In a Mirror Darkly

[PhoenixIreland]

Im surprised there is not a thread on this already Im nearing the end of Ent watching it fully for the first time and this is one of the best, there was not may that I REALLY enjoyed in this series but this and maybe Twilight was one of them.
and Travis was lookin damm hot.
I loved the subtle touches like seeng a TOS ship at warp with the shooting stars we never saw that before.

Did they use the TOS set or get a new one?

Only thing is all the color makes the NX look drab!

 

[Jack Bauer]

The Defiant set was built for this episode.

 

[angie]

I loved that they brought back "sounds" on the bridge! Sussman pitched this idea(and wrote Twilight) and he is a true fan since before he was a writer and it showed.I do wish he had had total control as I don't think Manny got all the nuances of Trek love.

I thought Archer and Travis were hot and the girls looked great as well!Also Soval in a goatee was hot.

 

[PhoenixIreland]

I loved that they brought back "sounds" on the bridge! Sussman pitched this idea(and wrote Twilight) and he is a true fan since before he was a writer and it showed.I do wish he had had total control as I don't think Manny got all the nuances of Trek love.

I thought Archer and Travis were hot and the girls looked great as well!Also Soval in a goatee was hot.

Yeh the sounds were a great touch! such a classic feel, and really made the NX feel dull

 

[mr.peany]

mmmm....mirror Hoshi....*swoons*

 

[Trekwatcher]

This was really ENT at the top of it's game. A great pair of eps all around. I got chills the first time they went onto the bridge of the defiant.

 

[DanCPA]

It was wonderful to see the 23rd century come to life in modern Trek!

 

[Bak_and_Blue]

Two of my all time favorite eps. I love the way it explains why the "60s/TOS" Enterprise/technology could actually be more advanced that the souped up CGI FX of 21st century Enterprise.

edit to add: yes Travis and Archer were smoking hot.

 

[BigC]

Some of the best work in all of Trek.

 

[Cyrus]

Im surprised there is not a thread on this already

There have been plenty of threads about it since it aired. It's one of those episodes that will continue to come up for discussion because it's so damn good. Here is a reasonably recent thread about it:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=48670

 

[KayArr]

There have been threads since, too--one just a couple of months ago.

There are 2 of the worst episodes in all of Enterprise--with the show winding down, they waste 2 hours on a story THAT INCLUDES NONE OF THE ACTUAL CHARACTERS! What could be more ridiculous? Mirror, Mirror is a classic because 4 people crossed over to the parallel universe! We see them deal with the alternate reality. This was just complete and utter crap--you could argue that a lot of season 4 was backstory and not fanwank (I think it was 90% fanwank), but In a Mirror Darkly was fanwank totally and completely--crap from beginning to end.

It's interesting that you say there weren't many eps that you really enjoyed until these episodes. It's only natural that you'd love episodes without any of the actual Enterprise characters mucking things up. These weren't really even Enterprise episodes. You might say they were MU/Defiant episodes, and maybe as such, they are o.k. But, as someone who fell in love with the characters from day one and watched religiously, I can only say that these two shows were just awful.

Carry on enjoying, though, to each his own and all that! I just didn't want anyone to think there was consensus on these episodes, because there isn't.

Folks seem so excited that they recreated the Defiant...well...if I want to see TOS sets...I just pop in TOS dvds, why do I want to see them on Enterprise? It WAS exciting in Trials and Tribbalations--but Sisko, Dax, and the rest entered the Troubles with Tribbles episode. Same for Scotty's visit to the orginal bridge on Relics/TNG. To recreate it just to recreate it? I don't see the point of that.

 

[Lys]

There have been threads since, too--one just a couple of months ago.

There are 2 of the worst episodes in all of Enterprise--with the show winding down, they waste 2 hours on a story THAT INCLUDES NONE OF THE ACTUAL CHARACTERS! What could be more ridiculous? Mirror, Mirror is a classic because 4 people crossed over to the parallel universe! We see them deal with the alternate reality. This was just complete and utter crap--you could argue that a lot of season 4 was backstory and not fanwank (I think it was 90% fanwank), but In a Mirror Darkly was fanwank totally and completely--crap from beginning to end.

It's interesting that you say there weren't many eps that you really enjoyed until these episodes. It's only natural that you'd love episodes without any of the actual Enterprise characters mucking things up. These weren't really even Enterprise episodes. You might say they were MU/Defiant episodes, and maybe as such, they are o.k. But, as someone who fell in love with the characters from day one and watched religiously, I can only say that these two shows were just awful.

Carry on enjoying, though, to each his own and all that! I just didn't want anyone to think there was consensus on these episodes, because there isn't.

Folks seem so excited that they recreated the Defiant...well...if I want to see TOS sets...I just pop in TOS dvds, why do I want to see them on Enterprise? It WAS exciting in Trials and Tribbalations--but Sisko, Dax, and the rest entered the Troubles with Tribbles episode. Same for Scotty's visit to the orginal bridge on Relics/TNG. To recreate it just to recreate it? I don't see the point of that.

I agree with most of this. Enterprise is so far my only experience with Star Trek. I watched those episodes with absolutely no idea what the Defiant was, why there was a history with the MU. I didn't care one bit for the characters and wondered why I had to suffer through two episodes following those morons when I wanted to know what happened to the REAL crew of the Enterprise. Besides they didn't have the luxury of another season to waste two hours on a crew we never heard of and would never hear about again.

 

[angie]

The decision to not show both crews as the original did was a fatal flaw IMO and showed why Coto didn't totally get it. Fans old and new were invested in the crew and we needed a glimpse of "our" guys! But I enjoyed the gimmick which was what this ep was.

 

[Hoshi's sis]

The decision to not show both crews as the original did was a fatal flaw IMO and showed why Coto didn't totally get it. Fans old and new were invested in the crew and we needed a glimpse of "our" guys! But I enjoyed the gimmick which was what this ep was.

While I agree that we did need a glimpse of "our" guyes, I don't think it would have worked because Kirk was supposed to be the first one to cross over.

I can just image the hell on this forum if any of "our" guyes had done that. Personally I did like the first episode of Mirror Mirror but I thought the second one was crap. I personally would not have been bothered if they hadn't been done at all but I can understand why cotto and Sussman felt the need to do this gimmick for the fans.

 

[egonbeeblebrox]

"In a Mirror Darkly" is probably my most re-watched "Enterprise" episode. I just love seeing the recreated Constitution bridge. The only problem I had was that the Gorn didn't look very much like the original.

 

[Cyke101]

I really don't see a gimmick at all, per se. It was essentially one big "What If" episode, that, frankly, returned the Mirror Universe back to its evil roots after the bastardized version DS9 showed us (I love DS9 to death, but the writers got the Mirror Universe so very, very wrong). We didn't need anyone from the proper Enterprise cast popping up because it wasn't a morality play like all the other MU episodes. Heck, there was nothing moral about it, and after forty years of Trek being philosophical and high and mighty and "right," this story was one big release.

But aside from even that, even without the massive TOS references, I think the episode works. We see normally minor characters get shoved into the spotlight, we see old favorites warped dramatically, and we see humanity at its worst. It's almost like those Bizarro episodes of Seinfeld, only more drastic, and obviously not as funny.

From a fanwank perspective, though, I will say this: I lovelovelove seeing "primitive" technology from the 1960s shooting down all the much more advanced and thought-out technology from the 21st century; that is, a TOS ship beating down everything from a spinoff forty years later. It's true what they say, y'know: there's no school like the old school.

 

[KayArr]

Michelle Green, the treknation reviewer, probably has it right in saying that a one episode gimmick show might have been acceptable--why stretch it in to two? That's probably what made me so mad. I never thought about "Kirk must be the first." But that's all the more reason to not make the show! I never saw any of the DS9 MU shows, so I can't comment on them. TATV might have been saved by making it two episodes instead--it could have better scripted, not so rushed. Someone other than B&B could have helped write it and said, "hey, here's where our characters are NOW." Two for Darkly and one ep for the finale was just piss-poor planning. Of course, we know that the real two-part finale was Terra Prime, so I guess it's o.k.

LaForge and Scotty on the old bridge in Relics is kind of neat, and having half the DS9 crew show up in the Tribbles episode was beyond cool! In both--orginal actors from those shows came on board (Scotty, of course, and the orginal Tribble villain)--that's what made them special. Those are good reason to recreate the old look.

But this was just two episodes of some other show when I knew my show was going off the air in a matter of weeks. Not fair!

 

[FalTorPan]

Michelle Green, the treknation reviewer, probably has it right in saying that a one episode gimmick show might have been acceptable--why stretch it in to two?

Some gimmicks are expensive, and require cost amortization over multiple episodes.

 

[Saturn0660]

There have been threads since, too--one just a couple of months ago.

There are 2 of the worst episodes in all of Enterprise--with the show winding down, they waste 2 hours on a story THAT INCLUDES NONE OF THE ACTUAL CHARACTERS! What could be more ridiculous? Mirror, Mirror is a classic because 4 people crossed over to the parallel universe! We see them deal with the alternate reality. This was just complete and utter crap--you could argue that a lot of season 4 was backstory and not fanwank (I think it was 90% fanwank), but In a Mirror Darkly was fanwank totally and completely--crap from beginning to end.

It's interesting that you say there weren't many eps that you really enjoyed until these episodes. It's only natural that you'd love episodes without any of the actual Enterprise characters mucking things up. These weren't really even Enterprise episodes. You might say they were MU/Defiant episodes, and maybe as such, they are o.k. But, as someone who fell in love with the characters from day one and watched religiously, I can only say that these two shows were just awful.

Carry on enjoying, though, to each his own and all that! I just didn't want anyone to think there was consensus on these episodes, because there isn't.

Folks seem so excited that they recreated the Defiant...well...if I want to see TOS sets...I just pop in TOS dvds, why do I want to see them on Enterprise? It WAS exciting in Trials and Tribbalations--but Sisko, Dax, and the rest entered the Troubles with Tribbles episode. Same for Scotty's visit to the orginal bridge on Relics/TNG. To recreate it just to recreate it? I don't see the point of that.

easy... easy... Take your Atomoxetine. just relax about it.. On the other side.. I thought the two were great... showed a "what if" if you will... how the mirror got started and all that.. Plus, even you'd have to admit the opening creds were great....

 

[KayArr]

I have to admit no such thing!!!!!!! Just kidding, sure they were cute, I suppose.