I wasn’t a fan of the Mirror Universe, although I think it was mainly a case of encountering too many DS9 episodes and the lengthy second arc of Discovery season one. Watching three episodes about the Mirror Universe from different shows was a much more interesting exercise.
The Original Series: Mirror Mirror
Like most of TOS, this was one I missed. Here we discover that the Mirror Universe is basically one running on a betrayal-based society. I thought the government was just based on Klingons, but it’s actually quite different and seems to have started with Earth being jerks.
There’s some fun with Kirk and the rest trying to prevent the Mirror Enterprise doing terrible things and to keep their cover.
Deep Space Nine: Crossover
My main experience of the Mirror Universe has been from DS9 and the universe went through a ton of changes, although it still keeps to the core conceit that they’re all jerks over in the Mirror Universe.
Rather than echo the standard alternate universe story we have a Mirror Universe who also experienced the TOS episode and adapted, we also get Kira who doesn’t care about the protocols of Starfleet.
There was a thing that happened in this episode which caused us to go a bit manic. It was great fun to do and to hear again, hopefully folks will enjoy it.
Discovery: Despite Yourself
Discovery had a few Mirror Universe episodes so it was a case of working out which one to use. This one had the Discovery having their first encounter with the Mirror Universe and ‘Captain Killy’ which was a joy.
There are a couple of issues which feel born more of trying to be a ‘modern’ TV show, like how easily Michael straight up murders a guy and the overall ongoing story arc, but as a whole it holds up alright and is less annoying than I remember when it first aired.
The episodes can be found on all podcatchers, on Spotify or using these links:
Faked Tales 