"Mirror, Mirror" Thoughts

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

I am watching "Mirror, Mirror" this afternoon in honor of the late Nichelle Nichols, but this is not one of my favorite episodes. I always worry Kirk and company won't make it back to our universe, even though I know full well they will. I realize it is an iconic episode which inspired many mirror universe adventures in the various spin-off series. Some trivia: this is the only episode in which Scotty calls Kirk "Jim". If this is your cup of tea, then enjoy--it's just not mine.

 

[Qonundrum]

I remember the good old days when it was easier to overlook plot issues, and this one has a couple of doozies -- like how they can teleport to the mirror universe and fizzle into the other universe's outfits so perfectly... and how they can teleport back to the real universe with ease (and back into their regular uniforms too), and right in the transporter room - one has to overlook rather a lot...

Or how Marlena has her magic-kill/plot-forwarding device and zaps out of her universe every redshirt -- except for Sulu, go figure, since there aren't many reasons for this other than "writer thinks audience is dumb and they must think that this is the real Sulu or that the real Sulu will go too"... ugh... and/or "Don't need to pad story any longer with fight scene with unconvincing stunt doubles so that's why I'll zap 'em all except Sulu." Either way, it made zero sense. Zap 'em all and salivate over getting a bonus and oiling some more traps again. Or how the Haltkans never respond to Good-Kirk's "Consider that." over his not attacking the planet if he doesn't get to do a crystal trade. I can't believe the entire point of the episode was to demonstrate Real-Kirk over Mirror-Kirk's handling of the Haltkans...

That said, the philosophy play and seeing alternate personalities almost makes up for it: Sulu's quite the butcher, Uhura''s showing forbidden navel, Chekov in the pain chamber meme, "What kind of people are weee?" as emphasized by McCoy, and so on.

Wish we had more of the evil versions' acting; all we do is see them scream in a brig for 10 seconds, add another 10 for evil-Kirk trying to lure Spock. Shatner nails it...

I wasn't keen on DS9's increasingly convenience-driven means to go back and forth.

I sorta liked the idea of Lorca being of the mirror universe and infiltrating, but it seemed too soon in Discovery's run.


Also, what kind of people are we? I'm not one to ask, but the following band loved to use TOS sound bytes:

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That reminds me, some 80s hairdos could do with a comeback...

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Or how Marlena has her magic-kill/plot-forwarding device and zaps out of her universe every redshirt -- except for Sulu, go figure, since there aren't many reasons for this other than "writer thinks audience is dumb and they must think that this is the real Sulu or that the real Sulu will go too"... ugh... and/or "Don't need to pad story any longer with fight scene with unconvincing stunt doubles so that's why I'll zap 'em all except Sulu." Either way, it made zero sense.

That's not a plot issue. Marlena intentionally lets Sulu live. She's obviously testing Kirk.

 

[StarCruiser]

Or just giving something to "have fun" with...

As for swapping the crew but the clothes staying in universe? What if it was actually just their personalities that swapped places, instead of their bodies. Wouldn't be that obvious unless maybe Sulu was among the landing party (scar would be a giveaway).

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

What if it was actually just their personalities that swapped places, instead of their bodies.

A la Janice Lester?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

What I believe:

• The Mirror Universe did not exist until the ion storm and transporter beam intersected to create it. The MU was a "flash copy" that just popped into existence. Transporters work on subspace carrier waves, which can bleed into other dimensions.

• The Mirror Universe was an inaccurate copy, like a bad OCR document full of misread characters. That's why it was "evil." Also, all of its history and memories were new and illusory— they were skewed, inaccurate copies of what was known and remembered in the real universe.

• The Mirror Universe was not a whole universe, just a local bubble encompassing the Halkan planet, the Enterprise, and the illusion of stars in the cosmic distance. And the whole bubble could be similar to a holodeck simulation, with no physical substance at all, but created as an accidental phenomenon.

• The landing party traded minds with their "evil" counterparts; while the bodies (or the mere image of MU bodies) of each group stayed in their own dimensions.

• After the landing party's minds are freed from the MU bubble, the bubble ceases to exist; it wears out and expires. If the group had not escaped, their real minds would have ceased to exist, and the "evil" group in our universe would, in essence, be like brain-damaged versions of their real selves.

• The spinoff visits to the MU, that I recall in DS9 and ENT, are not "true stories" in the TOS universe. They would be considered enjoyable science fiction if TOS is fact. Like, Mr. Chekov streams ENT on SpaceFlix and thinks its a hoot.

 

[Metryq]

Gaybounce!

 

[Ssosmcin]

What I believe:

• The Mirror Universe did not exist until the ion storm and transporter beam intersected to create it. The MU was a "flash copy" that just popped into existence. Transporters work on subspace carrier waves, which can bleed into other dimensions.

• The Mirror Universe was an inaccurate copy, like a bad OCR document full of misread characters. That's why it was "evil." Also, all of its history and memories were new and illusory— they were skewed, inaccurate copies of what was known and remembered in the real universe.

• The Mirror Universe was not a whole universe, just a local bubble encompassing the Halkan planet, the Enterprise, and the illusion of stars in the cosmic distance. And the whole bubble could be similar to a holodeck simulation, with no physical substance at all, but created as an accidental phenomenon.

• The landing party traded minds with their "evil" counterparts; while the bodies (or the mere image of MU bodies) of each group stayed in their own dimensions.

• After the landing party's minds are freed from the MU bubble, the bubble ceases to exist; it wears out and expires. If the group had not escaped, their real minds would have ceased to exist, and the "evil" group in our universe would, in essence, be like brain-damaged versions of their real selves.

• The spinoff visits to the MU, that I recall in DS9 and ENT, are not "true stories" in the TOS universe. They would be considered enjoyable science fiction if TOS is fact. Like, Mr. Chekov streams ENT on SpaceFlix and thinks its a hoot.

That's a lotta thought to justify a one-off fun adventure. The "universe" Kirk beams into isn't evil. The Empire is. The Halkans are identical. We don't see anyone else. The reality there is the Empire took the place of the Federation. We see this universe for the few hours this adventure takes place. Those choice few hours are the sweet spot where everyone from our universe is in the same place as the alternate.

This universe existed before the transporter accident and existed after Kirk and co. left. They just got there thanks to the conditions created by the Ion storm. I'll buy the transporter mixed bodies which is why their clothing was the way it was. But that's as much effort as I feel I have to put into this.

It's all a buncha BS but the simplest explanations always work best for me. And usually those are provided by the scriptwriters. No need for mental gymnastics.

 

[PCz911]

Gaybounce!

Sorry to be daft, but what does that mean? I looked it up in urban dictionary and could not find it.

 

[scotpens]

In the episode as aired, Kirk's line to Spock -- "How long before the Halkan prediction of galactic revolt is realized?" -- lacks context. He's referring to a line spoken by the Halkan leader that was cut from the final edit.

As for swapping the crew but the clothes staying in universe? What if it was actually just their personalities that swapped places, instead of their bodies.

Haven't you ever woken up in an unfamiliar place wearing someone else's clothes?

 

[Metryq]

Sorry to be daft, but what does that mean? I looked it up in urban dictionary and could not find it.

My apologies, I know it is not strictly Star Trek, let alone TOS. It is an allusion to Robert Heinlein's The Number of the Beast, which I figured might be prominent enough on a sci-fi forum to be recognized. (Meanwhile, "grok" can be found in common dictionaries.) In that novel, our protagonists have a multiverse hopping machine, and discover that "fictional" universes are real. (The corollary being that they themselves are fiction in some other universe, like ours!) They visit the Land of Oz, Barsoom, the world of the Gray Lensman, etc.

I was prompted by the suggestion that the "Mirror universe" was created at the moment of the beam-in, and ceased to exist at the beam-out. In Number of the Beast our protagonists discover one "empty" universe. The engineer who built the machine explains that they probably created the universe by "rotating" into it, and that the scant quanta they were radiating would be enough to sustain the empty universe when they left. (Einsteinian energy = mass = spacetime.)

"Gay, bounce" was one of the voice commands the protagonists could use to direct their ship to move to escape sticky situations. (The ship's name being Gay Deceiver.)

For those who are familiar with The Number of the Beast, there is a previously unpublished version of the story that was finally published a few years ago, Pursuit of the Pankera. In my opinion, Pankera is far better than Beast, and much more "Heinlein-like" than the previously published version.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

My apologies, I know it is not strictly Star Trek, let alone TOS. It is an allusion to Robert Heinlein's The Number of the Beast, which I figured might be prominent enough on a sci-fi forum to be recognized. (Meanwhile, "grok" can be found in common dictionaries.) In that novel, our protagonists have a multiverse hopping machine, and discover that "fictional" universes are real. (The corollary being that they themselves are fiction in some other universe, like ours!) They visit the Land of Oz, Barsoom, the world of the Gray Lensman, etc.

I was prompted by the suggestion that the "Mirror universe" was created at the moment of the beam-in, and ceased to exist at the beam-out. In Number of the Beast our protagonists discover one "empty" universe. The engineer who built the machine explains that they probably created the universe by "rotating" into it, and that the scant quanta they were radiating would be enough to sustain the empty universe when they left. (Einsteinian energy = mass = spacetime.)

"Gay, bounce" was one of the voice commands the protagonists could use to direct their ship to move to escape sticky situations. (The ship's name being Gay Deceiver.)

For those who are familiar with The Number of the Beast, there is a previously unpublished version of the story that was finally published a few years ago, Pursuit of the Pankera. In my opinion, Pankera is far better than Beast, and much more "Heinlein-like" than the previously published version.

I read that novel so long ago, the late '80s, that I forgot all about the ship's name and whatnot. But the concept of hopping into any fictional universe is unforgettable. I remember they didn't want to appear in the Star Trek universe, fail to give a recognition signal, and catch a photon torpedo.

 

[Commishsleer]

That's a lotta thought to justify a one-off fun adventure. The "universe" Kirk beams into isn't evil. The Empire is. The Halkans are identical. We don't see anyone else. The reality there is the Empire took the place of the Federation. We see this universe for the few hours this adventure takes place. Those choice few hours are the sweet spot where everyone from our universe is in the same place as the alternate.

This universe existed before the transporter accident and existed after Kirk and co. left. They just got there thanks to the conditions created by the Ion storm. I'll buy the transporter mixed bodies which is why their clothing was the way it was. But that's as much effort as I feel I have to put into this.

It's all a buncha BS but the simplest explanations always work best for me. And usually those are provided by the scriptwriters. No need for mental gymnastics.

Is such a fun episode so I can I suppose forgive it for its implausibility. The director could have had them beamed over in their normal clothes. The clothes transference was just done for dramatic effect for us the audience.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Is such a fun episode so I can I suppose forgive it for its implausibility. The director could have easily beamed over in their normal clothes. The clothes transference was just done for dramatic effect for us the audience.

More to keep the Mirror Crew from realizing the landing party was not the same people who went down. If Kirk, Bones, Scotty and Uhura beamed up in their Starfleet uniforms, alt Spock would have known immediately these were different people and the story would have gone totally differently.

 

[Commishsleer]

/I don't think the first thing that Spock would have thought were that these were alternative versions of their crew. Kirk could have explained it by saying he and Uhura got into a scuffle down on Halkan and had to change outfits.
MU Kirk and co were revealed almost straight away though anyway. Perhaps our Spock is smarter than MU Spock.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

There's a great short story from the late '70s called "Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited" in which Shatner and company are shooting a scene in the Transporter Room, and they somehow get transposed to the real Enterprise, where they try to pass as their characters until they can figure a way back to present day Earth.

https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/The_New_Voyages

Apparently it was based on a prior fan fic called "Visit to a Weird Planet," in which the fictional characters appear on Desilu Stage 9. But I never read that one. [If that happened, everyone would think the actors were just acting out and being jerks.]

 

[Ssosmcin]

/I don't think the first thing that Spock would have thought were that these were alternative versions of their crew. Kirk could have explained it by saying he and Uhura got into a scuffle down on Halkan and had to change outfits.
MU Kirk and co were revealed almost straight away though anyway. Perhaps our Spock is smarter than MU Spock.

All four of them? And instead of just beaming up, they all change outfits? And getting into a scuffle would prompt alt Spock to just blow them all to hell for assaulting officers of the Empire.

And, you are suggesting that Kirk would be whipping out that explanation in the seconds following beaming up and seeing all of those changes. It's one thing for Kirk to just go along with Spock and bluff his way out of the room, it's quite another to him to suss out the situation and immediately come up with a convincing lie to explain the change in clothing.

Nah, it's easier all around for them to be in the mirror counterpart's clothing. Seeing Kirk in a vest wasn't meant to shock audiences. But seeing Spock with a beard certainly was.

The fact the MU folks were discovered was explained in the episode. They didn't behave civilized.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

MAN, people overthink this episode.

 

[1001001]

MAN, people overthink this every episode.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Metryq]

Fixed that for you.

It takes a lot of feverish effort to ignore real world production problems and work-arounds to come up with "in universe" explanations.