Article posted on Friday April 22, 2005 by Michael van Poppel at 6.39 am EST / 3.39 am PST.

Exclusive, detailed, info from the "In A Mirror, Darkly" Part 1 and 2. Part 1 airs tonight on UPN, followed by Part 2 on April 29th.

 

 

Here's a report on the whole 2-part arc:

Teaser and Opening Credits
The teaser, before the credits, is the last scene from First Contact, where we see the Vulcan ship touch down, preparing First Contact with humans. 
We see Zefram Cochrane and the crowd standing expectantly.
The Vulcan Captain, played by Cully Fredricksen, gives him the hand sign and says "Live Long and Prosper"
Zefram pulls out a shotgun and shoots him!
Someone says, "Get their ship! Kill them all!"
That's how the Terran Empire starts.
The First Contact theme is played behind the teaser scene, but the opening credits have new music, very military.

"In A Mirror, Darkly" is set in the mirror universe of "Mirror, Mirror," from the Original Series. It begins with alternate credits and alternate music. The images show the development of the Terran Empire. Very cool. 
It ends with an animated logo of the Terran Empire, familiar if you've seen TOS episode "Mirror mirror."

Episode
The episode begins aboard the Imperial Starship Enterprise. 
Captain Forrest is in command, Archer is his first officer. T'Pol and Hoshi wear a midriff baring uniform.
Hoshi is Forrest's concubine!

Anyway, First Officer Archer wants Captain Forrest to investigate reports of an unusual spaceship in Tholian space. However, Forrest refuses. 
A bunch of stuff happens, Archer commandeers the Enterprise and goes off to investigate the reports.
They find a Tholian colony on asteroids around a planet. The Defiant is inside one of them.
Archer, Trip (who has a nasty scar), T'Pol and a couple of MACOs beam over.
It looks exactly like it did when we last saw it in "The Tholian Web", right down to the two dead guys in front of the captain's chair.

Meanwhile, the Tholians attack Enterprise. We see three ships encircle it in a Tholian Web. It's a very cool effect.
Forrest, who has gotten free, tries to fight them. Archer and the others try to get the Defiant's weapons online, but can't in time. The tholian Web contracts. Enterprise blows up! ...But not before a bunch of escape pods leave.
Archer and the others manage to get the Defiant operating. They escape the asteroid dock and blow up all the Tholians. Then they beam the survivors on board. One of them is Hoshi.

T'Pol, meanwhile, has been secretly plotting with Forrest to kill Archer. Now that Forrest is dead, Archer manages to keep her in line, but, T'Pol is still conspiring with a Mengele-like Phlox to sabotage the Defiant.
Meanwhile, Archer has plans to take the Defiant back to Earth and unseat the Emperor and become the new leader of the Empire.

In the meantime, Archer discovers one of those green wrap around uniforms that Kirk used to wear and T'Pol puts on a powder blue miniskirt. Very '60s.
Oh, and there's a Gorn in there somewhere too! While Phlox tortures a Tholian.
Also we get to see a completely computer animated Constellation class starship that looks so cool I can't even tell you.

I loved this episode and the next one. It's two parts.
On a scale from 1 to 5, 5 stars, definitely.
I'd say it's one of the best arcs this year, it really rewards the longtime fan with tons of references to the original series It almost felt like an original series episode. 

 

How does it end? Scroll down!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOW DOES THE ARC END? [MAJOR SPOILERS!]
Archer and the Defiant succeed in defeating the rebellion against the Empire, also defeats the conspiracy by T'Pol and other Vulcans to commandeer the Defiant and even kills the Starfleet admiral on his way to Earth. But as he's celebrating with Hoshi, she poisons him, kills him and, with a sinister Mayweather by her side, arrives at Earth in command of the Defiant and orders Starfleet to stand down or she'll start destroying cities. And she calls herself "Empress Sato."

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