91: In a Mirror, Darkly 1 & 2 - Star Trek Enterprise Season 4, Episode 18 & 19

https://youtu.be/H4j-vYNTf8Q

Matt and Sean talk about a fun romp that would also become accidental backstory for then unimagined Star Trek shows. This is tapping into classic Trek, but is that a good thing? 

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Creators & Guests

Host

Matt Ferrell

Host of Undecided with Matt Ferrell, Still TBD, and Trek in Time podcasts

Host

Sean Ferrell 🐨

Co-host of Still TBD and Trek in Time Podcasts

What is Trek In Time?

Join Sean and Matt as they rewatch all of Star Trek in order and in historical context.

In this episode of Trek in Time, we're gonna be talking about evil beards or the lack or none of evil beards. That's right. Folks, you've dropped into the mirror universe where Matt and I are indistinguishable from one another.

For those who cannot see me, I am now beard. And if you could not see me, you probably didn't even know I had a beard. So what do you care? Who cares? But for those of you on YouTube, get used to seeing a lot of these chins,

and of course I'm mentioning this all as like the mirror universe falling into a different dimension where facial hair is a good indicator of. Because we're talking about enterprise season four, episode 18 and 19. That would of course be in a mirror darkly parts one and two. That's right, folks, if you didn't check out both episodes and you want to keep up with our conversation, you should go back and watch part two as well, because we will be discussing both.

That's what we do here on Trek in Time, where we watch every episode of Star Trek in chronological order and put it into context. In the original era in which it was broadcast. Broadcast. So we're taking a look at Enterprise. We are amazingly, like this very close season suddenly zipped by and perhaps is because we took our viewer listener feedback of, Hey, when you guys have a two-parter, do it as a single episode.

Suddenly zip, we've only got a few episodes left before we're done with Enterprise, and we'll be moving on to discovery. And who are we? Well, I'm Sean Ferre. I'm a published author, I'm a writer. I write some stuff for kids, I write some sci-fi, and with me is my brother Matt. He's that Matt of undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives.

Matt, how are you doing today? I'm doing well.

Still getting used to looking at a Beardless brother,

but yeah, now you know the pain I've been in for years. Oh,

ooh, beer burn.

As usual, before we move on to our discussion for this current episode or episodes, we'd like to share some feedback from previous episodes.

So, Matt, what do you have for us? Oh, related

to the beards from Technophile one. Next week will be, will be evil bearded Matt and Shaden Shaven, freedom Fighter, Sean. Pretty close.

He got, yeah, he got half of that, right?

Yeah. The other comment was from that I wanted to bring up is the dude who's commented a bunch of times, I'm half expecting to see some registration nx.

Oh, one merch one day that. Yeah, we, we really should make that.

Yeah, it should just be a T-shirt that says, just says Registration NX oh one, registration NX oh one. No further clarification. Needed. Yeah.

And the last comment I wanna kinda bring up is Giant Hogweed lives. He commented on episode 89, affliction and Divergence, and he wrote this two part Klingon arc was very good.

Star Trek, I doubted you during season one when you said Enterprise would get better, but you were right, however, I'm glad the Xindi stuff was over. Now I find, I find that comment funny cuz it's like, yeah, we weren't lying. It gets better. But I would actually say the Xindi part is my favorite part. Mm-hmm.

But I do think like basically seasons was at three and four are where the show kind of gets overwhelmingly good. Yeah. More than bad. And it's the first two seasons where it's like, ugh,

some real. Yeah, I agree. I think that it's really interesting to think in terms of season three being where it found its footing, but season four is where it really started to feel like it was owning the star Trek of itself.

Yep, yep. Because we have episodes like these, we have the episodes where, They use Klingons and Andorians and Tellerites, and it doesn't feel like fan service in the same way it did in the first season when they would bring out mm-hmm. A Klingon and it would just be like you're over dependent on the fan base, knowing who these people are as opposed to showing us.

Character development of these alien species. But in season four, they're really hitting those marks really well. I think this episode is another one where they show a demonstration of the correctness of it all because this one has, as we get into our discussion, there are so many threads that they're pulling together.

In really sometimes very fascinating and sometimes unintentionally funny ways, but I think it all is very truckish as we're, as we're, uh, watching this one. So we'll get into that in a moment. But before we do that, noise in the background is of course the read alert. And as usual, it means it's time for Matt to buckle up and read the Wikipedia description.

And I'll give you and everybody listening a warning. I went with the full synopsis that they called the synopsis, the summary from Wikipedia. Because there's some interesting nuggets in here. So it goes a bit beyond what is happening in the particular episodes. It gives kind of a bigger picture review and it's also rather long.

So Matt, you might wanna take a sip of water gargle a little bit. Do some Mimi. Me Mama, Mo ma. And get ready to, that's right. Some blow, some raspberries and get ready, cuz you're gonna be reading for a little bit. So take it. All right

in a mirror, darkly is in a mirror. Darkly is the 18th and 19th episodes of the fourth season of the American Science Fiction television series, star Trek Enterprise, and originally aired on April 22nd and 29th, 2005.

This installment was developed to be a sequel to the original series episode the web and a prequel to Mirror. Mirror. The decision to set an enterprise episode in the mirror universe originated with a pitch to enable William Shatner to appear in the series. Wow. The teleplays for both parts of the episode were written by Mike Sussman and Manny Coto contributing the story for the second part set in the 22nd century.

The series normally follows the adventures of the first Starlee Starfleet Starship Enterprise Registration NX oh one. However, these installments feature a mirror universe, Jonathan Archer and evil counterparts of the normal characters who serve the cruel and militaristic Terran empire. In the first part, the IS S Enterprise iss.

Yeah, the Is SS Enterprise learns of a Starfleet ship from the future of the main universe, which is being stripped for parts by the Ians and seeks to take the ship from the aliens. The second part of the series, the Surviving Crew, operating the s s Defiant and seeking to overthrow the empire using its advanced weaponry.

The episode saw the reuse of footage from Star Trek first contact and the creation of. Alternative opening credit sequence, which included footage from the other paramount properties such as the film, the Hunt for October. A three quarters around bridge from the original series era was constructed, as well as other sets from a Constitution class.

Starship a Gorn and Tholian were both created using CGI with the Gorn, using motion capture techniques. And this installment also saw the return of Vaughn Armstrong as a Admiral Maxwell Forrest, after his main universe character was killed on screen earlier in the season. In the episode, the. This episode subsequently appeared in several lists of the best episodes of Star Trek Enterprise.

It was nominated for an Emmy award for outstanding hair styling for a series in 2005. I like that. That's its credit for

success. Yes. Hair styling. That's right. And because I knew there would be people who would be asking, who won for outstanding hair styling for a series in 2005, well, it would be Deadwood, the movie, other nominees included MAD tv.

Enterprise, of course, alias American Dreams and Carnival. So this episode, Asma has just mentioned season four, episodes 18 and 19, directed by James L. Conway for part one, Marvin Rush for part two. Marvin Rush, interestingly, was a director of photo. For many episodes of Enterprise, he had not directed himself as James Conway was directing Part one.

Rush watched carefully. Is that the choices he would make? Because his goal was to make his episode that he would be directing Seamless. He didn't want it to look like they were directed by two different people. I think he did a remarkable job because as I watched these two parts, it never occurred to me that there was a different person at the helm.

Mm-hmm. Written by Michael Sussman for Part One Story by Manny Coto for part two with the Teleplay being written by Sussman. The original air dates were April 22nd and 29th, and guest appearances include Vaughn Armstrong as Forrest once again, Frank Ross as the grizzled man. Carolyn Bells skis as the Montana Earth woman.

These are, of course, these are the background from lifted from first contact. These are, that's what those references are. Gary Graham as Crewman Soval. This is of course Ambassador Soval, but, and the mirror universe, he is just a crewman. Gregory Izon as Admiral Black John Mahone as Admiral Gardner, Derek Maar as Ensen Kelby once again, but this is the Mirror universe, Kelby.

So instead of seeing a, I'm put out by trip taking my job. Kelby, we're seeing a, I'm sorry, sir. Kelby and interesting note here. Mag Barrett. Yep. As the computer voice. Her appearance here would make her the only actor to have been in every iteration of Star Trek up to this point. Hmm. So what was the world like at the time that this landed?

This is of course April 22nd and 29th, 2005. Matt, I know you'll recall this cuz you were singing until your voice was hoarse and your vocal chords were bleeding. Since you've been gone by, Kelly Clarkson was the number one song both weeks and at the movies people were lining Up to Sea in the first week.

Amityville Horror, which is the 2005 remake of the classic horror film from the seventies. This edition starred Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George Phil Hall, and it featured the debut of a young actress named Chloe Grace Martz and the following. The number one movie was The Interpreter. The Interpreter is the 2005 political thriller directed by Sidney Pollock, starring Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, Katherine Keener, and Jesper Christensen is the first film shot inside the United Nations, as well as the final feature film directed by Pollock.

And for people who might not be familiar with Pollock, Pollock directed more than 20 films and 10 television shows. He acted in over 30 movies and produced 44 films. He won Best director and best film for out of Africa in 1985. He was also nominated for, they shoot horses, don't they? In 1969 and Tootsie in 1982.

He is a remarkable filmmaker, so if people are not familiar with his work, I do strongly recommend going back and revisiting his films and on television. Without getting into too much detail about both weeks, I'll just share that it, it continues to. Sad days for enterprise continuing to bump along at the low end of the viewership being beaten or impaired by.

Networks such as the wb, what I like about you and Reba getting roughly the same size audience as enterprise and the big winners continue to be A, B, C, cbs, B S B C, and Phlox as they are showing things like America's Funniest Home Videos, csi, Friday night movie on Phlox and Dateline npc. This would be an another interesting footnote during the production of this episode.

Matt and I were talking last. Where I was speculating. I bet by now the network new enterprise would not be returning. It would be during the production of these episodes that the cast and crew would find out that Paramount was canceling the series series. So probably a bit of a difficult and mixed emotional time in shooting these.

Mm-hmm. And. I'm not gonna say that I could see it in the performances, but there's certainly an aspect to sending the show off at this stage while doing this kind of episode. Might have had some mixed emotions cuz they're not doing straight up enterprise, they're doing a take on enterprise. Mm-hmm. And I wonder what that was like for them.

And in the news, the biggest news from these weeks was the selection of a new Pope Pope John Paul II had passed away and Benedict the six. Would be selected as his replacement. He was 78 at the time of his selection. So there goes the Catholic church looking for young blood. He was selected in 2005 and he would serve as Pope until he would step down resigning in 2013.

He would be the first pope to do this since lead to the ascension of our current. Pope Francis, who is currently, as of the time of this recording being hospital hospitalized, he himself is not doing well health-wise. So onto our discussion of this episode, right out of the gate, we start off with a reuse in the cold open of shots from first contact in which we see.

The post Zeph Cochrane flight drawing the attention of Vulcans Who land in Montana emerge and it is straight out the film. It's the Vulcan stepping down, removing his hood, revealing the famous ears. Zeph Cochran steps forward. The Vulcan gives the Vulcan hand sign of peace and long life. And Zeph from Cochran pulls out a shotgun and blows his head.

So right out of the gate, we know something's different and the grizzled man in the background yells out, get on that ship and grab everything you can. Yep. The implication being here that not only are these humans somehow able to overpower well armed Vulcans. Yep. They are able to somehow figure out how all this technology works.

Yep. And this would be the emerge. Of the empire in the mirror universe, which is humans dominating all of space.

Do we wanna just like pause on, talk about the plot just for a minute and just give our general assessment as to like, whether we like this, enjoyed it, didn't what, what our, what our

feelings were.

I absolutely invite you to start.

No, I was gonna say, you go first. You go first. Okay. Because I usually go first.

You go first. I think that one of the first things that struck me was I was glad to finally have a opening credit song that I could sit through. Yes. And enjoy the historical references having been, the imagery being turned dark was a nice twist.

But the song itself, I actually. Pleasurable. I think that these are two episodes that are incredibly well made. They're incredibly well thought out. The goal that they were going for is both fascinating from a or the origination of the idea. And to the final result I found really con, uh, intriguing. I find a lot of the scenes compelling.

I like the fan service elements of it. Mm-hmm. But ultimately this felt like one of the biggest pieces of fan fiction you've ever seen. Mm-hmm. It doesn't feel at a certain level. And it's interesting because in looking back at the review of the show, at the time of broadcast this, this got very, very high marks.

Mm-hmm. I can understand why. But now in the context in which we are now, I have mixed feelings about it because I found it to be

I, one of the elements of this that I do really like is the fact that it's completely self-contained and it is not about any of the characters from the main universe falling into the mirror universe. I like that. I like that it is effectively fan fictiony in the form. We've been showing you for several seasons what's going on, how the original, uh, enterprise came about, and what its first adventures were like and how it led to the formation of the federation.

I kind of like the fan fiction element of like, what was the mirror universe like of this at this time? So giving us that in this way. I preferred that it wasn't some sort of ham-fisted Archer goes back in time or into the mirror universe. My research, I discovered what the original plot would've been and if you want me to go into that I can Yeah, go ahead.

It was orig. It was originally going to be, this was gonna be a tie-in not to the Follian web episode, which is what they end up doing with this. And I think that the tying in of Mirror Mirror and the holian web together is brilliant. Because the THON web episode of the original series had nothing to do with the mirror universe.

It had to do with the enterprise coming across the US S defiant, which is trapped inside Aian web and was leaving our reality. It was leaving, it was going into another dimension. They couldn't understand what was happening. A team beams aboard the ship, and when they come back, Kirk has to stay behind on the ship.

And he ends up getting pulled into the alternate universe along with the ship and through a series of events, Spock is able to figure out what's happened and is able to pull him back. Using that as a jumping off point for this episode of Enterprise, I think is really kind of brilliant saying, not only was it a trap set by the Ians, it was a time.

Element was involved as well. Yeah, so you have this time travel aspect. I really like the idea that for the Mirror U, excuse me, for the mirror universe, it would be reconstructing technology that they did not develop that would lead to the human empire at the time of Mira Mirror. So this is a technology that they don't develop and they may not fully understand how to improve upon it.

I like the idea that the, the strength of the hu of the human empire at that point is based on stolen future tech. So, and it creates then the implication being that the humans of that mirror, mirror episode aren't able to improve. Which is another element as the mirror universe continues to be used in other star Trek series in the future, I'm thinking particularly DS nine, right?

Where humanity at that point is struggling and it's because the technologies and the weaponry that they were dependent upon was something that they didn't fully understand. So I like that aspect of it as well. But originally this was going to be tied in directly with the mirror mirror. And I'll try and give as brief a synopsis as I possibly can.

In Mirror. Mirror there's good Kirk and Evil Kirk. Evil Kirk is referred to in the fandom as Tiberius to separate him from James T. So the episode where it ends. Bearded Spock saying, I will consider what you say about one man being able to make a difference and the device that the evil universe uses to what looks like disintegration.

The writer of this episode, Sussman proposed the idea of what if that's not a disintegration device, it's a teleportation device, and it's shooting people back in time into the main. The people who are using it don't understand that that's what it's doing, but it's depositing people back in the past.

Mm-hmm. So the proposal was, what if we do an episode of enterprise, in which when Evil Kirk Tiberius went back to his universe, evil Spock puts him in that device, teleports him. But where the beings are teleported is to the main universe in the past on a penal colon, So the enterprise then runs across that penal colony and finds now older, angry Tiberius who wants to get back to his own universe.

The story was going to be that back and forth. The story originated. The idea originated from William Shatner, who at this point had. Gabriel Reeve Stevens and his wife. Let, let me make sure I mentioned both of them. Judith Reeve Stevens and Garfield Reeve Stevens had been writing a series of books which were official star Trek novels, but they're jokingly referred to.

They never had this as an official title. They're referred to as the Shatner verse. They followed after generations and they tell the story and you want to talk about. Really bending into a mirror, universe or fan fiction after generations. The books include the story of Spock going to the grave where Picard had buried Kirk, and then the story goes back in time and shows Kirk in his unease of retirement.

And then at the end of the story, it returns to Spock at the grave. And he witnesses what looks like a space battle with Federation phaser fire and green phaser fire, and then the grave site, something is teleported out of the grave site and the rocks tumble inward on themselves. Kirk's body is stolen.

The following book, that was the end of the first book. The next book follows how the Romulan in a alliance with the borg have stolen Kirk's body, reanimate it, return its katra, but corrupt it so that Kirk hates the federation to use him as a tool to undo the federation fiction. It is wild. The synopsis. This fiction books is wild, and they were published under the author's name, William Shatner

william Shatner was involved in coming up with the stories and was the author of record, even though they were being written by the Reeve Stevens'. Right. These are the books that the Reeve Stevens's were writing before they started writing for Enterprise. So now we have Shatner coming up and saying to the producers of Enterprise, I would like to be, I'd like to be in this, and here's how we proposed it.

So it was going to be a time travel. Where evil Kirk from the mirroruniverse is teleported back to the main universe on a penal colony that the mirrorUniverse is using. Whenever they use that disintegration device, it's actually a Teleporter Enterprise would meet evil Kirk. Evil Kirk would work with Archer.

There would be some sort of conflict with him trying to use the Teleporter to get back to his. And it would be, and here's the final part of like the fan fictiony part of it. Evil Kirk would discover that his universe does not exist yet. It is through the actions with the enterprise. Okay. That they would create the mirror universe.

Okay. All of that is just so much like. So then we end up with these, these are what happened because Shatner and the producers couldn't reach an agreement about his involvement. So Sussman came up with the idea of, what if we tie this in with a Tholian web and do this instead? Okay.

So. Here's my feelings on this episode.

That would've been a more interesting episode.

I do not begrudge anybody that enjoys these episodes. I hate these. I hate them. I was so bored. I was just like, this is, it just felt like I was watching fan fiction that had no place in everything we've been watching before. It had, because it had no direct. To the show. We've been watching four seasons of like, you didn't have a character going back in time or ending up in that universe, or there was no kind of like bridge, it was just, oh, we're just in the up mirror universe watching this stuff happen.

I didn't care. I didn't care about anybody. Cuz everybody's evil. Everybody deserves to die. Everybody, it's like, oh, they're just all stabbing each other in the back. I don't find that kind of thing enjoyable. And then on top of which, my logic brain would not shut down. And right from the opening sequence.

I was like, yeah. A bunch of basically, you know, street people

to figure out how to Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, oh yeah, you're gonna overpower the Vulcans and then you're gonna figure out how the ship works, and then you're gonna be able to take on the Vulcans and, and basically beat everybody down. It's like that.

No, that is, no, that's not gonna happen. That's not gonna play out that way. That the, there's such a technology gap that would. Ever be able to happen. And then it just got into the whole thing of like, okay, so if like a butterfly flapping its wings, you know, overseas causes a hurricane on the other side of the world.

If something like this had happened with Zefran Cochran, none of the original of the Star Trek enterprise crew would've been together. Some of them may have not even been born. You know what I mean? It's like when you start to go down, like the, how the spiderweb of things would change history if that had happened.

Mm-hmm. The idea that you'd have Phlox Archer, Hoshi, Mayweather, Reed, you'd have all of the crew on the ship together is just stupid. And I was just sitting there. I could not disconnect my brain from like, okay, none of this makes any sense. It's kind of like, Uh, the Marvel show. What if that was based on the comic book series?

What if right where it takes like alternate basically the same thing, but like instead of Captain America being, you know, a guy, it's a woman and you know, instead of a man Hulk, it's a she Hulk. It's like playing around with what could be. Mm-hmm. I find those so much more interesting because it. Still dealing with the humanity of it, the heroic aspect of it, and it's still making you care about these characters in this small bite size chunk.

This episode, these two episodes did nothing to me to make me engage with anybody to like root for anybody. I'm just sitting there like letting it wash over me, and I couldn't disconnect from the logical loopholes that you could drive a cargo ship through. It was. And the description we just described about them finding this old Kirk from like the, it's like, that's amazing.

And what's funny is that's basically the Star Trek discovery, which we're about to get to, that kind of basically plays out in that show. So it's like it's they, I enjoyed that aspect of discovery and it's like to find out that they could have done that with Kirk on this. Holy cow, that would've been so much better than what we got.

Because at least you have the real enterprise crew that we. That you can connect with and then you can have the fun with the mirror universe and this evil Kirk. And having an older Kirk like we're dealing with, it's like, it would've been, it would've been blast and it probably wouldn't have felt like such fan fiction of just mm-hmm.

Oh, just a, a blank check. What if like, let's throw logic out the window and let's just have fun. That's what the episode felt like to me. Like they didn't care about having logic and for me, I. Couldn't get past it, so I did not like

this episode. Yeah, I'm, I'm definitely on the opposite end of the spectrum from, from you on this because while I wouldn't say I loved this episode, I enjoyed it and I wouldn't dissuade somebody from watching it.

I think that it makes an interesting, it's almost like an interesting backdoor pilot to discovery, and it's a pairing of episodes that I completely. Forgot about. And as I was watching it, I was like, wow, this really is remarkable. That at the time they would've had no idea. They literally, while making this were told your series has been canceled.

They would have no idea about a show whose premise would be what discovery season one was all about. And without putting two, find a point on it. For anybody who hasn't watched Discovery, there's elements of this that will play out in that. I also, I'm a big sucker for well thought out, fan fiction connections.

I like those moments. I myself like the idea that. In the Shatner verse, the book has Spock at the grave site for mm-hmm. Kirk. That's the kind of thing that I imagine in my head Canon. Like I come up with moments like that where I, for myself, have imagined the moment when Picard would send a message to Spock saying, I know you think that he died alone.

Mm-hmm. I wanted to let you know he didn't. He was with me. That moment for me in my fan fiction head is one of my favorite moments. Never happened on screen. Never. Ha. Like, but it's mine. So the use of the defiant in this mm-hmm. I think is really cool. I like this, uh, depiction of, yeah. All that stuff from the original series was a.

And they stole this ship into the past and they're here taking it apart, and they're using, I liked the inclusion of like slave labor. I like the inclusion of a gorn as a slave master. I, yeah, I thought that the defiance escape scene when they are scrambling to get this gigantic ship working. And they managed to get weapons so they can blow up the Tholians and then as they're leaving, they blow the crap out of the station that they were just trapped in.

I thought all that was really cool and exciting and I liked the battle sequences showing how outmatched the enterprise era tech is by an original series level tech that enter that defiant is tearing through. Enterprise era craft with ease. Literally pulling up behind Tellerite? Andorian Vulcan ships blowing them out of a sky, one after another without even trying.

Really nobody on that bridge is sweating as they are attacking those ships. And that as a premise for, yeah, why would we stop and just hand this over to the emperor when I could be emperor because I'm now effectively more powerful than he is. I liked that as a story element. I liked the idea, as I mentioned before, and you had an issue with this very specific thing.

I liked that it was a bottle episode without involvement from the original universe because I felt like it would've felt shoehorned and the entire Shatner storyline. Penal colony, like, like all that, that, that to me would've been one's rung lower on the fan fiction hierarchy. I felt like this, as far as fan fiction was just like, yeah, you're not seeing the original characters.

And, and, but just to give you a sense of like, you and I differ on this in my research, I discovered how the actors. All had differing opinions about the value of this. And I'm just curious, let's play a little game. I'm going to give you actor names and you tell me whether you think that they enjoyed this or they disliked it.

Okay. So we'll start with Bakula. I think

he

didn't like it go with Blaylock.

I think she

probably did like. Trini trip. I'd probably say

he liked it. Flocks. He probably liked it. Reid. He

probably liked it. Bakula liked it. Loved it. Okay. Oh, last one. I forgot to ask Hoshi. I don't think she liked it. These are her favorite episodes.

Oh my God. Blaylock Trip Flocks. None of them liked.

The exact opposite of what I thought.

Yeah. They thought it was just so much nonsense that that's

my, that's what my, I'm I, this whole episode was nonsense. Whereas

Archer, Bakula and the actress who plays Hoshi, they have the most screen time. Yeah. And get to do the most scene shoeing and a particular

scenery.

He, he is chewing scenery. Like I've never seen anybody chew scenery. He is overacting. It is overactive. 12. Yeah, it's not going to 11. He's going to 12. Like I could not his whole, like the way, he would just like thrust his chest out and like he would do this, like look on his face constantly. Like he was barely holding it together, which made sense when they started to show him.

Hallucinating, but like the fact, the way he was chewing the scenery

was, so, yeah. I'll go back, I'll go back to the hallucinating in a moment. My take on that was they were being directed to act like they were on the original series. I think

you're properly right, because it felt it very, very original.

Yeah. The entire thing felt very original series too. It did feel very original, series as far as the production quality and the acting and all that kind of stuff. And I, I didn't have a problem with that. And I do wanna make it clear there are scenes and sequences I thought were a lot of fun there. There is fun to be had in these episodes, but the problem was I had no emotional tie to it.

Maybe it's me looking back on it again, but like, you know that this is the end of the series and it's like, why are you wasting your time on these two nonsensical episodes when you could had two episodes with the characters I do care about? It's like, what are, what are you doing? And the fact, and the part of the reason I liked the idea of going the Kirk route was because it would've kept me in contact with the characters I actually do care about.

So it's like, that's kind of my, my problem is that it was just, These two bottle episodes, they have nothing to do with anything. And this is, it's so deep in the star Trek lore that if you, like you're talking about the US to Defiant was this trap. And it was like the way it was tied into the old episodes, if you're a casual star Trek fan, you're lost if you're, even if you're, I'm a deep Star Trek fan and that I forgot about that.

Like, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like I'm watching this and I'm like, okay. It was just, it was just washing over me. So it was so. Into the star Trek lore that it's the hardest of hardcore people that have memories, like steel traps that are gonna make all these connections. And then for a more casual fan, it's just gonna be like, what is happening right now?

So it's, that's my problem with it. It just went too, it went too deep. It went way too

deep. Interesting note is in reference to like, why would they waste their time on this if there had been a season five? Mm-hmm. Manny Coto was planning a five episode. That would've been universe, a standalone mini-series within the Mirror universe.

He was planning on doing more of this as a standalone thing, and they took that, they were looking at this as basically a viewer first contact with the Mirror of universe. One of the things about this that I like, that the Shatner version would've, would not have allowed. I like the idea of this basically saying, yeah, the mirror universe has always.

I like that element. Mm-hmm. And I like the elements that you point out, or like the, the ones that made you say like, only the hardest of the hardcore are gonna remember that the Defiant was in an episode. The, and we like, Like, I like those moments. There's also, I'm curious about your take on the use of the CGI for the two major aliens depicted in this.

The gorn. The gorn, we have course seen before in the form mm-hmm. Of a person in what looks like probably the world's hottest latex suit.

And in this it is complete CGI using motion capture. And the we have seen before in the form of a puppet head put in front of a screen so that you are just given what looks like a giant crystal with glowing eyes. In this, we are actually able to see more of the body and it has a sort of racked type form.

I'm curious, how did you feel about the depiction of these two species in this. Oh, I, I like

them both. Like th this is actually one of my favorite parts of these two episodes. My favorite sequence was the Gorn stuff. I love the Gorn stuff. Now, the special effects, not the greatest, like for the time and the budget, they probably had perfectly fine.

I, I cut it some slack, but like, The whole sequence of the gorn, like when he's on the, the, the radio talking to them and it's going through the translator and you still hear him going like his like lizard Gar. Yeah. And he's just like, I love the depiction of that is so cool. Just this crazy lizard creature talking in his language into a translator and you're hearing a human voice come out the other end.

Mm-hmm. I thought that was great. And how it was outsmarting them and like it was like a little mini movie Aliens. Yeah. Like right in the middle of the show. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. Cause you know her, how. You, you know how dangerous the gorn are. Yeah. It just takes one gorn Yeah. To like really screw things up.

And so I was like really enjoying that aspect of it. Yeah. And then the other side of it with Ians the depiction of that, I was fine. Special effects, again, kind of cheap looking, but cut a little slack for the time and the budget. Yeah. I enjoyed it. Especially with the whole like the, the, the sequence of the, the noise it's making Yeah.

To transmit using its, its exoskeletons

creating the signal. Yeah.

Yeah. And the way and the finally, the way the doctor ends up killing it. Yeah. And how they're torturing it with the temperature, bringing it down so it's getting too cold. I thought that that stuff was really, really cool and a lot of fun.

So it's like there is fun to be had in this, these episodes. It's just for me, they're just, There's nothing that was fun throughout. It was just like these, like little bite size. That was cool, but that was a lot of fun. Mm-hmm. I, I wish I had more of the gorn. I wish I had more of the Tholian. I wish I had more of those fun moments that I connect with in some fashion other than just baccal chewing scenery and scantily clad hoshi throwing her body around.

Yeah. It was to me that

it was just like, that for me was one of the hardest things to deal. Was that? How do you make somebody evil? Well, if they're a man, give them a beard. If they are the pilot of the enterprise, give them an earring. If they are a woman, give them a midriff. I'm like, and turn them into a sex object.

I'm like, okay, this is a little hard to sit through. Yes. At moments, but it's, it's. Right. It's cut right out of the original series playbook. It is, you know, the original series. You know, we're already gonna be dealing with miniskirts even in the main universe, so, yep. Like there's that, and apparently Ba V'Las, uh, Bakula joked on the set.

What happened to the rest of Jolene's Skirt when she first appeared in the Blue Science Officer uniform of an original series. Female so that her mini-skirt is her uniform. And that's saying something, considering the outfits that she was wearing. Just as T'Pol on the enterprise. Yeah. Were already like way too tight oversexed, you know, for for Yeah.

Anybody to think of as a practical outfit. But then you have the midriff stuff and I found it fascinating that the approach that the actress Linda Park, when she was playing. This evil version of Hoshi Asato, she is taking the approach of like, this is power in the form of Madea. So she was referencing like ancient Greek storytelling of the powerful woman being seen because of male domination as being evil already in the form of woman.

And how does that woman take that? And own it and make her her own power. Instead of saying like, I have to fight against this as a vision of me. I have to demonstrate that I'm stronger in other ways than this actually turning the male gaze against itself. And from that perspective, I think after I read that, I had a different appreciation for the depiction.

Of Sato in this one. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Where it ends with her basically declaring herself Empress. I thought that that was at first viewing kind of just like a dot, dot.to the story, but after reading the actress's take on it, I was like, Oh, there's, there is something there that's a little meatier. And then to further see that they were planning on doing a five episode arc as a mini-series within the series set in the mirror universe, I think that they would've looked for more opportunities to develop that idea.

So, mm-hmm. I think that there's some interesting stuff there. I think that for the most, Like you and I, I think we both remain in the same place. We started the conversation in, which is, you're not a fan, I am a fan. Mm-hmm. I'm not a fan in the form of like, oh, this is the best. Which at the time was what a lot of reviewers were saying.

Mm-hmm. But I am curious, like if you were to, if they were to do something more with this, if. As season five, there had been more mirror universe. Would you have gone into it willingly or would you have rolled your eyes, gritted your teeth and said, oh, oh, here we go.

I would've rolled my eyes and gritted my teeth cuz it's like I just found the logic of this just I couldn't get past it.

I also did not like the ending. It makes so much more sense now though, that they were planning a five episode arc in season five. Suddenly it's like, okay, that non-ending ending that they had the dot, dot, dot, it makes sense. But I think that was a mistake. They should have given the episode a little more of a satisfying conclusion, but leaving the door open for that the following season, and the fact that it didn't, it didn't have a satisfying ending to me.

Like it just kind of like, I'm Empress O Okay. Roll the credits. I, what, what is, wait, what? That was it. That was kind of the reaction I had. Yeah. Uh, watching it and that's not a good, always leave people wanting more, you know, show business. They did not leave me wanting more. It felt just like this w w kind of ending.

Yeah. So I, I just, I just, to me. I would've

rolled that. That's why. That's why earlier I referred to it almost like a backdoor pilot. It felt very much like the start of something as opposed to a full contained thing, which is why the

ending was unsatisfying. Yeah, it was like one, I wasn't enjoying my time in this universe.

And then when it just kind of like just kind of stopped and then it was like, I know, oh, we're not doing this again ever again. What was that about? Yeah. Was kinda like my reaction of, geez, but now you've told me that they were planning more. It makes sense. Why they were doing that, but it just seems like a bad call.

Like I just feel like they, just, as much as you say you think that this was a really well thought out and and constructed thing, I comp think the complete opposite. It feels like it was a hot mess. They had too many ideas, they had too many things they wanted to do, and they didn't focus on a more singular thread that they could pull on it.

It. Yeah, sorry. I can't, I just can't get get on board with this stuff at all.

So I'm curious, listeners, viewers, what do you think? Do you fall into Matt's camp where you're just like, this couldn't end fast enough? Or did you fall into my camp where you had a good time? And wouldn't put it at the top of the best of list, but would certainly include it as something that's fun to watch, especially if you're well steeped in original series lore.

Let us know in the comments next time we're gonna be talking about demons. Also, ironically, we've been talking about the episode from Enterprise called Demons.

Before we sign off, Matt, do you have anything you wanna talk about? What do you have going on on your main channel?

We have a couple of videos coming up that I'm pretty excited about, about new plastic eating bacteria I run. I also have a video coming up about the top five home batteries. I think people should consider if they're looking to get energy storaged for their homes with some new cool tech that's gonna be coming.

Check those out. Sounds really interesting, and it reminds me that if that plastic eating bacteria comes to fruition, I'm gonna have to figure out some other container than the plastic container I keep my bacteria in. As for me, if you have any interest in finding out more about my books, you can go to sean Ferrell dot com, look for my books there.

You can also just go directly to whatever book seller you enjoy. That includes everything from your local bookstore or library to Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Should be able to find them all there. And my new book, the Sinister Secrets of Singh, is available for pre-order now. And if you are looking for a place to buy that, you can go to my website.

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