A rewatch mini-marathon had me wanting to make a little commentary...
"Mirror, Mirror" - undoubtedly a classic episode regardless, and made in the 1960s for more general audiences as well as the sci-fi geeks, but:
But, somehow, the story just gallops along and really digs into the meat of the moment and these little nitpicks seem less important.
This episode is a bit of a goofy one, yet only in good ways:
Definitely a must-see despite the goofs as this largely succeeds in juggling so much, given the time in which it was made - certainly for reasons involving lack of home video recording technology, audience recaps, cleverly using the evil universe to say (and show!!) all sorts of things, and clearly the cast are just loving the atypical dialogue they're given.
As for "The Changeling", the biggest nitpicks:
It's got a lot of entertaining moments, this story does... but some of those scenes just stand out and rub the wrong way at times. I'm sure someone in the audience was watching this episode in 1967 and pondering how Nomad would go about destroying all biological infestations on Earth, had it reached the planet...
But the setup and payoff alone, in watching Nomad go nuts at the end, more than makes up for it. It's an interesting balance of seriousness and humor that somehow works.
I can totally understand why this episode was a springboard for "The Motion Picture", which takes the best bits from this story (and a couple others, while doing its own thing in the process) and uses them to genuinely better effect. It's a good reason in how plot recycling CAN lead to a better end result. (But if not done right, everyone inevitably and understandably gripes "no original thought".)
Definitely a fun watch, but not without a few facepalm-inducing moments. "Mirror, Mirror" is definitely the superior episode, but "Changeling", warts and all, seems underrated in season 2's arsenal of episodes and is worth a viewing.
"Mirror, Mirror" - undoubtedly a classic episode regardless, and made in the 1960s for more general audiences as well as the sci-fi geeks, but:
- How come the crew's clothes change in the transporter chamber?
- How come the good crew don't end up in the brig when they transport back?
- Marlena, for some reason, lets Sulu live after blinking all of his Batman-inspired goons out of existence, nimbly one by one, and as if Sulu had to be alive in the evil universe as well as the good one simultaneously because that's what someone thought the audience would be believing?! (Okay, mid-60s and how tv was made and shown and with no way to record and watch later, having to do a recap after each commercial break to remind the audience tuning in late that this isn't "our crew" would be a tad difficult... another reason to be highly impressed by how this episode has to do so much in the first place...)
- Only 2 universes, ours and Mirrorland? (again, 1960s and balancing nuance with general audiences...)
- TOS is hit or miss with stunt doubles, but this one is on par with "Space Seed" for particularly poor choices. At least it's not as unintentionally hilarious as the scenes in "I, Mudd", which almost break the 4th wall with subconscious self-awareness between camera angles with the stunt double followed by Norman and back again...
- There are more navels shown here than in a shipyard, folks... at least it's in the evil universe...
- And by far the worst: Spock's beard color is far lighter than his scalp hair, eyebrows, etc, despite it being impossible to tell the join where the fake beard and and the real skin begins
But, somehow, the story just gallops along and really digs into the meat of the moment and these little nitpicks seem less important.
This episode is a bit of a goofy one, yet only in good ways:
- For one of few times, we see a proper ensemble piece and Uhura's seems particularly dangerous, given Sulu acting like a lion that's not been fed a gazelle in weeks, but a sense of claustrophobia pervades for all and it's very engaging stuff.
- Scotty is unable to do sabotage - these scenes in particular, culminating with his reporting back to the Captain, are rather nicely done
- The mirror universe really shows a lot in terms of selling the evil side of humanity and by 1960s standards, they go all out. For 1967 standards, it's amazing it got aired without major changes involving power struggles, showing body parts that are forbidden in every other show (Jeannie knows all about that, too), et cetera, et cetera
- In retrospect, why were showing belly buttons a bad thing, what was the idea behind that according to the network censors? "OMG, abdominal muscles on display!?" seems an unlikely reason... (with season 3 showing far more than this episode ever had in "The Cloud Minders" too...)
- Kirk's soliloquy to evil-Spock at the end is poignant and he's wordlessly hinting at having Marlena help him is rather good
- Evil-Spock would warn Kirk ahead of time about the orders to up and kill him - it just doesn't get cooler than that
- As with evil Spock's make-up, Sulu's fake scars were really nicely done. (and yet they had stunt doubles in whacking-great close-up too with nowhere near the attempt compared to the make-up...)
- McCoy's "what kind of people are we" is samples for a electronica song in the late-80s...
- Good-Kirk telling Marlena she could be anything she wanted, not just "The Captain's Object". This little bit of dialogue really shows off the difference between Mirrorland and their main universe, especially when we see Marlena in the good/main universe at the end.
Definitely a must-see despite the goofs as this largely succeeds in juggling so much, given the time in which it was made - certainly for reasons involving lack of home video recording technology, audience recaps, cleverly using the evil universe to say (and show!!) all sorts of things, and clearly the cast are just loving the atypical dialogue they're given.
As for "The Changeling", the biggest nitpicks:
- I know modern day tv/film reviewers love to say "modern stuff is gimmicky and there's no payoff when they kill someone just to revive them ten minutes later"... the bad news is, TOS was doing that five decades earlier, with this story being a shining example of how plot-driven inanity can be just as insipidly timeless. OMGz, Scotty's killed. No he isn't, we can magically revive him after eating a bowl of Lucky Plotgimmick cereal! (at least Scotty gets some fairly decent dialogue as he wakes up, but he's got to stop interfering with Nomad, Apollo, or any hunky thing that will zap him to near-death or worse every time he throws a tantrum in the way many thistleheads are said to do...)
- Uhura, mind wiped clean, apparently has an aptitude for math according to an astonished Chapel... Which is fine and dandy, but she's supposed to be the primo expert in xenolinguistics. The real problem is that everyone acts as if that language thingy aspect of her doesn't exist now. Worse, she has trouble learning how to read and speak about the bluey balls! (And was the obvious double entendre to that also well known in 1967?)
- The casual sexism in this episode truly is galling. Nomad is used to make a snide comment about women is jaw-droppingly bad. At least it's not as gobsmackingly awful as it was in "Elaan of Troyius" regarding Kirk's apocryphal quip... (anything for the censors back in the day...)
- The ship's defensive capabilities really are arbitrary. "power equivalent to 90 photon torpedoes" - and they can handle another four blasts' worth! Okey dokey!
- Nomad's shiny new mission is to kill all that is imperfect. After Kirk lets it slip he's not The Creator(tm), Nomad buggers off to look up his medical charts but can't be bothered to kill anyone. It just knocks Nurse Chapel out - something Kirk gets huffy about but doesn't use in...
- ...his barrage of logic-twisting to Nomad, effectively nagging him to death in a highly illogical trope that only TOS could make genuinely entertaining.
- Another of Nomad's errors: So hyperfixated on the shiny engines, it doesn't think about how excessive engine velocity might exceed structural integrity/hull tolerance limits. (Okay, Nomad does state to Kirk that the ship is imperfect later after the fact, but it's a fair enough tangent to mention, since these systems are interconnected... then again, Nomad somehow got reprogrammed by "the other"... then again, what does Nomad need with a starship if it can flit about at war speeds and utterly smashing anything it finds with plasma bolts equivalent to 90 photon torpedoes and still have time to roast marshmallows afterward? )
- How can Spock telepathically mindlink to a floating bucket of inorganic microchips? Other blobby organic beings, sure, but organic chemistry is not directly compatible with electronics/duotronics/treknobabbletronics, etc.) TNG has the same problem every time Troi senses Data having emotions too (this happened twice as I recall: Once in season 2, once in season 6... but I digress.)
It's got a lot of entertaining moments, this story does... but some of those scenes just stand out and rub the wrong way at times. I'm sure someone in the audience was watching this episode in 1967 and pondering how Nomad would go about destroying all biological infestations on Earth, had it reached the planet...
But the setup and payoff alone, in watching Nomad go nuts at the end, more than makes up for it. It's an interesting balance of seriousness and humor that somehow works.
I can totally understand why this episode was a springboard for "The Motion Picture", which takes the best bits from this story (and a couple others, while doing its own thing in the process) and uses them to genuinely better effect. It's a good reason in how plot recycling CAN lead to a better end result. (But if not done right, everyone inevitably and understandably gripes "no original thought".)
Definitely a fun watch, but not without a few facepalm-inducing moments. "Mirror, Mirror" is definitely the superior episode, but "Changeling", warts and all, seems underrated in season 2's arsenal of episodes and is worth a viewing.
