If you remember from my previous entry, I have decided to dedicate my final three days of Ten Days of Trek to my three favorite, and arguably the three best, Star Trek episodes. I am talking strictly TOS, not any of the spinoffs. This has proven quite difficult, as I love so many episodes from TOS. So after hours of toil and internal debate, here is the third best episode of Star Trek.
Written by Jerome Bixby; Directed by Marc Daniels
Perfect story, and well executed. A landing party consisting of Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura is zapped into a parallel "Mirror" universe when being transported back to the ship during an ion storm. The USS Enterprise is now the ISS Enterprise, the entire ship is filled with henchmen and mercenaries, and Spock is evil because of his stylish beard. Spock's logic prevails across both universes, however, as he's the one that figures out that the returned landing party are fishes out of water.
The SF community can thank this episode for the establishment of bearded doubles being evil, and that baddies in general have beards. Two obvious examples are The Master from Doctor Who and Flexo, Bender's identical brobot, in Futurama S2E11, "The Lesser of Two Evils." Check out the commentary on that Futurama episode to hear the writers and producers support this claim.
It's really fun to see the actors play bastardized versions of themselves, especially Sulu and Chekov. As you may know, besides his role as Chekov in Star Trek, Walter Koenig is most well known for playing baddies. This may have been the logical starting point.
3. Mirror, Mirror
S2E10, originally aired October 6th, 1967Written by Jerome Bixby; Directed by Marc Daniels
"Captain’s log, stardate… unknown. We are trapped in a savage parallel universe from which we must escape within four hours, or I will face a death sentence at Mr. Spock's hands."
Perfect story, and well executed. A landing party consisting of Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura is zapped into a parallel "Mirror" universe when being transported back to the ship during an ion storm. The USS Enterprise is now the ISS Enterprise, the entire ship is filled with henchmen and mercenaries, and Spock is evil because of his stylish beard. Spock's logic prevails across both universes, however, as he's the one that figures out that the returned landing party are fishes out of water.The SF community can thank this episode for the establishment of bearded doubles being evil, and that baddies in general have beards. Two obvious examples are The Master from Doctor Who and Flexo, Bender's identical brobot, in Futurama S2E11, "The Lesser of Two Evils." Check out the commentary on that Futurama episode to hear the writers and producers support this claim.
It's really fun to see the actors play bastardized versions of themselves, especially Sulu and Chekov. As you may know, besides his role as Chekov in Star Trek, Walter Koenig is most well known for playing baddies. This may have been the logical starting point.
"Jim, I think I liked him with a beard better. Gave him character. Of course, almost any change would be a distinct improvement."Stay tuned for #2.
"What worries me is the easy way his counterpart fitted into that other universe. I always thought Spock was a bit of a pirate at heart."
"Indeed, gentlemen? May I point out that I had an opportunity to observe your counterparts here quite closely. They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous -- in every way, splendid examples of homosapiens. The very flower of humanity. I found them quite refreshing."
"I'm not sure, but I think we've been insulted."
"I'm sure."
- McCoy, Kirk and Spock
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