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God bless Paramount and their attempts to beat the dead horse, especially because the result is a collection of Mirror Universe episodes. Once again, this set pulls from all five series, collecting everything that fits the vague “alternate reality” theme of the set.
Disc One
– “Mirror, Mirror”. Where it all began. This is clearly the remastered version of the show, because the opening features a SWEET CGI version of the ship and the planet in the background. Hey, I’m all for leaving things in the original form, but damn that looks good. From the original series back in ’67, Kirk and his landing party of McCoy, Uhura and Scotty beam up from a mission to negotiate dilithium mining rights…and find themselves in an EVIL UNIVERSE. And you know it’s evil because Spock is sporting the first ever EVIL GOATEE. And he’s a right bastard, as cold-blooded Vulcan logic comes off a lot worse without morality behind it. This was actually a brilliant plot device that sci-fi would milk for years afterwards. You know it’s a mirror universe because Mr. Sulu is straight. Kirk just can’t help being a renegade, though, this time acting as a by-the-book boy scout who is now hesitant to take a life. What I really like about this one is that the universe is seemingly fully formed, and you could almost do another series about it based on all the backstory and internal logic provided. McCoy’s a doctor, not an engineer here, for those keeping track. Shatner of course is all over this one, going way over the top with both versions of himself and that’s why we all love him. And of course no matter which universe, he’s always ready to screw hot chicks. Meanwhile, Spock is ordered to kill Kirk and thus move up the chain of command, but even EVIL BEARDED Spock recognizes that things are falling apart in the Empire. Unfortunately the new CGI fails to replace the lame fight sequence with stuntmen who actually look like Kirk and Spock.
– “Crossover”. From the second season of DS9. One of the most well-known (and mocked) Star Trek concepts gets another visit, as Kira & Bashir take a trip through the wormhole and end up going through the looking glass, so to speak. An engine malfunction results in their runabout passing through to the dreaded Mirror Universe, where the station is much different than it is here. Black is white, up is down, etc. Specifically, when Goateed Spock used his Vulcan logic to lead a revolution 80 years previous, it left Tiberius Kirk’s empire in shambles and the Cardassians and Klingons moved in to take over, enslaving humankind in the process. Bajor went with the evil side, and the result is Evil Lesbian Kira running the station, humans working in the mines, and Garak back in power again. Kira and Julian decide to stir up trouble and find a way out, as you might expect. The plot isn’t important, it’s the joy of watching everyone play opposite their character (especially Sisko) and having a blast at it.
– “Through the Looking Glass”. And back to the Mirror Universe we go in the third season of DS9, as Smiley O’Brien transports from one universe to the other in order to kidnap Sisko on behalf of the rebels. It seems that Evil Sisko is dead now, and they need a replacement to convince Jennifer Sisko, a scientist working for the Alliance, to defect to their side. Of course, our Sisko has his own motives in wanting to help bring Jennifer over, and soon a plot is hatched. But not before Sisko finally gets some action from Jadzia, who is his mistress in the Mirror Universe. Talk about awkward pillow-talk. More fun from the evil goatee crew, as everyone hams it up and plays it over-the-top.
– “Shattered Mirror”. Ah yes, back to the Evil Goatee Universe we go in the fourth season of DS9, the last such trip, sadly. Things are getting a bit silly at this point, as Evil Jennifer (well, she’s good, but from the Evil Universe) literally just drops by the Good Universe to say hi and chat with Jake. However, her motives are suddenly in question when she takes Jake back to the Mirror Universe with her unannounced and leaves Sisko a transporter device for his own trip there. He joins her to find his son, and once again gets roped into fighting for the rebels, who have by this point driven the Alliance off the station but now face the threat of a gigantic Klingon warship, led by (who else) Evil Worf, in a gloriously malevolent performance. Even more glorious is the performance of Garak, who is retained by Worf as a toady, and kisses ass like an absolute professional. Meanwhile on the station, Sisko decides to build the Defiant for them (nice going-away present) and leads them on a strike against the Klingon fleet, but sadly Evil Kira (a prisoner of the rebels) manages to escape, and kills Jennifer Sisko all over again. Nothing more annoying than meeting your dead ex-wife in an alternate universe and then having to bury her all over again. Well, I guess that’s a uniquely Star Trek problem, but still, think of the funeral costs!
Disc Two
– “In A Mirror, Darkly” Two-parter from the final season of Enterprise, as the ratings plummet and they seemingly get more creative freedom as the show falls. Reworked footage from First Contact immediately shows the origins of the Empire in the Mirror Universe, and we get a fun redo of the opening credits, highlighting man’s violence with a more ominous theme song. So no crossover silliness this time, it’s just a tale of the evil universe, as Commander Jonathan Archer overthrows Captain Forrest and takes the Enterprise over as captain. We get a look at the origins of the Agony Booth from the original series, in a neat twist on the usual “origins of the technology” asides this show normally provides. Crosses and double-crosses abound, and the Enterprise chases a captured USS Defiant (back in time from the original series) into Tholian space to rescue it. It’s kind of helpful if you’ve seen “The Tholian Web” from the original series here. In fact, this is a major geek moment because we finally see the complete Tholian web, as they trap the Enterprise, leaving Archer to take over the Defiant. That gives us a reproduction of the original bridge as Manny Coto must have been completely geeking out during production. Part two sees Enterprise go boom, leaving Archer and the usual cast running the Defiant and kicking some major ass with future weapons. Things get geekier when the crew starts wearing the uniforms they find on the ship and walking through doors that go “Ssssh” when you walk through them. But sadly, plot must infringe on the fun again, and wouldn’t you know that a Gorn is roaming the halls of the Defiant and killing people. Meanwhile Archer, becoming increasingly crazed and xenophobic, decides to use the superweapon that is Defiant to overthrow the entire Empire, showing just how far technology came in the 100 years between this show and the original series. Scott Bakula’s initial evil version of Archer comes across as a bit wooden, but once he gets into giving overblown propaganda speeches and Bond villain ultimatums he really makes a go of it. I know we’re supposed to be cheering for the “good guy” rebel Vulcans who are opposing Archer’s plan here, but the bad guys are so much more badass and effective that you can’t help but hope for Archer to overthrow the Empire for himself. Sadly, it’s not to be, but the twist ending is still pretty awesome. Fan-friggin’-tastic episode.
– “The Alternative Factor”. And now we’re into “alternate dimensions” as a theme, beginning with this one from the first season of the original series. Weird shit is going on around the Enterprise in a weird region of space, and they pick up a space traveller named Lazarus. He’s chasing a mass-murdering monster, but when they get near him on the planet, all sorts of crazy lighting effects result. Ah, low budget Trek, gotta love it. Spock thinks Lazarus is full of crap because the problems only happen when he’s around. And if that wasn’t enough, Lazarus appears to be two different people, one normal and one evil, with neither version being aware of the other’s existence. Kirk shows remarkable patience with the situation, actually, despite all the contradicting evidence around him. Have to say, Lazarus has some major continuity problems with his beard, as it from wispy to thick from scene to scene. This one is pretty talky, as Kirk has to figure out a riddle that’s pretty easy to guess given many more years of hackneyed sci-fi that followed it. But back then, a Jekyll & Hyde story translated into space was still a new thing.
– “Parallels”. With commentary from Brannon Braga, so I just had to give this one another look and hear how he justifies the silliness here. Braga actually mentions that Michael Piller died in 2005, which I didn’t even know about, so I guess it wasn’t big news. This is from the seventh season of TNG, and Braga calls it the last of his “mind-bending” episodes (thankfully). The high concept is that Worf finds himself hopping from universe to universe, and discovers that he’s married to Troi in every reality but ours. Braga notes on the commentary that they had been wanting to do that relationship for years, as a joke, but then just decided to do it for real just for the hell of it. Yeah, why not? Then he goes on to note that Roddenberry had a set-in-stone rule for writing the shows: No time travel, no dream sequences. Braga then notes that he of course became known for doing both ideas to excess after Gene died. See, Braga always had some great ideas which were effective in small doses, but entire episodes of people questioning reality got to be a bit tiresome over the course of a season. He does admit that Generations kind of sucked, though, and that “All Good Things” should have been the movie instead. Detail I never noticed before that gets pointed out in commentary: Data’s eye color changes with each new reality. Even Braga gets negative on his own writing here, as the show devolves in technobabble and he freely points out how weak the “solution” to the problem is. Still, the different takes on the Enterprise and goofy “parallel universes based on a coin flip” conceit make this a fun episode overall.
Disc Three
Onto “Twisted Realities” now.
– “The Enemy Within”. YEAH! One the stupidest pieces of crap produced by the Trek universe, but it’s so wonderfully dumb and filled with over-the-top nonsense from Shatner that it actually inspired a live theatre version that toured. This is the fifth episode in the series, so it’s not 100% what it turned into later, but it’s almost all there. Hopefully you know the episode — Kirk gets beamed up from an away mission…but he’s TWO PEOPLE. And one of them is really evil, which you know because he’s wearing mascara and has Vaseline on his face. I can’t even take credit for that line because Garfield Reeves-Stevens delivers it on the commentary track, happily lampooning his own work and admitting the faults. First appearance of Kirk’s goofy tunic uniform here. EVIL KIRK tries to rape Janice Rand because he’s so EVIL, and meanwhile the away team is stuck on a freezing planet because they can’t beam up. And good Kirk is turning into a big wuss. Continuity goofs are everywhere as the crew learned to produce the show. We do get the first appearance of the Vulcan Nerve Pinch here according to the commentary, in a move improvised by Leonard Nimoy because he thought a karate chop was un-Vulcan. So you see, everyone has a good and evil side, and you need both of them to function, which is The Big Lesson being imparted here in between Shatner mugging for the camera every other scene. If you want the textbook Shatner over-acting performance, this is it. You might as well dress him with pineapple slices and bake him for Christmas dinner. And yet another historic first: “He’s dead, Jim.” The victim, in this case, a dog who got to be the guinea pig for joining Kirk again. OK, I admit, I kind of love this one, even if people being in “117 degrees below zero” would be dead within 10 minutes. Unless they use the Kelvin scale in the future, I dunno.
– “The Turnabout Intruder”. From the third season of the original series, and we’re getting near the end of the show now. Kirk beams down to a planet to meet a dying former flame, but she REALLY holds a grudge…and switches bodies with him, so he too can know the pain of being a woman in a man’s world. Kirk with PMS…now there’s a scary thought. Kirk’s acting all weird and you’d think after 80 episodes they’d have a procedure in place for when the captain gets doubled, body-switched or impersonated. Luckily for Kirk, whereas all the other crew members are unquestioning sheep, McCoy and Spock both know him well enough to question the situation, and in Spock’s case, to mind-meld his way to the answer. Pretty good acting from Shatner here, as he works little feminine touches into the character to show the transformation. And of course the game is ultimately given away by “Kirk” getting all hysterical and shrill, because it was the 60s. And even though she tried to assassinate the entire crew, she’s just allowed to leave, because she’s only a woman. Take that, feminists! This was the final episode of Star Trek, by the way. Last line in the series? “If only.”
– “Frame of Mind.” From the up-and-down sixth season of TNG. Can you guess who wrote this one just by looking at the TITLE? Yes, it’s Braga time again, and once again someone is going insane (Riker) and Things Are Not As They Seem. Also, Riker has a neurotic episode about confinement and Braga is apparently afraid of doctors judging by the treatment they get here. In the supplements of the original TNG DVD set, Ronald Moore shows himself to be the smartest guy on the staff by pointing out that the audience would be about 15 steps ahead of the show because no one is going to buy that Riker is REALLY a mental patient on an alien world dreaming the whole show. Well, maybe the producers of St. Elsewhere would.
– “Shattered”. From the seventh season of Voyager, our first trip to that universe for this set. Chakotay has a bad run-in with some technobabble and starts travelling back and forth in time. So the high concept here is that the ship has been split into different temporal “zones”, each one a different time in Voyager’s past or future, which gives a ton of little shout-outs for longtime fans of the series. Of which I’m not one. It’s a really clever idea, however, despite the abundance of technobabble, and little scenes like Chakotay and Janeway getting trapped in the world of Captain Proton are fun stuff. Basically it’s just the two of them wandering the ship and meeting key people from the series while discussing the philosophy of what they’re doing, or will be doing. Low stakes, fun stuff, I enjoyed it quite a lot.
Disc Four
Onto “Alternate Lives” now.
– “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. From the third season of Next Generation. Considered by many to be the best episode of any Star Trek series, ever, this one is a brilliant time travel puzzle wrapped around a powerful performance by a returning Denise Crosby. Basically, a rift in space opens up and the Enterprise D (our beloved vessel) runs into the Enterprise C, shot ahead some 25 years into the future. However, once the old Enterprise appears, everything changes instantly – suddenly the current ship is a warship, and Tasha Yar is still alive. And apparently the Federation is getting its butt kicked by the Klingons. It seems that when the Enterprise C disappeared all those years ago, it was in the midst of saving the Klingons from the Romulan attack on Kittimer, and without it there to help, there was never an alliance between the Klingons and the Federation, and war quickly broke out. Tasha starts to realize all this while helping to repair the beat-up Enterprise C, and also falls in love with the only officer left alive on that ship. When the rift opens again, there is of course only one choice to make for her life (and death) to have meaning behind it, and thankfully she’s given some semblance of dignity and importance to her demise after the silly death she was given in the first season. This is just such a fabulous episode thanks to the great writing, little details in the subtly redesigned war-time Enterprise, mounting tension and great acting from all involved. It’s time travel with a PURPOSE, rather than just being a silly plot device. Commentary from episode director David Carson here.
– “The Inner Light”. From the fifth season of Next Generation. Without a doubt, the greatest episode of any Star Trek series ever. While it doesn’t have the epic punch of Best of Both Worlds or Yesterday’s Enterprise, The Inner Light is Patrick Stewart doing the acting equivalent of taking the snap at the 10-yard line and running for a touchdown. Probably the most quiet of the quiet episodes, it leaves you just as moved and transformed as Picard himself. The plot is simple: An alien probe zaps Picard, causing him to dream of a life on another planet that spans nearly 40 years, as he raises children and grandchildren and learns of the history of the alien civilization through their own eyes. There’s no villains, no conflicts, no shocking plot twists or technobabble, just Picard learning to play a flute and trying to save his adopted planet from extinction, but failing. This one won awards out the wazoo, and for good reason, as it truly shows the potential for great acting and great writing that the show as a whole could aspire to given the proper treatment. The bittersweet ending, with Picard’s flute theme replacing the usual orchestral finish, is just another great touch in a series of them. If you need one episode to justify buying the set, this is it.
– “The Visitor”. From the third season of DS9. A pretty famous “prestige” episode, as we meet reclusive author Jake Sisko 20 years or so into the future (played by Tony Todd, better known as Worf’s brother Kurn), and discover that he’s given up writing long ago because his father, Captain Sisko, died in a fluke accident in what would be the present day. However, months after the accident, Ben Sisko’s apparent ghost starting appearing to Jake, leading him to think that he wasn’t dead after all, just in limbo. So Jake abandoned his writing and took up subspace mechanics, throwing away his life and family in order to find a way to bring his father back again. The story is told in flashback form, jumping ahead 10 years or so at a time, until he meets up again with his old friends from DS9, who help him to recreate the accident a second time and try to pull his father back. It fails, however, and as he meets up with his father one last time, he realizes that it’s his own failure to let go that’s keeping Ben in limbo, and he commits suicide, snapping his father back into the present, where he avoids the accident and sets the timeline right again. Just a very inventive and powerful take on the standard time-travel story that once again emphasizes the relationship between Jake and his father. That’s why I like Jake’s character over, say, Wesley Crusher – instead of being presented as a cartoonish wunderkind who saves the station, he’s just a cool guy who loves his father and is never presented as anything more than that. Probably the best-acted episode of the series overall to this point, and one of my favorites, easily.
– “Before and After”. From the third season of Voyager. Kes is old. Really old. This immediately sets up an interesting mystery because she’s only supposed to live for a few years, and from there we start moving backwards through her life. Apparently some sort of bio-technobabble in the future is supposed to extend her life past the usual 9 years, but it’s doing weird stuff. And because we need HIGH STAKES, she’s jumping back so fast that she might overshoot her own existence and cause the collapse of the whole universe or something. And of course if they technobabble the technobabble back in the past, they might just save everyone! Since Jennifer Lien was unceremoniously fired at the end of the season there’s little emotional investment in an episode like this one, especially when the plot and all the points therein hinge on “blah blah anti-chroniton, blah blah bio-temporal chamber…” with little regard for actual storytelling or motives and stuff like that.
Disc Five
– “Timeless”. From the fifth season of Voyager. Harry Kim and Chakotay discover what appears to be Voyager, buried under ice on a planet. With lots of dead bodies on board, including most of the regular crew. So we flash back to the installation of a shiny new technobabble drive, which appears likely to kill them if they use it. So we jump back and forth between frozen future and the present. The most terrifying vision of the future sees Geordi LaForge as a CAPTAIN!? Who was in the bathroom when THAT commission came down? This one is doubly annoying from a storytelling perspective because the choice seems to be either they make it home or they die, and we know that neither can happen. Still, we get a pretty spectacular crash on the ice planet to make us THINK that everyone dies and the rest of the show becomes The Wacky Adventures of Chakotay and Kim In The Future.
– “Course: Oblivion”. Who the hell came up with THAT title? From the fifth season of Voyager, as Paris marries Torres to kick things off. But then things go to hell, as the ship and everyone on it seemingly begin falling to pieces, with no explanation. But then the explanation comes and it’s fucking stupid, as everyone, including the ship itself, is a duplicate of the REAL crew, which renders the episode into another stupid Trek mindfuck where there’s no reason to care about the characters or the story. It’s all just a big wank by the writers. The story itself, with the tragic group of duplicates futilely trying to get home and dying off into nothingness, is well done, but really who cares? Next.
– “Twilight”. From the third season of Enterprise. So, uh, the Earth gets blown up by the Xindi superweapon in the teaser, and that’s always an interesting start. Hell of a special effect there. So the mindbending wackiness sees us jumping ahead into the future, where Archer is old and living with T’Pol, unable to form long-term memories ala Memento. So we jump back and forth to learn how we got there, with the crew (now under T’Pol) chasing down the Xindi to hopefully locate their planet-killing weapon. Sadly, it doesn’t work, and now there’s less than 6000 humans left in the universe living on Ceti Alpha 5. Man, as if things couldn’t get any WORSE for the human race, those who saw Star Trek II know what would happen to them about 100 years from then anyway. That’s a great little bit of dark humor from the writers, which they also laugh about on the commentary track. Then things get really weird and headachy when they discover that fixing Archer’s memory problems in the future also fixes it in the past, like in “All Good Things”. But first, a space battle! This one will kind of make your head hurt if you dwell on it too long, but it’s all in good fun.
– “E2” After some stuff that’s part of a previous episode and which means nothing to me, Archer meets another version of the Enterprise, which has apparently been floating around in space for 117 years after a bad trip through a nebula and into the past. So the new Enterprise is staffed by the children of the crew and aliens, which gives everyone the chance to do some very awkward bonding with their kids and assorted progeny. And an extremely old T’Pol. Sadly, the childrens’ plan to escape is too risky and Archer won’t play along, so they turn traitor and make a run for it. That gives Enterprise v. Enterprise in a starship smackdown, handily won by Archer. And with everyone making nice and working together they hold off the attacking aliens, and of course the kids sacrifice themselves to restore the status quo. Kind of nice, with touches of “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, but I thought it dragged quite a bit with all the angst from T’Pol.
A pretty fabulous little collection of episodes overall, as the mirror universe stuff combined with “The Inner Light” and “The Visitor” alone make this one worth picking up even if the rest was crap, which it luckily is not. Grabbing this set and the “Captain’s Log” set gives you a good overview of the Trek universe, in fact, and most of the vital episodes from the various series except for a couple. Highly recommended for old school and newbie Trekkers. (Rating: *****)
Audio & Video
Obviously there’s a great deal of difference from show to show. The original series stuff was recently cleaned up for a new DVD release, so it looks fabulous in its original full-screen format with all the garish colors of the 60s in full display. And this time all the original series episodes are the remastered versions, with sparkling new CGI effects and photo-realistic background planets, the first such appearance anywhere for the third season episodes, in fact! The TNG episodes are the original masters used for the DVD releases almost 10 years ago now, and they’re showing their age. They didn’t really need dramatic cleanup or anything, but it’s obvious that the Kirk era got more attention than this one did. The DS9 and Voyager episodes are already from the digital era, so they look noticeably better than the TNG ones do, with a minimum of the grain and darkness issues that plague the TNG eps on DVD. And finally, Enterprise is presented in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen instead of full screen, and it looks stunning, being the first Trek to be shot in high definition and all. In fact, much like the remastered TOS episodes, resolution is so stunning that you can easily tell that the actors are wearing makeup and in many cases, see the prosthetics clearly! As for the sound, again, much different from show to show. TOS boasts MAD bass, as the show was remastered in full 5.1 rather than the half-assed 5.1 featured on the ’90s versions of Trek. When the ship whizzes past in the credits, it moves into the surrounds. Dialog is clear and crisp in the center channel now. Ditto for Enterprise, which would have been produced and mixed in 5.1 for HD presentation anyway. The other three shows have pretty much a glorified stereo mix going on, with the occasional drone of the engine mixed into the LFE channel and not much else, although you can hear Voyager whooshing past your ears in the credits sequence and that’s pretty cool. (Ratings: Average of ***1/2)
Bonus Features
Best stuff of course comes in the form of the audio commentaries listed in the individual episodes above, and shockingly my favorite is the Brannon Braga one, as he’s the most candid about his limitations and points out neat stuff I had missed. You suck as a writer, Braga, but you’re a good commentator. Each disc also features a 13 minute featurette devoted to the theme of that particular section, mainly just talking heads from the production side of things discussing what they liked about the episodes or whatever. Nothing you’ll regret skipping over. (Rating: ***)
The Pulse:
I was pumped to review this set and I was not disappointed, doing a marathon Sunday reviewing session and loving every minute of it. But then I’m a big Trek geek, so your mileage may vary.
Highly recommended.
About Scott Keith
