Star Trek -- Season 2 Episode 4 (Mirror, Mirror)

The idea of an alternate history is nothing new.  Several novels were published in the 19th century.  The Man in the High Castle had been published in 1962.  Mirror, Mirror isn’t even Star Trek’s first take on the concept.  City on the Edge of Forever and The Alternate Factor both used alternate timelines in their plot.

Here, a transporter accident sends Kirk, Scotty, McCoy and Uhura into a universe where The Federation, or at least Earth, is overtly imperialistic.  The Empire takes by force what The Federation would negotiate for.  In fact, Kirk had been negotiating with the Halkans for dilithium crystals when an ion storm hit. 

Kirk’s alternate was instructed to destroy Halkan cities if they don’t cooperate, which puts Kirk in a difficult position.  He doesn’t want to level cities, but can’t avoid it without raising suspicion.  The four crewmembers are able to get back at the last minute with some help from the alternate Spock, who agrees to try to change the Terran Empire.

Part of the reason the episode works is that it does what it sets out to do.  There’s very little filler or exposition.  The only real exposition would be at the end, where Kirk has to drag it out when they have only minutes to spare.  It shows what an alternate to The Federation might be.  As Spock points out at the end, the alternate isn’t really that different.  Kirk is able to refrain from many of his baser instincts whereas the other Kirk has no real incentive to do so.

It would have been interesting to explore that universe a little more during The Original Series.  It’s not clear if all of The Enterprise’s missions were the same.  I would like to see how Khan or Harry Mudd fit into that universe.  Fortunately, Deep Space Nine and Enterprise did visit The Mirror Universe, so we do get to see what happened because of Spock’s decision.

Only two things really bothered me about the episode.  First, how is it that all of the same characters exist in both universes?  I suppose, given an infinite number of timelines, that there would be one that’s at least similar to ours.  There’s probably one with an Enterprise that has an entirely different crew.  There may be one where Vulcans or Andorians weren‘t space-faring.

The other thing was that Kirk and the others beamed into their alternates’ clothing.  Not only that, they beamed back into their own clothing when they got back to their own universe.  It’s a concession necessary to help them blend in to The Mirror Universe, I know.  It’s still a little odd.

Overall, it’s a pretty good episode.  I’m glad that the plot was at least used in several of the spin-off series.  The Original Series wasn’t particularly good with continuity, so anything is welcome.

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Star Trek -- Season 2 Episode 3 (The Changeling)

I’ve never made it any secret that I hate an unstoppable force versus mere mortals.  You have movies like The Terminator, where there’s one strong force with limited range and power.  It’s another thing altogether to have a god-like creature.  In fact, the episode to air before this one literally had a Greek God as an antagonist.  Now, we have an Earth probe that was presumed destroyed only to have it turn up with some amazing modifications.

When the Enterprise first encounters it, Nomad had just finished wiping out over four billion people.   Yes.  This tiny little probe destroyed the entire population of a solar system.  Why?  Because they were imperfect biological creatures.  Nomad is about to do the same to the Enterprise until it hears the name James T. Kirk.  Nomad takes this to be the name of its creator, Dr. Jackson Roykirk, and spares the ship.

This puts Kirk in a difficult position.  He’s in no position to deny Nomad anything.  The probe thinks nothing of killing anyone wearing a red shirt.  At least four security guards get vaporized.  Nomad even kills Scotty and wipes Uhura’s memory.  (Nomad is able to resurrect Scotty, but can do nothing for Uhura.)  On the other hand, Kirk can’t show Nomad the way to Earth.  That’s billions more imperfect beings that would be slaughtered.  Kirk is able to save the day at the last minute by outthinking the probe.

There are several things that bothered me about the episode, starting with the fact that this is the second week in a row that the Enterprise squared off and defeated a powerful being.  Kirk and crew are spared only by the similarity of two names.  For that matter, why did Nomad spare the crew?  It had no problem killing security guards, even given orders by Kirk not to do so.  It could just as easily destroyed everyone except Kirk and maybe Spock.

My second issue is Uhura’s memory loss.  Her memory is wiped, presumably completely.  She’s left with only a knowledge of Swahili, and yet they bring her back up to speed in a week?  It’s not entirely clear, but it’s implied that she loses all her memories, including those of friends, family and her fellow crewmembers.  This is never brought up again.  She just goes about being Uhura, as if it never happened.  Uhura is so easy to disposable that she’s effectively replaced by…Uhura?

And the episode could have done so much more with the concept.  This is proven by the fact that they reused the basic plot in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  They took a concept that had no business using up a full hour and made it into a feature-length film that actually worked a little better.  (Granted, the movie still wasn’t great, but it was better than this episode.)

I think, if anything, this episode demonstrates how much more the series could have done.  We didn’t learn much about the crew outside of the ship.  Most details, like Sulu’s fencing or Kirk‘s brother, generally come up when it’s necessary for the plot of the episode.  Uhura’s memory loss is something that should have been a terrible trauma and it’s used as a way to show Nomad’s power.  Uhura deserves better than that.

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The Twilight Zone (1959) -- Season 1 Episode 25 (People Are Alike All Over)

It occurred to me once that if life did develop elsewhere, there’s no reason to believe that it would look anything like life on Earth.  Just look at how diverse stuff is here.  We have plants, single-celled organisms, fish, primates and all manner of other carbon-based life forms.  Life elsewhere could look like anything.  It doesn’t even necessarily have to use DNA.  The reason TV and movies often have humanoid life, of course, is that it’s usually easier to hire a human actor and use that form as a template.

Sam Conrad is worried about going into space.  He’s a biologist, after all, and only going because of his scientific background.  Marcusson, a career astronaut and fellow passenger, tries to reassure him by saying that people are the same all over.  If they do exist on Mars, they’d probably be just as friendly as people on Earth.

Their voyage to Mars ends with a crash landing.  Conrad survives; Marcusson isn’t so lucky.   Moments after Marcusson dies, the hatch opens revealing Martians.  They happen to look just like humans.  In fact, Conrad assumes that they speak English.  (They assure him that he’s actually speaking their language.)  They offer to put Conrad up in a house and to fix the ship..  They also offer to bury Marcusson.

The Martians are so kind that Conrad forgets all about being scared.  The house is exactly what one would expect of an Earth house, or at least what Conrad would expect.  The Martians were able to read his mind.  Being that Conrad is a scientist, his mind was very clear and easy to read.

It’s somewhat difficult to review the episode without giving away the ending, but the episode does rely on you not knowing.  The beauty of the episode is that it shows us how bad things can be even when we’re right on.  Even though Marcusson was correct in his assessment of people he’d never met, Conrad’s fears were also warranted.

One of the disadvantages of watching on Netflix is the lack of commentary.  While some of the episodes of The Twilight Zone seem to be ageless, others seem rely on social commentary.  I’m not sure if there’s something that I’m missing.  It would be useful to have something, like a book or commentary track, to explain some of the meaning or context.

This isn’t to say that it’s a bad episode.  It’s still enjoyable to people who like The Twilight Zone  To me, the ending just seems like a cruel twist of fate and the episode works on that level.  It also looks like there could very well be some form of criticism or satire that I’m missing.  It would be interesting to see how the episodes would have been written in today’s context.

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