Why didn't TNG go to the mirror universe?

[Ssosmcin]

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 enjoyed it as a one-off episode. Everyone gave well considered performances and the concept wasn't run into the ground. After this, it felt like every time they added a new semi-regular, they had to go a Mirror Universe episode with them included. Revisiting it one time was refreshing. Making it a yearly staple was what I didn't need.

 

[aquova]

I agree with the sentiment here, I think all five of DS9's Mirror episodes are awful and I typically skip them. In fact, the only two mirror episodes I like are the original TOS episode and the two parter they did in Enterprise, primarily because they didn't do any characters crossing over. It was evil bizarro world. There's only so much you can do with "character meets their evil self".

 

[Dukhat]

But wasn't it cleverly subversive to show the Terran Empire had fallen and was replaced by just another evil empire?
Instead of assuming Mirror Spock led a reformation of the Terrans into a mirror Federation (lets call it Galactic Commonwealth ).

No, I didn’t think it was a clever idea at all. Its message was basically that trying to be better people when you were once the evil masters will just allow the other people you once subjugated to rise up and conquer you and become the new evil masters, rather than focusing on the actual good that should have come from trying to be better people, which was the message Kirk was trying to convey to Mirror Spock. It was completely hollow and self-serving. Basically, everyone is going to be an asshole no matter what their situation is. What kind of message is that?

Oh, and that leather and lesbianism is a by-product of said turn-around.

 

[fireproof78]

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.

Agreed. It was great idea across the various shows and I would welcome such an exploration as it was interesting idea to explore with different characters.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

There are other mirrors, you know. Instead of good/evil, there's competent/incompetent, Starfleet/civilian...I'm sure there's more.

 

[Kor]

In my head canon, the mirror universe of "Mirror, Mirror" wasn't actually real, but was just some big illusory construct conjured up by the Halkans, who were actually more than met the eye and not just these pre-warp villagers. To what end? Who knows? Perhaps some way to test us mere mortals as to our intentions, or whatever. But DS9 negated this possibility by going back to (ostensibly) the exact same universe (and ENT showed that the MU existed before the Halkan encounter). And then revisiting it over and over again got old and stale, and now it's moldy.

Kor

 

[Jayson1]

But wasn't it cleverly subversive to show the Terran Empire had fallen and was replaced by just another evil empire?
Instead of assuming Mirror Spock led a reformation of the Terrans into a mirror Federation (lets call it Galactic Commonwealth ).

I thought it was. Plus the mirror universe episodes of DS9 get a unfair bad rap. The first one is legit good and a kind of serious look at the concept. The next two are not that but they are still fun, space pirate type of stuff. The Barreil episode was kind of boring and the last one with the Ferengi was just very bad but overall not a bad thing.

 

[Dukhat]

In my head canon, the mirror universe of "Mirror, Mirror" wasn't actually real, but was just some big illusory construct conjured up by the Halkans, who were actually more than met the eye and not just these pre-warp villagers. To what end? Who knows? Perhaps some way to test us mere mortals as to our intentions, or whatever.

I felt the same way. You might have even gotten the idea from me, not that I'm interested in taking any credit for the idea

 

[fireproof78]

And then revisiting it over and over again got old and stale, and now it's moldy.

Thankfully, DSC made penicillin out of the mold.

 

[evilchumlee]

I didn't read through the whole thread but something that may have been missed is that prior to DS9... I don't think the Mirror Universe would have worked with the TNG style.

By the end of "Mirror, Mirror", Spock has been convinced the Empire is bad and wants to try to be a vessel for change.

DS9 is when Trek went for a darker tone. TNG was still Roddenberry hopeful. So... a TNG Mirror Universe episode would have been going to a universe that is no longer under the thumb of the Empire and everything has been fixed and there's a Federation there now, OR Spock just failed and the Terran Empire fell but otherwise things are still generally fine and dandy.

It would never have been the DS9 Mirror Universe because Trek just didn't have the dark tone yet.

 

[fireproof78]

Depends what season. After Best of Both Worlds it got a little darker. Plus the whe Parallels storyline.

 

[at Quark's]

DS9 is when Trek went for a darker tone. TNG was still Roddenberry hopeful. So... a TNG Mirror Universe episode would have been going to a universe that is no longer under the thumb of the Empire and everything has been fixed and there's a Federation there now, OR Spock just failed and the Terran Empire fell but otherwise things are still generally fine and dandy.

It would never have been the DS9 Mirror Universe because Trek just didn't have the dark tone yet.

Even so, after Sisko helps the Rebellion in building the Defiant and the Rebellion defeat defeat of Worf in S7, one cannot help but wonder how it went further for these guys, and, if successful, what kind of society they would have set up. Sisko left them on a more hopeful note (even though you could argue they should be no match for the combined might of the Klingon/Cardassian alliance, unless massive numbers were to join them).

 

[Mudd]

Only "Mirror, Mirror" is worthwhile.

 

[trekshark]

Im glad they didn't. Mirror universe ended up way overused

 

[Cryogenator]

The Next Generation mirror multiverse stories:

Dark Mirror (1993)
Spectre (1998)
Dark Victory (1999)
Preserver (2000)
Dark Passions: Book One (2001)
Dark Passions: Book Two (2001)
Stargazer: Three (2003)
Glass Empires (2007)

"Sdlrow Htob Fo Tsrow Eht" ("The Worst of Both Worlds")​

Shards and Shadows (2009)

"The Traitor"
"The Sacred Chalice"
"A Terrible Beauty"
"For Want of a Nail"​

Rise Like Lions (2011)
Mirror Broken (2018)
Through the Mirror (2018)
Terra Incognita (2019)
Coda: The Ashes of Tomorrow (2021)
Coda: Oblivion's Gate (2021)

The expanded universe has thus far explored three mirror universes constituting a mirror multiverse:

If an infinite number of universes are continually created, it is possible that Dark Mirror simply shows an alternate mirror universe where the Terran Empire never fell. Also, with the release of the Mirror Broken miniseries of comics in 2017, there is now one more take on what a still existing Terran Empire might look like in the 24th century.

Dark Mirror features Picard doing some swift computer hacking as well as the only appearance of Hwiii ih'iie-uUlak!ha', a dolphin who graduated from Harvard and the Sorbonne:

Addressed as "Hwiii" for short. A Delphine commander, native of Triton Two, essentially a sapient dolphin. A member of the Starfleet navigation research team, Hwiii is a graduate of Harvard and La Sorbonne, and an expert in hyperstrings. Hwiii had been on sabbatical researching so-called "clean" hyperstrings near the galactic rim when the Enterprise arrived for its patrol. After the initial "switch", Hwiii immediately recognized that a dimensional transfer had taken place, causing him significant distress. Hwiii worked with Geordi La Forge and the Enterprise engineering staff to construct a replica of the ISS Enterprise switchback device, in order to return to the primary universe. He also derived the plan to send the Imperial vessel back to its home universe and prevent a further incursion/capture.

Hwiii navigates through the ship in a force field containing water to allow him to breathe outside of his specially-designed flooded guest quarters, and an antigravity unit that allows him to "swim" through the air, as well as a machine translator to make it easier to communicate with the crew.

Voyager went there, too:

Elite Force (2000)
Dark Passions: Book One (2001)
Dark Passions: Book Two (2001)
Obsidian Alliances (2007)

"The Mirror-Scaled Serpent"​

Shards and Shadows (2009)

"Bitter Fruit"​

Mirrors and Smoke (2019)
Coda: The Ashes of Tomorrow (2021)

Also, Lower Decks parodied the mirror multiverse with a holodeck simulation in arguably somewhat TNG style (or perhaps a mix of TOS/TNG):

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The mirror multiverse is so far completely absent from The Animated Series, Picard, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds across all media.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

The expanded universe has thus far explored three mirror universes constituting a mirror multiverse:

None of the pictures open and this looks like a giant copy/paste effort. What's your point?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

As for PIC...they did sort of do a mirror-ish thing with the Confederation of Earth.

Or, as I like to call it, the Terran Empire with guts.

 

[Cryogenator]

None of the pictures open and this looks like a giant copy/paste effort. What's your point?

Listing the multiple TNG mirror multiverse stories and some of their covers to give an idea of what a TNG mirror universe episode might have looked like was my point. What's yours?

(I removed the covers since they didn't load.)

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

What's yours?

As I said, it looks like a copy/paste of someone else’s work posted as your own. We’re not fond of plagiarism around here.

 

[Cryogenator]

As I said, it looks like a copy/paste of someone else’s work posted as your own. We’re not fond of plagiarism around here.

My post contains two brief quotations (as indicated both by my introductory statements ending in colons and by the italicization) from articles I hyperlinked from Memory Alpha, a wiki distributed under a Creative Commons license, which means that I am legally free to quote from it to any extent I wish (which, in a few cases, would be quoting myself) without first requesting explicit permission, as the CCL affords automatic permission for both commercial and noncommercial use. In fact, I am perfectly free to copy and redistribute the entire wiki if I so choose. I read and contribute to wikis knowing that I am free to reuse others' work and others are free to reuse mine.

(Please do not further waste my time by telling me that I should have explicitly indicated that I was quoting from Memory Alpha's crowdsourced Creative Commons material. Although formal attribution would be required for commercial usage, I do not, in fact, have to explicitly state that I am quoting CC wiki material when using a brief portion of it in a forum post in which quotation is implied by hyperlinks, colons, and italicization.)

If you have further questions regarding copyright, I am happy to enlighten you, but please refrain from making another uninformed and inappropriate insinuation of plagiarism.

Thank you.