MIRROR, MIRROR

Captain Kirk was always a stickler for racial equality

Air date:  October 6, 1967
Writer:  Jerome Bixby
Director:  Marc Daniels

Mirror, Mirror easily belongs in my top ten episodes of the Original Series. That's probably because I was always a sucker for stories where heroes meet evil versions of themselves. In  my role-playing days, I guess I must have set up endless variation on that theme.

It's a question of contrast, I think. The more noble the hero, the more evil his or her parallel counterpart must be to make the story effective. This is why the Mirror Universe featured on Deep Space Nine episodes were not as effective. DS9 was already a show drenched in shades of gray, where heroes sometimes behaved like villains, and villains sometimes had good intentions. In that respect, it's more difficult to achieve. Frankly, they should have done it on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Because the characters were portrayed as paragons of human morality and ethics with a never ending faith in the 'human spirit'. A mirror version of Captain Picard, quite possibly the most self-righteous character ever devised for TV, would be most interesting to see.

The episode starts on a cold open, where Captain Kirk, Dr McCoy, Uhura and Scotty are negotiating with the Halkans to secure dilithium crystals mining rights on behalf of the Federation. The Halkans refuse, due to their absolute stance on pacifism. Not only will they not engage in warfare and violence but will not allow anyone to use their resources to do the same. Kirk reassures them that the Federation have always been dedicated to peace, but Tharn (a representative of the Halkan Council) counters the argument by saying that Kirk cannot guarantee that the Federation will always remain benevolent and may descent into barbarism in the future. A very good point, since we know that governments can go bad, and even those founded on principles of freedom and liberty are not immune to poor decisions and may even fall into authoritarianism, if not outright facism.

There's an ion storm going on, one of the worst kind, so it messes with the transporters. When the landing party returns to the Enterprise...things are different. The Federation is now an empire, and the ship is run along the lines of a ruthless military dictatorship. To illustrates the difference, the uniforms are different, low-ranking officers and crewmen make Nazi salutes and are severly punished if they screw up and, oh, Spock has a goatee (now and forever the ultimate symbol of evil in the universe).

Kirk still has to deal with the Halkans, only this time his orders are to destroy them if they do not comply. In  my opinion this is the only weak spot in the episode. It's almost as if the Empire is asking permission to invade and conquer, and if you say no, they'll waste you into submission. Conquerors seldom ask permission for anything, they come in and invade and if you don't like it then you can lump it 'cause the conquerors are not going away anytime soon. So why the imperial Enterprise just doesn't send troops to take over and sod it with the Council is a mystery to me.

Kirk, of course, is apalled at this turn event and stalls for time, not only to protect the Halkans but to give him time to get his crewmen out of this nest of vipers. Goatee Spock reminds Kirk that his conduct is unprecedented and he will have to report it. Now, as we all know, Kirk has disboeyed orders before, and gotten away with it too but this time the imperial Starfleet is not going to let that slip up. Case in point: Mirror Chekov. He wastes no time in organising Kirk's assassination. He fails, of course and it's off to the Agony Booth with him (funny the way our Kirk has just ordered one of his men to be tortured almost to death without realising it).

Things get from bad to worse. Goatee Spock has orders to kill Kirk and take his place if he doesn't comply. On the positive side, Kirk realises that his counterpart already has a girlfriend waiting for him in his quarters. That'll save a bit of time, usually he has to romance the hell out of any women he encounters, now all he had to do was walk in and...there she was. Lt. Moreau (his GF) is worried about what's happening but then reveals that Evil Kirk disposes of his enemies by way of an alien device that can vaporise a target by the simple press of a button. She suggests Kirk gets rid of Goatee Spock, but Kirk refuses. Another unprecedented turn of event (I should point out that that Kirk got to command the Enterprise by assassinating Captain Pike. Proving, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Pike is really Starfleet's bitch. Whatever versions of the Trek universe he ends up in, he always gets completely screwed over. Poor Chris, will you ever get a break?).

Meanwhile, Scotty and McCoy jury rig the transporters to allow them to leave, however the technobabble will trigger an alarm on Mirror Sulu's security console (he doubles as chief helmsman and security chief...for double paychecks, the bastard!). Uhura has to distract him. This is a good one for Nichelle Nichols, she gets to be part of the action, for once, and she also gets to play the vixen, tormenting Sulu so he won't see the security breach (on the other hand, while he doesn't see the LED going on and off, the thing also has ping ping ping sound you hear a lot on the Enterprise. And Sulu doesn't notice. Though, if Lt. Uhura ever put the moves on me, I'd probably even forget I'm even on board the Enterprise).

Goatee Spock begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together and realises something's going on. This is another of the episiode's forte, illustrating that while they are behaving in a very different way, these are the same people that Kirk and co. work with on their own ship. With the same personalities, only shown in a different environment where these personalities have taken a different turn. Take Mirror Sulu, for instance, he is devious, cunning and utterly without scruples. However he shows the same level of competency and skills than his counterpart, displays a certain amount of loyalty and is still very much driven for the command track. Same man, different outlook.

Events move along. Mr Scott completes his transporter mods, and it's off for the transporter room. Goatee Spock doesn't know exactly what's going on, but he understands enough to bring the entire party together in sickbay for a chit chat. In comes  Mirror Sulu, who has decided that everyone is traitor (except himself, of course) and by killing everybody he's sure to become captain of the ship but Lt. Moreau intervenes with the alien thingamabob and whisks Mr Sulu's men into The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. But not Mirror Sulu (even his evil self is protected by the Regular Character Clause).

However, Goatee Spock has been severly injured and Dr McCoy feels onligated to save him. He tells the others to scarper to the transporter. He'll be back in five minutes (and then what? he comes back twelve years later? Oops, sorry, wrong series). Goatee Spock awakens, mind melds with McCoy and now finds out everything he wanted to know about parallel universes but was afraid to ask.

He escorts McCoy back to the transporter room. He'll operate the transporters and allow the landing party to leave to get his own Kirk back. But not before Kirk delivers of his famous Speech where he exorts Goatee Spock to orchestrate a revolution, because the Empire will inevitably fall within 250 years due to mismanagement, entropy and because the script just says so. He tells Goatee Spock that his empire is illogical, worse, that Spock is illogical to support it. Once again Kirk proves that he is the King of Balls. You do not tell any version of Mr Spock that he is illogical. You just don't. Goatee Spock groks what Kirk has to say and sends them all out on their merry way.

Back on their ship, Kirk asks Spock how he managed with their counterparts. Easy, Spock just threw them all up in the brig (ah Mr Spock, only sane man in a universe gone mad). The regular version of Lt Moreau turns up, but it's clear that she has absolutely no relationship with Kirk beyond professional duties and all. Alas, Kirk contemplates romancing Moreau the hard way and orders Sulu to move along.

Stardate: Unknown
He's dead, Jim: Five. Two of Mirror Chekov's henchmen, and three of Mirror Sulu's.
New life and new civilisations: The Halkans, complete pacificists. They look entirely human only with a dot in the middle of the forehead. The have counterparts in the Mirror Universe who act pretty much the same way (there are many constants between both universes).
Chekov's victim: Mirror Chekov is thrown into the Agony Booth torture device for his failed assassination of Captain Kirk.
Kirk's little black book: Lt. Moreau, who's the Captain's Woman (Mirror Universe only).
Crewman of the week:  Lt. Moreau, see above.
The Verdict:  5 out 5. An engaging adventure romp done with spunk and flair. The uniforms and look of the evil Empire is spot on and the cast revels in playing less than stellar versions of themselves. This one has become a classic of the original series and with good reasons. A must see.