Sci-Fi Universe

Article posted on Sunday April 24, 2005 by David J. Nixon at 8.07 am EST / 5.07 am PST.

"In A Mirror, Darkly" Part 1 review by David J. Nixon.
This review is property of Sci-Fi Universe and writer David J. Nixon and is written for personal use only.

Alright I’m as sad as the next person that Star Trek is going off the air now for a long time. However it only further enrages me to discover that it could have all been very different and we’d have all been chanting: “7 more years” after Broken Bow had the writers started off with “In a Mirror Darkly Part 1”. It’s ridiculous how now at the end Enterprise has become so good. But at least we’re going out on an amazing high!

Let’s begin with stating the obvious, the opening montage was brilliant and I love the theme music. Now that’s the way the series should always have been but no we got rubbish “Faith of the Heart”. It is so cool to see the possible Earth history after the point of divergence presented during the opening teaser. It was so good that I’m not even sure if it was entirely new or was partially recreated or totally recreated. I’d have to go and put on First Contact to make the comparison but definitely the whole thing reeks of brilliance and high production values!

The whole interactions onboard between members of the crew is stellar and this is definitely how they should have done it from day one. Had they just started off Enterprise making Hoshi the Captain’s concubine, having the rivalry between Archer and Forrest and everything with Malcolm, T’Pol and Trip and remember Travis, then my goodness this would have been one amazing show. We would actually be desiring to learn more about these characters because they are rich in background information. We wouldn’t have any complaints about two dimensional characters who never get any things to do. We wouldn’t have any of the major problems that we currently do and we’d still have a series to go on for a few more years. People would actually have watched Enterprise because it would be able to go to revolutionary new places and totally break from the norm that we’ve established with Trek continuity. There would have been no more canon bashing or anything because the writers would have all new territory to go and explore In short this Enterprise that we saw today would have been the greatest chapter of Trek opened since Deep Space Nine ended its fantastic run at the end of the last millennium.

For anyone who has up until now thought that Hoshi is a boring and rubbish character, the way Linda Park has played her mirror universe alter-ego totally goes to disprove these feelings. If anything she’s risen up as the new girl of Enterprise and had we introduced this very sexual character from the beginning the whole Trip/T’Pol forced sex scenes of last season would have been unnecessary as we’d have the whole story of Hoshi/Archer/Forrest. With this comes so much cause for conflict and a real story. So much could have been done with her character in this setting but yet despite the joys of what we’re seeing now it’s sad to now that in 2 weeks we’re going to see the same old Hoshi back – fully clad!

The CGI in this episode is some of the best we’ve seen with the orgasmic inspiring use of the Tholian Web weapon for the first time in decades and the first time we’ve ever properly seen a Tholian since those days too. I was really impressed with how good the designers made the Tholian look because it was believably real and even in death it was a brilliant sight to behold. I think that if anything, we’ve learnt that this enigmatic race is one of the most interesting ever created in Trek. Maybe we love them so much because we’ve seen them and known so little about them but with a certain race about to appear for the first time in as many years in Part II I can’t say that I can wait a whole week to see them again. I think that Coto’s working hard to make sure that we all get to see everything we’ve always wanted on Enterprise while there still is time. Certainly the Constitution Class Starship was beautiful It looked like it should look and I can’t wait to see it in action over the next week because it will be amazing!

The story itself is brilliant and you can tell that Sussman was behind this episode. It has that class and superiority that is so clearly apparent! It is jam packed with the stuff that Trekkies have been wanting to see for years and references to everything Mirror Universe. The story seems to be very rich in detail with references to the rebellion and everything. Clearly this is going to be a storyline returned to over the coming episodes and I look forward to it. So long as we don’t get any big moon sized battle stars going to blow up the rebel’s base then I’ll be quite happy!

So all in all this is one brilliant episode of Trek, which I’m sure will now rank as the best in all of Enterprise’s run and one of the best in Trek fandom as a whole. It’s really that good. Have you not seen it yet? Shame on you, go watch it NOW!

Written by David J. Nixon.