Why didn't TNG go to the mirror universe?

One jaunt into the Mirror Universe was quite enough. Everything after "Mirror, Mirror" was tiresome, self-indulgent dross. I'm glad TNG avoided falling into that trap.

 

None of the other alternate universes depicted in TNG ever caught on enough or distinguished themself by particular characteristics enough to get their own name.

 

Except Moriarty. The best Sherlock so far...

 

I watched and I watched... Cumberbatch goes against Moriarty. But, no. Picard or Data against Moriarty... Much much better.

 

Funny you should mention this... while I've never actually read it (cue Lily from First Contact LOL) in the novel of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, there is a "new human" movement mentioned to be taking shape in the civilian populace of Earth. These new humans resemble strongly the humans of the 24th century, a more evolved society, and Admiral Kirk makes a point to criticize this movement at one point, then introspectively wonders if maybe they are right after all and he's just too set in his ways to understand it.

For anyone who's actually read the TMP novelization, please tell me if I got that right or not.

 

Does that mean anything though? The only one that really got exploration was "Yesterday's Enterprise" and that stopped existing at story's end, and yet is pretty well known. The only others are "Parallels" and the point there was those universes aren't that different from ours and they got all of five minutes exploration anyway. If they had full episodes they would probably get names too.

 

I still wonder whether the Mirror Universe is just another parallel reality like the ones seen in Parallels, or has a different connection to Prime Reality altogether.

 

They did in my imagination. I think I have pondered who knows how many versions of such a episode in my head. One idea I liked was the Earth Empire was dealing with the Rebellion started by Spock. Spock has been captured along with some Klingon soldiers who have joined the rebellion and one of them is Worf.

The Enterprise is a prison ship and they are escorting Spock and these Klingons to some show trial Earth whey they planned to Spock in public in away that will send a message to anyone who dares challenge the empire. Picard is drunk Captain with a eye path who is over the hill and why he is Captain of a prison ship instead of one of the Federation Warships. Troi is basically a spy who uses her gifts to report on the crew to the Empires version of the Deep State. Riker is head of security and sort of keeps the prisoners in line with unethical means. Crusher does medical experiments on prisoners. Barclay is a asshole but confident and also ships Chief Engineer.

Since Geordi is blind he gets no respect in this world and is treated liked the ships Jester. They only let him use a visor when they want to screw with him. Despite this he is still though very smart and knows all about engineering. Data is just like regular Data only programmed to follow orders even if goes against his ethical program.

The main thrust of the episode is Spock convinces Geordi to fight back and turn on these people who mistreat him and come join the Rebellion if they can take over the ship. He finally does with the help of Data who is like his only friend on the crew. At the end of the episode The Enterprise gets taken over and it ends with Spock as the Captain and the rebellion now has a new ship and crew. Geordi,Data and Worf being part of it.

 

For someone who claims to not have read the book, you are remarkably close:

 

It's just another universe. The only difference is people have been able to find a path back and forth to it many times.

 

A mirror universe Galaxy Quest? Why am I just learning about this NOW?

 

Yup. DS9 did indeed go overboard with it. I hope we never see mirror universe again in any future Trek show

Imho, No! No! A thousand times NO!!!

 

DSC's treatment of the MU was, IMHO, worse than DS9's. It just went way over the top. Almost camp.

I guess we can blame Georgiou for that. Succeeding Emperors probably toned down the bling.

 

Apparently, nobody in charge liked old Star Trek until DS9. That series was run by people who appreciated and were fans of the original series.

Roddenberry had the original series and characters taken from him when he was kicked to Executive Consultant from the second movie forward. He wanted to distance himself from it as much as possible without alienating the audience he needed to retain. Once Justman left and Roddenberry was too ill to do much, Berman took over and he felt the original series was cheesy. Piller had no great love for it either. So for a long time, other than a few name drops here and there, TNG stayed away. Other than hauling out Deforest Kelley in the premiere to keep the old school cranky fans happy.

It was all the better for it. It carved out its own place and created a foundation to build on that wasn't reliant on Easter Eggs and callbacks. Nobody on board was related to Spock or Khan, nor did they need to talk about the old crew every episode. There was a sense of moving forward.

By the time they started bringing in Sarek, Spock and Scotty, the show was secure in its own identity (and Spock was just a lame publicity stunt to drum up interest in Star Trek 6). Anyway, the mirror universe didn't fit TNG and that damned universe had a habit of bringing out the over-actors in people. DS9 did it excellently the first time, but that's where it needed to stop.

TNG didn't need a mirror universe. They needed to stop answering distress calls from Federation outposts and go exploring.

 

I am waiting now for the mirror Universe episodes of Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks. In Strange New Worlds Evil Pike will have a kickass goatee instead of a kickass, head of hair.

 

I disagree on this point. DS9 should not have done it at all, or at least not linked their alternate universe version to the TOS MU. Because their version was a complete bastardization of what was shown in "Mirror Mirror."

 

I would've liked to have seen a TNG Mirror episode. I think it would've worked best in the first season when the writers were still finding their way. The TNG Mirror comics have yet to consistently work for me, but I like a lot of the character designs.