Miri

Start with a planet, a plague and a group of 300 year old truants. Throw in an Enterprise away team and what have you got? You’ve got “Miri” on this week’s edition of Mission Log. Regarding the reason for the duplicate Earth we see: I wonder if the writers thought that you would need a duplicate of Earth in order for a duplicate human civilisation to arise? Before they came up with the later Hodgkins Law of Parallel Planetary Development? Yeah, it’s piecrust scientific reasoning, but as Kirk himself said in the episode, “It seems impossible, but there it is.” Glad you’re enjoying the show! Gene had the “duplicate Earths” idea floating around in early descriptions of Star Trek, and a big part of that was to stretch the production budget. Sometimes it works well, other times (like in “Miri”) you have to wonder why they don’t make it into a thing that this is an exact duplicate (topography and all) of our own Earth. Funny thing is: Shatner did exactly the same thing in one of his Trek books. He mentioned that Miri’s planet was the first if 13 duplicate Earths that were discovered, and then didn’t take the story any further!