STAR TREK
Mirror, Mirror

From Wikipedia:

"Mirror, Mirror" is an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. It is a second-season episode, #33, production #39, and was broadcast for the first time on October 6, 1967. It was repeated on April 12, 1968. It was written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Marc Daniels.

The episode introduces the alternate reality "Mirror Universe" concept in Star Trek for the first time. The episode has a transporter mishap swapping Captain Kirk and his companions with their evil counterparts in a parallel universe. In the so-called Mirror Universe, the Enterprise is a ship of the Terran Empire rather than the United Federation of Planets, promotions are earned by assassination, and Mr. Spock has a goatee.

More here.

With this one, the second season gets back to its usual high standard.

Indeed, the teaser, that brief scene before the opening credits, uses what is, at this point, Star Trek's tried and true method of starting with a big huge mind fuck: right after beaming up from what appear to be routine economic negotiations with a sovereign planet, Kirk, Scotty, McCoy, and Uhura, who is now inexplicably dressed as a Federation Spice Girl, are flabbergasted to see a bearded Mr. Spock using a small electronic device known as an "agonizer" to ruthlessly torture Lieutenant Kyle, corporal punishment for his inadequate performance at the transporter controls. Kyle, in intense pain, slumps to the floor.

Then the credits roll. Yeah, we're obviously in for a good one.

As with other great Trek episodes, "Mirror, Mirror" uses a combination of fabulous plot, breakneck pacing, good characterization, and cool shots to force viewers to desperately want to know what's going to happen next. For instance, the scene immediately following the opening credits is yet another Hitchcockian exercise in cinematic efficiency, the kind we first saw in "The City on the Edge of Forever." It's short, only about ten seconds, but it tells us everything we need to know about the situation in which Kirk and company have found themselves. The four members of the landing party exit the transporter room in route to the sickbay. The Captain's four officers immediately start to ask questions once they're away from the mysterious bearded Spock, but Kirk quiets them immediately. He scowls, nervously looking about this Enterprise that is not the one he knows. Crewmen pass by and offer their commander the ancient Roman salute, which clearly confuses the Captain. As they make their way toward their destination, we see Kirk slowly start to figure it out, and by the time they've made it to sickbay, even though he may not fully understand what's going on, he has developed a working plan. Ten seconds. But in that brief moment we see the Captain first on the ropes, then pulling himself up, then taking charge and moving forward. It's just a quick walk down the corridor, but it says everything.

Indeed, Shatner is at his best in this one. He uses a formula in most scenes that has a devastatingly dramatic effect: confusion, analysis, plan, commit to action. Time and again, Kirk is brutally reminded that this is not his Enterprise, not his universe, and, again and again, he yanks himself out of his dysphoria and gets to work. His lying is particularly interesting. I mean, it's all gimmickry, the sort of actor tricks my professors would always call me out on when I was in grad school, but it's damned effective. A mirror universe character would, say, ask him a question that he obviously doesn't understand. We see confusion, followed by thought, followed by understanding, and then commitment to his lying response: Spock asks if the landing party suffered any "abnormal effects" from the transporter; Kirk freezes like a deer in the headlights, and then decisively orders his people to sickbay.

But it's not simply Shatner's mirror universe formula. He really shines here. This episode has what is, in my opinion, Kirk's finest romance scenes of the entire series. Part of it is that he has good chemistry with Barbara Luna, who plays Lieutenant Marlena Moreau. But the scene is written such that Shatner easily avoids the bullshit lovey-dovey crap he usually pulls. That is, in most Kirk love scenes, Shatner adopts a sort of romantic white knight attitude--attitude is always a poor substitute for pursuing objectives and playing actions. But here, he's so confused and distracted by the overall situation that the romantic knight never really comes out. He seems genuinely surprised by his attraction to Marlena. That is, the writing manipulates Shatner into some honest authenticity.

But like I said, the chemistry with Luna is damned good, and that makes Shatner, better, too. She plays a backstory romance about which Kirk has absolutely no knowledge, and she plays it to the hilt. In one moment, she offers him sex, which he rejects, so she ends the relationship. It's like, WTF? What the hell kind of relationship does this woman have with the mirror Kirk? Meanwhile, our Kirk is just trying to figure out what she wants--kind of like a real relationship, huh? After Kirk domineeringly grabs her wrist, preventing what would have been a violent slap, we see his best Star Trek kiss. These scenes just sizzle with sexuality.

On the other hand, evil Kirk, one of a seemingly endless line of evil Kirks throughout the series, is pretty goofy. Shatner just goes for "evil asshole," which is a fairly one dimensional approach to playing a role. But that's okay. We don't see much of the mirror Kirk, and the goofiness is all in good fun. Actually, there are, as usual, several goofy moments in "Mirror, Mirror," but they really don't do anything to sabotage the episode's sense of drama. Indeed, these moments serve as some good comic relief. When the landing party makes it to sickbay after the above mentioned ten second corridor walk, Kirk asks if anyone felt dizzy during the beam up. McCoy and Uhura speak at the same time rendering their answers unintelligible. Scotty trails with a clearly audible, and very silly, "I did." McCoy at one point exclaims "I'm a doctor, not an engineer." Chief Engineer Scott comes back with "Now, you're an engineer." Later, after shooting up a guard with his famous knockout hypo, McCoy gleefully exclaims "That ought to hold him about six hours!" Spock dryly observes that "The agony booth is a most effective means of discipline," while Chekov screams and wails like nobody else can. And Sulu, as the scar-faced bloodthirsty chief of security for the mirror Enterprise, is just plain funny, kind of a comic book villain.

But don't get me wrong. Sulu is great. This episode needs comic book villains, and he's definitely up to the task. His assassination attempt is nothing short of marvelous: "Regrettable, but it will leave me in command." Chekov, too, is great, as the Machiavellian would be assassin of his Captain. (As a side note, it is important to observe how youth identification characters such as Chekov can so easily go wrong. Imagine Wesley Crusher saying "So you die, Captain, and we all move up in rank!" Right, it's a horrific thought. We should never ever take Chekov for granted.) And Uhura finally gets to do more than opening up hailing frequencies. She seduces evil Sulu, and then rejects him with a dagger; she disarms the phaser wielding Lt. Moreau. And did I mention that her Spice Girls outfit makes her totally hot? Well, she's totally hot.

Spock is also, as usual, great. Unlike his co-star Shatner, Leonard Nimoy uses several subtlties to differentiate mirror Spock from our Spock. His mind meld with the Doctor, for instance, is far more aggressive than we usually see--after all, the mind meld has been described as being profoundly intimate, but mirror Spock just goes for it like a drunk stockbroker with a hooker at a convention in Chicago. But the writing for Spock is good, too. When it becomes clear that his Captain won't talk, the science officer threatens Kirk with torturing the "sentimental and soft" Doctor McCoy, taking the traditional Bones/Spock friction to a wild extreme. And there's a fabulous fight, pitting mirror Spock against Kirk, Uhura, McCoy, and Scotty. Really, he just beats the shit out of everybody until Kirk finally manages to smash a human skull over his head.

This one's got everything. Check it out.


Spock forces an extremely intimate moment with Dr. McCoy.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$