Flex’s blog

Phew - I totally forgot that the remaining new episodes of Star Trek Enterprise were starting up again this week. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised to see “In a Mirror, Darkly” recorded on my MCE when I got home from volleyball friday night (especially since there weren’t any new episodes of Battlestar Galactica until July).

“In a Mirror, Darkly” is Enterprise’s first (and really only) visit to the Mirror Universe which was first established in the TOS classic episode “Mirror Mirror” and later revisited in the Star Trek Deep Space Nine Series. Just as the Enterprise series is a precursor to the TOS series, so is “In a Mirror, Darkly” to the Mirror Universe lineage. This episode attempts to connect the dots between the disappearance of the U.S.S. Defiant in the TOS episode “The Tholian Web” and the Mirror Universe established in “Mirror Mirror”.

In the TOS episode, “The Tholian Web”, the U.S.S. Defiant slowly disappears into a parallel universe and Kirk, Spock and company are sent to find out what happened. Along the way, there’s an encounter with two Tholian ships and eventually the Tholian web is encountered (and hence the name). No one ever knew what happened to the Defiant since it eventually disappears off to another universe. With the Enterprise episode “In a Mirror, Darkly”, we now know what has happened to the Defiant.

“In a Mirror, Darkly” starts with the last few moments of Star Trek First Contact when the Vulcans arrive on earth after detecting a warp signature in the vicinity. Unfortunately things go terribly bad as Cochran and others kill the visiting Vulcans and take over the spacecraft. History goes terribly wrong as humans go on a rampage and conquer whole civilizations - including the Vulcans. Instead of the Federation being formed in the normal universe, the “Empire” is created in the mirror universe. While the entire crew of the Enterprise are also here, their roles are very different. As an example, Archer is the first officer on the Enterprise and Admiral Gardner is actually the captain of the ship.

The episode centers around the current war that the Empire is having with the Tholians and it’s quickly apparent that things are going wrong. However, Archer believes that the tides can be turned if Enterprise goes into Tholian space to find some unknown ship with new technology that the Tholians have. Gardner doesn’t agree and Archer ultimately mutinies and takes over the Enterprise with the help of others.

Enterprise changes course and goes deep into Tholian space to find this ship. Along the way, they capture and torture a Tholian to obtain the location of the secret ship. Archer orders T’Pol and Trip to install a stolen Suliban cloak to make sure that Enterprise can’t be detected. There are some predictable elements here as a change in command takes place yet again and Gardner takes over. Unfortunately, Gardner is able to change the state of affairs as Archer has locked the ship’s course to the location of the hidden ship. Thus Gardner is forced to have all of this play out and Enterprise reaches the location of this hidden ship.

Sure enough, the ship is indeed there and it turns out it’s the U.S.S. Defiant. Unfortunately the ship is inside a space dock located inside an asteroid and it’s surrounded by a multitude of Tholian ships. Gardner orders Archer and company to beam aboard the U.S.S. Defiant to recover as much information as possible and then destroy the ship. Gardner secretely tells T’Pol to kill Archer on this away mission. Unfortunately things go wrong again for Gardner and the Tholians discover the clocked Enterprise and begin attacking the starship.

Onboard the Defiant, Archer powers up the Defiant and realizes the Enterprise is under attack and in fact caught within a Tholian web. Unfortunately, there’s nothing they can do as the Enterprise is ultimately destroyed by the web. End of Part I.

This episode perfectly captures how good season four has become for the Enterprise series. It’s a shame actually since there are only four more episodes left after this one. In any event, the writing and story elements has been superb and “In a Mirror, Darkly” clearly exemplifies that. It’s wonderful to see the Enterprise characters show their wild and dark sides. Phlox does a great job at being both a doctor and a torturer. There’s a great scene where we see Phlox dissecting an animal on a table and it’s hard to not think “wow.. he looks pretty evil!” Hoshi’s role as communications officer is accentuated by the fact that she’s the Captain’s mistress also. Trip has the look of a pirate. Reed is a murderous character in the mirror universe while Travis is a suck up to Archer. Speaking of Archer, it’s incredibly hard to see this man as anything but good. Even though he takes over the ship from Gardner (and kills a few people along the way), it’s hard to picture him as a ruthless person. Oh well. Finally there’s T’Pol who is still a Vulcan.. but a very revealing Vulcan.. wow. Ahh yes, let us not forget that we get a chance to see Gardner again (who was killed off in an earlier episode this season).

“In a Mirror, Darkly” is a great tribute to the classic episodes of TOS and it’s a tribute to all the loyal fans out there who have seen every single episode of Star Trek. Although the episode isn’t perfect (come on now… why don’t the Tholians just use the captured Defiant and go blasting their way through the Empire? Plus - what’s up with the cheesy look of the captured Tholian?? Finally - the Enterprise fired at the Tholians while cloaked.. Hmmm - that wasn’t even really possible until Star Trek XI), it does a wonderful job of being complex and yet entertaining. In many respects, it’s similar to how Star Trek II connected the dots of the Botany Bay and the stranded crew of that ship. “In a Mirror, Darkly” allows us to finally solve the mystery of what happend to the Defiant and it also reveals to us the status of the Mirror Universe during this time period. We get to see where it all went wrong and of course, we already know where all of this is going.

In the end, the episode is a must see for any Star Trek fan. If you’re one of those who love seeing the old Constitution class starship from the TOS, then you’ll definitely want to catch this episode. I can’t end this without commenting on the opening credits of the show which were also modified to show the darker side of the Empire. From beginning to end, this episode is everything that Enterprise is not normally known for. For now, I can’t wait to watch Part II next week. Then.. there’s only three more episodes left.