star trek next generation mirror universe episode

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Star trek: every mirror universe episode.

The Star Trek franchise contains 14 episodes set in the Mirror Universe, spanning across four different series and a wide range of time periods.

Star Trek's Mirror Universe has become a phenomenon since its introduction, and has been explored in multiple series across the franchise. Star Trek: The Original Series  first introduced the Mirror Universe in "Mirror, Mirror," the only episode of the series to deal directly with the idea of a darker parallel universe. However, this idea was so interesting that it subsequently spread to other shows as the franchise grew.

The Mirror Universe is a parallel universe that exists in the same space as the Prime Universe, only on another dimensional plane. The same characters, places, and even starships exist in the Mirror Universe, but everything there is the antithesis of what it is in the Prime Universe, meaning that characters who are good in the Prime Universe are portrayed as evil, and humane organizations like the Federation are instead ruthless genocidal empires.

Related: Star Trek: Discovery Reveals The Mirror Universe’s 32nd Century

Unsurprisingly, the idea of a parallel universe where the audience is able to see characters show a much darker side of themselves ended up being fertile territory for Star Trek . To date, there have been 14 episodes across 4 series that are set in the Mirror Universe. This has made for a rich and complex history, one that contains many callbacks to other episodes and is fascinating to explore.

"Mirror, Mirror"

A transporter accident causes Captain Kirk , Doctor McCoy, and Lieutenants Scotty and Uhura to switch places with their Mirror Universe counterparts. The group attempts to find a way back to their universe while pretending to be their counterparts. Along the way, they learn about the Terran Empire, the ruthless version of the Federation where in-fighting, mutiny, and assassination are common occurrences. Ultimately, they are able to send themselves back with a little help from Mirror Universe Spock. Before leaving, Prime Kirk and Mirror Spock have a discussion, in which Spock reveals that he believes the Empire cannot sustain itself. Kirk attempts to convince Spock to push for reform within the Empire, and Spock seems intrigued by the idea, telling Kirk he will consider it.

"The Tholian Web"

While it is true that "Mirror, Mirror" is the only Original Series episode that deals directly with the Mirror Universe, "The Tholian Web" establishes canon that becomes relevant to the Mirror Universe in other series. The episode finds the Enterprise's crew on a mission to figure out what has happened to the USS Defiant. They manage to locate the Defiant, only to find out that the ship has been trapped in an area of spatial interphase, where space around the ship is breaking apart, causing the crew to go mad and murder each other. While attempting to figure out a way to rescue the ship, the Enterprise is attacked by a race called the Tholians, and the ensuing battle causes a rip in the spatial interphase, pushing the Defiant out of their universe and stranding Captain Kirk in the space between universes. The Enterprise crew rescues Kirk from interphase, but the true fate of the Defiant is not revealed by the end of the episode.

"Crossover"

The next time the Mirror Universe shows up is in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . A shuttle accident in the Gamma Quadrant wormhole causes Major Kira and Doctor Bashir to be thrown into the Mirror Universe. Roughly 100 years have passed since the two universes have encountered each other, and in that time a lot has changed. The Mirror version of Kira Nerys, called the Intendant, tells her counterpart that Mirror Spock rose to become the leader of the Terran Empire, where he preached reform that weakened the Empire enough that it was subsumed by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. The Alliance became the dominant power, and Terrans are now subjugated and forced to work as slaves. The Intendant wants Major Kira to stay, but she and Doctor Bashir manage to escape with help from the counterparts of Benjamin Sisko and Miles O'Brien, nicknamed "Smiley" by Sisko. Along the way, Sisko begins a Terran rebellion against the Alliance.

Related: Star Trek: Why Major Kira Was Pregnant In DS9 Season 5

"Through the Looking Glass"

Captain Sisko is abducted by Miles "Smiley" O'Brien and taken to the Mirror Universe using a multidimensional transporter. Smiley tells Sisko that his counterpart has been killed recently, and asks Sisko to assume his counterpart's role so that he might convince his wife, Jennifer Sisko, to defect from the Alliance where she has been working as a scientist fighting against the Terran Rebellion. In the Prime Universe, Jennifer Sisko is dead, and fear of seeing her counterpart die at the hands of the rebels propels Sisko into agreeing to help. He and a group of rebels travel to Terok Nor and manage to convince Jennifer to join them, effectively poaching her from the Alliance and dealing them a crippling blow. Jennifer and Captain Sisko reconcile before he leaves to return to his own universe.

"Shattered Mirror"

Mirror Jennifer Sisko adducts Jake Sisko, taking him to the Mirror Universe in an effort to get Captain Sisko to come and help the rebels build a version of Deep Space Nine's ship, the Defiant (named after the Original Series ship). Sisko reluctantly agrees to help and ends up aiding in a battle between the rebels and the Alliance, which the rebels win, continuing their trajectory towards victory. Jennifer gets to know Jake Sisko , and the episode raises the possibility of the three of them becoming a family again, with Jennifer replacing her Prime Universe counterpart. These hopes are dashed when Jennifer is killed by Intendant Kira during her escape from Terok Nor, leaving the Siskos to mourn her passing and return to their own universe without her.

"Resurrection"

The Mirror version of Bareil Antos escapes to the Prime Universe ostensively seeking asylum, and despite the fact that he is very different from the Vedek Bareil Major Kira was in love with, the two begin a relationship not long after his arrival. It is later revealed however that Bareil is only in the Prime Universe as part of a plot with Intendant Kira to steal one of the scared Bajoran Orbs . Ultimately, Bareil is conflicted about stealing the Orb, and turns against the Intendant at the last minute, stunning her and agreeing to take her back to the Mirror Universe. Kira urges him to stay, but Bareil does not believe he is worthy of a life with her and leaves Kira heartbroken.

"The Emperor's New Cloak"

Grand Nagus Zek is captured by the Alliance while on a trip to the Mirror Universe and held ransom by Regent Worf. The Regent demands the Quark and Rom provide him with a Klingon cloaking device from the Prime Universe, and while delivering it, the two Ferengi are also captured and forced to help Worf install the device on his ship. They instead help the rebels take over the ship and steal back the cloaking device, dealing another crippling blow to the Alliance and all but ensuring the rebellion's victory in the near future. "The Emperor's New Cloak" marks the final Mirror Universe episode for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .

Related: Star Trek: What Happened To Worf After The Next Generation?

"In a Mirror, Darkly Part I"

Star Trek: Enterprise was a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series , but that did not stop the show from exploring established Star Trek concepts, including the Mirror Universe. "In a Mirror, Darkly" parts 1 and 2 both take a look at what the Mirror Universe looked like almost 100 years before Kirk and his crew first encountered it, but have one very significant callback to The Original Series : they establish what happened to the Defiant. In the first part, Commander Jonathan Archer mutinies on board the ISS Enterprise and commandeers the ship for a mission to steal the Defiant from the Tholians, who had pulled it through the rip between universes from the future. Archer and the Enterprise crew are successful in absconding with the Defiant by the end of the episode after the Enterprise is destroyed by the Tholians.

"In a Mirror, Darkly Part II"

With the remaining crew of the Enterprise now on board the Defiant, Commander Archer attempts to use the ship in his plan to grab power, his ultimate goal to overthrow the Emperor and take control of the Empire and Starfleet . Along the way, he thwarts an attempted coup led by T'Pol, but never manages to become Emperor, ultimately double-crossed by his lover, Hoshi Sato. Sato poisons Archer, takes control of the Defiant, and declares herself Empress. Although the rest of her rise to power is not shown, the episode makes it clear that she will be successful.

"Into the Forest I Go"

Star Trek: Discovery was the next series to cover the Mirror Universe, and has the longest consecutive run of episodes spent there of any Star Trek series. "Into the Forest I Go" sets up Discovery's arrival in the Mirror Universe through a supposed accident with the Spore Drive that leaves Discovery's crew stranded and Lieutenant Paul Stamets trapped in the mycelial network. While the episode only depicts a few minutes of Discovery's initial arrival, it is the catalyst for the rest of the storytelling that goes on in the Mirror Universe during the season.

"Despite Yourself"

Salvaging a data core from a damaged ship, Discovery's crew learns where they are and hatches a plan to get home, hoping that information about how the Defiant crossed over will help them return. Captain Lorca, Ash Tyler, and Michael Burnham infiltrate the ISS Shenzhou, where the Mirror Michael was Captain, posing as their Terran counterparts to retrieve data about the Defiant. Michael and Tyler's relationship deepens as they turn to each other for solace, even as Tyler struggles with the personality of Voq implanted in him by the Klingons.

Related: Star Trek: Discovery Retcons Spock in TOS Mirror Universe Episode

"The Wolf Inside"

Michael Burnham struggles with maintaining her cover as her Mirror Universe counterpart as she attempts to find a way to save a colony of non-Terran rebels even as the Empire has ordered the Shenzhou to destroy them. Michael also uncovers Tyler's Klingon personality. Voq takes Tyler over and tries to kill her, resulting in Michael having to fake his execution for attacking her while in reality having him beamed back to Discovery with the data they need on the Defiant. At the end of the episode, Emperor Philippa Georgiou arrives in the Terran flagship and demands to see Michael and Lorca.

"Vaulting Ambition"

With the help of his Mirror counterpart, Lieutenant Stamets is able to find his way out of the mycelial network and warns Discovery that Emperor Georgiou is using a biological spore weapon developed by his counterpart to corrupt the network. Meanwhile, Michael attempts to win Georgiou to her side after revealing that she is not her Mirror counterpart. Georgiou in turn reveals that Captain Lorca has actually been in his Mirror counterpart all along, assuming Prime Lorca's role after he accidentally crossed over to the Prime Universe. After breaking free from his torturers on the Charon, Lorca gathers followers and restarts his coup against Georgiou.

"What's Past Is Prologue"

Michael and the Emperor are ultimately successful in thwarting Lorca's coup and killing him once and for all. Discovery then destroys the Charon so that the biological spore weapon does not continue corrupting the mycelial network, and Stamets is able to pilot Discovery back to the Prime Universe. Michael impulsively rescues Georgiou before the Charon is destroyed, bringing her back to Discovery where she accompanies the crew back to the Prime Universe.

While "What's Past Is Prologue" is the final episode of Star Trek set in the Mirror Universe to date, Discovery has continued to have a connection to it through the character of Georgiou. Discovery season 3 has also added a bit more canon to the Mirror Universe, with Georgiou learning that the distance between the two universes had been expanding, and as of 3189, there hasn't been a crossing in over 500 years. If  Star Trek decides to set any more episodes in the Mirror Universe in the future, this fact would be an interesting storyline to explore.

More: Star Trek: The Kelvin Timeline Should Be The New Mirror Universe

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Star Trek: A Guide to All the Mirror Universe Episodes

What can we learn about Star Trek: Discovery from these previous Mirror Universe-set Star Trek episodes?

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Warning: This article contains Star Trek: Discovery spoilers.

In this week’s episode of Star Trek: Discovery , we got confirmation that the crew of the Discovery has landed in the franchise’s Mirror Universe where, instead of the peace-loving Federation, Earth has its own, tyrannical Terran Empire.

The Star Trek franchise has a history of episodes and arcs that take place in this Mirror Universe. They are often amongst the strongest storytelling of their respective series and build upon the Mirror Universe mythology that has come before.

As we head further into Discovery ‘s incarnation of the Mirror Universe, let’s look back at all of the Mirror Universe episodes in Star Trek ‘s history…

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The Original Series’ Mirror Universe

The one that started it all! The Original Series first ventured into the Mirror Universe in Season 2’s “Mirror, Mirror,” when four members of the Enterprise’s crew are switched with their nefarious counterparts in the Mirror Universe.

Discovery has drawn many of its Mirror Universe elements from this original incarnation, including the Agony Booths and the Terran Empire’s preferred method of job promotion: betrayal and murder.

Discovery also borrows “Mirror, Mirror”‘s logic that one does not simply travel to the Mirror Universe, but must switch places. The Mirror Universe’s Discovery has seemingly ended up in  our  Discovery’s universe, which will no doubt cause all manner of problems for the Federation.

There better be at least one goatee in Discovery ‘s mirror universe or I’m asking for a refund. (Though Tilly’s Terran ‘do is a good start.)

Deep Space Nine’s Mirror Universe

Deep Space Nine did a deep dive into the Mirror Universe with five separate episodes across five different seasons: “Crossover” (Season 2), “Through the Looking Glass” (Season 3), “Shattered Mirror” (Season 4), “Resurrection” (Season 6), and “The Emperor’s New Cloak” (Season 7).

While the Deep Space Nine Mirror Universe story arc doesn’t seem to have much to do with Discovery ‘s take so far, its thematic foundation of the narrative rested on the idea that those who visited the Mirror Universe had a positive effect on the Terran Empire, which began to reform itself for the better. Could the Discovery’s visit to the Mirror Universe have been part of that path to change?

DS9 ‘s visit to the Mirror Universe also introduced the idea that people who died in the “normal” universe might be alive and well in the Mirror Universe, as we found with Sisko’s wife. In “Despite Yourself,” we met Mirror Connor, another version of the Shenzhou’s ensign. It seems inevitable that we will meet more mirror versions of characters who’ve died in our universe. My favorite theory? That Phillipa Georgiou is the Emperor of the Terran Empire.

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Enterprise’s Mirror Universe

Enterprise really hit its narrative stride when it ventured into the Mirror Universe in “In a Mirror, Darkly, Parts 1 & 2,” which saw the show imagining a fate for the USS Defiant, the missing ship the Enterprise is looking for in The Original Series episode “The Tholian Web.” 

What happened to the Defiant, per Enterprise canon? Basically, the crew went crazy, turned on each other, and ended up in the hands of the Tholians. The crew of the ISS Enterprise, captained by a Mirror Universe version of Jonathan Archer, steal the ship from the aliens and attempts to use it to overthrow the Empire. The Defiant has already had a mention in Discovery as a ship that has previously crossed over to the Mirror Universe.

These episodes give us the backstory for the Terran Empire, and how it ended up so different from our universe’s Federation. It imagines the famous first contact between human Zefram Cochrane and the Vulcans going very differently. Instead of a peaceful interaction, Cochrane kills the lead Vulcan and he and other humans loot the ship. Yeah, the Mirror Universe is the worst.

Kayti Burt | @kaytiburt

Kayti is a pop culture writer, editor, and full-time nerd who comes from a working class background. A member of the Television Critics Association, she specializes…

I'm Glad Star Trek: TNG Never Did A Mirror Universe Episode

• TNG's moral crew would clash with a dark Mirror Universe, making an episode feel out of place.
• Mirror Universe concept worked for TOS but wouldn't fit TNG's serious and optimistic tone.
• TNG found other ways to explore alternate realities without resorting to Mirror Universe episodes.

Star Trek: The Next Generation never did a Mirror Universe episode, and that ultimately worked in the show's favor. Star Trek's Mirror Universe first debuted in the classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode, "Mirror, Mirror," in which Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and some of his crew find themselves in a dark alternate universe that mirrors their own. In the Mirror Universe, the ISS Enterprise serves the Terran Empire instead of the USS Enterprise as part of the United Federation of Planets' Starfleet. Crew members are tortured when they make a mistake and the chain of command is often determined by officers murdering their superiors.

Despite the divergence of events in Star Trek' s Prime Universe and the Mirror Universe, many people ended up in the same place in both realities. For example, the entire crew of the USS Enterprise was the same in both universes, but their personalities were drastically different. Simply put, t he Mirror Universe is a world of opposites , although Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is logical in every universe. While the Mirror concept worked well for a one-off story with Captain Kirk and his Enterprise crew , the Mirror Universe would have felt out of place on Star Trek: The Next Generation for a number of reasons.

In Star Trek: Picard season 2, Q (John de Lancie) altered the past of the Prime Universe, which resulted in the

Confederation of Earth, a "xenophobic authoritarian regime" much like the Mirror Universe.

Star Trek 10s Best Mirror Universe Variants

Why a star trek: tng mirror universe episode wouldn't have worked, the mirror universe clashes with the tone of tng and its characters..

Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation represent the most moral Star Trek crew, and "evil" versions of those characters would have felt cartoonish. The Mirror Universe worked with the campy tone of Star Trek: The Original Series and Kirk was already an emotional Captain, so it wasn't that hard to imagine an evil version of him. TNG , on the other hand, had a more serious and optimistic tone, and an evil Captain Picard would have likely been either too dark or too over-the-top. TNG did tell alternate universe stories, such as "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Parallels," but they did it in a way that was new and unique rather than rehashing TOS ' Mirror Universe concept.

Although Star Trek: The Next Generation had some callbacks to Star Trek: The Original Series in its early seasons, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry wanted to distance TNG from TOS . "Mirror, Mirror" is generally regarded as one of classic Star Trek's best episodes, and it would have been difficult for any TNG episode to live up to that. Despite not doing a Mirror Universe episode, TNG found other ways to allow its actors to play different, and even evil, versions of their characters. Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), for example, faced off against his evil twin brother Lore more than once, and multiple characters were possessed by alien entities.

Various non-canon tie-in novels and comic books have told Mirror Universe stories with Star Trek: The Next Generation's characters, beginning with Diane Duane's novel Dark Mirror in 1993.

Some Star Trek Shows Overused The Mirror Universe

The mirror universe began as a good concept but offers diminishing returns..

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had five Mirror Universe episodes, beginning with DS9 season 2, episode 23, "Crossover." This episode revealed that Mirror Universe Spock had reformed the Terran Empire after Captain Kirk and his crew visited there in "Mirror, Mirror." Although his reforms initially proved successful, they led to the occupation of the Empire by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance, which then became the dominant power. In the Mirror Universe, Terok Nor (space station Deep Space Nine) was commanded by Intendant Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) , and Nana Visitor clearly had fun playing an evil version of Kira. However, with its overly sexualized characters and general campiness, the Mirror Universe storyline offered diminishing returns after the novelty wore off.

Star Trek: Enterprise's two-part "In a Mirror, Darkly" faired a bit better than DS9's Mirror Universe adventures, as it presented a self-contained story that took place entirely in the Mirror Universe and connected with TOS.

The Mirror Universe made more sense combined with the darker tone of Star Trek: Discovery , but it sometimes felt like too much for a Star Trek show. Still, the Mirror Universe of Discovery did provide the characters of Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) and Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), two of Star Trek's best new villains. After its appearance in multiple Star Trek shows, the Mirror Universe began to feel too much like a gimmick. It's a concept that works better when used sparingly, and it would have felt tonally out of place on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, & Star Trek: Discovery are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Cast Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden

Release Date September 28, 1987

Showrunner Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Rick Berman

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Published May 21, 2019

The Evolution of the Mirror Universe

Starfleet has always changed with the times. Its evil twin does, too. 

StarTrek.com

As we evolve, so do the stories we tell ourselves — and so do the monsters that lurk within them. Creatures like the vampires that crept into our imaginations hundreds of years ago may share a common ancestry with the ones we write about today, but they represent different dangers each time they reemerge in the zeitgeist. Heck, sometimes they even sparkle.

By comparison, half a century’s worth of Star Trek mythology hardly registers a blip on the grand timeline of human history. But because those 53 years are so well preserved on film, it’s easy to track how each iteration of the franchise shapes itself into a form that a new decade of viewers will recognize. And while there are no vampires in Trek lore (no, the Remans in Star Trek: Nemesis don’t count), there is an entire realm full of similarly alluring sadists who look like our heroes’ lost loved ones, and who’d love nothing more than to seduce them all to the dark side.

It’s got a pretty ironic name, too, when you think about it: the Mirror Universe.

More so than Klingons or Borg, or any other race that's fought the Federation, the people of the Mirror Universe are the closest thing Trek have to a consistent monster myth — partially because they've been around for so long, but mostly because their “evil” nature is the entire reason for their existence. They might be sympathetic as individuals and they’ve shown that they can adapt to cultural norms, but from their very first appearance, they were designed to scare us.

Star Trek: The Original Series | “Mirror, Mirror” (1967)

As with so many now-iconic Star Trek conceits, the Mirror Universe started with a single one-off episode, in which transporter interference from an ionic storm spits Kirk, Uhura, Scotty, and McCoy out into a “parallel” universe from their own. In place of the United Federation of Planets they find the Terran Empire, where mutinous, evil twins of their fellow crew members use the might of the ISS Enterprise to raze alien civilizations across the universe.

The Terrans are coded as foreign, threatening others from the moment the landing party emerges from the transporter. They wear gilded uniforms that fall somewhere between 19th century Persian military outfits and Pirates of Penzance costumes in appearance. Add to that Spock’s ‘60s counterculture goatee and the censor-baiting bikinis (television was a notoriously anti-belly button medium back then), and it would have been abundantly clear to a typical contemporary audience that the Mirror Universe was not a place for Good and Decent American Values.

Still, the easiest way to demonstrate a fictional society’s cruelty is to treat its women poorly ( Handmaid’s Tale and Game of Thrones do this in spades), and the Mirror Universe delivers on that front, too; Uhura quickly finds herself fending off aggressive sexual advances from her coworkers, and Marlena Moreau, the most important crewwoman on the ship, derives her power from her position as “Captain’s Woman” — in other words, from being Kirk’s concubine. Classic Star Trek certainly had its blind spots when it came to gender, but the patriarchal structure of Terran society is clearly meant to be on a completely different level of overt terribleness in comparison.

Eventually the landing party finds a way home, and for good measure Kirk throws in a starkly logical plea that Mirror Spock peacefully reform the Empire to keep it from crumbling in a century’s time (although his suggestion that the Vulcan use a machine that can literally just make people disappear doesn’t quite match up with that whole peace notion). The crew returns to their Enterprise to learn that their counterparts didn’t have much time to wreak havoc before everyone else figured out the mix-up. “It was far easier for you, as civilized men, to behave like barbarians, than it was for them as barbarians to behave like civilized men,” offers the original Spock as an explanation.

Despite the imperialistic rhetoric Spock uses, the message is clear. These “brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous” people are just as human as we are, and their evil deeds aren’t too far away from our own. Given that the ‘60s are still remembered for the systematic brutality endured by nonviolent Civil Rights protesters (and, later, antiwar protesters — the Dow Chemical riots happened just two weeks after “Mirror, Mirror” aired, in fact), this warning would have felt especially appropriate at the time.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine | “Crossover” (1994), “Through the Looking Glass” (1995), “Shattered Mirror” (1996), “Resurrection” (1997), and “The Emperor’s New Cloak” (1998)

Although The Next Generation occasionally paid homage to fan-favorite episodes from The Original Series — “The Naked Now,” for example, was a sequel to “The Naked Time,” in which an infection among the crew causes them to behave hilariously out-of-character — the show never attempted its own version of the Mirror Universe. At a 2017 Star Trek Las Vegas panel, producer Brannon Braga explained, “We were a little frightened at doing it, and doing it badly, and maybe never really figured out what The Next Generation take would have been on it.”

But Deep Space Nine , the red-headed stepchild of the Star Trek franchise (or, perhaps more accurately, the cool childless aunt who shows unexpectedly every six years and who you’ve always suspected might be in a long-term relationship with her “roommate”), was willing to take many more risks. Unlike The Next Generation , DS9 kept itself bound to one location, drawing on themes of war and interventionism that would have felt very familiar to globally minded citizens of the ‘90s. Honestly, if you replace the Cardassians with Russians, Bajor with Ukraine, and Starfleet with the United Nations trying to keep everybody in line, it wouldn’t be that hard to transplant entire episodes of the series into the real world of post-soviet politics.

Although DS9 didn’t let its characters sail away from problems as easily as the crew of the Enterprise could, it did let them pop over to the Mirror Universe basically any time they wanted, returning five different occasions over seven seasons. However, each excursion became progressively less unsettling and more ridiculous; by the last visit in “The Emperor’s New Cloak,” the Mirror Universe was used more for comic relief, in stark contrast to the densely serialized war narrative that encompassed the rest of DS9 ’s final season.

Which isn’t to say that there’s no interesting meat on the bones of this new mirror. For one thing, the Terrans of DS9 are no longer conquerors; having been conquered themselves when Spock’s habilitated empire was defeated by the equally brutal Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. As such, the Terran lack of empathy manifests not just as cruelty, but as complacence; instead of promoting peace, our heroes nudge their parallel counterparts towards rebellion, transforming them into freedom fighters that band together against a powerful regime (If this is all starting to sound familiar, remember that Star Wars came after the original Trek series and changed pop culture pretty significantly in its wake).

There is one notable exception, of course: Intendant Kira Nerys, who rules Terok Nor with an iron fist, a chaotic sexual hedonism, and loads of manipulative, fake empathy for the Terran slaves she considers to be beneath her. Basically, she’s what you’d get if you took recurring series baddie Gul Dukat and stuck him in Major Kira’s body, right down to the uncomfortable obsession with “good” Kira. A solidly obvious example of the Depraved Bisexual trope (1992’s Basic Instinct changed pop culture a lot, too), the Intendent may not have been Trek ’s first queer-coded villain, but she was certainly the most obvious. She was also, it should go without saying, unbelievably fun to watch, which is why she ended up in every single DS9 Mirror episode whether she was integral to the plot or not. Truly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer 's Vampire version of Willow owes a lot to Intendant Kira’s shining example.

Yet despite all the dystopian camp, these stories were just as invested in grief and trauma as the rest of DS9 ’s sprawling narrative, primarily in the form of interactions between its protagonists (the Siskos and Major Kira, more specifically) and mirrorverse doppelgangers of their dead loved ones (Sisko’s wife and Jake’s mother, Jennifer, and Kira’s lover, Vedek Bareil). Much of Deep Space Nine revolves around how difficult and confusing it is to process loss in the midst a violently changing status quo – what better way to represent that than with living ghosts who don’t act like “themselves” anymore?

Star Trek: Enterprise | “In A Mirror, Darkly” Parts 1 and 2 (2005)

If Deep Space Nine smoothed the Mirror Universe into a swashbuckling field trip, Enterprise brought it screaming back to its dark authoritarian roots (literally, in the case of Mirror Archer’s pitch-black crew cut). Although Enterprise is sometimes overlooked as a prequel series, it does a wonderful job of taking the familiar trappings of TOS and contextualizing them more deeply – and often, more interestingly. I could, in fact, spend the rest of this article writing about how deeply devoted I am to Enterprise ’s interpretation of the Andorians and how much I yearn for Discovery to follow in its badass baby-blue footsteps, but that’s not really relevant to the issue at hand.

What is relevant is how Enterprise breaks unexpected ground via a two-part story arc that takes place entirely in the Mirror Universe, without any Federation characters to serve as our audience surrogate. The intro opens on recycled Star Trek: First Contact footage of humanity’s fateful first encounter with Vulcans – and then not only devolves into chaos as the humans open fire, but then launches into a completely reimagined opening title sequence that juxtaposes ominous march music with war footage and Nazi airplanes. “Faith of the Heart,” this isn’t.

In some ways, the pre-Kirk Terran Empire confines itself to many of the parameters that TOS set for the Mirror Universe. There are bare midriffs again, made even more hellish this time around by the mid ‘00s trend of low rise pants (On a related note, you can’t convince me that Mirror T’Pol’s hair, with its center-parted bangs and pin-straight length, wasn’t a deliberate jab at the style choices of several contemporaneous pop stars). Hoshi Sato serves as the Captain’s Woman for two different male authority figures — that is, right up until she kills the last man standing in her way and declares herself Empress. Enterprise was definitely on a “women using sex for power” kick around that time; the previous episode in the season, “Bound,” reinvents the Orion Slave Girls as active partners in a conspiracy to ensnare the men of other species with their pheromones.

Hoshi’s ascension is just the twist ending, though. As is the case of pretty much every show on television during George W. Bush’s presidency, the true villain here is a torture-happy military rising to power on the backs of a marginalized population — this time the Vulcans and other non-Terrans. And Mirror Archer, too, is haunted; not by the dead, but by his own ambition, as an apparition in the form of his newly discovered double (Thanks to some dimension-hopping time shenanigans, post-Federation records from the original U.S.S Defiant end up in the Empire’s possession), egging him on with his far superior personal accomplishments like the Gallant to Mirror Archer’s Jingoistic Goofus.

By this time Enterprise had completely reoriented itself around a post 9/11 narrative, ending its second season with a terrorist attack against Earth and continuing with the Enterprise ’s efforts to reach the far-off civilization responsible for it. “In a Mirror, Darkly,” then, represents a stark examination of America’s more reprehensible actions during that time — and lands much better than previous Mirror Universe episodes as a result.

Star Trek: Discovery |“Despite Yourself,” “The Wolf Inside,” “Vaulting Ambition,” and “What’s Past Is Prologue” (2017-2018)

Since Discovery will return for a third season, there’s no telling how the Mirror Universe might continue to evolve in future episodes. So far, however, it succeeds at combining some of the best tropes of past Terran encounters: elaborate gold medals, super straight haircuts, Starfleet operatives pretending to be their own evil selves, Vulcan rebels with imposing beards, and twice the fun from the new Philippa Georgiou, who’s both an imposing female Emperor (Hoshi walked so she could run, y’all) and a returning dead character whose presence thoroughly freaks out our protagonist.

Best of all, the show hasn’t yet fallen back on over-the-top gender stereotypes or explicitly revealing costuming to get its villainy across — they eat poor defenseless Kelpiens instead. We do eventually learn from Mirror Georgiou that everybody in her world is pansexual, however, herself included (and let’s all admit to ourselves that some of us would have been a little disappointed if she weren’t).

Beyond all the clever nods to continuity, Discovery also returns to an important truth inherent to the Terran Empire: it is the end point to a slippery slope of bad decisions that our contemporary 2019 society could be making at this very moment.That’s why Captain Lorca is such a compelling villain in the first place. His ruthless methods seem understandable, maybe even relatable, in the face of overwhelming threats to the Starfleet way of life — that is, until we realize just how many lines our heroes have crossed along the way. Not to mention that the sight of a fearsome, fascist demagogue attempting to crush a minority resistance feels especially apt in today’s political climate.

“When we were in the Terran universe, I was reminded how much a person is shaped by their environment,” Ensign Tilly says after their escape, to drive the point home. “And I think the only way that we can stop ourselves from becoming them is to understand the darkness within us, and fight it.”

Unless something drastic changes in the timeline after the 24th century,the Mirror Universe is always going to function as an “evil” shadow of the one where Star Trek spends most of its time. But it’s also served as a cautionary tale for the show’s progressively minded fanbase — one that constantly needs to be reexamined in relation to our own surroundings. After all, if we don’t understand our own darkness, how else can we learn to combat it, pushing it down into submission in order to achieve that diverse, equal, post-scarcity future utopia we deserve?

Victoria McNally (she/her) is a writer in Brooklyn and has a lot of opinions about skants. Find her online at victoriamcnally.com or at @vqnerdballs on Twitter and Instagram.

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9 Best Mirror Universe Episodes in 'Star Trek'

From 'Deep Space Nine' to 'Discovery,' here are the 9 best 'Star Trek' mirror universe episodes.

We are currently in the middle of a Golden Age of Star Trek . Star Trek: Discovery has ended a strong Season 4 and Star Trek: Picard is currently in the middle of a fascinating sophomore season. The animated series Star Trek: Prodigy and Star Trek: Lower Decks were well-received by both critics and fans and will both return for their next seasons later in 2022. On top of that, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will follow the adventures of the starship Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike ( Anson Mount ) some years before the events of the original Star Trek series.

The Season 2 premiere of Picard picks up about a year and some change after the end of Season 1. Admiral Jean-Luc Picard ( Patrick Stewart ) has come fully out of retirement as Chancellor of Starfleet Academy. When he is called once again out into the stars to investigate one of those pesky spatial anomalies, he finds himself zapped into what seems to be an alternate universe, courtesy of his old nemesis, the incredibly powerful Q ( John DeLancie ). This is the closest thing to a journey into the Mirror Universe that any alumni of Star Trek: The Next Generation has done. In this spirit, here at the nine best Star Trek Mirror Universe episodes, from across the franchise.

RELATED: ‘Star Trek’s Mirror Universe, Explained

“Despite Yourself” ( Discovery , Season 1, Episode 10)

Star Trek: Discovery spends the most time in the Mirror Universe of the other series (so far). Its Mirror Universe debut, “Despite Yourself” is a little disorienting. This partially stems from the bold move of dropping the cast into the Mirror Universe so late in the season, but also from the unresolved plot strands which carry over from the Prime Universe.

Coming off of a major victory for the Federation while in the midst of the Klingon War, Captain Lorca secretly programs new coordinates for a spore drive jump. Commander Stamets ( Anthony Rapp ) just made 133 micro-jumps in a row, and the jump into the Mirror Universe traumatizes him. Dr. Culber ( Wilson Cruz ) confronts Lt. Ash Tyler ( Shazad Latif ) over the truth about his physiology, triggering his “real” identity, the Klingon Voq. Tyler kills Culber, leaving his body with the catatonic Stamets. This horror takes a backseat to the crew’s understandable confusion as they find themselves in the brutal Mirror Universe, and must pose as their savage “ISS Discovery ” counterparts and find a way home.

“Through the Looking Glass” ( Deep Space Nine , Season 2, Episode 23)

Some time after the first crossover between the Prime and Mirror Universes since the Kirk and Spock era, the Mirror version of Miles O’Brien ( Colm Meany ), (nicknamed “Smiley” for his grumpy demeanor), develops an interdimensional transporter. He kidnaps the Prime Benjamin Sisko ( Avery Brooks ) and forces him to impersonate the Mirror Sisko, who has died since becoming a resistance leader. Sisko must persuade the Mirror Jennifer Sisko ( Felicia M. Bell ), a brilliant scientist fighting against the rebellion to switch sides. Since Jennifer died at the hands of the Borg during the battle at Wolf 359, Sisko can’t help but intervene.

With the notable exception of Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy , the current incarnation of Trek shows have seemingly gone all-in on a Serious, Weighty tone. This makes a rewatch of the Deep Space Nine Mirror Universe episodes a relatively jarring experience. Its “alien soap opera” vibes come off as a campier version of TNG ’s generally straight-faced seriousness. "Through the Looking Glass" brings the always-welcome Colm Meany to the forefront as it catches up with the apparent mess of a Mirror galaxy, but is unfortunately the last of the DS9 Mirror entries worth your time.

“The Wolf Inside” ( Discovery , Season 1, Episode 11)

We learn more about the tumult engulfing Discovery ’s Mirror galaxy in “The Wolf Inside.” The as-yet-unseen Emperor is preoccupied with quelling a rebellion, and has tasked the ISS Shenzou — captained by Michael Burnham — with destroying the recently-discovered rebel stronghold. Prime Burnham will not pretend to this level of amorality, and must balance her convictions with appeasing the ever-scheming Mirror crew’s suspicion. She and Tyler discover the leader of the anti-Terran resistance: this universe’s Voq. The Mirror Sarek (Burnham’s adoptive father in the Prime Universe) is a resistance leader, and via a mind meld comes to understand the promise of Burnham’s Federation. Voq triggers Tyler, who attacks him, jeopardizing the delicate balance Burnham tries to achieve.

Any show is a bit shaky during its first season, and Discovery is no exception. “The Wolf Inside” suffers a bit from stretching the Voq/Tyler reveal as far as possible. As ever, the main cast appears to be having a fine time vamping it up as their evil twins. Still, elements of “The Wolf Inside” might have been best woven into the surrounding episodes rather than a standalone placeholder.

"Vaulting Ambition" ( Discovery , Season 1, Episode 12)

Still catatonic in the physical world, Stamets’ psyche is trapped in the mycelial network. His Mirror Universe counterpart finds him and helps guide him out, revealing that the entire network has become corrupted. Stamets finds an echo of the deceased Hugh, who explains that the Mirror Stamets has exploited the mycelial network for his own gain, and its spreading corruption will mean the end of all life everywhere if left unchecked. Burnham discovers that the Terran Emperor — none other than the Mirror version of Philipa Georgiou ( Michelle Yeoh ), Burnham’s now-deceased former captain, mentor, and surrogate mother — has been using Stamets to develop a bioweapon. This weapon has been draining the mycelial network, which cannot regenerate fast enough. She also realizes that Gabriel Lorca was in fact from the Mirror Universe all along. Lorca escapes his confinement in an Agonizer and frees his followers, who join him in his mission to restart his coup against Georgiou.

With Ash Tyler now firmly sidelined and under guard back on the Discovery , the show’s extended foray into the Mirror Universe finally hits its stride. “Vaulting Ambition” is an exciting installment from beginning to end. This is largely due to the winning pair of Sonequa Martin-Green and Michelle Yeoh, who are excellent in their scenes together. The two of them share an energetic chemistry, which is deepened by the ongoing mother-daughter relationship. Georgiou meets a different, arguably more complex version of the person she knows in the Prime Burnham. This conjures a complicated set of emotions, which Yeoh expresses brilliantly.

“What’s Past is Prologue” ( Discovery , Season 1, Episode 13)

The long Mirror Universe arc comes to a head in “What’s Past is Prologue.” Burnham and Georgiou manage to defeat Lorca, ending his coup attempt and resulting in his demise for once and for all. Stamets and Discovery ’s crew discover a way to escape destruction once they have destroyed the bioweapon on the Emperor’s ship. Discovery launches a surprise attack and in the ensuing melee, Lorca is killed, but Burnham beams Mirror Georgiou back to Discovery , which escapes both destruction and the Mirror Universe via the mycelial network.

“What’s Past is Prologue” is an excellent example of what Star Trek: Discovery can do when every element of its storytelling comes together. Stamets gets a version of closure as Hugh’s voice guides him through the mycelial network, and Burnham’s perhaps reckless choice to bring Mirror Georgiou into the Prime Universe sets up a rich mine of conflict which will carry over into the next two seasons. Not to mention keeping the fantastic Michelle Yeoh around.

“Crossover” ( Deep Space Nine , Season 2, Episode 23)

Deep Space Nine ’s wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant was, in retrospect, a perfect device to jumpstart a Mirror Universe episode. In Season 2, we finally got the first canonical crossover since the original Star Trek . Some kind of anomaly sends Dr. Bashir ( Alexander Siddig ) and Major Kira ( Nana Visitor ) into the parallel realm and onto a darker version of DS9. Kira’s döppelganger, the Intendant, runs DS9, part of a Klingon-Cardassian Alliance which overtook the Terran Empire after Mirror Spock took control and tried to change things. Bashir and Kira escape with the help of the Mirror Sisko and O’Brien, and spark a Sisko-led rebellion along the way.

Deep Space Nine ’s later Mirror Universe entries appear to coast on a species of high camp that never really works. In “Crossover,” however, we get to watch the cast ham it up with such scenery-chomping abandon , one wonders if they felt a little repressed in their tightly-wound Prime incarnations. Nana Visitor in particular is a vampish delight as the black leather-clad, bisexual Indentant Kira, who is by turns seductive and ruthless in equal measure. “Crossover” fills in Trek lore with some intriguing details, and it’s a shame the show’s Mirror episodes only go downhill from here.

"Terra Firma" Parts 1 & 2 ( Discovery , Season 3, Episodes 9 & 10)

Season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery finds the crew nearly a thousand years into the future, navigating a very different galaxy than the one they left behind. As Discovery struggles to knit together a fractured Federation (warp drive is impossible due to an event which wiped out most of Starfleet and has rendered dilithium unstable), Philippa Georgiou has been experiencing episodes of violent sickness and disorientation. Since the Mirror and Prime Universes have been drifting steadily apart, her molecules themselves are becoming unstable. The crew discovers a planet which seems to hold the key to her recovery: a mysterious fella named Carl guards a doorway into her Mirror Universe past.

“Terra Firma” digs deep into franchise lore to catch up with the Guardian of Forever, a sentient portal to anywhere across space and time featured in what is arguably the original Star Trek ’s greatest episode.

"Mirror, Mirror" ( TOS , Season 2, Episode 4)

A transporter accident sends Captain Kirk ( William Shatner ), Dr. McCoy ( DeForrest Kelley ), Scotty ( James Doohan ), and Uhura ( Nichelle Nichols ) to the dark parallel reality which would not become known as the Mirror Universe for many years to come. They find a way to escape with the help of Mirror Spock, who is moved to try and change the empire for the better.

The original Star Trek introduced the Evil Twin trope into the show’s canon without knowing how influential the Mirror Universe would prove to be. Shed of franchise meta-baggage, “Mirror Mirror” is just a very entertaining sci-fi yarn as it tries out a premise that would prove to be evergreen. Canonically-speaking, Discovery establishes that Kirk and crew’s crossover was in fact not the first time the two realities had intersected. This may prove important to the upcoming Strange New Worlds series, which covers the pre-Kirk Enterprise years.

"In a Mirror Darkly" Parts 1 & 2 ( Enterprise , Season 4, Episodes 18 & 19)

Captain Forrest ( Vaughn Armstrong ) of the ISS Enterprise rules with an iron fist until his first officer, Commander Archer ( Scott Bakula ) stages a coup and takes over. He orders the ship into Tholian space and discovers the USS Defiant , a starship from around a century in the future, from a parallel universe where Archer is captain. The ensuing power struggle ends with Archer assassinated and Hoshi Sato ( Linda Park ) taking over the Defiant and demanding tribute as Empress.

Star Trek: Enterprise holds a complicated place in a Trekkie's heart. Despite an awful theme song, certain sexist character tropes that were already outdated, and a clunky attempt at serialized, vengeance-based storytelling, Enterprise still deserved more time to right itself before cancellation. That didn't happen, but we did get its shining two hours in the form of "In a Mirror Darkly." The two-parter functions as a kind of sequel for the Original Series episode "The Tholian Web," wherein the Defiant vanished into interdimensional space, but dispenses with the Prime Universe altogether. Free of any need to adhere to continuity or even win over new audiences, the entire Enterprise team delivers an entertaining variant on the Mirror Universe theme which may have inspired Discovery 's immersive approach to that darker, endlessly fascinating parallel realm.

Star Trek's Mirror Universe Explained

In the iconic narration of  Star Trek: The Original Series ( TOS ), Captain James T. Kirk vows to go "where no man has gone before." Numerous television series and films later, not only does Kirk make good on his promise, but he's joined in his quest to map the unknown by other heroic captains and crews. Whether by accident or on purpose,  Star Trek 's heroes have found themselves lost in distant corners of the galaxy, tossed on the eddies of time, caught in the crossfire of wars waged on other planes of existence, and once — no, really — in Sherwood Forest. 

One of the stranger locations that  Star Trek  keeps bringing its heroes back to is known as the Mirror Universe. The brutal locale makes its first appearance in "Mirror, Mirror" — a season 2 episode of  TOS  airing in 1967. It would take 27 years for Trek heroes to make their way back to the place in  Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's   ( DS9 ) season 2 episode "Crossover." Since then, the gates to the Mirror Universe have stayed busy. Along with subsequent episodes of  DS9 , the Mirror Universe and its twisted characters have returned in the prequel series  Star Trek: Enterprise  ( ENT ) and  Star Trek: Discovery , and creators of non-canonical Trek media have taken the opportunity to bring the crews of other series to this weird world. 

But what is the Mirror Universe? To find out, keep reading for  Star Trek 's Mirror Universe explained.

WARNING! Spoilers for multiple  Star Trek  series follow!

What is the Mirror Universe?

What if everything was different? What if cowards were heroes, heroes were villains, and villains ruled over everything?  Star Trek  answers this question with its parallel reality, the Mirror Universe.

These days it's tough to have any kind of interest in science fiction and not be familiar with the concept of parallel universes, but  Star Trek 's Mirror Universe isn't just different. As the name implies, the people of the Mirror Universe are often the exact opposite of their Prime Universe counterparts. The  United Federation of Planets  and its hallowed ideals are replaced by the Terran Empire and a barbaric "might makes right" philosophy.  In Starfleet's place is the Imperial Starfleet, and its captains — known for their compassion and tolerance in the Prime Universe — are ruthless, unforgiving, and often xenophobic. The quickest way to get ahead in the Imperial Starfleet is to assassinate your superior officer, and the only consistent forms of discipline are torture — usually in the form of the excruciating agonizer booths — and death.

While the Mirror Universe characters are the opposite of the Prime Universe counterparts, that doesn't always change their roles in terms of being heroes or villains. The Mirror Universe version of  DS9 's Miles O'Brien , for example, is largely depicted as being heroic, though the Mirror O'Brien is willing to do things — like kidnapping — in order to achieve his goals that the prime O'Brien probably wouldn't stoop to. 

The first crossing

In 1996's  Star Trek: First Contact , Zefram Cochrane lays the groundwork for the founding of the Federation when he greets the first Vulcan to visit Earth. But in the two-part  ENT  episode "In a Mirror, Darkly," the Mirror Cochrane instead murders the Vulcan, paving the way for the oppression and brutality of the Terran Empire. 

Fast forward a hundred years later to the Terran Empire's version of the Enterprise ,   where Jonathan Archer is only a first officer. Mirror Archer is much more ruthless than his Prime counterpart, and he stages a coup to take over command of the ship. Among other things, we learn the Mirror versions of Dr. Phlox and Malcolm Reed are the inventors of the excruciating agonizer booths and that T'Pol is working with the Vulcans and other oppressed Imperial races in their rebellion.

Unlike most Mirror Universe episodes, none of the main characters from the Prime Universe cross over ... except in Archer's mind. After learning of the other universe, Mirror Archer has maddening visions of the Prime Archer taunting him. The story cleverly crosses over with the  TOS  episode "The Tholian Web," transplanting the captured USS  Defiant  not only from the Prime Universe but through time. Archer and his crew capture the  Defiant and use its superior technology to cripple the rebellion and to put Archer in the position to take the Imperial throne. In the final moments of the episode, however, Hoshi Sato — who Archer believes to be his loyal concubine — poisons him, taking the throne for herself. 

A Mirror Universe stowaway

For most of  Discovery 's first season, the eponymous vessel is commanded by Captain Gabriel Lorca, a man whose sensitivity to light — we're told — is a result of his injuries aboard the USS  Buran . By the end of the first season, however, we learn Lorca is perhaps the most deceitful captain in the history of  Trek 's   commanding officers . Lorca is, in fact, a native of the Mirror Universe masquerading as his Prime counterpart. His identity as a Terran accounts for his light sensitivity, though this is the first time we learn of this aspect of Terran biology. 

We never learn exactly when the Mirror Lorca crossed over to the Prime Universe, nor do we know the fate of the Prime Lorca. It's speculated he couldn't have survived alone in the Mirror Universe, but we never find out for sure. All we know is that as soon as he learned of Discovery 's unique spore drive, Mirror Lorca did everything he could to find himself in the experimental ship's command chair in order to use the drive to bring himself back to the Mirror Universe and continue his rebellion against Emperor Philippa Georgiou. 

At the end of "Into the Forest I Go," Lorca finally puts his plan into action. When the rest of the crew believes they're using the drive to jump to Starbase 46, Lorca secretly diverts the ship to the Mirror Universe. He reignites his rebellion against the Emperor, only to be killed by Georgiou in "What's Past is Prologue." 

The Emperor's new clothes

In the Prime Universe, Philippa Georgiou was the captain of the USS  Shenzhou — Michael Burnham's commanding officer who died during the Battle of the Binary Stars. But in the Mirror Universe, Georgiou is the emperor of the Terran Empire. While the Mirror Georgiou seems content to die fighting Lorca's followers, Burnham saves her against her wishes, bringing her back to Discovery  and subsequently to the Prime Universe. 

With unmatched combat skills and a devious mind, Mirror Georgiou becomes a great asset to the clandestine operations of Section 31. The official word from Starfleet is that the prime Georgiou somehow miraculously survived the Battle of the Binary Stars. It's agreed that the existence of the Mirror Universe is to be purged from all records because of the concern that in the wake of the devastating war with the Klingons , Federation citizens who learn of the Mirror Universe might attempt to cross over to find counterparts of their dead loved ones. 

While Georgiou resists any attempts by her new Prime allies to make her any less savage, it's clear she holds a special place in her heart for Burnham whose Mirror counterpart is her adopted daughter. Georgiou eventually rejoins the crew of the  Discovery  and becomes an integral part of their efforts against the rogue A.I. Control. She's also among the heroes when they choose to purposely strand themselves in the distant 32nd century. 

Kirk visits the Mirror Universe

In the opening of "Mirror, Mirror," Captain Kirk, Scotty, Uhura, and Bones are on surface of the Halkan homeworld, having tried and failed to negotiate dilithium mining rights. But somehow, due to a raging ion storm, when the four Federation officers are beamed back to Enterprise , they find themselves aboard the version of the ship in the Mirror Universe instead of their own. Meanwhile, their Mirror counterparts are sent to the Prime Universe where they're soon imprisoned. "Mirror, Mirror" takes place approximately a decade after  Discovery 's crossover, but because of Starfleet's decision to keep the place a secret, Kirk and his crew don't know what they're in for. 

On board the Mirror  Enterprise , everyone's in strange uniforms, including female crew members being in much more revealing outfits (and it isn't like the Prime Uniforms were particularly conservative). Most conspicuously, everyone gives each other salutes reminiscent of the infamous Nazi one-arm salute. 

Kirk and his colleagues from the Prime Universe struggle to remain incognito while they search for a way back home. See, rather than negotiating, the Terrans are threatening the Halkans with annihilation if they don't allow them to mine dilithium. And Kirk raises suspicions when he refuses to fire on the planet, inspiring an assassination attempt. The bearded Mirror Spock eventually discovers the identity of the Prime Universe heroes and allows them to return, wanting his own captain back. However, Spock's time with the Prime Kirk proves more consequential than anyone at the time imagines.

The fall of the Terran Empire

In season 2 of  DS9 , heroes from  Trek 's Prime Universe find themselves in the Mirror Universe for the first time in over a century. In "Crossover," Major Kira and Dr. Bashir come across a very different Deep Space Nine. In the Mirror Universe, DS9 is still named Terok Nor, but Odo is a slavedriver, Sisko is a pirate, and the Ferengi bartender Quark doesn't even know what latinum is.

Rather than Starfleet, Terok Nor is ruled by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance (KCA). Bajor is a part of the KCA, and the world's ruler — who also presides over the station — is the cold-blooded and seductive Intendant Kira, one of  Star Trek 's best villains . From the Intendant, Prime Kira learns that Kirk's trip to the Mirror Universe in TOS  had far-reaching consequences. Kirk so inspired Mirror Spock that the Vulcan helped bring about a series of compassionate reforms throughout the Terran Empire. Sadly, their lapsed focus on defense made them easier targets for the KCA. The Terrans are now a conquered people, working as slaves for the KCA and forced to wear clothing bearing the symbol of Earth to identify themselves. Because of this, while Intendant Kira treats her Prime counterpart as a treasured pet, Bashir is pressed into slavery as soon as he arrives. 

Kira and Bashir eventually escape with the help of the Mirror versions of Miles O'Brien — better known as "Smiley" in the Mirror Universe — and Sisko. Like Kirk before them, Bashir and Kira inspire change in the darker universe.  

The Terran Rebellion

DS9 's lead, Captain Sisko, is kidnapped and brought to the Mirror Universe by Smiley in season 3's "Through the Looking Glass". He learns that when his Mirror counterpart betrayed the KCA in "Crossover," the act started a Terran rebellion. Now, Smiley needs Sisko to help the rebellion by pretending to be his Mirror counterpart long enough for one last mission.

DS9  tracks the conflict between the Terrans and the KCA intermittently throughout the series, offering one Mirror episode every season except for its first and fifth. While the group refers to itself as the Terran Rebellion, other oppressed races are part of the struggle.  Star Trek:  Voyager 's Tuvok — a Vulcan — makes a cameo as part of the rebellion in "Through the Looking Glass." Plus, other races are spotted in their gatherings. Like the Maquis of the Prime Universe, they hide in the Badlands, where the KCA's sensors can't find them. Their leaders include much tougher and no-nonsense versions of Bashir and Jadzia Dax.

Things are looking up for the Terrans by the final  DS9  Mirror episode, "The Emperor's New Cloak." By the end of the episode, the Terrans have their own version of the  Defiant ,   complete with a game-changing cloaking device, and they've captured Terok Nor. At the same time, the KCA leadership is in disarray. Intendant Kira is on the run, Garak is dead, and the KCA regent — a much more sadistic and violent version of Worf — is the Terrans' prisoner.

The Mirror Universe rebooted?

Discovery 's season 3 two-parter "Terra Firma" reveals the crew's Mirror Universe native Philippa Georgiou is dying because of their journey to the 32nd century. Because 900 years have passed since Georgiou's crossing to the Prime Universe, the Prime and Mirror Universes are no longer aligned, causing her molecular cohesion to deteriorate. 

Learning of a world with a possible cure,  Discovery  brings Georgiou to a planet where a mysterious man keeps vigil over what appears to be a door leading to nowhere. In the second part of "Terra Firma," we learn this is the Guardian of Forever, who first appears in the classic  TOS  episode "The City on the Edge of Forever," one of  Star Trek 's saddest tales . The Guardian allows Georgiou to rejoin her life as emperor of the Terran Empire, where she tries and fails to redeem the Mirror Michael Burnham and save her life. Her attempts at peace and her compassion toward the Mirror Saru, however, convince the Guardian she's worth saving. The Guardian then sends her back to the 23rd century. 

The Guardian makes it clear Georgiou's trip back in time — which ends in her death — was no illusion. Since her Mirror Universe adventure all takes place before the Mirror episodes of Discovery 's first season, does that mean most of the history of the Mirror Universe has been altered? Or did her actions create another  parallel timeline — a second Mirror Universe?

Time travel — it's confusing and causes problems. 

The untold story of Tiberius

In  TOS ' "Mirror, Mirror," Prime Kirk discovers his Mirror counterpart has been secretly using a device called the Tantalus Field. With it, Mirror Kirk can monitor anyone on his ship and, should he choose, disintegrate them with the touch of a button. His concubine, Marlena, says it's how he became captain, implying he used it to murder his predecessor. But according to the "Before Her Time" documentary on the season 4  Enterprise Blu-ray, there was almost a reveal that the device did something else entirely. 

According to the documentary, rather than the two-parter which ultimately became "In a Mirror, Darkly," the  Enterprise  creators wanted William Shatner to reprise his role as the Mirror Kirk, aka Tiberius. In "Mirror, Mirror," it's said Tiberius got the Tantalus Field from an alien scientist's "plundered lab." The proposed  Enterprise  story would reveal that rather than killing, the device actually sends its victims to a penal colony in the Prime Universe. Tiberius would find himself at this prison, presumably surrounded by a bunch of people he sent there, such as his predecessor, who would likely have been the Mirror Captain Pike. 

Unfortunately, negotiations between Shatner and Paramount didn't work out. However, it's fun to consider the idea of Shatner reprising the role, particularly when you consider how little we see of Tiberius in "Mirror, Mirror." 

Picard's Enterprise in the Mirror Universe

Unfortunately,  Star Trek: The Next Generation  doesn't include any trips to the Mirror Universe. Plus, the history of the Mirror Universe as it's presented in  DS9  would seem to discount any Mirror versions of either the  TNG  or  Voyager   crews since the Terran Empire would've been conquered long before those groups existed. But while it's not considered part of official  Trek  canon, some clever comic book creators found a way to tell the story of the Mirror  TNG  heroes.

In 2017, IDW released the miniseries  Star Trek: The Next Generation — Mirror Broken , written by Scott and David Tipton and with art by J.K. Woodward. We learn that the news of the Terran Empire's demise is the result of exaggeration and rumor. The Klingon-Cardassian Alliance has bitten huge chunks out of the Empire, but it's far from dead.  Mirror Broken  begins with the Mirror Jean-Luc Picard as captain of the  Stargazer , while most of the series follows his efforts to take over the  Enterprise . The motley cast includes a bearded Picard, a spiky-haired Wesley Crusher, and a surprisingly confident and competent Lieutenant Barclay.

Broken Mirror  isn't the last we see of the ISS  Enterprise ,   either. In 2018, the same creative team released two follow-up miniseries –  Through the Mirror and Terra Incognita — that depict the pirates making their way to the Prime Universe.

The Pirate Queen of the Delta Quadrant

The  TNG  crew aren't the only ones to get the Mirror Universe treatment in the comics. In 2019, IDW released  Star Trek: Voyager — Mirrors and Smoke by Paul Allor and J.K. Woodward. A quick prologue explains that Captain Janeway and her crew were part of the Terran Rebellion against the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance before being flung to the Delta Quadrant. Unlike their Prime Universe counterparts, they're quite happy being far from the KCA and decide to stay where they are. 

Voyager 's bloody reputation has earned Janeway the title Pirate Queen of the Delta Quadrant. Mirror Neelix and Kes — Delta Quadrant natives who join the crew in the series — are Janeway's rivals. The ship's command structure is a bit different, as well. In the series, Commander Cavit is replaced by Chakotay as first officer after Cavit is killed, whereas in  Mirrors and Smoke ,   it's Chakotay who murders Cavit in order to climb the command ladder.  

One of the most interesting transformations we see is that of Annika Hansen, aka Seven of Nine in the Prime Universe. Hansen was never assimilated by the Borg in the Mirror Universe, though ironically, she still plots — alongside the Doctor, who's disgruntled from his poor treatment by the Terrans — to take over the ship.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Mirror Universe Collection

• View history

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Mirror Universe Collection is an omnibus collection of IDW Publishing 's Next Generation mirror universe comic series, scheduled to be released in March 2021 .

Summary [ ]

Contents [ ].

• Star Trek: The Next Generation - Mirror Broken
• Star Trek: The Next Generation - Through the Mirror
• Star Trek: The Next Generation - Terra Incognita

Background information [ ]

Credits [ ].

• Scott Tipton
• David Tipton
• J.K. Woodward
• Angel Hernández
• Carlos Nieto
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Star Trek: 7 Best Mirror Universe Episodes

The Mirror Universe has been a part of the Star Trek franchise since the Original Series. These are the episodes that explored it best.

Star Trek's Mirror Universe is one of the most mysterious alternate universes in the show's lore, as it is everything that is the exact opposite of the Prime Universe. The Mirror Universe was first introduced in the 1960s in season 2 of The Original Series, and has since been expanded upon with almost every new iteration of Star Trek .

In the Mirror Universe , which is (most of the time) ruled by the totalitarian Terran Empire, characters will often encounter their evil doppelgangers, which has resulted in interesting stories and episodes. There are a few Mirror Universe episodes that have had a lasting impact on Star Trek and fans, which still hold up today as some of the best episodes in the franchise.

7 Mirror, Mirror

Imdb score: 9/10.

• Star Trek: The Original Series
• Season 2, episode 4

The first episode ever to explore the Mirror Universe in Star Trek was the Original Series episode "Mirror, Mirror." Out of all the Mirror Universe episodes to date, "Mirror, Mirror" also still holds the highest rating of all, perhaps because it is iconic in the sense that it introduces the Mirror Universe to Star Trek canon.

In this episode, due to a transporter accident involving an ion storm (as usual), some members of the USS Enterprise crew find themselves in an alternate universe. Here, side arms are standard issue, Spock has a goatee, and their ship is called the ISS Enterprise. By the end of the episode, Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and Scott return to the Prime Universe, but the door has been opened for many more Mirror Universe episodes in Star Trek' s future.

6 The Tholian Web

Imdb score: 8/10.

• Season 3, episode 9

The only other Mirror Universe episode in The Original Series is "The Tholian Web." This episode is action-packed, introducing a new species called the Tholians; a ship that becomes iconic to the Mirror Universe, the Defiant ; and featuring one of those times that audiences thought Kirk died. This episode is considered one of the best Spock episodes from The Original Series, and one of the best Star Trek episodes ever to air.

In search of the USS Defiant, the Enterprise enters an uncharted region of space where the Defiant is found adrift, phasing in and out of the known universe. The Tholians arrive, weaving an energy web around the Enterprise, while Kirk's "ghost" appears on the Enterprise. After a miraculous turn of events (as usual), Kirk is returned to the Prime Universe unharmed, and they are on their way.

5 Crossover

Imdb score: 7.9/10.

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Season 2, episode 23

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is one of the Star Trek series that features the most Mirror Universe episodes, having five episodes from five seasons dedicated to the Mirror Universe. Not all the Mirror Universe episodes from Deep Space Nine were successful though. Only one stands out, the must-see Star Trek episode for any fan: "Crossover." Unlike many other Mirror Universe episodes, "Crossover" makes reference to the first-ever Mirror Universe episode from The Original Series.

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In this era of the Mirror Universe, the Terrans are slaves and Deep Space Nine is a mining station, run by Kira Nerys' evil counterpart, the Intendant. After much scheming and back-stabbing, Kira and Bashir, who stumbled upon the Mirror Universe through a wormhole, manage to return to the Prime Universe unharmed.

4 In A Mirror, Darkly

Imdb score: 8.3/10.

• Star Trek: Enterprise
• Season 4, episodes 18 and 19

The two-parter episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" is an epic Mirror Universe episode filled with Easter eggs from "The Tholian Web" and from the movie, Star Trek: First Contact. This episode is unique, as it does not feature characters from the Prime Universe that travel to the Mirror Universe. Rather, it follows events in the Mirror Universe that involve the Mirror versions of the Enterprise crew.

The episode starts off with First Contact between the humans and the Vulcans, but instead of the peaceful encounter that takes place in First Contact , Zefram Cochrane shoots the Vulcan ambassador. This is when viewers realize that this is an alternate universe. The two episodes are action-packed, ending with the crowning of Empress Sato after she poisons Mirror Archer.

3 Vaulting Ambition

Imdb score: 8.1/10.

• Star Trek: Discovery
• Season 1, episode 12

Star Trek: Discovery is the Star Trek series that features the most Mirror Universe episodes to date. In nine episodes over four seasons, characters from the Prime Universe find themselves in the Mirror Universe. On top of this, two Mirror characters remain in the Prime Universe for extended periods of time: Gabriel Lorca and Emperor Philippa Georgiou.

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"Vaulting Ambition" is filled with plot twists, mainly the big reveal that Gabriel Lorca, whom Michael Burnham (the show's main protagonist) thought was Captain Lorca of the USS Buran, is actually Mirror Lorca. Paul Stamets also meets his evil counterpart, and they navigate the visually stunning mycelial network in an attempt to rectify the damage that Mirror Stamets has done.

2 What's Past is Prologue

• Season 1, episode 13

With its serial format optimized for streaming platforms, on which Discovery first aired, the show manages to keep the suspense from "Vaulting Ambition" as it goes into the next episode, "What's Past is Prologue." As Lorca escapes from the agonizer (a nice throwback to "Mirror, Mirror"), he and his loyalists attempt to overthrow Emperor Georgiou as ruler of the Terran Empire.

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The episode is filled with gun fights, masterful fighting sequences performed by Oscar-winning Michelle Yeoh, and another huge twist. Just as Emperor Georgiou gets ready to sacrifice herself so that Michael Burnham can beam back to the Prime Universe, Burnham grabs onto her and the two beam back together. This action puts in motion many significant events that revolve around Emperor Georgiou in the Prime Universe in episodes to follow.

1 Terra Firma

Imdb score: 6.4/10.

• Season 3, episodes 9 and 10

While the two-parter Terra Firma has received one of the lower IMDb scores of the Mirror Universe episodes, it is worth consideration as one of the best Star Trek Mirror Universe episodes. In "Terra Firma," a dying Emperor Georgiou is sent back to the Mirror Universe by the Guardian of Forever - an omniscient being introduced in a classic Original Series episode many decades ago, "The City on the Edge of Forever." "Terra Firma" is therefore filled with Easter eggs for die-hard Star Trek fans.

While it might seem controversial for some, it gives one of the most evil characters in the Prime and Mirror Universe a chance at redemption . Showing that humanity can change for the better is a theme at the core of Star Trek, and "Terra Firma" does a great job at doing that.

Star Trek is a space exploration franchise originally created by Gene Roddenberry. The series has spanned shows like The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Voyager. More recently, developer Scopely came out with Star Trek Fleet Command, a mobile title where you get to be captain of your own ship.

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Interview: Tipton Brothers On Taking ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ Into The Mirror Universe

| May 3, 2017 | By: Joe Andosca 28 comments so far

This month IDW kicks off their new six-issue series, Star Trek: The Next Generation – Mirror Broken . These are the first comics to explore the TNG mirror universe (something that also never happened during the TV show). The new comics are being written by Scott and David Tipton, who also penned IDW’s 2008 Star Trek: Mirror Images series , a prequel to the original “Mirror, Mirror” episode. TrekMovie thought it would be good to catch up with the Tipton brothers and talk to them about their return to the Mirror Universe.

Star Trek: TNG: Mirror Broken #1 cover by J.K. Woodward

Aside from some novels, this will be the first time we see the TNG crew in the Mirror Universe. Why do you think we’ve never seen it until now?

Scott Tipton: When Next Generation was in production as a series, I think there was a resistance on their part to rely too much on Original Series storylines and concepts, feeling that they needed to prove themselves on their own merits.  So very rarely did you see direct sequels to TOS episodes or storylines. By the time DS9 really got going, the franchise as a whole had proven itself and the producers were much more confident, so my feeling is they had much less trepidation about playing with some of the older stuff. But by that time, TNG as a series was no more.

David Tipton: I agree. I think there was some concern during the production of Next Generation that the show not be perceived as simply redoing Original Series episodes. The first-season episode “The Naked Now” got some negative reviews because some saw it as simply a recycled Original Series episode. Later on, when DS9 took on the Mirror Universe, they built up a unique storyline that supported multiple episodes in a way that I think helped defuse any concerns about retreading old episodes.

Is it right to say this is set around the beginning of the Next Generation era, and if so how does what we saw of the Mirror Universe from Deep Space Nine influence this story? 

ST: Yeah, it’s roughly analogous to the early years of TNG, but because of the vagaries of characters’ lives, not everyone will be at the same place in their career that you’d expect. Some may be higher, some may be lower. We do play off of the description of the state of the Terran Empire from the DS9 episodes, and explain that all may not have been as people out in deep space believed.

DT: The story for Mirror Broken is placed roughly in the Mirror Universe equivalent of the early days of the Enterprise-D, and it also is placed in the context of what we learned about what happened to the Mirror Universe from the Deep Space Nine episodes.

Star Trek: TNG: Mirror Broken #2 cover by J.K. Woodward

With no TNG history in the mirror universe, you had sort of a blank canvas to put your own dark spin on these iconic characters. What was the most difficult part of that?

DT: It’s important to keep in mind that the Mirror characters aren’t exact reverse counterparts of the characters we know. They are more like dark reflections, and they have unique personalities that reflect their environment and particular natures. Their backstories are important, because those help us to understand their motivations.

ST: It’s a tricky line to walk. The Mirror Universe characters aren’t opposites; they’re the same people, just raised in an entirely different culture, which is bound to affect every decision they make. It’s tempting to just say, “This is Evil Data,” but the more interesting thing to explore is what makes him still the same character in a world so drastically different, and how would that character react to that kind of life?

Which TNG character or characters do you think really lend themselves to this universe? Which of those characters was your favorite to write?

ST: That’s kind of what I’ve been enjoying most. All the characters are just as compelling, but in different ways. Mirror Picard is still Picard, but a lot of the niceties have been worn away. The biggest surprise has been Barclay, but that may just be novelty, as it’s the first opportunity I’ve had to write the character.

DT: There’s some really interesting stuff with Data. Data’s origin story is not quite the same in the Mirror Universe, and Mirror Data’s growth and development goes down a very different path…

Mirror Broken concept illustration for Geordi by J.K. Woodward

We have seen a lot of fantastic looking art from J.K. Woodward for Mirror Broken . Can you talk a bit about how the process works with J.K.?

ST: It’s totally a collaboration start to finish. We talk over plot and character before we begin scriptwriting, and try to craft the scripts and page layouts to play to J.K.’s strengths. And while he’s painting, he’ll often call or text with thoughts about ways to improve things as we go, either character bits that can be conveyed visually, or arcane Trek details that can be slipped into the backgrounds. Working with J.K. is so easy because he’s such a Trek fan, we can just call out episode titles or moments and he knows precisely what we’re referring to.

DT: We’re usually consulting back and forth throughout the process. J.K.’s original designs for Next Generation Mirror characters influenced early development, and then ideas from Scott and me played a role in his continuing design work. It’s a great process.

“Mirror, Mirror” is one of the most beloved TOS episodes. Why do you think Trek fans are so fascinated with the Mirror Universe?

ST: I think it’s just the fascination of seeing familiar, beloved characters behaving so differently, and at times so horribly, yet still being recognizably themselves .

DT: And there’s something to the idea of wondering about what would happen to familiar characters and situations if some elements were changed. It opens up some interesting creative avenues.

Star Trek: TNG: Mirror Broken #3 Cover by J.K. Woodward

What can we expect from you after Mirror Broken? Any particular area of Star Trek you would really like to explore in the comics?

ST: We have tons of places we’d like to go, and are always down to explore any corner of the Trek Universe. We’ve been itching to dive into that post- TMP , Pre- Wrath of Khan era for years. Someday…

DT: I love the Motion Picture era. Would also like to do another Deep Space Nine project.

Should I ever trust anyone with a beard again?

ST: Oh, a beard is fine. It’s the combination of the goatee or Van Dyke with the sleeveless shirt you’ve gotta watch out for…

DT: I would worry more about Data with Borg enhancements than anyone with a beard.

Mirror Broken concept illustration for Riker by J.K. Woodward

Mirror Broken begins Saturday on Free Comic Book Day with Facebook Live and N. Hollywood signing event

The new Star Trek: The Next Generation – Mirror Broken series kicks off this Saturday with a special Free Comic Book Day issue. The Tipton brothers along with artist J.K. Woodward will be holding live chat on the official Star Trek Facebook page at 12:30 pacific time on Saturday.

In addition the Tiptons and Woodward will be at Blastoff Comics in North Hollywood, CA signing issues of Mirror Broken . More details at blastoffcomics.com .

Promo for Free Comic Book Day Facebook Live event with team behind Star Trek: The Next Generation – Broken MIrror

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Obviously, Mirror Spock either wasn’t moved to be an agent of change, or failed badly at it.

Maybe Spock got wacked!😈

Apparently. As opposed to the “Star Trek Continues” sequel “Fairest of Them All,” where he was moved too quickly and easily for it to be credible, at least for me.

The article says this is still in the same mirror universe as DS9s. Also earth is the only planet left in the empire. So Spock’s changes probably happened, the war started and he was probably taken off the throne by more militant elements

You might have also mentioned that the Tiptons were also responsible for the graphic novel adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s original script for “The City on the Edge of Forever” — only the greatest thing with “Star Trek” on the label to come along in, like, forever. J.K. Woodward did the artwork for that project as well.

Agreed. That graphic novel is beautiful.

The Reason why TNG had no Mirror Universe Episodes was because of Roddenberry, Roddenberry wanted to keep it Cerebral and Family friendly what an A hole but now thankfully there is no more Roddenberry and Star Trek can go Darker and more action oriented.

Remember, Roddenberry CREATED Star Trek. So he did have something to say about the direction of the series. Also, the original concept for the show was to have morality plays.

Concerning Star Trek going darker… RoddenBerry era Next Generation also gave us the Borg. Back when that was first introduced, it was seen as rather dark.

I personally like TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT all for different reasons. I liked TOS and TNG for its overall hopeful view of the future. I like DS9 for showing a gritty life out “on the rim” where Federation society isn’t as neat and tidy.

I would actually like to see an ongoing comic in the “mirror universe.” I think there is a lot to see there. Keep the Klingon’s devotion to honor intact but now they are the good guys fighting for a free society. Considering that the Vulcans are in some ways an enslaved species (especially going by Through a Mirror Darkly), this would bring an interesting spin on the Reunification with the Romulans a whole new spin.

Roddenberry did not create the Borg Maurice Hurley created the Borg, Maurice Hurley Created the Borg and he wanted to do a Borg Invasion Arc where the Federation went to War with the Borg but Roddenberry would not allow it because he was so obsessed with his peaceful vision of the Future. Also the writers wanted to go down a darker path and have the Klingon Empire go to War with the Federation but Roddenberry would not allow that either, what a ass and had Roddenberry been alive DS9 would not of been made cause it went against his vision.

Thank goodness then! Because a big war story in space is just not Star Trek, it’s something else. Borg = great invention, great villian, but Borg invasion arc = not Star Trek. Star Trek is not about war. It’s about exploration and ideas. The peaceful vision of the future is what made Star Trek great.

So I guess you don’t like DS9 then

DS9 was great not only because it was gritty, but it continued on the theme of social commentary. The theme that Trek has taken on since the show aired in 1966.

I’m glad that many of these opinions are just that. Opinions.

No one person has a claim on what can truly be considered “Trek”. Trek is what the execs at Paramount and CBS want it to be.

That’s why what “Trek” is tends to be very fluid.

CaptJWAmick,

Re: Trek is what the execs at Paramount and CBS want it to be.

ROTFLMAO. When Bludhorn bought Desilu and had to order Paramount to take on STAR TREK, Paramount had declared STAR TREK dead. They didn’t WANT it to be anything and they certainly didn’t perceive it as anything other than an albatross hanging from their already financially troubled neck. They even tried selling it to Roddenberry for around $157 thousand dollars but even Gene couldn’t find anyone who thought it was worth risking financing him for that paltry sum (Less than the cost of producing one episode of STAR TREK.) in the early 1970s.

STAR TREK simply is NOT here today for us to discuss this because of Paramount getting what it “wanted” STAR TREK to be, i.e. dead, buried and written off the books.

Ummm…. Roddenberry had nothing to do with the Borg’s creation. What have you been smoking?

Gene Roddenberry was a policeman, an airline pilot, a science fiction author and the genius (along with Dean Coons) that strung the elements of STAR TREK into a show that’s lasted longer than Turkey Day in my family gatherings. Anyone calling him an a-hole is an utter A-HOLE indeed.

I hope there’s an interesting story explaining why Geordi is carrying an NX-class phase cannon…

He kept it under his bed in case of an emergency.

sorry for my englishe but I really must needs say, madame deanna troi look very sexus in this picture, a real charm delight!

I’m surprised Geordi is alive. Based on what we know from mirror earth society, I’m surprised he wasn’t killed for being blind, or at least never given help for it.

Maybe desperate times got him where he is

He was probably experimented on and survived.

I think it wasn’t done and I still don’t understand why it’s being done based on the DS9 mirror universe, and that the Terran Empire doesn’t exist? If Earth is the only planet that exists in the Empire, I wouldn’t think it would fair well against the Klingon-Cardy Alliance?? Just saying

Since I go for the quantum/multiverse idea, I assume there are lots of universes out there similar to the so-called Mirror Universe. Arguably the Kelvin Timeline is a Mirror Universe too – a universe broadly similar to TOS that had the Narada incursion, but one that I expect was still somewhat different anyway.

The comic looks like fun. The last time I read anything TNG Mirror Universe-related was either Dark Mirror or one of the Shatnerverse novels. Beautiful cover art.

We need a Mirror Universe series and to Hell with the Fans who don’t like that idea.I have been speaking to Fans who don’t like the idea of a Mirror Universe series they say ”We DON”T NEED A MIRROR UNIVERSE SERIES IT’S NOT RELEVANT TO SOCIAL COMMENTARY WE WANT ALL TALK AND DIPLOMACY” what these fans don’t seem to get is that Star Trek is Changing it has to be different to appeal to a new audience, I Would love to see a mirror Universe series with back Stabbing and conquering all that good stuff.

Rather than dealing with a single “Mirror Universe”, you could easily have multiple versions of it, in the form of “parallel timelines” (from the TNG episode “Parallels”). Thus, in one timeline of the Mirror Universe, Mirror-Spock agrees with Kirk’s assessment, while in another, he didn’t (i.e. resulting into something similar to the false events depicted in the VOY episode “Living Witness”?). In fact, we have all kinds of different realities to deal with, each having their own “mirror reality”:

Prime Universe Minus Universe (from the TOS episode “The Alternative Factor”) Reverse Universe (from the TAS episode “The Counter Clock Incident”) Mirror Universe (see above) Kelvin Universe (artificially created; not a divergent point in the timeline).

I don’t count “The Void” (TOS’s “The Immunity Syndrome”; TNG’s “Where Silence Has Lease”) or Fluidic Space, since they could easily be alternate dimensions with their own set of unique physics. Anyway, I can imagine that this TNG mini-series is about a Terran Empire that never fell, and that such a series would not contradict what happened in DS9.

BTW, I wonder of Mirror-Troi is the designated “Captain’s Woman”, explaining why Mirror-Picard is fighting Mirror-Riker…

This is NOT the first time the Mirror Universe version of TNG has bee presented. Why is this interviewer acting like it is?

The Top 57 Episodes of ‘Star Trek,’ Ranked From Great to Perfect

First, let’s be clear: Ranking the best “Star Trek” episodes is a silly thing to do. To date, the longest-running American TV franchise has aired a gargantuan 890 episodes and counting, starting with the original series in 1966. Since then, at least one “Star Trek” TV show has aired (or streamed) every decade, totaling 11 so far (with more on the way ). Choosing the best episodes within such a boundless, occasionally contradictory storytelling galaxy seems about as wise as cheating when playing poker with a Klingon.

On the other hand, there may be no more time-honored tradition among “Star Trek” fans than a vigorous debate over what constitutes the best of the franchise. (Best series ? Best captains ? Best starships ? Best aliens ? Best uniforms ? They’ve all been ranked multiple times !)

In that spirit — and to commemorate the 57th anniversary of “Star Trek” on Sept. 8 —  Variety ’s resident “Trek” geeks have ranked the top 57 episodes of all time, across the franchise.

Creating our list required some deep-dish nerdiness in its own right: We compiled a long list of episodes from each series that we felt deserved to be on the final ranking. Then we created our own individual rankings — and promptly realized our taste was quite divergent. To reconcile our lists, we adopted the approach of the great movie ranking podcast, Screen Drafts : We took alternating turns placing a pick from 57 to 1, and we each had two opportunities to veto the other’s pick (which in every case was to ensure it was placed higher on the list).

Other than the short-lived “Star Trek: The Animated Series” (1973-1974), this list reflects every other iteration of “Trek” on TV: “Star Trek: The Original Series” (1966-1969); “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987-1994); “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” (1993-1999); “Star Trek: Voyager” (1995-2001); “Star Trek: Enterprise” (2001-2005); “Star Trek: Discovery” (2017-2024); “Star Trek: Picard” (2020-2023); “Star Trek: Prodigy” (2021-2022); and the ongoing “Star Trek: Lower Decks” (2020-present) and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” (2022-present).

The Way to Eden

“The Original Series” — Season 3, Episode 20

Look, this episode gets a lot of hate. But the fact is “TOS” is known (by today’s standards) for being very campy, and there is no episode campier than this one. A group of space hippies board the Enterprise on their journey to a mythical planet called Eden, where they can live happily forever. The episode memorably features Charles Napier (who would go on to a long career playing tough guys, villains, cops and the like) breaking out into song a bunch of times, including a jam session with Spock (Leonard Nimoy). —Joe Otterson Original airdate: Feb. 21, 1969

Terra Prime

“Enterprise” — Season 4, Episode 21 More than any other episode of “Enterprise,” “Terra Prime” made the most of the show’s mission to dramatize the beginnings of Starfleet, 100 years before the events of “TOS.” Just as a newfound coalition of planets begins to form on Earth (a precursor to the Federation), Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) and his crew must stop a xenophobic terrorist (played to the hilt by future “Star Trek Into Darkness” villain Peter Weller) bent on forcing all aliens to leave Earth. Subtle, it ain’t, but the story feels more relevant today than it did 20 years ago, and everyone in the cast gets a moment to shine. Alas, it came too late: “Enterprise” had been canceled before this episode even went into production. —Adam B. Vary Original airdate: May 13, 2005

“Prodigy” — Season 1, Episode 6

The animated “Prodigy” was the first “Star Trek” series geared toward kids, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t things for older “Trek” fans to enjoy. In particular, “Kobayashi” perfectly embodies what makes this show a worthy entry in “Trek” canon. Dal (Brett Gray) and Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas) discover the holodeck aboard the Protostar, where they decide to go through the Kobayashi Maru, a.k.a. the “no-win scenario” that Capt. Kirk successfully beat during his time at the Academy. He gets help along the way from legendary characters like Spock, Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) and Odo (René Auberjonois). —J.O.

Original airdate: Jan. 6, 2022

Stormy Weather

“Discovery” — Season 4, Episode 6

On a mission to discover the origins of a cataclysmic gravitational anomaly, the U.S.S. Discovery enters a subspace rift and finds itself trapped inside a lethal black void that threatens to collapse in on the ship. The result is a classic race-against-time thriller (directed by “Trek” mainstay Jonathan Frakes), but what makes “Stormy Weather” stand out amid the heavily serialized episodes of “Discovery” is its emotionally resonant use of the ship’s sentient A.I. computer, Zora (Annabelle Wallis), who has to learn how to calm her mind from overwhelming stimuli in order to guide the ship out of danger. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Dec. 23, 2021

Seventeen Seconds

“Picard” — Season 3, Episode 3

“Picard” didn’t find itself until Season 3, which reunited the core cast of “The Next Generation” — and it was really Episode 3 that sealed the deal. Riker (Frakes) is forced to take command of the Titan as Vadic (Amanda Plummer) and the Shrike hunt them. Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Dr. Crusher get an all-time great scene together as she reveals why she never told him about their son, Jack (Ed Speleers). Worf (Michael Dorn) makes his big return. We learn the Changelings are still intent on attacking the Federation. Riker and Picard end up at odds in a way we’ve never seen before. In short, epic. —J.O.

Original airdate: March 2, 2023

The Enemy Within

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 5

The transporter — the cause of, and solution to, so many “Star Trek” problems — accidentally splits Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) into two people: Good Kirk, who is wracked with indecision, and evil Kirk, who is a histrionic asshole. Come for a meditation on the darkness that lies tucked inside everyone’s psyche, stay for some of William Shatner’s most deliciously hammy acting — and this was just the fifth episode of the series! —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Oct. 6, 1966

Family Business

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 3, Episode 23

The Ferengi episodes of “DS9” are always great comic relief, with this episode giving fans their first view of the home planet of Ferenginar and Ferengi culture in general. Quark (Armin Shimerman) and Rom (Max Grodénchik) must return home when their mother, Ishka (Andrea Martin), is accused of acquiring profit (gasp!), something Ferengi females are forbidden to do. Shimerman and Martin shine as they play out Quark and Ishka’s relationship, while Grodénchik really gets to put his comedic chops on display. This episode is also notable as the first appearance of Brunt (Jeffrey Combs) from the Ferengi Commerce Authority, as well as Kasidy Yates (Penny Johnson Jerald), frequent love interest of Cmdr. Sisko (Avery Brooks). —J.O.

Original airdate: May 15, 1995

Blink of an Eye

“Voyager” — Season 6, Episode 12

The Voyager gets stuck in orbit around a planet where time passes far more rapidly than in the rest of space, as the episode alternates between the bemused curiosity of Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and her crew and the awestruck preoccupation of the expeditiously progressing populace on the planet below, for whom Voyager is a sparkling, fixed constant in the night sky. At one point, the Doctor (Robert Picard) beams down to the planet to investigate, and a delay of only a few minutes on Voyager means he spends three years on its surface. He even adopts a son! One of the great, wild what if? episodes of “Star Trek.” —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Jan. 19, 2000

“The Next Generation” — Season 3, Episode 23

Mark Lenard absolutely crushed the role of Spock’s father, Sarek, in multiple episodes across multiple “Star Trek” series and movies, but this episode is perhaps his finest performance as the character. Sarek comes to the Enterprise-D on what is meant to be his final mission, only for the crew to learn he is suffering from Bendii Syndrome. The condition leaves him prone to uncharacteristic emotional outbursts while also causing him to telepathically influence the emotions of those around him. Picard saves the day by mind melding with Sarek, allowing him to finish his mission with dignity — and provide Stewart with the chance for some powerhouse acting as he channels Sarek’s volcanic emotions. —J.O.

Original airdate: May 14, 1990

“Enterprise” — Season 3, Episode 10

“Trek” loves a moral dilemma, and this one’s a doozy: After Cmdr. Tucker (Connor Trinneer) is critically injured while the Enterprise is on a deep space mission, Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley) suggests growing a “mimetic symbiote” of Trip — effectively, a clone with a built-in two-week lifespan — in order to create the brain tissue needed to save Trip’s life. But that means the Enterprise crew must endure watching Trip’s clone rapidly age from a precocious kid to an adult man (played by Trinneer with eerie self-possession), who then pleads for his own right to live. Creepy and heartbreaking in equal measure. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Nov. 19, 2003

Trials and Tribble-ations

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 5, Episode 6

This episode is a love letter to the original series, with the Defiant’s crew transported back in time to the events of “The Trouble With Tribbles.” A Klingon agent is planning to use a booby-trapped tribble to assassinate James T. Kirk. Thanks to digital editing, the crew is able to interact with the original Enterprise crew and keep the timeline intact. —J.O.

Original airdate: Nov. 4, 1996

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 2, Episode 23

Mirror universe episodes of “Star Trek” are (almost) always fun, if ultimately a little silly. But this one — in which Kira (Nana Visitor) and Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) find themselves in an alternate reality in which Bajor, Cardassians and Klingons subjugate humans as slaves — comes closest to matching the spark of discovery in the original “TOS” episode. It’s especially fun to watch Visitor devour the role of Kira’s deliciously wicked mirror counterpart, the Intendant. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: May 16, 1994

Memento Mori

“Strange New Worlds” — Season 1, Episode 4

This episode proved “Strange New Worlds” — the newest “Star Trek” series — could be as action-packed as the very best of “Star Trek.” The Enterprise crew find themselves on the run from the Gorn, a savage enemy (first introduced on “TOS” and largely ignored in “Trek” canon) about which they know virtually nothing. They are forced to use every resource at their disposal to outwit and outrun the Gorn, including tapping into the subconscious of La’an (Christina Chong), the only crew member who has encountered the aliens and survived. —J.O.

Original airdate: May 26, 2022

Counterpoint

“Voyager” — Season 5, Episode 10

The main story is a tense, WWII allegory: Capt. Janeway and her crew hide telepathic refugees while passing through the space of the Devore, who have outlawed telepaths. But the real story is the relationship Janeway forms with the lead Devore inspector, Kashyk (Mark Harelik), who suddenly shows up alone and announces he’s defecting. As Kashyk aids Janeway in finding safe harbor for the refugees, she realizes how much he’s her intellectual equal, and she finds herself drawn to him — in spite of (or perhaps spurred on by) her continued suspicion of his motives. A great, subtle performance by Mulgrew captures both Janeway’s steely wits and her private yearning. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Dec. 16, 1998

The Drumhead

“The Next Generation” — Season 4, Episode 21

“Star Trek” has done a number of courtroom episodes, and this is one of the best. Rear admiral Norah Satie (Jean Simmons) is sent to investigate suspected sabotage aboard the Enterprise. The investigation quickly spirals into paranoia and accusations of treachery against a crew member who is revealed to have Romulan lineage. It is an excellent reminder of what can happen when persecution is dressed up as an attempt at greater security, with Picard using Satie’s father’s teachings to bring about her downfall. —J.O.

Original airdate: April 29, 1991

“The Next Generation” — Season 7, Episode 8

More thwarted romance! The seasons-long will-they/won’t-they between Picard and Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) gets its best showcase, when the pair are captured by isolationist aliens and given implants that allow them to read each other’s thoughts. You get the feeling Stewart and especially McFadden had been dying to play out this dynamic on the show, so they both bring years of sublimated longing to the episode. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Nov. 8, 1993

In the Hands of the Prophets

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 1, Episode 20

Louise Fletcher’s performance as Vedek Winn (later Kai Winn) ranks among the best “Star Trek” villains of all time. Deeply religious to the point of fanaticism, Winn protests Keiko O’Brien (Rosalind Chao) teaching children on Deep Space Nine that the wormhole aliens are not deities, as many Bajorans believe. Winn’s words whip Bajorans on the station into a frenzy; Keiko’s school is bombed. But what Winn really desires is power, to the point she tries to get one of her followers to kill a fellow Vedek she sees as a threat. The episode sets up Winn’s role as a major antagonist throughout the series to great effect. —J.O.

Original airdate: June 21, 1993

The Trouble With Tribbles

“The Original Series” — Season 2, Episode 15

If you’ve seen any episode of “TOS,” chances are it’s this one. While on shore leave at a space station, the Enterprise comes upon an adorably furry alien creature called a tribble, which are born pregnant, multiply exponentially, consume enormous quantities of food and react with alarm when in the presence of a Klingon. Fizzy and funny and, to this day, one of the best-known episodes of “Trek” ever. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Dec. 29, 1967

Balance of Terror

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 14

Introducing the Romulans alone makes this episode worthy of being on the list. But it’s also an epic cat-and-mouse game between Kirk and a Romulan commander played by none other than Mark Lenard, who would go on to play Sarek starting in Season 2. Kirk successfully lures the Romulan ship into a trap, leading to Lenard delivering the iconic line, “You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend.” —J.O.

Original airdate: Dec. 15, 1966

“The Next Generation” — Season 4, Episode 20

John de Lancie never disappoints when he plays Q, but this episode offered a wonderful twist on his usual appearances. Following the events of “Deja Q,” Q returns to the Enterprise saying he owes Picard a debt. Picard repeatedly tells Q he wants nothing from him, but Q notices Picard has eyes for Vash (Jennifer Hetrick), the mercenary archeologist Picard first met on Risa. Being Q, he naturally transports Picard, Vash, and the bridge crew to a Robin Hood fantasy in which Picard must rescue Vash from the evil Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Clive Frevill). Added bonus: Worf, in scarlet tights, exclaiming in protest, “I am not a merry man!” —J.O.

Original airdate: April 22, 1991

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 18

The classic “trial by combat” episode that pitted Kirk against a Gorn captain on a barren, rocky planet (i.e. the storied filming location Vasquez Rocks ). Few images from “Star Trek” have become more iconic than the original Gorn costume, which was essentially an actor dressed as a large lizard. The ending is also an all-timer, with Kirk choosing to spare the Gorn, proving to the all-powerful Metrons that set up the trial by combat that humans are capable of more than just random violence. —J.O.

Original airdate: Jan. 19, 1967

A Mathematically Perfect Redemption

“Lower Decks” — Season 3, Episode 7

“Star Trek’s” first pure comedy (and second animated series) often plays as a twisted love letter to the entire “Trek” franchise — like when Peanut Hamper (Kether Donohue), one of the sentient Exocomp robots first introduced on “The Next Generation,” abandons the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos in a time of need. This episode tracks Peanut Hamper’s journey to redemption afterwards, which involves her encountering a seemingly primitive species called the Areore. To say anything more would spoil the fun; suffice it to say, “Trek” has rarely provoked gasps of deep laughter like this episode does. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Oct. 6, 2022

Bar Association

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 4, Episode 15

What better episode of “Star Trek” to talk about after Hollywood’s hot labor summer? Fed up with the unfair conditions at Quark’s bar, Rom talks the other workers into forming a union and going on strike. Max Grodénchik truly shines in this episode as the would-be union leader. Once Rom successfully gets Quark to agree to all the workers’ demands, he outright quits and goes to work as a repair technician for the station, setting up some of Rom’s best moments in the episodes to come. —J.O.

Original airdate: Feb. 19, 1996

“Voyager” — Season 5, Episode 26 & Season 6, Episode 1

The Voyager swoops to the rescue of the Equinox, another Federation starship stranded in the Gamma Quadrant — only this one, led by Capt. Ransom (John Savage), is a smaller ship not meant for deep space travel. With their crew whittled down to just 12 people, Ransom has resorted to murdering alien creatures to use their bio-matter to boost the Equinox’s engines — a horrific violation of everything Starfleet stands for. The discovery pushes Janeway to her own limits, as she obsessively pursues the Equinox despite the cost to her own crew and her morality. The two-parter is one of the darkest episodes of “Star Trek,” a chilling reminder of how easily good people can find themselves slipping into disgrace. —A.B.V.

Original airdates: May 26, 1999 & Sept. 22, 1999

Who Mourns for Morn?

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 6, Episode 12

Morn (Mark Allen Shepherd) was a “Deep Space Nine” fixture, always at Quark’s bar, but never actually speaking onscreen. But in this episode, with Morn apparently dead in an accident, everyone reveals the offscreen times they spent with him, including the revelation that he “never shuts up.” Quark inherits all of Morn’s property, which Odo relishes revealing is ultimately nothing. But as it turns out, Morn had a much more adventurous life before his time on “DS9” than anyone knew, leading his former comrades to seek him out to get a hold of the money they believed he still possessed. —J.O.

Original airdate: Feb. 4, 1998

Species Ten-C

“Discovery” — Season 4, Episode 12

Other than the Gorn, almost all of the aliens on “Star Trek” are, essentially, humans with slightly different forehead ridges. But in its most recent season, “Discovery” embraced “Trek’s” prime directive (seeking out new life, bolding going where no one’s gone, etc.) by crafting a species that is truly alien: the Ten-C. Throughout the season, the Ten-C are presented as both a total mystery and an existential threat; when Capt. Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the crew of the Discovery finally reach them — outside the barrier of the Milky Way galaxy — they are unlike anything the show has ever encountered. Rarely has “Trek” applied more intellectual and emotional rigor to what it might actually be like to attempt first contact with extra-terrestrials, and rarely has it been this compelling. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: March 10, 2022

A Man Alone

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 1, Episode 4

Odo is one of the best characters in “DS9” — and in the “Star Trek” universe — in general, and this is the first episode to really establish him as a standout . A known criminal returns to the station only to die shortly after, and Odo is accused of his murder. Odo’s status as an outsider, but ultimately someone to be respected, is made crystal clear in this episode, with even his archenemy Quark acknowledging that Odo is not the type to murder someone in cold blood. —J.O.

Original airdate: Jan. 17, 1993

Mirror, Mirror

“The Original Series” — Season 2, Episode 4

The transporter strikes again, this time accidentally zapping Kirk, Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Scotty (James Doohan) and Bones (DeForest Kelley) from their reality into a parallel universe in which the benevolent Federation has been replaced by the bloodthirsty Terran Empire, governed by brute force and fascistic exploitation — and Spock has a goatee! More silly than serious (and no less fun for it), the episode effectively spawned an entire sub-genre of parallel universe episodes of TV (from “Supernatural” to “Friends”) and gave generations of actors a chance to play wildly against type. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Oct. 6, 1967

“The Next Generation” — Season 4, Episode 2

People rave about “The Best of Both Worlds” and Picard’s assimilation by the Borg, but fewer remember this incredible follow-up episode. Picard returns to his family vineyard to put the Borg incident behind him, even briefly thinking that he will leave Starfleet. Jeremy Kemp crushes it as Picard’s brother Robert, with the two sharing a memorable (and muddy) scene in which Picard breaks down and admits how much his assimilation has shaken him. The episode is also memorable for the appearance of Worf’s adoptive parents, who come to the Enterprise to be with him following his discommendation. —J.O.

Original airdate: Oct. 1, 1990

Living Witness

“Voyager” — Season 4, Episode 23

For several minutes, “Living Witness” seems like a mirror universe episode, as a ruthless Janeway, captain of the “warship” Voyager, agrees to aid the Vaskans against the insurgent Kyrians by unleashing a biological weapon upon millions and executing the Kyrian leader. But then we realize that we’ve just witnessed a recreation at a Kyrian museum 700 years in the future, at which point a copy of the Doctor enters the story and learns, to his horror, how much the Kyrians have gotten wrong. What could have been a Rashomon-style caper instead becomes fascinating meditation on how the telling of history can be weaponized, even inadvertently, to maintain old wounds rather than heal them. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: April 29, 1998

Unification

“The Next Generation” — Season 5, Episode 7 & 8

Spock appeared on “The Next Generation” a month before the release of 1991’s “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” — but this time, at least, crass cross-promotion prompted some sublimely entertaining TV, as Picard and Data (Brent Spiner) aid Spock in his effort to reunify the Romulan and Vulcan peoples. [Stefon voice]: This two-parter has everything : Klingon warbirds, rude Ferengis, Tasha’s evil Romulan daughter Sela (Denise Crosby), Data and Spock philosophizing on their twin pursuits of logic and emotion, the death of Sarek, Worf singing Klingon opera with a four-armed bar pianist, and Picard and Spock mind-melding! —A.B.V.

Original airdates: Nov. 4 & 11, 1991

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 7, Episode 9

Gul Dukat is the best villain in “Star Trek.” Yes, you read that right. The writers and actor Marc Alaimo created an incredibly nuanced character that goes through a remarkable arc over the course of the series. This episode, near the end of “DS9’s” run, reminds fans that Dukat sees himself as a savior, but is ultimately a force for evil. He establishes a cult dedicated to the Pah wraiths on Empok Nor, luring a number of Bajorans to his side. But of course, he also sleeps with his female followers and tries to trick them into a mass suicide. Amazing stuff. —J.O.

Original airdate: Nov. 23, 1998

The Last Generation

“Picard” — Season 3, Episode 10

The cast of “TNG” infamously never got their swan song, after 2002’s “Star Trek: Nemesis” bombed in theaters, so this series finale serves as a gift both to them and to “TNG” fans. Every character gets their spotlight, including the resurrected Enterprise-D, as Picard, Riker, Dr. Crusher, Data, Worf, LaForge (LeVar Burton) and Troi (Marina Sirtis) all help to take down the Borg once and for all. The final scene — everyone sitting around a poker table, laughing and reminiscing — is as pure and satisfying an expression of fan service as anything “Trek” has ever done. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: April 20, 2023

“The Next Generation” — Season 3, Episode 13

Until this episode, Q was an enjoyably malevolent force within “TNG,” an omnipotent being who’d gleefully pop up now and again to play with the lives of the Enterprise-D crew. But here, when Q suddenly appears on the bridge, he’s been stripped of all his powers (and all of his clothes) and begs Picard for safe harbor. At first, no one believes him — even after Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) stabs him with a fork — which only fuels John de Lancie’s sparkling performance, as Q confronts life as ( shudder ) a mortal human. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Feb. 3, 1990

An Embarrassment of Dooplers

“Lower Decks” — Season 2, Episode 5

The title refers to an alien called a Doopler, who duplicate themselves whenever they get embarrassed — which, naturally, becomes an issue the moment one steps foot on the Cerritos. But really, this episode is one of those deeply enjoyable “Trek” episodes that is less about story than it is about the vibes , as the characters spend their downtime winningly contending with the central premise of the show: The bittersweet contentment of life at the bottom of the ladder. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Sept. 9, 2021

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 2, Episode 19    

The lives of the past hosts of the Dax symbiont are a recurring plot device on “DS9,” and no episode does it better than this one. A group of Klingons who knew Curzon Dax arrive at the station and enlist Jadzia’s (Terry Ferrell) help in killing their sworn enemy, a criminal known as The Albino who killed the three Klingons’ first-born sons. Jadzia ultimately honors the blood oath, as the episode explores the meaning of honor and solidarity. —J.O.

Original airdate: March 28, 1994

Where No Man Has Gone Before

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 3

The famed second pilot episode of “Star Trek” (which introduced William Shatner as Capt. Kirk) is a strange artifact today: Bones and Uhura aren’t aboard yet, Sulu (George Takei) isn’t at the helm, the Enterprise has a psychiatrist (played by Sally Kellerman), and the uniforms and sets look a bit off. But the central story — Kirk’s best friend, Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood), is zapped by an energy blast at the edge of the galaxy, and begins to exhibit extraordinary psychokinetic powers — is vintage “Trek”: Brainy, brawny, and just the right side of uncanny. And it’s fascinating now to see how well-established Kirk and Spock’s dynamic of emotion vs. logic was from the very start. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Sept. 22, 1966

The Measure of a Man

“The Next Generation” — Season 2, Episode 9

Data’s quest for humanity is at the very core of “TNG,” and this stirring episode literally puts that quest on trial — and establishes the show’s voice for the rest of its run. A Starfleet scientist wants to dismantle Data in order to create more androids, but Data refuses, setting up an intense courtroom drama — is Data merely a machine and the property of Starfleet? — with Picard representing Data while Riker is forced to represent the scientist. —J.O.

Original airdate: Feb. 13, 1989

“The Next Generation” — Season 4, Episode 26 & Season 5, Episode 1

The Klingons started on “Trek” as a not-that-thinly-veiled metaphor for the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, but over the decades, they’ve developed their own richly detailed mythology. This two-parter (which aired just before the fall of the USSR) depicts a civil war within the Klingon Empire that leads to Worf’s decision to leave the Enterprise and join the fight. For a series that was episodic by design, this is the closest “TNG” ever got to serialized storytelling, incorporating events from several previous episodes — including the shocking introduction of Tasha’s Romulan daughter, Sela. —A.B.V.

Original airdates: June 17, 1991 & Sept. 23, 1991

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 1, Episode 11

It is endlessly entertaining to see Quark get what he wants as he then  learns that it’s way more trouble than he realized. This episode sums that idea up nicely, while also featuring the first of many wonderful appearances by Wallace Shawn as Ferengi leader Grand Nagus Zek. Zek unexpectedly names Quark his successor, only for Zek to die shortly after. Quark is thrilled at first, before he realizes being the Nagus puts a massive target on his back. This episode also helps build the friendship between Nog (Aron Eisenbeg) and Jake (Cirroc Lofton), with Jake secretly teaching Nog how to read. —J.O.

Original airdate: March 22, 1993

Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy

“Voyager” — Season 6, Episode 4

Yearning to grow past his programming, the Doctor allows himself the ability to daydream, in one of the flat-out funniest episodes of “Trek” ever. It opens with Robert Picardo singing opera as Tuvok (Tim Russ) undergoes pon farr (i.e. the madness to mate that consumes Vulcan males) and just gets wilder from there, up to the moment when the Doctor, who’d fantasized about taking over command of Voyager in an emergency, does it for real. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Oct. 13, 1999

“The Original Series” — Season 2, Episode 1

Speaking of pon farr, this is the “TOS” episode that first establishes it — as well as the planet Vulcan, several Vulcan customs and traditions, and the now legendary Vulcan salute (honorable mention: Spock actually smiles!). Wracked with pon farr, Spock asks for leave back on his home planet, and eventually reveals that he must meet his betrothed, T’Pring (Arlene Martel). Naturally, Kirk and Spock end up in a fight to the death in one of the most iconic battles in “Star Trek” history. —J.O.

Original airdate: Sept. 15, 1967

Year of Hell

“Voyager” — Season 4, Episode 8 & 9

The most lasting criticism of “Voyager” is that every week, no matter what happened in the previous episode, the ship and crew emerged unscathed and ready for a new adventure. As if in response, this two-parter tracks a year in which the Voyager is ravaged to the point of near ruin by repeated encounters with an aggressive alien species called the Krenim. Unbeknownst to the crew, they’re actually the victims of a Krenim scientist, Annorax (Kurtwood Smith), who developed a technology to alter the fabric of time by erasing entire species from ever existing. This is as harrowing and merciless as “Trek’s” ever been, but it’s not quite the best episode of “Voyager” due to the irony of its ending: Janeway crashes the husk of the Voyager into Annorax’s timeship — which resets the timeline completely, as if nothing that we’d seen had ever happened. —A.B.V.

Original airdates: Nov. 5 & 12, 1997

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 3, Episodes 11 & 12

“Star Trek” often addresses timely societal issues, but this episode put them firmly in a 21st century context. Sisko, Bashir, and Dax accidentally wind up in San Francisco circa 2024, where poverty and oppression of the disadvantaged are running rampant (crazy how that remains timely, huh?). When a man meant to serve an important purpose in an historic riot is accidentally killed too soon, Sisko is forced to take his place. —J.O.

Original airdate: Jan. 2, 1995 & Jan. 9, 1995

Those Old Scientists

“Strange New Worlds” — Season 2, Episode 7

In one of the rare “Trek” crossover episodes, Ens. Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Ens. Mariner (Tawny Newsome) from “Lower Decks” find themselves zapped back to the era when Capt. Pike (Anson Mount) captained the Enterprise. Marshalled by Jonathan Frakes’ steady hand as a director , the disparate tones of “Lower Decks” and “Strange New World” somehow mesh perfectly, and hilariously, together. Packed with guffaw-worthy laughs, “Those Old Scientists” also becomes a deeply poignant expression of the impact “Trek” has had on generations of fans. Maybe it’s controversial to place one of the most recent “Trek” episodes so high on this list, but this one more than earns its spot. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: July 22, 2023

The Best of Both Worlds

“The Next Generation” — Season 3, Episode 26 & Season 4, Episode 1

This two-parter is frequently cited as the best “Next Generation” storyline of all time, mostly because it features one of the most iconic cliffhangers in all of television. The Borg attack the Federation, leading to a showdown with the Enterprise. Picard is captured and assimilated, revealing himself to his crew as Locutus of Borg. If we’re splitting Borg nano-probes, the second half doesn’t quite live up to the first, which is why, for us, it doesn’t quite rank into the Top 10. Special shoutout to this episode for setting up the incredible “Star Trek” film “First Contact.” —J.O.

Original airdate: June 18, 1990 & Sept. 24, 1990

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 1, Episode 19

When a Cardassian named Marritza (Harris Yulin) arrives on Deep Space Nine, Kira realizes he must have worked at one of the most notorious labor camps during Cardassia’s occupation of Bajor, and she arrests him as a war criminal. What follows is effectively a two-hander, as Kira’s interrogation of Marritza leads to a series of revelations that unmoor her hard-won fury at the atrocities inflicted upon her people. The conventional wisdom is that “DS9” didn’t get cooking until the Dominion War, but this early episode proves that this show was providing great, searing drama from the start. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: June 14, 1993

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 22

Ricardo Montalbán makes his debut as Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically superior dictator from Earth’s Eugenics Wars. Khan and his people have been in suspended animation for 200 years and are looking to dominate humanity once again. Naturally, Kirk is able to beat Khan in a riveting confrontation, but rather than send him and his people to a penal colony, he agrees to let them settle on the wild planet, Ceti Alpha V. The episode proved to be so good, it led to the 1982 film “Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan,” arguably the best “Trek” movie of all time. —J.O.

Original airdate: Feb. 16, 1967

“Voyager” — Season 5, Episode 6

There’s something about time travel — and the twisty narrative paradoxes it can cause — that has engendered some of the best episodes of “Trek” ever made. That certainly includes this stunning “Voyager” episode, which opens with Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) and Chakotay (Robert Beltran), 15 years in the future, discovering the frozen husk of the Voyager buried inside a glacier on a barren ice planet. It turns out Kim made a critical mistake that caused the catastrophic accident, from which only he and Chakotay survived. Their unyielding fixation to right that wrong — and erase the previous 15 years from history — makes for a gripping nail-biter about regret and devotion. Not only did LeVar Burton direct, but he cameos as Capt. Geordi La Forge! —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Nov. 18, 1998

The Defector

“The Next Generation” — Season 3, Episode 10

Did a Romulan admiral really defect to the Federation, or are the Romulans perpetrating an elaborate hoax on Picard and the Enterprise crew? This wonderful episode sees the admiral in question (played by James Sloyan) claiming the Romulans are building a secret base within the Neutral Zone, forcing Picard to consider whether or not he should investigate and thus risk starting a war. It also features the excellent opening in which Picard tries to teach Data about humanity by having him act out scenes from Shakespeare’s “Henry V.” —J.O.

Original airdate: Jan. 1, 1990

Chain of Command

“The Next Generation” — Season 6, Episode 10 & 11

Lured into Cardassian territory under false pretenses, Picard is captured and systematically tortured by a ruthless interrogator, Gul Madred, in a chilling performance by David Warner. Their disturbing tête-à-tête — Picard is stripped naked and nearly broken by the end — would be enough for one of the all-time best “Trek” episodes. But this two-parter also boasts Ronny Cox as Capt. Jellico, Picard’s replacement on the Enterprise, whose prickly and demanding leadership style creates all kinds of thrilling friction among the crew. —A.B.V.

Original airdates: Dec. 14 & 21, 1992

In the Pale Moonlight

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 6, Episode 19

In this fantastic episode, Sisko grapples with the ethics of doing whatever it takes to get the Romulans to join the Dominion War on the Federation-Klingon side. This includes falsifying evidence and freeing a known criminal from Klingon prison with the help of master spy Garak (played by the always wonderful Andrew Robinson). Sisko (while recording a personal log) delivers a series of powerful monologues direct to camera about why he did what he did, ultimately deciding it was worth it in the end. —J.O.

Original airdate: April 13, 1998

The City on the Edge of Forever

“The Original Series” — Season 1, Episode 28

Accidentally hopped up on stimulants, a crazed Bones leaps through a time portal on an alien planet and winds up changing history so drastically that the Enterprise disappears. Kirk and Spock travel back to stop him, and land in New York City during the Great Depression, where they learn that Bones saved the life of Sister Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), a pacifist whose message resonates so strongly that the U.S. stays out of WWII, allowing the Nazis to conquer Europe. Alas, Kirk falls deeply in love with Keeler, establishing a classic “Trek” moral dilemma: How does one suppress their most profound personal feelings for the greater good? An all-timer that still resonates today. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: April 6, 1967

Far Beyond the Stars

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 6, Episode 13

In this Avery Brooks-directed episode, Sisko envisions himself as a Black science fiction writer in 1950s New York named Benny Russell. Russell dreams up a story about the crew of a space station led by a Black captain, but his publisher refuses to run it. This episode is memorable for many reasons, the biggest of which being its handling of racism, but it also allows the show’s main cast gets to appear without any prosthetics or makeup, as completely different characters, to great effect. —J.O.

Original airdate: Feb. 9, 1998

Yesterday’s Enterprise

“The Next Generation” — Season 3, Episode 15

The Enterprise-C, believed to have been destroyed over 20 years earlier, emerges from a temporal anomaly and resets history into a decades-long war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Tasha — killed off in Season 1 (after Denise Crosby wanted to leave the show) — is brought back to life, and falls for the Enterprise-C’s helmsman (Christopher McDonald), while Guinan implores Picard that something is desperately wrong with history and he must send the Enterprise-C back to certain doom. Somehow, this episode crams a movie’s worth of story into a nimble and rousing 44 minutes. Not a second is wasted. Outrageously great. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: Feb. 19, 1990

The Inner Light

“The Next Generation” — Season 5, Episode 25

When the Enterprise comes upon a mysterious probe, Picard is suddenly hit with a signal that plunges him into a different man’s life on a dying planet. There, Picard experiences half a lifetime, with a wife, children and grandchildren, all in the space of 25 minutes. When Picard realizes this was all meant as a time capsule — a way to preserve the stories of the people of the planet, which was destroyed 1,000 years earlier by an exploding star — the revelation that he lived the life he’d long forsaken as a Starfleet captain, only to have it ripped away, is almost more than he can bear. But hoo boy, does it make for stunning, deeply moving television. In fact, almost no episode of “Trek” is better. Almost. —A.B.V.

Original airdate: June 1, 1992

The Visitor

“Deep Space Nine” — Season 4, Episode 2

Don’t watch this one without tissues handy. This emotionally devastating episode gets right to the heart of what made “DS9” so special — the relationship between Sisko and his son, Jake. Told in flashbacks by an elderly Jake (Tony Todd), the episode recounts how Sisko became unstuck in time, briefly revisiting Jake over the course of his life, and how Jake is determined to bring him back. In brief, fleeting moments, Sisko tells Jake not to worry about him and to live his life to the fullest. But Jake cannot bear the thought of losing his father forever, ultimately sacrificing his own life to restore the normal flow of time. —J.O.

Original airdate: Oct. 9, 1995

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Mirror Universe Episodes in Star trek

• Movies or TV
• IMDb Rating
• In Theaters
• Release Year

1. Star Trek (1966–1969) Episode: Mirror, Mirror (1967)

TV-PG | 50 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

A transporter accident places Captain Kirk's landing party in an alternate universe, where the Enterprise is in the service of a barbarically brutal empire.

Director: Marc Daniels | Stars: William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , DeForest Kelley , BarBara Luna

Votes: 5,140

2. Star Trek (1966–1969) Episode: The Tholian Web (1968)

TV-PG | 51 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

With Capt. Kirk and the derelict USS Defiant apparently lost, the Enterprise grapples with an insanity causing plague and an attack by the Tholians.

Directors: Herb Wallerstein , Ralph Senensky | Stars: William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , DeForest Kelley , James Doohan

Votes: 3,425

3. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999) Episode: Crossover (1994)

TV-PG | 46 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

Kira and Bashir find themselves in an alternate universe.

Director: David Livingston | Stars: Avery Brooks , Rene Auberjonois , Alexander Siddig , Terry Farrell

Votes: 2,294

4. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999) Episode: Through the Looking Glass (1995)

TV-PG | 45 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

Sisko is kidnapped and forced to impersonate his deceased mirror universe counterpart in order to convince Jennifer Sisko to defect to the Terran Rebellion.

Director: Winrich Kolbe | Stars: Avery Brooks , Rene Auberjonois , Alexander Siddig , Terry Farrell

Votes: 2,059

5. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999) Episode: Shattered Mirror (1996)

When the Mirror Universe counterpart of Sisko's deceased wife lures Jake to the other side, Sisko must follow and help the Terran resistance against the Alliance forces.

Director: James L. Conway | Stars: Avery Brooks , Rene Auberjonois , Michael Dorn , Terry Farrell

Votes: 1,969

6. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999) Episode: Resurrection (1997)

Major Kira takes a romantic interest in the mirror universe counterpart of her deceased lover Bareil after he transports himself into her universe and onto DS9.

Director: LeVar Burton | Stars: Avery Brooks , Rene Auberjonois , Michael Dorn , Terry Farrell

Votes: 1,912

7. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999) Episode: The Emperor's New Cloak (1999)

Quark and Rom have to rescue Grand Nagus Zek who's being held captive in the alternate universe.

Director: LeVar Burton | Stars: Avery Brooks , Rene Auberjonois , Nicole de Boer , Michael Dorn

Votes: 1,803

8. Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005) Episode: In a Mirror, Darkly (2005)

TV-PG | 43 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

Set in the dark and oppressive Mirror Universe, Commander Archer leads a mutiny in a bold attempt to seize control of an advanced starship - a vessel from the future that may be the key to saving the Terran Empire.

Director: James L. Conway | Stars: Scott Bakula , John Billingsley , Jolene Blalock , Dominic Keating

Votes: 2,014

9. Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005) Episode: In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II (2005)

The Mirror Universe saga concludes as Archer declares himself captain of a formidable starship from the future, while his alien crew launch a rebellion in a desperate bid to keep him from achieving ultimate power.

Director: Marvin V. Rush | Stars: Scott Bakula , John Billingsley , Jolene Blalock , Dominic Keating

Votes: 1,896

10. Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024) Episode: Into the Forest I Go (2017)

TV-MA | 47 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

Bypassing Starfleet's orders, Lorca uses the USS Discovery crew's ultimate asset, the ship itself, in an effort to end the war with the Klingons once and for all.

Director: Christopher J. Byrne | Stars: Sonequa Martin-Green , Doug Jones , Shazad Latif , Anthony Rapp

Votes: 5,127

11. Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024) Episode: Despite Yourself (2018)

TV-MA | 48 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

While in unfamiliar territory, the U.S.S. Discovery crew is forced to get creative in their next efforts to survive opposing and unprecedented forces and return home.

Director: Jonathan Frakes | Stars: Sonequa Martin-Green , Doug Jones , Shazad Latif , Anthony Rapp

Votes: 4,983

12. Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024) Episode: The Wolf Inside (2018)

TV-MA | 49 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

As the crew continues their guise, Burnham undergoes a merciless mission in hopes of helping the U.S.S. Discovery return home. Tilly works on restoring Stamets' neurofunction.

Director: T.J. Scott | Stars: Sonequa Martin-Green , Doug Jones , Shazad Latif , Anthony Rapp

Votes: 4,532

13. Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024) Episode: Vaulting Ambition (2018)

TV-MA | 38 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

Burnham heads to the ISS Charon with a special "gift" for the Emperor. With the help of an unexpected source, Stamets gains clarity while trapped inside the mycelial network. Saru asks for L'Rell's help.

Director: Hanelle M. Culpepper | Stars: Sonequa Martin-Green , Doug Jones , Shazad Latif , Anthony Rapp

Votes: 4,894

14. Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024) Episode: What's Past Is Prologue (2018)

TV-14 | 44 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

Lorca plans to move forward with a coup against the Emperor, propelling Burnham to make a quick decision to save not only herself, but the U.S.S. Discovery.

Director: Olatunde Osunsanmi | Stars: Sonequa Martin-Green , Doug Jones , Shazad Latif , Anthony Rapp

Votes: 4,693

15. Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024) Episode: The War Without, the War Within (2018)

TV-14 | 49 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

Burnham and the crew are faced with the harsh reality of the war during their absence. In order to move forward, Starfleet must use unconventional tactics and sources to take their next action against the Klingons.

Director: David Solomon | Stars: Sonequa Martin-Green , Doug Jones , Shazad Latif , Anthony Rapp

Votes: 3,982

16. Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024) Episode: Will You Take My Hand? (2018)

With Georgiou at the helm of the plan to end the Klingon war once and for all, the USS Discovery crew struggles to fathom and tolerate her hostile tactics. Memories of past hardships are rekindled within Burnham.

Director: Akiva Goldsman | Stars: Sonequa Martin-Green , Doug Jones , Shazad Latif , Anthony Rapp

Votes: 4,454

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Star Trek: The Next Generation: Mirror Universe Collection Effectively Captures a Badass Picard

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Mirror Universe Collection effectively captures a ruthless version of Picard and his I.S.S. Enterprise crew.

Within a franchise as extensive as  Star Trek , sometimes questioning what could have  happened to characters makes as strong a story as what's already been told. During  Star Trek 's run,  the idea of a parallel universe was first explored and later expanded on during  Star Trek: The Next Generation . Originally, Captain Kirk and Spock encountered their ruthless, mirror counterparts in a parallel universe during Star Trek 's "Mirror, Mirror" episode. IDW's  Star Trek: The Next Generation: Mirror Universe C ollection  asks: what if audiences met Jean-Luc Picard's dangerous counterpart and his cold I.S.S. Enterprise crew?

The omnibus Mirror-verse collection consists of three graphic novels that tie in together to form this alternative Star Trek reality and fists-flying version of Picard. In "Mirror Broken," Picard -- the captain of the I.S.S. Stargazer -- rallies his iconic Mirror-verse crew to claim the newly made ship Enterprise by force. In " Through the Mirror ," the Mirror-verse crew of the Enterprise invade the Prime universe and take their ship for themselves. However, Picard and his faithful crew aren't going down without a fight. Within the last section, "Terra Incognito," Mirror-verse Barclay decides to take his Prime counterpart's place undercover.

RELATED: Star Trek: What The Next Generation Did During the Dominion War

In stark contrast to the Prime universe with its United Federation of Planets, the Mirror Universe is set up as a dystopian place. The Terran Empire is preoccupied with conquest and is stuck in battle due to the alliance between the Cardassians and the Klingons. In the first few pages of the "Mirror Broken," Tasha Yar is literally stabbed in the back by Barclay after she impulsively destroys ships full of rebelling Vulcan slaves. Picard is pleased with the recent turn of events, which gives readers an immediate sense of how this rough universe operates.

The Mirror-verse characters make their evilness clear from their appearances -- sleeveless arm-bearing uniforms, scars, heavy makeup for the women, and of course, facial hair galore  for its male characters. While these designs are a bit silly, the writing team, made up of David and Scott Tipton, is careful to make sure these elements don't detract from the story's drama.

RELATED:  How The Next Generation Turned Scotty into Star Trek's Steve Rogers

Mirror Universe Collection boasts an entire gallery of artists, with each team creating visuals fitting the tone of the story they're assigned. "Mirror Broken," drawn by artist J.K. Woodward, pays homage to the airbrushed style of 1980s movie posters, whereas its epilogue, "Mirror Broken: Origin of Data" drawn by Josh Hood and Jason Lewis, has thick line weights, strong black placement and vibrant colors. However, at times, this chapter's art style can work against itself with stiff character poses and wooden facial expressions.

Of the three main sections, "Through the Mirror" has the strongest story, with double the cast and quintuple the artists, including Marcus To, Chris Johnson, Josh Hood, Carlos Nieto and Debora Carita. It's a real treat to see the crew of the Enterprise fight with their evil counterparts. There is also some solid comic relief throughout, especially with the subplot focusing on Barclay and his evil counterpart. The only downside to this section is that the differing art styles in each segment, while all very good, can be jarring when read together.

RELATED: Star Trek: How Marvel Created Its Own Take on Strange New Worlds

The collection's final section, "Terra Incognito," picks up where "Into the Mirror" left off, with Mirror-verse Barclay infiltrating the Prime Enterprise, which causes ripple effects on the crew's diplomatic negotiations. While at times the plots of this section are meandering, they do bring strong character development for Wesley, Beverly Crusher, Selar and Troi.

At over 400 pages of story, Mirror Universe Collection is at times an unwieldy read. While there is a lot of attention to detail, the collection's segments can be overwhelming on a first reading. However, the writing is consistently strong throughout, and the art styles, while dizzying in their numbers, effectively capture the aesthetic of the series.  Star Trek: The Next Generation: Mirror Universe Collection is an immense and impressive omnibus, covering and exploring many untold storylines. While it may lack the warmth of the stories and characters from the Prime universe that fans are most familiar with, the Mirror Universe still has enough stories of its own to create a compelling, intriguing read that's worth revisiting.

KEEP READING: Star Trek: The Mirror War Year-Long Event Announced by IDW

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Mirror Universe / Star Trek

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As the Trope Maker the Star Trek franchise is full of examples:

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• The IDW comic story "Mirrored" gives us the Mirror Universe of the Kelvin Timeline Universe. As Captain Spock vanquishes the Klingons in the name of the Terran Empire, Commander Kirk vists Rura Penthe to get revenge on Nero (who in this universe never escaped, and has been there since the attack on the Kelvin ). Then Kirk ends up with control of the Narada , and things get worse.
• "Succession" deals with what happened in the mirror universe following season 1 of Star Trek: Discovery and what became of the Terran Michael Burnham.
• More recently, IDW has reimagined Dark Mirror by introducing a new iteration of the ISS Enterprise -D, whose make incursions into the prime universe in their attempts to raise the Terran Empire's fortunes in their conflict against the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. A prequel shows young Jean-Luc Picard aboard the ISS Stargazer . A spin-off features the ISS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, coming into conflict with Neelix and Kes whilst discovering an unassimilated Annika Hansen, whose references to the Borg pique Captain Janeway's interest, leading to her appearance in Star Trek: Online .
• The one-shot "Hell's Mirror" depicts the confrontation between the heroic Khan Noonien Singh and the crazed Captain Kirk.
• The Star Trek: The Next Generation novel "Dark Mirror" explores a Mirror Universe where the Terran Empire, or the United Empire of Planets as its called here, survives well into the 24th century after Spock's efforts to reform the Empire fail. By the 2360s the Empire is running out of space to conquer and makes an unsuccessful attempt to conquer the prime universe. note  Obviously, the novel was written several years before Star Trek: Deep Space Nine explains what really happened to the Empire after Kirk left. However since the episode " Parallels " established that an infinite number of parellel universes existed this could provide an explanation of why the "Dark Mirror" Mirror Universe was different.
• Star Trek Shatnerverse novels explain that the Klingon-Cardassian alliance was the brainchild of former Emperor Kirk as a means of taking revenge on Spock for deposing him from the throne and to regain the Terran Empire's throne for himself. This was mainly due to Mirror Spock deciding not to kill Kirk after his return. Spock did manage to save the Halkans by claiming they were a client state of the Klingons and that attacking them could lead to a war with the Klingons that the Empire didn't want at the time. This resulted in Kirk getting a commendation for seeing through the Halkan trap.
• In the Star Trek Novel 'Verse novels set in the Mirror Universe established that Spock was unable to convince Kirk to spare the Halkans and got in a fight with the man. Spock killed Kirk and then disposed of Kirk's body with the Tantalus Field. After Spock's opponents accquired the same habit of disappearing that Kirk's opponents used to have, dissent died down on the ISS Enterprise . Gathering power and influence, Spock rose to command the Empire, which he soon disestablished in favor of the Terran Republic, but the Klingons and Cardassians still wanted revenge for the Empire's acts. Spock died on Earth in the novel verse, but his followers were able to engineer a rebellion that would in time liberate Earth and its allies from the Klingons and Cardassians.
• Also, the Expanded Universe does show us more than one version of the Mirror Universe, though whether it's intentional or simply the Trek EU not being having nearly as tight continuity as the Star Wars one is unknown. "Dark Passions" is quite incompatible with the Shatnerverse version, for example. Also, one book written well after DS9 features several alternate universes, including one featuring the ISS Enterprise -E of the Terran Empire, which doesn't work with the DS9 incarnation of the MU, so that one is clearly deliberately alternate from the beginning.
• It also explores how long the unique mindset of the Terran Empire has been around. In Dark Mirror , Picard reads that universe's version of The Merchant of Venice , which has Portia saying "The quality of mercy must be earned ", and pointing how it's silly to expect a pound of flesh not to have blood too, allowing Shylock to get his revenge. Picard sees The Bible and refuses to read it.
• And was actually an Unbuilt Trope in its first appearance. Even though his mirror counterpart had a Beard of Evil , Spock was, as the show put it, "A man of honor in both universes", and not strictly evil in the mirror universe despite clearly being on the side of the angels in the primary reality. Further, the Aliens Of The Week were Actual Pacifists in both the 'normal' universe and in the Mirror Universe.
• There were several non-canonical sources made between before DS9 that explored the Mirror Universe. As the setting wasn't as well defined as it was later by DS9 some continuity elements may shock some readers. For example the term "Terran" wasn't coined until DS9, thus the works refer to the Empire (which was nameless in the original "Mirror, Mirror" episode) as the United Empire of Planets (for example in the TNG novel Dark Universe , in which the Empire is still pretty much fine in the 24th century) and in some countinuities as the Human-Vulcan Empire with Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites having more equal footing in the Empire than was shown in Enterprise . However this might explained why Vulcans shared the punishment and were turn into slaves by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance.
• Certain other aspects of characters are flipped in the mirror universe as well. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , Bashir is a stupid and brutish thug (most likely due to never having been genetically altered), Odo is a sadistic slave overseer , Jadzia is a Psycho Knife Nut who is mirror Sisko's lover, mirror Sisko (while a good guy) has very little in the way of restrained self-control, and mirror Ezri and Leeta (while also not villains, though also not squeaky-clean) are both lesbians. Brunt of all people becomes a Nice Guy . Things get ridiculous when an entirely fictional holodeck character appears as a real person , (perhaps his mirror creator makes androids instead of holodeck characters?) whereupon everyone gives up trying to make sense of things.
• When the prequel series Enterprise revisited it in "In A Mirror Darkly," it also completely changed its opening credits' entire mood from "Idealistic Yet Not Naive Hope" to "War! Conquest! Exploding Slow Lasers ! " Moreover, since almost everyone except maybe the Vulcans is shown to be evil in one way or another, the ending in which The Bad Guy Wins doesn't really come as a surprise. What does come as something of a twist is it's the bad gal who wins, and then promptly proclaims herself Empress.
• The episode "Parallels" does show one Mirror Universe from the Bajorans perspective, as in one is them who are the enemies of the Federation (not the Cardassians) and who actually conquest Cardassia and not the other way around.
• "Living Witness" opened with what appeared to be a mirror universe setting, with a vicious Janeway threatening a planet to get resources. It turned out to be an inaccurate historical record written by this civilization some time in the future, based on an incident with Voyager several hundred years ago. The holographic doctor's backup unit is later activated and sets the record straight. Those familiar with Deep Space 9's episodes likely knew it wasn't the case, those who hadn't been watching...
• We are also introduced to the one biological difference between a Mirror Universe Terran and Prime Universe human: sensitivity to light . This is how Michael recognizes that the Lorca she serves under is actually from the Mirror Universe. And it retroactively explains why Mirror Universe ships had poorer lighting .
• We also meet the reigning emperor of the Terran Empire - Phillipa Georgiou, who is as different from Captain Phillipa Georgiou as day from night. When she ends up in the Prime universe, courtesy of Burnham, the first thing she does is nearly shoot Commander Saru for not immediately bowing down to her, as befits a proper slave (he's an alien, therefore a slave in her universe). She then convinces Starfleet to allow her to destroy Qo'noS, just like she did in the Mirror Universe, in order to force an end to the war .
• This arc does explore some implications that are ignored in the other shows. Given that the Mirror counterparts are bloodthirsty and evil, killing each other any chance they get , and crossovers have been happening for centuries, it starts to stretch credibility that nearly everyone has a living counterpart as well as a somewhat similar background (Kirk is still captain of the Enterprise , O'Brien is still an engineer at Deep Space Nine, etc). Michael discusses with several individuals the oddity of how similar yet different their background remained, and implied some sort of cosmic element keeping the two universes connected .
• The third season of Discovery reveals that the Starfleet of the fourth millennium has figured out how to scan for the specific genetic differences between humans and Terrans in order to catch any "visitors" from the other universe. Furthermore, they claim to have isolated a protein chain that supposedly makes Terrans evil. Georgiou brushes off their claims as overly simplistic. It's also revealed that the two universes have moved apart, and there haven't been any visitors in 500 years. Going back in time through the Guardian of Forever , Georgiou influences an alternate version of the mirror universe she lived through in season 1.
• Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard introduces a different Mirror Universe, which is actually the regular timeline, altered by Q changing the past . In this one, the dominant power is the Confederation of Earth rather than the Terran Empire, but it has much the same policies, only it seems to be more efficient because it's a more Lawful and less Chaotic evil. Picard is a ruthless general who collects the skulls of his enemies, Rios is a colonel fighting against the Vulcans, Seven is the President, with Agnes as her chief scientist and Raffi as her head of security, and Elnor is a Romulan freedom fighter. If anything, this is more chilling than the regular Mirror Universe, because while it's usually presented as having always been like that , this universe is specifically the result of something that happened as recently as 2024 . The Confederation of Earth is in many ways similar to the Mirror Universe 's Terran Empire. Both are xenophobic to the extreme, but the Empire focuses on enslavement, while the Confederation prefers to exterminate aliens. There also seems to be a lot less backstabbing in the Confederation, with loyalty to humanity being paramount. An interesting difference is that the Confederation Star Corps seems to use army ranks instead of navy ranks, so we have General Picard and Colonel Rios. This version of Picard is a ruthless conqueror, slayer of many aliens, including General Martok, Gul Dukat, and Sarek. Also, while the Empire was always on the verge of rebellion from the aliens, the Confederation seems to be a lot more successful in stamping out dissent and is even more successful militarily, having managed to defeat the Borg.
• Star Trek Shattered Universe has Captain Sulu and the USS Excelsior drawn into the mirror universe, where they are confronted by Captain Chekov of the USS Enterprise -A.
• The Ultimate Universe mod for Star Trek: Legacy includes a bunch of Terran Empire equivalents of Federation ships from the ENT, TOS and TNG eras.
• The "Mirror of Discovery" arc introduces the Discovery -era Terrans including Captain Tilly.
• The emperor is eventually identified as Wesley Crusher , though they relinquish the position after the Terran Gambit arc, replaced by Leeta with Marshal Janeway and her borg armies at their side. As mentioned above, this arc draws on concepts from the IDW comics.
• As part of all this, the player can acquire and fly Mirror Universe vessels. The Tier 5 Mirror ships found in lockboxes are nearly identical to their main-universe counterparts with only minor differences in console configuration and bridge crew seating, while the Tier 6 Terran ships found in the Zen store are entirely new ships not seen before (there are no Tier 6 Mirror Universe Klingon or Romulan ships yet).
• Star Trek Continues : The episode "Fairest of Them All" is a direct continuation of the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror" which deals with the immediate aftermath of the episode. Unable to prevent Kirk from destroying the Halkan homeworld, Spock leads a mutiny against Kirk and most of the crew takes Spock's side after Kirk says what he really thinks of the Enterprise crew in a room where Spock had turned on the intercom . Spock gives Kirk and his few loyalists a shuttlecraft so they can reach the nearest habitable world.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks shows Mariner going into a holo-deck simulation of the Mirror Universe which she calls it by that name. The simulation however shows the Terran Empire which by that time was already defeated.
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