Oh dear, the worst of the Mirror Universe episodes. Maybe it doesn't work to cross the threshold past two in the MU, just as it's inadvisable to cross the universes themselves, because this failed to interest, and limply revealed the 'shocking' twists of the season. It was only thirty-six minutes long, the shortest ever Trek episode (not counting the non-canon animated series), but it felt much longer. Everything's been building to this: Captain Lorca is
It's strange, because in some ways this very much hearkens back to older Trek ideas, what with Stamets onscreen with a double of himself (done more times than I can count, and achieved very well here, as you'd expect with modern effects and budget), trapped inside his own mind, which is represented by a recreation of his ship (or the series' own standing sets for budgetary reasons!), just as they always used to do. There's even the old trope of following a disappearing figure down the twisting corridors which makes me think of Janeway chasing after the little girl from her holoprogram, or other episodes of 'TNG' where the same sort of thing happened. Somehow they seem unable to really generate a mood of nightmarish creepiness or mournful melancholy that old Trek was so good at doing, perhaps because now Trek is so action-oriented or comic book dialogue-heavy, or maybe it's the music or the style of acting? Whatever the case, I don't know, but it wasn't very well done, on the whole. Nor were Georgiou and Michael's scenes. It took me right back to the pilot where the pair came across as a little stilted or forced, and it may be that they simply don't have chemistry between them. They got one thing right, though: Mirror Georgiou is as simplistic and downright evil as Intendant Kira, the MU's most iconic villain, and they've certainly succeeded in continuing the basic, one-note portrayal of MU characters that meant the sub-genre was generally only mildly interesting compared to the greater Trek canon, although I'm not sure that's what was needed.
We're set to break yet another precedent by going for at least four episodes based on the MU (discounting all the times Mirror Lorca has been in the series already), but it remains to be seen whether they'll break the dubious record of five MU episodes in a series, held by 'DS9,' or whether we'll be back to our universe by the end of the next one. Now that all has been revealed (and there wasn't really anything I hadn't already heard of before I saw the series), I feel competent to judge the quality of the writing and to comment on its weakness, as I see it. Along with Lorca's reveal in unimaginative style, we also have Tyler set free by L'Rell, who seems only too comfortable in apparently stripping out the remains of Voq's consciousness to free what is the real Tyler, answering my question about how they were going to make him sympathetic after all he's done. She gives the death howl that is supposed to warn the gates of Sto-vo-kor of the impending arrival of one of their warriors, which suggests Voq is dead. She was able to remove this ambiguous neural energy or consciousness so easily with a few twiddles of her claw hands operating Starfleet medical tech, but I suppose if you consider that they're operating within the time frame of the era of 'TOS,' with episodes like 'Spock's Brain' in which McCoy keeps the Vulcan alive until they can retrieve his mental organ, then it fits. It's just that when you've grown up with the far more sophisticated and realistic 24th Century approach to Trek it's hard to go back, and I usually work around such silliness and enjoy it for what it was, but don't expect it in modern Trek because we're supposed to have made progress since those days!
Except we obviously haven't. I'm surprised that L'Rell would kill her love, and it's weird that Voq went through so much for so little, and didn't appear to have much of a plan. There are still a few episodes left so perhaps there will be more twists to come and Voq isn't actually dead, and Lorca's plan was actually more diabolically cunning than it seems, but seen on this episode's merits, the season, while not falling apart like a house of cards, is in jeopardy of failing to be taken seriously. How does Burnham realise Lorca's mission? By having Emperor Georgiou explain that the singular difference between 'our two races,' as she puts it, is sensitivity to light, which isn't something we've seen in any other MU characters at all, apart from her and Lorca! It's such a poor 'clue' as to be laughable, and even leaving aside the melodramatic dialogue (like when Burnham and Lorca are in the shuttle at the beginning talking of ghosts), shows modern plotting and writing to be far more unrealistic and silly than I could have imagined before seeing the series. There's really very little about the episode to like at all, though Saru continues to show he's still an interesting character, such as when he confronts L'Rell in her cell, and any moment with him is better than anything else, though I think it's more to do with Doug Jones and his performance than anything he's given to do or say.
I was interested to see the shuttle, which weirdly looked much more like it came out of 'TNG' than 'TOS' (though this isn't necessarily a new thing as 'Star Trek V' basically repurposed a 'TNG' shuttle, though that was far later in the film era, decades after this episode's setting), not having the angularity, but smooth, curvy lines - who knows, maybe the ultimate twist will be that 'DSC' is set in another alternate universe, or the ship actually does come from the 24th Century? I wouldn't put it past these writers… I did like more talk of the Defiant, and how its crew tore each other apart in madness, as it's wonderful to have a 'TOS' episode's details paid the courtesy of reference, linking both it and 'Enterprise' to this current incarnation, but we're obviously not going to see it, as rather than use a powerful Constitution-class, the Emperor prefers her own custom-built ISS Charon (referencing the battle mentioned in 'TNG' or planet in 'TOS? Or neither since they were spelt 'Cheron'), which, being in the MU, the designers were free to go wild with as it doesn't matter, and we know in the MU they favour ships the bigger the better. I was confused at first when Georgiou shows surprise at Burnham telling her of our universe - she should know all about it thanks to the Defiant's records, but later she shows she does know, so I suppose she was shamming in front of her followers before slicing through their heads in a violent scene of multiple death. That was another thing that brought to mind the operative word of this episode: silly. A spinning disk that somehow knows exactly where it should go simply by her throwing it, and spares one of those in the circle? It smacks of Sulu's fold-up samurai sword from 'Star Trek XI'! Daft. And nasty.
They weren't the only gory deaths of the episode as a similar end from the one the Vulcan terrorist had in front of Sarek was given to one of Lorca's followers. He disintegrates before our eyes before exploding in a shower of blood. Lovely. It's not necessary to go that far and once again it makes me think of the modern films and their penchant for violence over intelligence or wit. Ho hum. I was also less than thrilled with them confusing agonisers with agony booths as they're two different things in Trek lore: everyone wore agonisers so they could be controlled by whoever was in charge, they weren't the booths that enemies were put into for punishment and torture. They've been pretty good about getting at least the surface details right, but they were going to fall down eventually, and that's one of the glaring ones. The only other points of interest were seeing more Kelpiens for the first time if you ignore Mirror Saru, though I don't know how Burnham's ever going to explain to her First Officer she ate one of his people. That dinner scene wasn't quite on the same level of horror as Picard's encounter with a Taspar egg in 'Chain of Command,' but it was following the same tone. When Georgiou commanded Burnham to choose one of the Kelpiens I felt sure it was for some unsavoury purpose. Turned out it was for a savoury one, followed by dessert! And the other thing that caught my interest was about the closest we've seen on the series to a discussion of God: when Mirror Stamets says 'technically, who knows?' which is about the best we're going to get in that regard, but at least they didn't go all atheist and spout out all about how no one in this century believes in such things, but then they are still playing to a large American audience where faith is still part of life, so they wouldn't want to be too definite, I'm sure.
I think about enough has been said on this particular episode, it wasn't one to get the imagination flowing, without even the sight of an Andorian or a Tellarite to spark something, and with only basic, base happenings of plot, and little character - sure, there's Stamets 'trapped' in his head and weirdly meeting the dead Culber, although I'm not sure if we're to assume this is real or just Stamets' imagination. It was a way for him to meet his mate one last time, but it all seemed rather pointless to me and I didn't get the intentions of what they were doing, it's not like he was able to affect things within his mind in order to wake up, unless Culber telling him simply to open his eyes was the 'message' he needed in order to get out of the coma, which is also daft. At least Tilly was barely in the episode, and I still think they'd do better to concentrate on the characters that work best - in my eyes that would be Saru, L'Rell, and to a lesser extent, Burnham. Perhaps an episode where the three of them were trapped on a shuttle and running out of air, or some other great Trek trope, would be more interesting to me than what they've actually done with the series. I was hoping that the glimmer of fascination lit by the last couple of episodes was heralding a strong finish to what I regard as a very patchy season, but after this one I'm not so sure. Come on, at least give me one good episode I can enjoy and hold up as evidence that this series has a future! Please?
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