Our episode opens with the crew meeting with aliens in a distant galaxy discussing the possibility of mining dilithium crystals from their planet. The counsel of the planet has declined stating they would rather face the possibility of their own race dying out, then to go against their policy of supporting peaceful activities. Though the alien counsel admits Star Fleet is peaceful now, the dilithium crystals represent awesome, potentially destructive powers that could be used to harm others. The counsel is unwilling to allow the possibility that their crystal could be used for war. What a Camusian species!
Episode Summary
While Kirk and the crew are on the planet a magnetic storm surrounds the planet. They communicate with Spock and he tells them there is just enough time to beam aboard the away team. In the midst of the transportation process a mishap occurs and the away team is beamed into a parallel universe. A parallel universe with hot hot evil Spock. Oh Spock! To think, you exist (fictionally) in multiple universes, expressing, through the culmination of each, the beautiful range of wonderous possibilities that is you.
Hot Hot Evil SpockUnfortunately, being hot hot evil Spock includes relentlessly punishing your inferior personnel with a small device called "an agonizer." It turns out each crew member carries one so that officers may punish them with it when the crew member fails to perform up to evil-universe standards.
The four members of the away team find they are in an altered universe, on an altered Enterprise close to their own, but importantly different. It appears the four of them have switched places with their counterparts, who must be on the Enterprise we're used to. As a result, Uhura, Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty (the away team) must pretend to be the versions of themselves that would appropriately belong with this parallel locale.
Kirk stalls for time by making contact with the leader of the alien counsel and demanding them to comply or be annihilated. The leader of the alien race replies that they have no choice to comply, because they must operate based on an ethical demand--preserve peace. They would die to preserve who they are, rather than stay alive and break their ethical commitments.
Kirk is attacked by Chekov who tries to assasinate him in order to move up in rank. Kirk then discovers that he became captain of the Enterprise in the parallel universe by killing Captain Pike (the captain we met in the original pilot, and then later again in "The Menagerie"). The away team must, then, find their way back to their own universe, and survive within the new one, while worrying about what their counterparts must be doing aboard their original Enterprise.
Episode Tidbits
Sulu is the most convincing evil evil character in this episode. Dear Spock is not even evil in the evil evil universe. He's still wonderfully Vulcan, just also meeting the demands of the social circumstances of the universe they are operating within.
"Mirror, Mirror" has us explore the way in which historical conditions shape both social dynamics, and personal behavior. The three are utterly intertwined, according to "Mirror, Mirror." That is, who we are, and how we operate with each other is largely shaped by the historical circumstances in which we have been placed. To put it another way, what we see through Episode 33 is the way in which we can't help but face the demands of the time, place, and culture in which we are raised, and also live. "Mirror, Mirror" forces us to accept that what is ethical cannot be abstracted away from the lived reality of our daily lives.
Episode Quotations
"Mister Spock, in every revolution, there is one man with a vision." --Kirk
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