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In the “Star Trek” episode “Miri” (October 27, 1966), the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise beams down to a planet that, quite mysteriously, has the same continental layout as Earth. When Kirk (William Shatner), Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) beam down to investigate, they find a burned-out, post-apocalyptic wasteland. The only survivors are children, and Kirk will eventually learn that all the planet’s adults were wiped out by a fatal virus centuries before. The virus also turned the adults mad, and they turned to badgering, hunting, and harming the planet’s uninfected children. The children remember this time, and have come to see all adults as sinister and untrustworthy, calling them “grups,” short for “grown-ups.”
The same virus, as a side effect, also slowed the aging of the children, so they have been kids for over 300 years, unable to grow up or become wise. They will eventually hit puberty, though, and when they do, the virus infects them immediately. The world is dying out, and only resentful children, gathered into cults, remain. Their food supplies are dwindling, and they will likely all starve within a year. Oh yes, and the Enterprise crewmates were infected with the virus the instant they beamed down, so they have to beat the clock to find a vaccine. It’s a pretty bleak episode.
“Miri” ends when Kirk convinces a young girl, the titular Miri (Kim Darby), that childhood must end and that adulthood isn’t all that scary. She convinces the leader of the kids, Jahn (Michael J. Pollard), that the Enterprise crew are okay. Dr. McCoy, brilliant doctor that he is, finds a cure for the virus, and Kirk vows to send doctors and teachers to Miri’s planet to help them become adults. It’s a clean ending to a potentially sad story.
Readers of “Star Trek” comics and novels, though, know that wasn’t the end of Miri’s tale. A 1989 novel shockingly murdered Miri, and a follow-up 1998 comic book series revealed that, despite McCoy’s efforts, the plague returned.