The Mirror Universe?

[Tebok]

What is everyone's opinion on the Mirror Universe as it is portrayed in DS9?

Personally, I would have liked to have seen more of the Terran Empire. I know the mirror Spock had stated that the Empire would collapse, but perhaps we could have seen Empire at the height of its power, or in the midst of the rebellion that would eventually overthrow it.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Not a fan. I wasn't a fan of the direction it took to begin with, then later it somehow got worse, with utter nonsense like Human Vic.

Diane Duane's novel Dark Mirror did the 24th century Mirror Universe so much better, IMO.

 

[Mage]

Loved it. Sure, it was over the top at some points, but it has some great stuff in there. And it gave us a base for the MU novels in de DS9 Relaunch, and novels like Rise Like Lions and Disavowed have showed us a great look at the post-Rebellion Mirror Universe.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

The first time was fine. I liked how it showed Kira an alternative future of Bajor, and would have worked well into explaining Bajor's admittance to the Federation had it remained a more central plot point. Other episodes became increasingly silly or tedious.

 

[stardream]

Not a fan either. The first episode wasn't bad as it showed the fallout from Kirk's decision but after that it was just boring and silly to me.

 

[Takeru]

Diane Duane's novel Dark Mirror did the 24th century Mirror Universe so much better, IMO.

I agree, the appeal of the mirror universe for me was that humans were evil bastards that ran an empire, DS9 eventually turned them into underdog heroes fighting for their freedom from the alliance that was just as bad as the terran empire.

I should re-read Dark Mirror at some point.

 

[Tebok]

Yup, Dark Mirror was great. I first listened to the Audio book and later read the novel after discovering the audio book left a lot of parts out.

 

[dub]

What is everyone's opinion on the Mirror Universe as it is portrayed in DS9?

The MU episodes were not generally my favorites. I think they could have done more substantial stuff with it. But I liked those episodes better than some of the Klingon and Ferengi centered episodes.

Not a fan. I wasn't a fan of the direction it took to begin with, then later it somehow got worse, with utter nonsense like Human Vic.

I agree, mirror Vic was nonsense. And I bet the writers would agree as well. My guess is they were just trying to give the audience (and mostly themselves) a little chuckle, especially since it was such a brief appearance, because that's what it did for me. I laughed at the "nonsense" of it, then moved on and forgot about it.

It's interesting because there is plenty of nonsense all over Star trek from TOS to nuTrek and beyond (whether or not pun is intended is TBD). Sometimes you can forgive, overlook or accept it, sometimes you can't. I think it often depends on how much you're enjoying the show/film to begin with. But the biggest thing is how it hits you, and you can't really control that. You can't be talked into changing your reaction to something. Sometimes I wish I could!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Here's how I interpret mirror "Vic": It wasn't Vic at all. They did call him Fontaine, I think, but they never called him Vic. I think it was the mirror counterpart of Felix, Vic's creator in the regular universe.

I always imagined the regular universe Felix as some kind of overworked, unappreciated cubicle drone who created Vic as a kind of idealized fantasy image of himself. In the MU, though, Felix gets to be the badass warrior his counterpart always wanted to be...

As for the MU: I hated the way DS9 handled it. You want to know what I hoped they'd done with the Terran Empire? I would have preferred it to never fall in the first place. I certainly wouldn't be on their "side", but I just like the Empire as a dramatic storytelling device. I wish DS9 had let the Empire live!

Oh, and the show that treated the Empire best was definitely Enterprise. Not only did I love the opening credits , but some Imperial characters were still basically honorable people. Captain Forrest, for example, still seemed to honestly care about his ship and crew and even gave up his life to save them. Can't go wrong with that!

 

[Richard Baker]

'Dark Mirror' did it best- I love the description of the differences the Enterprise-D had in the MU, far better than just some hull and door graphics.

DS-9 somehow made the Mirror Universe boring for me. It was fun at first to see the regular characters acting differently but that ran it's course the first episode. Building a Defiant from some stolen info stretched things a bit for me- too many advanced technologies to be recreated by the ragtag freedom fighters and the exterior matched perfectly right down to the hull graphics. If they had a new CGI model of a rough looking ship that looked like it had been assembled with limited resources it would have worked for me.
And they kept going back. The time Kirk went back it was a miraculous accident, with DS-9 it became commonplace and routine.

I tend to try and ignore the MU DS-9 episodes- for me the TOS and ST-Enterprise shows do nicely...

 

[dub]

Oh, and the show that treated the Empire best was definitely Enterprise. Not only did I love the opening credits , but some Imperial characters were still basically honorable people. Captain Forrest, for example, still seemed to honestly care about his ship and crew and even gave up his life to save them. Can't go wrong with that!

Can't agree with that one. I loved the credits, and I enjoyed seeing the characters with mirror personalities, but in the end I didn't care about the characters or what happened to any of them. At least in DS9, what happened with the mirror characters had an impact on the prime universe/characters.

 

[Michael]

Funny, my opinion is the polar opposite: I couldn't care less for “Dark Mirror” (which, as I remember correctly, was nothing more than a rehash of “Mirror, Mirror” and did nothing to really further the overall story) and “In A Mirror, Darkly” was just a huge letdown for me. The one element that makes the original Star Trek episode as well as its DS9 continuations so enjoyable – the “fish-out-of-water” aspect of our characters interacting with and reacting to their mirror counterparts – was sorely missing from it.

Sure, “In A Mirror, Darkly” had cool visuals and I like some scenes in it, but overall it was just too long and too one-note. I noticed that I have a hard time caring for characters that have such a wonky moral code and whose actions ultimately have no consequence for our universe.

Most of the DS9 mirror episodes (“Resurrection” and “The Emperor's New Cloak” were the one I found least enjoyable) on the other hand were just huge fun and neat what-if scenarios for our usual characters. I thought it was smart that we didn't meet all the mirror counterparts in “Crossover”, and that most of the time the circumstances had changed when we paid the universe another visit.

This whole thing is one of the things I would have never guessed fans don't like, before I joined the TrekBBS. Before that I always thought those episodes were fan favorites.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Not a fan either. The first episode wasn't bad as it showed the fallout from Kirk's decision but after that it was just boring and silly to me.

The first episode was fun, but I'm not fond of yet another sequel to a TOS episode that takes "Kirk did the wrong thing and our heroes have to fix it" as its starting point. It seems that for a while after TWOK, we got a ton of TOS follow-up stories that did just that. And after too many of them, it has the cumulative effect of making Kirk look stupid and incompetent.

 

[Michael]

“A ton of TOS follow-up stories”? Do you mean episodes? Or novels? I don't recall any such follow-ups at the moment.

Also: How does “dissolving an evil empire that oppresses and enslaves hundreds of races” constitute “doing something wrong”? Sure, it led to the uprising of other evil-doers, but in the long run the humans were now doing The Right Thing, weren't they?

 

[DonIago]

I enjoy "Crossover" through "Shattered Mirror", but I think the writers ran out of (really good) ideas for the MU after that. IaMD is a fun romp though probably suffers a little from the lack of interaction with "our" timeline.

Of course, all of this stuff gave rise to some pretty great novels as well.

 

[Terok Nor]

I enjoyed the first three DS9 Mirror episodes but Resurrection was boring and The Emperor's New Cloak was a crappy way to bring it to an end. The best thing about it all was The Intendant. Nana Visitor was incredible at playing this character. Sadly the writing for her took a nosedive and she became little more than a campy villain by the end but I still enjoyed her.

I get where folks are coming from regarding the fall of the Terran Empire. I did miss it but there's no reason to think it couldn't rise again in the new show that's coming out in 2017 if it's set in the same universe as the Roddenberry/Berman Trek. I didn't care for Enterprise the series or their Mirror Universe episodes. Like someone said above I didn't see the point without having someone from "our" universe cross over. It was nice seeing the Constitution class ship and the old uniforms but beyond that I thought the CGI for the Gorn and the Tholian was dreadful and tying the Mirror Universe into the disappearance of the Defiant was a load of fan wankery. I wasn't suprised the series ended that season because this 2 parter came off as desperate. The sad thing is the characters showed more personality as their Terran Empire versions than they did as their regular versions. I don't remember a single thing about the Hoshi character apart from the fact the evil version of her became empress of the Terran Empire.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

“A ton of TOS follow-up stories”? Do you mean episodes? Or novels? I don't recall any such follow-ups at the moment.

Episodes, novels, and comic books. It became quite the trend in the 80s.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I hated the MU episodes. They're some of the worst DS9 episodes in my opinion. The characterizations of the MU alternates were campy but without being fun.

The premise of the universe was kind of a stretch as well. Like, Kirk learned that fascism is bad so the Empire completely lays down all its arms. One would think it's possible to stop brutally oppressing everyone and still retain the ability to defend yourself.

I enjoyed the Enterprise MU though because it was campy but *with* the fun.

Camp + Fun = Light entertaining distraction.
Camp - Fun = Annoying cheesy silliness.

 

[Michael]

Episodes, novels, and comic books. It became quite the trend in the 80s.

So, which episodes specifically?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Episodes, novels, and comic books. It became quite the trend in the 80s.

So, which episodes specifically?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Star+Trek+sequel+episodes