In A Mirror, Darkly: Best cold open ever?

I cared about MU Soval.

 

Mirror Soval trying to tempt Phlox with "the females' was about as convincing as the Pope lecturing someone on the merits of a whorehouse.

 

MU Soval may be the only real sympathetic character in the show. Every other character is Evil with a Capital E.

 

Without emotional attachment and investment, it's just a sequence of images. Dull as paint drying.

 

True. So I'm asking again: why don't you care about those people?

 

I've shown ENT's MU to a few people who absolutely hated it. It took a several rewatchings for me to enjoy it, really after the superb opening it's quite boring. Yeah the end with Empress Hoshi Sato is a great line but it took a while to get there. I mainly enjoy it for looking at the ship. And seeing the green wrap around shirt again!

 

I just didn't. They were unlikable. I couldn't care less if their petty little plots succeeded or failed.

 

I liked it for those reasons, plus the Mirror Dub inside of me just found it delicious to watch these familiar characters with different (in most cases evil) personalities. I thought it was great fun.

But to be honest, I was expecting the writers to bring one of the MU characters into the "normal" universe at some point -- the opposite of how the MU was introduced in TOS and DS9. DS9 did that in later episodes, but this would have been a unique way to introduce the MU on ENT. Imagine if Admiral Forrest found his way to the normal universe for several episodes, then plotted some evil plan and really screwed things up.

The other thing to remember is ENT was ended prematurely. Who knows where they would have gone with it if they had 3 more seasons.

 

I believe one of the mirror universe stories in the Glass Empires anthology is based on Mike Sussman's original plans to continue ENT's MU. Although since I'm not a big fan of the MU, it's one corner of Trek lit I'm not too familiar with.

 

I loved the opening, probably the best since TNG's "Cause and Effect". And then going from the opening to the modified credits was icing in the cake.

 

I've seen "IaMD", and agree with teacake that it just wasn't interesting. I've got no problem with evil-people drama - ever see HBO's Conspiracy? It's two hours of various top-level Nazis slowly and subtly agreeing on the Final Solution without quite saying so out loud - and it's utterly gripping. "IaMD" is too cartoonish and frenetically plotted to build up any of the dread that such a context cries out for.

That said, I think I tuned in after the teaser, and thus have never seen it. Eh. I agree with those who said that the "Twilight" teaser is the series' best, though "Regeneration" and "Fusion" had pretty strong ones also.

 

Is this an actual CD available for purchase somewhere? I did a quick search and couldn't find it:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnSLdapI0aU[/yt]

 

Well I sure am and I highly recommend Glass Empires to all Trek fans, especially TOS and Ent fans. The Spock story, which picks up just at the end of the original TOS episode is not only one of the best Trek stories I have ever read, it is among the best Sci-Fi stories I'v ever read. Mike Sussman's Ent Mirror sequel is also great.

To anyhone who would like to know what happened to Empress Sato after she approached Earth in the Defiant, or to anyone who wondered what happened to Spock after choking out Kirk in Mirror Mirror, get this book.

BTW, I haven't read the TNG story. I was too blown away by the Ent and TOS stories to muster any enthusiasm.

 

It's a wonderful episode just for the sake of being an over the top romp, as it was intended. But I think the Constitution-class Defiant and recreated sets have a lot to do with its success and popularity. The episode is obviously a labor of love from many people, and it must have been depressing when news of series cancellation finally came in the middle of onstage filming. The fourth season dvd set has a featurette on the episode.

 

Thanks for the rec, I have this book but haven't read it yet!

 

I like the complexity of "evilness" in IAMD. Archer is batsh*t crazy. Phlox is sadistic. Hoshi is ambitious. T'Pol is militant. Soval is defiant. I like that none of "our" characters were in this universe, because you truly didn't know WHAT they were going to do.

 

I have a hard time watching shows or movies with unlikable or unsympathetic characters, but the Enterprise mirror universe episodes didn't bother me that way. I think it's because I never remotely took any of it seriously and it didn't feel like the episodes even wanted me to. They went so blatantly and cartoonishly over the top that it became downright laughable, but in a (mostly) good way. I wouldn't have been looking forward to more of the same if the show had continued, but it worked once.

 

Not if it's interesting. Emotional attachment to the characters is not the end-all of entertainment. Sometimes just having an interesting scenario and seeing how it plays out is very entertaining.

 

There can also be a perverse pleasure in viewing utterly unsympathetic and unpleasant people.. that's why I read some threads here.

 

Ever? Like, ever, ever?

Never.