Weekend Trek “In A Mirror, Darkly Part 1”

There’s a part of me that has always strongly suspected that Trek actors really get a kick out of the Mirror Universe episodes.  They get to ham it up and go over the top as evil versions of their usual characters.

This one, the first of a two-parter, is actually a little different.

Normally with a Mirror Universe episode, characters from the main show somehow get transported to the Mirror Universe and have to deal with evil versions of their family, friends, loved ones, and sometimes even themselves.  However, while the entire main cast is present–Travis still has barely any lines, here as Archer’s bodyguard instead of the ship’s helmsman–none of the actors are playing their usual characters.  No characters from the main timeline appear in the episode.  It even opens with the end of Star Trek: First Contact, only the scenes are played with, showing James Cromwell’s Zefram Cochrane fumbling as he does in the movie before it changes to a close-up of Conchrane’s hand as he reaches into his jacket to draw a gun, shooting the Vulcan visitor dead and allowing the other humans present to storm the Vulcan ship and take it over.  Then there’s a new version of the opening credits, with modified music, none of that dopey theme song I always skip, and more achieve footage of warfare because, you know Terran Empire.

Plus, it looks like it already a Federation since there are Vulcans and Tellarites on the ship already.

So, how is this world different?  For starters, Archer is only the second in command behind Captain (instead of admiral) Forest.  T’Pol is still a ranking officer, but with longer hair and a shirt that seems designed to show off as much of her torso as it can without showing something you have to watch premium cable to see.  Trip has radiation burns on his face.  Phlox is dissecting an animal every time the show cuts to Sickbay, and he’s the guy who invented (with Malcolm) the Agony Booth.  Hoshi is a seductress who sleeps with whoever is in command, though she does pull a knife on Archer at one point (he stops her from stabbing him but then sleeps with her later).  Travis is just a grunt.  Malcolm, at the rank of major, just really seems to enjoy killing and torturing.

I think Dominic Keating as Evil Malcolm might be having the most fun here.  He’s giving off Nana-Visitor-as-Intendent-Kira vibes.

But here’s the thing: as much as this episode is set in the Mirror Universe, it also is acting as a sequel to another classic Trek episode, “The Tholian Web,” where the Federation ship the USS Defiant disappeared to somewhere else, almost taking Captain Kirk with it.  This episode says where it went:  about 100 years into the past in the Mirror Universe, where Archer gets the bright idea to steal it from the Tholians, characters never seen before and probably best never to have been seen because man, that is bad CGI.  There’s a war on, and Archer figures a ship with advanced firepower could make a huge difference.

Anyway, there’s a mutiny, Archer takes the ship then loses it, T’Pol goes on the away mission with Archer with the final orders being to kill him, and the Tholians wipe out most of the Enterprise with their web while Archer and most of the regular characters are on the Defiant.  Extra points to the fact the uniforms on the corpses on the Defiant, their phasers, and the bridge look a lot like the original Enterprise because why wouldn’t it?

I’ve actually seen most of Part 2 years ago while flipping channels on the SyFy Channel, and I remember liking it.  We’ll see if that holds up, but I have always been a sucker for the evil universe storylines.