STAR TREK:
- The Original Series (TOS)
- The Animated Series
- The Movies
- The Next Generation (TNG)
- Deep Space Nine (DS9)
- Voyager
- Enterprise
THE ORIGINAL SERIES:
- Season One
- Season Two
- Season Three
- "Season Four"
Season Two:
-30: "Catspaw"
-32: "Friday's Child"
-33: "Who Mourns for Adonais?"
-38: "The Apple"
-39: "Mirror, Mirror"
-43: "Bread and Circuses"
-45: "A Private Little War"
-46: "The Gamesters of Triskelion"
-49: "A Piece of the Action"
-52: "Patterns of Force"
-54: "The Omega Glory"
-55: "Assignment: Earth"
-Season 2 Rankings
SCIENCE FICTION:
- Doctor Who
- Sliders
- The Matrix
- Main Index
- Site Map
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Mirror, Mirror
(Star Trek story #39 in production order)
- written by Jerome Bixby
- directed by Marc Daniels
- music by Fred Steiner
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Mirror, Mirror
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And now we arrive at one of Star Trek's finest episodes,
which we at first suspected might deserve to be included
in both our Time Travel
and Prime Directive
articles for season two.
First to the Prime Directive question. The episode opens
with Kirk and the rest of his landing party playing diplomat
to a group of councillors on the planet Halka. Out of respect
for their rights under his laws, Kirk must agree to continue
a "hands off" policy with respect to trade. No actual mention of
the non-interference or Prime Directive is actually made here;
it's just a similar idea. It is perhaps at its most
appropriate here because it is arrived at through consultation
and agreement of both parties, with Kirk representing
the Federation honestly, unlike many other tales where Starfleet
comes to their decisions completely on their own and deceives
local populations as to who they are and what they value.
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Though all this is but background to contrast the Federation
with the parallel Earth Empire seen later on, it remains one
of the better examples of Starfleet being on top of its
principles.
It isn't long, however, before Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura
trade places with their doubles in a parallel universe.
As in "The Alternative Factor",
the writer's thinking is fairly dualistic
when it comes to postulating what kind of
parallels might be out there, aiming for a type of
archetypal opposite. Unseen here is the pluralistic thinking
that leads to unlimited number of parallel universes such
as seen in the show
"Sliders".
This would be necessary in order to accept the idea
of around ten thousand new parallel universes branching
out of a person's minute decisions each day, which
makes nonsense out of the idea of changing history
and cures bad time travel non-interference theory.
While this remains an excellent story, "Mirror, Mirror"
doesn't really have the substance that it should
to wake up its writers
and fans to the folly of Star Trek's usual theories of
time travel. In fact, the popularity of returning
to this particular parallel universe while ignoring
the many others that could equally be explored cements
the dualistic thinking into place instead. But that's a sequel
problem. "Mirror, Mirror" is to be commended for
spearheading an excellent idea.
The selection of this particular landing party seems
a bit contrived. We should have the personnel that
best aid first contact and trade negotiations, yet
these four seem better selected to give the audience
an entertaining cross-section of the crew to watch
as they interact with their doubles in
a parallel universe, and to make sure they have enough
of the right skills between them to get back again
at the end. Uhura might be appropriate for a negotiation
(her complete range of skills and duties remains vague
at this point in the series), but it is unusual for her
to be off the ship. Scotty's expertise seems wasted,
because as he has said himself in
"A Taste of Armageddon",
"The best diplomat I know is a fully armed phaser bank."
There isn't likely any use for his knowledge of dilithium
usage until after the Halkans become open to the idea of trade.
And McCoy is likely only there to rub Kirk's shoulders and
give him a moral boost between rounds of negotiation.
One does feel like one is stretching to justify these four
as a landing party, but what the heck. The episode turns
out so well anyway, this really is just a minor nit.
Kirk is probably right to quietly assess the situation
of suddenly appearing in a parallel universe, and at first
confide only to his own landing party. However, and especially
in hindsight, were they right to slip so easily into the
deceit of living in their doubles' shoes? There can be
little doubt that this is where the bulk of the episode's
tension and drama springs from. But what would have happened
had they confided in Spock immediately after the first sickbay
scene when they figure out what had happened to them?
Perhaps most of the Enterprise and her crew would have been
at their disposal (although probably not at their command),
with the Halkan problem temporarily put
aside, as they attempt to send our heroes home and get their
own crew back. Yes, it would require most of the episode
to be restructured to find tension and drama in different
ways in other scenes, but it's still an interesting thought
to follow through.
As the episode stands, honesty nicely does come out in the
end, and remains crucial to the uplifting nature of the
resolution of the plot. Well done. While taking the
number three ranking in a 1991 Viewer's Choice Marathon poll,
this episode beats its number two rival
"The City on the Edge of Forever" by light years,
and can proudly hold its ground as one of the very best
original Star Trek episodes ever.
Read the next Star Trek review article:
Season Two and the Rise of the Prime Directive
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"Mirror, Mirror" is now
available on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Click on the Amazon symbol for the desired disc format
and location nearest you for pricing and availability:
Star Trek Season Two "Purist" Standard DVD Box Set:
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Watch the legend continue to develop through its prime.
Set contains all 26 episodes from the second season
in their original wacky broadcast order,
plus new bonus features.
As someone interested in researching how the episodes
actually looked and sounded originally, and when and
exactly how certain musical cues first debuted,
this was the DVD set for me, and it remains the most
untampered-with full-season collection of Star Trek
out there. Unique extras include pure text commentaries
on select episodes.
Sadly, these sets are starting to
become rare, and prices are now rising as these
become collectors' items....
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DVD U.S.
| DVD Canada
| DVD U.K.
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Standard DVD Extras include:
- To Boldly Go... Season Two featurette (20 min.)
- Designing the Final Frontier featurette (22 min.)
- Writer's Notebook: D.C. Fontana (8 min.)
- Kirk, Spock, & Bones: Star Trek's Great Trio (7 min.)
- Nichelle Nichols - Divine Diva (13 min.)
- Life Beyond Trek: Leonard Nimoy (12 min.)
- Text Commentaries on
"Amok Time" and
"The Trouble with Tribbles"
- "Red Shirt Logs" Easter Eggs (8 min. total)
- Production Art & Photo Log (still menus)
- Original Trailers for every episode (1 min. each)
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The Original Series Remastered Sets
The re-mastered Star Trek set for season two,
like that of season three, seems destined to be obsolete
in very short order. Its content is easily surpassed
by the more respectful presentation on Blu-ray, and unlike
the "purist" DVD release listed above, appears to have none
of its own exclusive content. Add to that the very gimmicky,
awkward packaging that is prone to damage both during shipping and
with light usage, and I'd have to recommend that all devoted Trekkers
should consider other options for their ideal TOS season two product.
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Season Two - Blu Ray
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26 episodes @ 51 minutes
Star Trek sets are now available on Blu Ray.
Picture and sound quality restoration has gone up yet
another notch since the remastered version, as have the
liberties taken with "upgrading" the episodes.
Once again, even newer CGI effects and optical shots have
replaced many space scenes, matte paintings, and phaser
effects.... but this time the upgrades have the same respect
and user-functionality applied to select
Doctor Who DVD releases since 2002,
as the CGI effects can now be turned off to see the original
effects. Good show. It seems that the music
has still been tampered with too much for my liking though.
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Blu-ray U.S.
| Blu-ray Canada
| Blu-ray U.K.
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Blu-ray features add:
- option to watch original or new CGI effects.
- Audio commentary on "The Trouble with Tribbles"
by writer David Gerrold.
- Starfleet Access - Okuda interactive trivia
plus picture-in-picture interviews
on 2 episodes:
- "Amok Time"
- "The Trouble With Tribbles".
- Behind-the-scenes 8mm home movies part 2 (HD, 12 min.) from
Billy Blackburn (Lt. Hadley / DeForest Kelley stand-in)
- Star Trek TOS on Blu-ray (HD, 10 min.) restoration and upgrade featurette.
- Star Trek's Favorite Moments (SD, 17 min.)
- Mobile-Blu Content-To-Go Exclusives:
"Creating Chekov",
"Listening to the Actors"
"Writing Spock"
"Spock's Mother"
- "More Tribbles, More Troubles" with commentary
from the animated "Season 4" DVD box set.
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"Trials and Tribble-ations" in HD this time,
with
two featurettes from the DS9 season 5 DVD box set.
- plus all documentaries, featurettes, and episode promos
from the "purist" standard DVD set listed far above.
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"Mirror, Mirror" is also available
together with 3 of its best Deep Space Nine sequels
in the following themed DVD box set.
Click on the Amazon symbol for the desired disc format
and location nearest you for pricing and availability:
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Star Trek Fan Collective:
Alternate Realities
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Region 1, NTSC, U.S.
Region 1, NTSC, Canada
Region 2, PAL, U.K.
A series of "Fan Collective" DVD Sets are also on the market,
offering a sampling of episodes from across all Star Trek
series and spinoffs. "Alternate Realities" is apparently
the first of those to offer the remastered versions of
original Star Trek episodes, with the upgraded special effects.
Those who are dubious about this process may wish to try
this less-expensive-than-a-full-season set to see what all
the fuss is about.
We also get some long-awaited audio commentaries on a few
of the episodes, a welcome rarity for Star Trek's
live-action TV shows, although some British fans have
complained that the audio commentaries are missing from
the Region 2 version.
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20 episodes @
43-51 minutes each:
- Mirror Universe
- TOS: "Mirror, Mirror"
- DS9: "Crossover" (with director's audio commentary)
- DS9: "Through the Looking Glass"
- DS9: "Shattered Mirror"
- Ent: "In a Mirror, Darkly (Part 1)"
- Ent: "In a Mirror, Darkly (Part 2)"
- Parallel Dimensions
- TOS: "The Alternative Factor"
- TNG: "Parallels" (with writer's audio commentary)
- Twisted Realities
- TOS: "The Enemy Within" (with audio commentary)
- TOS: "Turnabout Intruder"
- TNG: "Frame of Mind"
- Voy: "Shattered"
- Alternate Lives
- TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise" (with director's audio commentary)
- TNG: "The Inner Light"
- DS9: "The Visitor"
- Voy: "Before and After"
- Voy: "Timeless"
- Voy: "Course: Oblivion"
- Ent: "Twilight" (with writer's audio commentary)
- Ent: "E2"
- Special Features
- Mirror Universe: Part 1
- Mirror Universe: Part 2
- Parallel Dimensions
- Twisted Realities
- Alternate Lives: Part 1
- Alternate Lives: Part 2
- Audio Options (may vary according to region)
- English
- Español
- Portugues
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Review written by Martin Izsak.
Comments are welcome. You may contact
the author from this page:
Contact page
If you liked this article, or simply enjoy the parallel universe
theme in science-fiction, be sure to check out the 1995-1999
TV series "Sliders" by Robert K. Weiss and
Star Trek the Next Generation writer Tracy Tormé,
and read our continuing series of
in-depth Sliders episode reviews, best accessed from our
SLIDERS Episode Guide Catalogue.
You may also be interested in:
Doctor Who #54: "Inferno"
or
Doctor Who #176: "Rise of the Cybermen"
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