in the episode. Exactly. And then we have a short captains log where basically we learned from Kirk that Mary led them to the building that that's actually where the transmission was coming. It was like on an auto loop. That's how they found them originally. And thankfully there was a lab and McCoy has taken tissue shapples of everybody so that he can study what it was. Of course, the medical equipment there is not up to standards that they have now, but hopefully they can beam those down in the future. Well, they do. McCoy does call up for some better equipment. So he does get some better equipment. He does not get a computer, which is vital for the plot of the episode, but he does get enough equipment that he's able to carry out experiments and collect data that they then relay up to the enterprise for processing, but he does get his better equipment. And he's overwhelmed by the zoo of bacteria. He calls it, so not a plate, but then they call it a virus. Yeah, we learn later it's a throwaway mention, but it's a manufactured virus, but it's not just one virus. It's a manufacturing of a series of viruses to do various things to the human body. We'll get there. And then now we're back up at the enterprise, though, where Kirk is talking to Ferrell and Ferrell is telling him, "Don't worry, we're ready to come get you all as well. Tell us how many people you need and Kirk has to stop him. Do not come down here. Only beam the equipment that we asked for. They up there and do as your toll, basically. Yeah, because he doesn't want anyone else to be affected. Yeah, obviously he doesn't want this plague to infect any other crew members, so forth. He's following quarantine protocols. The five are talking amongst himself and noticed that purple tiny mark originally is starting to spread and everyone has them now. Yes, there's a huge splotch on McLeod's face. It's just terror, underscared, and they have realized they really only have limited time left, but they have found piles upon piles of piles with what looks like medical information and logs. The files describe a project about trying to expand life, a lifespan. And then finally, McCoy's equipment has been beamed down. We can finally work on all of those cells that they clocked it earlier with his own equipment. As they're still going through the files, they're talking amongst each other that there are no adults here, only children. What? Why? Where are the adults? And specifically, they're trying to figure out how all of these children exist when it seems like this catastrophic event where this plague existed and wiped out all these adults happened 300 years ago and all that are left for children. So where are all these children coming from? Where are all of these multi-generations of children coming from? How is it that these children are existing for over and over in life cycles for 300 years? It's a mystery that makes no sense. Meanwhile, it's mentioned also that Mary has feelings for Jim that are developing and that is problematic. Yeah, Spock tries to explain it as well. She's approaching puberty so she's becoming a young woman so she's developing these romantic feelings toward her approaching puberty is important to the episode to the plot. I love how they call it a glandular change. Yeah, because they're trying to, they're still trying to unravel this whole plague mystery. They're still trying to figure out why it is that they're starting to figure out that this disease is affecting adults and not children. This is the first glimmer of this idea that this plague affects the children and kills off the children as they enter puberty. It's not quite there yet is a fully formed thought, but it's getting there. Spock has also sent the information that he's found on the planet up to the enterprise and the enterprise computer has done its calculations and sent it back down to Spock and they ask Mary to just, you know, he might be cleaning that table over there. Well, specifically, they is capped in Kirk. Yes, because Mary, you know, only has ice for him. So this is the first real example of showing that Kirk is using Mary's attraction and feelings toward Kirk. He's taking advantage of it by using it as a way to manipulate her and to do things or to reveal information to him because of this perceived relationship that they have or that they're forming. And we learned that this is not a multiple generation of children. It's all the same section of children from what the original planet was trying to do in the prolongation of life. Right. These children were children when this experiment and this plague kicked off because as Spock mentions, this plague expands someone's aging so that they only age one month for every 100 years that passes. So these children were there when this plague and this outbreak occurred, which explains why Mary is giving this hint and information that the grownups or the grubs are violent, are angry, and they do die from the plague. These children all live to see this happen. And if they're aging only one month for every 100 years, quick math, this happened 300 years ago biologically, Mary has only aged three months. So she was still a teenager on the verge within a couple months of entering puberty when this all went down. But again, 300 years of isolation living amongst children, probably messes with your head a little bit. True. And Janice, her own mind is blown because she is like confusing her too. Her task Mary, if she would like to go for a walk together so that they can get some, it's no each other better. And hopefully with that, her can get the information of what actually happened in reality just three months ago, but overall 300 years ago. Kind of confusing. Yeah, he's trying to get eyewitness accounts of what happened when the plague was unleashed amongst the population because again, now they've realized that these children, Mary and specific, they were present and witnessed the breakdown of society directly. So he wants that information. And Janice is realizing though that, or she thinks poorly that Jim Captain Kirk is taking an advantage of Mary. She still sees her as a young girl and Spock has to remind her that no, she may look like a young girl, but she's actually 300 years older, you know, distinct Janice. Yeah, he's Spock's trying to rationalize Kirk taking advantage of these feelings. She's 300 years old biologically, mentally she is a child 13, 14, 15, and pre puberty because if she had already gone through puberty, she would have contracted this disease and would be dead. Important to point out. Exactly. So they're off on the rendezvous, Jim and Mary and now we meet all those secretive little rock throwing 90, 90 boo boo kids and imagine Lord of the Flies because we have one leader, John, Dan, has a H today, a H N. Yeah, I certainly heard it to be John throughout the whole episode. I think it's partially due to the fact that these children actors don't pronounce and pronunciate their words very well, but that's that's me harping on child actors. I probably shouldn't give them too much grief over it. It's also interesting that you draw the parallel to Lord of the Flies because I also drew the parallel to Lord of the Flies as I'm watching this. Who couldn't, but that also kind of points on a problem of the episode because diving a little deeper, this is really supposed to be a story of Peter Pan. John is supposed to be Peter, the boy who never grew up and wants to continue to be a boy and to play and never grow up. Mary is supposed to be Wendy. She's supposed to be the voice of reason. She's supposed to be the one who recognizes that everyone has to grow up and that it's not the end of the world. That's insane. I didn't even think about that because they don't really do a good job in the episode to follow along those plot lines. It's more Lord of the Flies than Peter Pan. Exactly. Because I mean, John is literally riling them up so they can harm the groups and they don't take away the the life that they're living exactly. Wow. I mean, and then of course, just like children, they have hammers or other weapons and just act out what they're going to do and bonk bonk and chant and all kinds of crazy. But this of course is also the point where we learned that Jan is coming up with a plan to try to isolate the away team from the Enterprise. He's seen them and they've observed them from the shadows using their communicators to talk to the Enterprise. So they want to steal these communicators for no other reason than just to cut off the adults from the ship. The children see Kirk and Mary out on the straight through a window of the building. Yes. And they hide because they see they observe Kirk is looking for some private place to spend some time with Mary to ask her about what information that she knows. And it's very obvious he's pointing to the building. Hey, let's go in there for a bit. Yes. And so Mary leads him into the building and they're talking. And then all of a sudden we see another purple disfigured person and start racing out, which actually scares the children that were hiding in the first place. And they scatter. Kirk and Mary though do not because Kirk is trying to save Mary. And in a way to get this creature off of Kirk and not attacking him, he uses his little stun gun phaser, whatever it is. What is it called? A phaser. And the person creature falls to the ground and dies. But Kirk is like bewildered. He's like, it wasn't even on set to kill. And then that's when Mary tells us about that her name is Louise. And she doesn't have like real big emotion is just like a way of life. She's more concerned about the fact that Louise was quote, only a few months older than me. Yes. I think Mary realizes that this is kind of a confrontational moment for Mary where she has to confront the fact that she is approaching this age where she has seen all of the people, all of the children that she's known that survived the initial plague, but then slowly aged into puberty and then died. Which leads to the question, well, this is a disease that progresses slightly slowly. We at least see that it takes about a week for the onset of symptoms until they can expect to die. So Louise would have first contracted the disease and started showing symptoms a week before. Where is Louise Ben for the last week as she's gone through this infection period? She couldn't have been one of the children that just went and hid because none of them were showing signs of the disease. It's just interesting that you would have everyone's focused on the fact that their only population on this planet is the children, but that can't necessarily be true. There has to be a very small subset of this population that are people that are starting to show the signs of this disease and they live out the last week of their lives, presumably shunned from the group of children. We just never encounter any other ones. No, you're right. And though it also seems though that they're naive. It's not everybody that, not everybody gets this. Yeah, but we see that with Mary later where they're trying to confront anytime they try to drive home this fact of you need to help us. You need to help us find a cure to this because otherwise this will happen to you. And that is one of the objections that Mary has to that line of logic is no, it only happens sometimes. It doesn't happen to everyone. It only happens to some people. Maybe she has that plausible deniability because when someone starts to show that they are entering puberty and they start to show these lesions and that they're infected, they're shunned from the rest of the group of children. They're sent off to be by themselves. Maybe Mary's lying to herself to say, we don't actually see everyone die. Therefore, they could be out there still living as an adult. But then again, Mary has this unrational fear. But then again, Mary has this fear of all grownups that all grownups are bad. So I don't really know. She's lying to herself or what's going on. Plus it's weird. We don't see them die of natural, like there's just creatures running around, like something stressful happens, like that child losing his bike or thinking that McCoy is going to take it or whatever electricity is in a phaser hitting the leaves and she died. Is there another land, another area where these purple creatures are just living their life? Well, let's piggyback on that idea again. Also, is this town the only place where these children exist? True. Is this plague limited to just this town? Probably not. If that's the case, if this plague spread across the world, wouldn't there be other bands of children? They never really try to go explore any of that, just a thought. But anyway, enough of that tangent. Let's get back on track. We're back in the lab. Mary's sharpening some pencils. Yes, because they have had her sharpening pencils and she even asked Jim, is this enough? He's like, no, no. We need many more. Keep sharpening. And I love how it's those old time pencils that you can never get the pencils sharpened, because it just keep breaking. And then you didn't have a pencil anymore because they ate it all, but yes, I went and Spock though got compliment got his numbers from the enterprise and it did confirm this all happened at puberty. This all is super on set super fast and it is that week. So everything we just said has been confirmed. Yes, to summarize, Mary has a few weeks left before she enters puberty. Spock is a carrier of the disease and will never get sick, but he will infect others so he can't return to the enterprise and the away team has seven days before they will fully succumb and die from this disease. Two days have passed and McCoy has found files that show that this was created. He is working on a vaccine to try to correct it all of this, but midway through, they hear the children outside chanting that silly nanny nanny boo boo song. So of course, all of them go out, all of the adults go out and try to confront the children again, leaving everything alone, they put anything away in their little lab, they just left the facility. Yeah, we don't know where the two red shirts are at this point. They're not part of the group. No idea where they are wondering. Janice is also not in the group. Mary is not in the group. Janice, I guess, is taking Mary for a walk, so his Kirk is out of busy tasks for her to do around the lab. So it's just Spock, Kirk and McCoy that are being lured away from the lab by the children. And while they're away, our sneaky Jan just walks into the lab and picks up every communicator. He just calls them a box. He doesn't really know what they are. He just knows that that's their lifeline to the ship. And he just puts them in his pockets, whistling around and then leaves when the kids are gone, McCoy, Spock and Jim can't find them. They go back to the lab and guess what, communicators are gone. McCoy points out that with these communicators gone, they're unable to communicate with the enterprise. So they can't use the data that they get in their research on the planet up to the enterprise's computer for calculations to effectively check their math. And another day and a half passes, we see the crew members being more testy, short with each other. Kirk mentions that in his captain's log, he also mentions that they've observed that there's not a lot of food around left in this city. So there's some, but the children are probably going to starve to death in six months. Yes. And accidentally he runs into Janice and she drops the beakers. She that she was holding. She runs into the corridor and he follows her and Mary follows them, but she's hiding while watching them. And Janice is just upset and Kirk's like, yes, we're all frightened. And I think this is a moment of desperation for Janice because she's feeling a little bit of despair is this plague is continuing to advance and they don't really have any progress in finding a cure. She makes a comment about how she was always trying to get Jim Kirk to pay attention to her on the enterprise. She says, I was always trying to get you to look at my legs. Now of course her legs are covered with these plague lesions. And so Kirk comforts her, which Mary sees from the doorway that she's hiding in. And again, this is kind of a revelation that Mary is developing these attractive romantic affectionate feelings toward Kirk. And now she's confused as an adolescent. She's trying to figure out and trying to process this thought of Kirk not liking her back. So in her confusion, Mary kind of slinks off down the hallway and out of out of sight. And McCoy interrupts them all and says, wait, I found something. So they all rush back into the lab. McCoy gives some explanation of he was tired or whatever and wasn't properly analyzing the slides of the virus correctly. But now he understands something else and now it's not a cure, but it's a chance. Again, it's just kind of filler to advance the episode. But with everyone slightly excited over the fact that there's now hope Kirk now comforts Janice again. And again, we see Mary looking in from the doorway and a repeat of just before where she's expressing through her body language that she's confused. She's trying to process this idea that Kirk does not return her affectionate feelings because she's comforting another woman. And so she runs off. Mary returns back to Jam and the other children. They are trying to come up with a way to Lord Janice away. So by getting Janice away, Kirk will follow. So Mary comes up with the idea that, oh, there's a harmed child and Janice could help help that child. It's important to point out that this is Mary betraying the away team and specifically Kirk. This is her reacting or this is her decision on how she chooses to process this information about realizing that Kirk is not necessarily romantically attracted to her and returning her feelings of affection. So she turns traitor and is now going to help the children pick off and eliminate the away team, the grown-ups so that they continue on with their lifestyle. Again, they don't say it, but it's heavily implied that they're going to kill the adults. I think it's interesting. Also, like we're seeing the immaturity of the child, but yeah, they're still 300 plus years old. Right, confirming that it really right, confirming that Spock was wrong when he admonished Janice and her concerns about Kirk abusing his charisma and Mary's feelings toward Kirk. These children are not beings that have 300 years of existence and wisdom and intelligence and experiences. They are 300-year-old children. They have existed and lived in a mental locked period where they are still children. Now though we're back at the lab, Makoi has made a cure, but because they cannot communicate with the enterprise, they don't really know if it will work. Yeah, they specifically mentioned that they are unsure of the dosage. So I guess it is... They don't want to get too much, too little, you know, they want to be safe, but Janice is missing and Kirk is like, "Mary, please tell me where she is. We've been nothing but nice to you. Just help us." And he's dropping his act, his charisma charm a bit, partially I think due to the fact that this disease is advanced and he's sweating, so he has a fever. He's feeling the effects of this virus. But still holding his composure because he knows he can't be like those... The people that the children have explained in the past. Correct. Yes, to get through to her that this is important. Kirk is trying to appeal to Mary by saying that the cure is needed so that they can save everybody, that they're going to grow up, they're going to hit puberty, they're going to start changing into that creature that they're all afraid of. And she Mary is like, "That is not true, that doesn't happen to everybody." And he like grabs her arm and is like,"It's already happening to you. Don't you want to be healed also?" And she freaks out, totally and completely. We're now in a classroom where Janice is being held. Jan has her and as well as other kids. Mary arrives there with Kirk. Kirk is trying to negotiate, give me the actu communicators. We need them, but it doesn't work. No, they all kind of surround him and start chanting that stupid little nursery rhyme chant that they use. It's very annoying. And they all start advancing on him. He doesn't really make a whole lot of convincing arguments, but he is pleading with them to stop and to leave them alone. At one point, as they're advancing, one of the kids literally spits in his face. It was super gross. I had to rewind it a couple times. Like, did that kid really just spit in Kirk's face? But they all advance on Kirk and they start beating on him with all of these clubs and spears and things that they have. But then they don't know though that Mary has the disease. And then they Kirk's like, "Well, Jan, how old are you? You're going to start getting the disease soon here too." Like, this is important. And then finally, the last like appeal to them, what is going to happen to the smallest of the children when all of y'all that are beating me at the moment are gone. Who's going to help them? Yeah, because presumably there are, we can visibly see that there are children who are four, five, six years old that are not capable of caring for themselves. They're being taken care of by Jan, Mary, the other teenagers who haven't hit puberty yet. And in, at some point in the future, they're all, all the teenagers are going to contract the disease and die. And now we're going to have these four, five, six-year-olds that are hundreds of years away from ever having to worry about hitting puberty, but they're not going to be able to take care of themselves. And then I think it's fantastic when he points out the irony that, "Didn't you say the grubs, plasks grownups were mean and yelling and hit you and reviling? What are you doing to me?" Right. And I think that's the argument that finally gets through to all of them is pointing out that hypocrisy of you guys don't have to get the disease and get sick to turn into what you guys are most afraid of and hate the most. You guys have become that. To draw on that parallel to the Lord of the Flies again, this is the moment where the rescue ship shows up on the beach and completely destroys all of the illusions and society that the children have built up and says, "What are you all doing? Knock it off. You're rescued. Let's go." In a similar fashion, Kirk has basically said that to them. You're rescued. This is the opportunity to develop a cure to this disease. Just give us the communicators back and let's be done with all of this. And back at the lab, McCoy and Spock are arguing, "Should we just try this vaccine that we made? Should we just test it out really quick? Maybe we can tweak it before we get those communicators back and actually get the exact dosage needed?" And Spock's like, "No, I don't think so." But Spock also leaves to go check on Kirk and see how that situation is going. While he's gone, McCoy takes it upon himself and gives himself his own vaccine. He just kind of is like, "I know what I'm doing. I'm just going to take one for the team." And he does it. And he makes himself pass out. He's ill and fully squeezed. He's dying. He screams out in pain and he calls out for Spock and then he passes out. But that does summon Spock back to the lab. And with him back in the lab, Kirk and now the kids that are actually understanding the necessity of everything are with him. And they don't know what to do. But Kirk notices that those purple markings that plague Spock on McCoy's face are starting to fade. And I really like how it magically disappears. Whatever the movie magic is that it is for making these shows. Yeah, it seems like they're transitioning between stills, but it doesn't look like stills. It still looks pretty good for camera and editing transition. It's just missing like glitter and sparkle. Right. Kirk finally walked out of the room and he smells at Mary. Jan asked Mary, is this a good thing? And she's like, of course it is. Yeah, kind of an interesting scene or line of dialogue there because again, I think this really portrays Mary in this role of Wendy where everyone all of a sudden is kind of shifting to look at Mary as the source of authority. Mary's the one who is now the most grownup of the children. And they're all kind of deferring to her as to what's happening. But it's still so weird because where did her jealous fillings go? Where did her all those things go? Now she's happy? Yeah. Well, I think that she kind of came to her senses with Kirk's monologue about appealing to the children about helping them. I think maybe she snapped out of it, got over her little crush on Kirk and is recognizing again, she and Peter and the rest of the lost boys had to grow up. And now we're back on the enterprise. Everyone is safe and sound. Thankfully, the children are still on their planet. They do have supplies, whatever space central is like the what they call star fleet before they invented star fleet. I'm imagining. See, we're in everything new. Supplies and teachers and everything will be sent to those children who are super old, but they won't have to say nannity booboo anymore, but they will get some discipline and learn things. Janet also, Janice also comments to Kirk that Mary really loved him, but Kirk makes the joke that he's not into older women. And that was kind of creepy too. Yeah. And I can't really tell in that closing line if Janice was amused by Kirk because he's obviously trying to be amusing. He's trying to make a joke. I don't know if she's amused by the joke and she takes it in that context or if she kind of turns away from him in infusion or thinking that what he said was inappropriate, kind of left up in the air. I can't really tell. I'm assuming the writers of the show meant it to be this is the closing line. This is the lighthearted joke so that we can go on to the next adventure. I might just be trying to read too much into it, but with that roll credits, so Jackie, what did you think about season one episode eight, Mary? I wish I could have liked it, but it was still confusing. I thought I was seeing something, but then I was wrong. I don't know. It was not very good for me. Yeah. I agree. This is not a great episode, which is too bad. This is from a technical standpoint, the use of an outdoor set. The first time we've seen that since the initial pilot episode, the cage, I believe, lots of interior sets that are used and dressed up, but from just the rest of the episode, the pacing is terrible. It never really takes off. Every time they try to advance the story, it's just a lot of scientific, garbally, guk and macoi or spock trying to explain this manufactured virus and how it's progressing and how they reach the conclusion that it only affects adults. It's just very sloppy. The detail about Mary developing attractive feelings toward Kirk. I can put aside into a box because Kirk is not responding in a similar way. I do appreciate the fact that when Kirk does start to abuse those feelings to his own advantage, while one can argue might be necessary to get them out of their predicament. I do appreciate the fact that we do have a couple little moments of Yom and Janice Rand trying to bring up the spock mentioning to Kirk at the end that this is a person who is developing feelings and should be treated appropriately and not taking advantage of, not super happy that the response was, well, she's 300 years old, we'll be fine. So yeah, the Kirk from Spock saying think about it. That was like an insult to her also. And Janice was like the MVP of the episode. Yeah, this is definitely Janice's episode. This is hats off to Janice for this one. But overall also just lots of simple plot holes. I think I pointed out along the way. Also go all the way back. What was the point of the planet that they were on being an exact duplicate of Earth? It's mentioned in the beginning before the opening credits. They beam down and they compare it to 1960s Earth. We never find out why. Why wouldn't that be a more significant thing to investigate why there is a duplicate of a planet in the universe? Makes no sense. Again, they explored another things, but I almost wish that that was the point of the episode. I almost wish that that was the focus that all the mysteries of the plague and why there are only children and there's no adults. I really wish that that somehow tied back to the planet being a duplicate of Earth. And finally, this should have been more Peter Pan unless Lord of the Flies, I think. I think that would have made for a better plot. It sure would have been easier to understand. It was supposed to be Peter Pan. Yeah. I have a few fun, triple tidbits or fun facts about this episode. It first aired October 27th 1966. And we will revisit this idea of a parallel Earth. There are other episodes of the enterprise finding parallel Earths, finding Earth like worlds, finding other civilizations from Earth, but it's also a way for the show to save some money. They can reuse the sets, the costumes and so forth. Much in the same way that when we see an episode, take place all on the enterprise, reusing those same sets over and over and not having to build new sets or come up with new costumes. It would have been a lot more expensive for this to take place on an alien planet with an alien culture and have to come up with sets and things that were alien as opposed to Earth. So will the next one be about animal farm then? No, absolutely not. Leonard Neemoy declined an invitation to allow his children to act as extras in the episode. But Kirk, sorry, William Schatner, his middle child was one of the extras. She's the one who's being carried in his arms at the end of the episode when they're returning to the lab to discover McCoy is passed out on the floor. Also, Grace Lee Whitney's two sons were in the episode. Grace is the actress who plays Janis. Yoman Janis. That's so precious. The reason why this was so cheap to make for this episode, the outdoor set is the same as Mayberry from the Andy Griffith show. It's the same back lot. They just dressed it up with debris in the streets and of course all those classroom sets and things are very easy for them to make. You'll notice there's not a lot of detail on the wall. It's one paint job and just different dressings. The actress who played Mayree was 19 at the time this episode was filmed. The actor who played John was 27. This is the only episode where Yoman Janis Rand leaves the Enterprise. Again, this is kind of her spotlight episode for her character. Total body count of two, the two children who transitioned from their disease and later died on scene, no deaths from the Enterprise crew. Just again focusing on age Kirk mentions at the end, he doesn't get involved with older women. Grace Lee Whitney who plays Janis is older than William Schatner who plays Captain Kirk. The writer Adrian Spies over padded this script with lots of scene descriptions and stage directions. We've mentioned that this is a very weak episode for plot and story. When they took that script and edited it down to filming the episode ran 10 minute short. So they had to rewrite the episode, add more story. Again, I think maybe that's where we get a lot of this science filler from McCoy and Spock, but it would because this was such a problematic episode with the script, this is the last time that this writer is allowed to write a story for Star Trek. And I think completely coincidentally, but a strange coincidence, when this show was remastered when it was put out on DVD, this episode there is no writer credited on the DVD version. That's really sad. I think it's a complete coincidence. This film was filmed in the 1960s when did DVDs come out. I don't know the exact release of the DVD. It has to be late 90s early odds. So I think I don't think anyone's holding a grudge for 40 years. I think it's just a pure coincidence. I think it has more to do with the fact that they had a writer for the script. They had multiple rewrites and they just didn't know who to effectively credit. But just a weird coincidence. I've mentioned of course the similarities to the story of Peter Pan, Wendy, the Lost Boys, previous versions of the script had a greater tie to Peter Pan, as opposed to the themes from Lord of the Flies that we see come through. Previous versions of the script had a greater relationship and focus on a relationship between Mary and Jan. There was also more details in previous scripts. The house that they find Mary in was supposed to be her actual house that she grew up in and her parents grew up in, but all of that was kind of dropped. And then my last triple tidbit is this is probably one of the better examples that we see of the remastering of the original series, the original version that first aired on television, earth as they approached the planet and start to orbit it, those visuals of earth were just a globe with no other features. They later went in and remastered it to be an actual look more like earth from orbit. Specifically, the original version had zero clouds in any of the shots and the remaster of course added those clouds and other deeps, but those are your triple tidbits. This is the part of the episode where we decide and share our episode rankings. This is where we pretend that the episode is a member of our fictitious starship. Each, each episode is assigned a starfleet rank. The higher the rank means not only that we found the episode more entertaining, but we find the episode more of an important crew member to our ship that we form and create throughout this season. A lower rank of course means that we weren't entertained, but also that we find this to be a more disposable member of the crew. They're still a member of the crew, but we'd happily watch them beam down and die wearing a red shirt on an away mission. Last week, Jackie ranked what are little girls made of as a lieutenant junior grade, which is the second lowest rank that you can assign? Be about a two or a three out of a scale of 10 also is on the scale was the naked time. But Jackie, for this episode, what do you rank Miri? Giant zero. So if that were Janice, she could be like my commander. So you're going to take Janice's spotlight episode and you're going to dump it all the way at the bottom as an answer. Well, just like you said last episode, one person can't carry it sad, but my girl needed a more showtime. I would agree that Janice needs more showtime. So we will rank that down at an Ensign grade for Jackie on her starship the USS Galactic Blitter B for reference. Also, Jackie is ranked the cage and Charlie X as an Ensign at the bottom of the barrel. I'm torn as well. I'm just going to have to follow Jackie's lead and for the USS cosmic shark, I'm going to rank this episode at the very bottom as well. And Ensign a zero or one out of 10, not a great episode, tons of plot holes, tons of plot pacing issues as we've mentioned. So this is going to go on the bottom of the barrel. But no red search for our girl. No, absolutely not. Not yet. Don't you dare tease me. Don't you dare. Jackie doesn't know the entire character arc for Yom and Janice Rans. So she probably has some stuck in a little b high grade, didn't she? We'll get there. Oh man. So we're both going to rank these as Ensign at the bottom of the barrel as a reminder, we will post a visual representation of these rankings on our Patreon on Wednesday, the day after this episode airs. You can check that out at patreon.com/treks. And in comparison to IMDB at the time of this recording, IMDB ranks this a 6.9 out of 10. The pretty low rank for IMDB. This episode was not well received. We'll be back next week to check through another episode. And before we go, we'll give our TurboLifties or elevator pitch to the next week's plot. I'll give Jackie the title of next week's episode and Jackie with no other information. We'll give a brief pitch to the plot. Is this one better? Let's find out. Jackie next week's episode is entitled "Dagger of the Mind." What? "Dagger like a knife?" Yes. Okay, "Dagger of the Mind." That means we are going to have a character that has like a brain tumor in that metaphor for that dagger or vice versa. And do we have to cure them? I make them happy. All right. And tune in next week to see how accurate Jackie's prediction is. They're very positive in my prediction. Yes. If you want more show information, you can find and directly support our podcast on Patreon at patreon.com/treksandtangents. Don't forget to tune in next week for more updates and information about us exploring the animated series for the original series. And we'll post those episodes on our Patreon for our crew members. You can also follow us on X at Trex_Tangents. We're also on Instagram and Blue Sky at Trex and Tangents. Jackie, where can people find you and what you are up to? Oh, I have super exciting news. I just opened up a what not store. You can find me under glitter, bobo, booty, just like I've said in my Instagram how I have fashion, lost ball of the weight, all that great jazz. I can't have my closet full of everything you needed to. So I have that going on and then I have Instagram that is under jibboon and I'm super excited to keep going on with my music. This January 26 season is going to start soon and I cannot wait to start posting more concert information. And you can find and watch me stream a variety of video games over at twitch.tv/piratepoundtown on YouTube. I post video games and other random content on my main channel at piratepoundtown and coin collecting and other hobby content can be found at pirate treasure hunting. I post socially on Blue Sky at piratepoundtown and you can also find me on Instagram under pineapple cannibal because Instagram doesn't like pirates. Links to all social media mentioned can be found in the episode description. Thank you all for tuning into this episode. We hope you had fun like we did. We will see you all next week. Nanny, Nanny Boo Boo and Transpiration.