This episode is deeply uncomfortable.
Synopsis
The Enterprise receives a distress signal and tracks it to a duplicate Earth. They beam down to find decayed infrastructure, horrible incongruous architecture, diminishing food supplies, mass unemployment, vagrants roaming the streets... just as it was in the year 2023.
My only guess is that this episode is set on a duplicate Earth for budgetary reasons.
Anyway...
They discover that the people of 2023 were trying to build an immortality virus—though the virology lab seems to be in the US, so they missed that prediction—but instead it killed every adult. The children were blessed (?) with very long childhoods, but once they reach puberty they die.
Children, it turns out, are little assholes. The Enterprise crew who beam down (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Rand, and two red-shirts) are infected, and the kids steal their communicators because why not?
Miri is a girl on the cusp of womanhood. I imagine that the script intended for Kirk to come across as a father figure, but instead he comes across as an Epstein tourist.
Nonetheless, McCoy manages to make a cure with limited equipment, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Commentary
That synopsis was less coherent than usual for me, because this is a deeply incoherent episode. I don't even know what to say. This is Star Trek does Peter Pan. Peter is an asshole, and Wendy is being used.
Growing up is necessary. It sucks.
Let's sweep this episode under the rug.
