Star Trek: Mirror, Mirror

It is time for the next episode of Star Trek. Today it is Mirror, Mirror.

Mirror, Mirror takes Kirk, McCoy, Uhura and Scotty to an alternate Enterprise in a parallel universe, commonly called the "Mirror Universe," where the Federation is an evil empire and our familiar characters have transformed along with it.

The whole concept was popular enough to spawn several Mirror Universe episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (which I didn't especially like), an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise (which was quite good) and an episode from the fan-produced Star Trek Continues (more on that later in this post).

I am totally down with the concept of a parallel universe or even that the Many Worlds theory of branching universes which could lead to something sort of like what is portrayed in this episode but it is clear that the audience needs to check their brains at the door and just go with it.

McCoy: "That spot, I spilt acid there a year ago."

The Mirror Universe Enterprise and the standard (normal?) universe have diverged significantly, so to expect the Enterprise of both universes to be crewed by the same people who have been doing the same things, like McCoy's having spilled acid in sick bay in the same place in both universes, is silly.

Yet here we are. The crew of the Enterprise of both universes is paying a visit to the Halkans to see about getting dilithium crystals. An ion storm in both universes hits just as both landing parties are beaming up from the planet surface, causing each group to transpose universes.

Just like sliding down the Bat Pole, everyone changes their clothes during the beam up.

They've been cast into an alternate Enterprise where officers keep a personal guard, crew members advance in rank through assassination, torture is used to discipline the crew, and Spock has a beard.  

A beard!

I wont go into all the details but there's a lot of jockeying for position as Kirk refuses to annihilate the Halakans. Chekov and his entourage tries to assassinate Kirk. Later Spock tells Kirk, "I am ordered to kill you and to proceed against the Halkans as the new captain of the Enterprise."

Interestingly enough, that warning from Spock was the dramatic sendoff before a commercial break. When the action resumes, it's with Kirk narrating a Captain's log saying in part, "We are trapped in a savage, parallel universe from which we must escape within four hours, or I will face a death sentence at Mister Spock's hands." Yet, the resulting scene is of him having a casual drink with Marlena, the 'captain's woman' in this parallel universe. Kirk doesn't seem too worried, does he?

Speaking of Marlena, played by the lovely Barbara Luna, back in the day her outfits generated some angry letters from viewers as they were considered by some to be too revealing. 

Anyway, Kirk and the gang have figured out that they can use the ship to get back to their home universe. Alas, Spock is on to them and a big fight breaks out in Sickbay. Uhura gives the Captain one of those skulls that I mentioned in my Amok Time blog post and they take Spock down with a skull to his skull.

With no visible damage to Spock at all, McCoy is convinced that he'll die if he doesn't get immediate medical treatment. Sulu shows up with his goons to kill them all, but Marlena saves the day with an alien device introduced earlier that I'm not going bother with here. Everyone but McCoy flees to the transporter room to prepare their escape and then Spock exhibits a sudden, remarkable complete recovery. Fastest near-death turn around ever. He then mind melds with the good doctor, learning that the four of them are from another universe.

Marlena shows up in the transporter room to foil the escape plans but Uhura saves the day. The time left to make the return to their universe is growing short when Spock enters with McCoy, telling them, "You must return to your universe. I must have my captain back."

Which gives Kirk the opportunity to give us a dramatic sendoff:

"The illogic of waste, Mister Spock. The waste of lives, potential, resources, time. I submit to you that your Empire is illogical because it cannot endure. I submit that you are illogical to be a willing part of it...If change is inevitable, predictable, beneficial, doesn't logic demand that you be a part of it?...Be the captain of this Enterprise, Mister Spock. Find a logical reason for sparing the Halkans and make it stick. Push till it gives...What will it be? Past or future? Tyranny or freedom? It's up to you...In every revolution, there's one man with a vision."

It's Kirk doing what Kirk and Trek does best, giving us hope for the future--even in an evil alternate universe. Kirk, et al. return to their home universe, where Spock had placed the alternate Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and Scotty in the brig. Strangely, upon their return Spock tells them that he assumes that "they returned to their Enterprise at the same time you appeared here." Gee, maybe somebody should check that out.

If you want to see if Kirk's challenge to Mirror Spock made a difference, then be sure to watch The Fairest Of Them All from Star Trek Continues. It is a worthy sequel to Mirror, Mirror that follows the events in the Mirror Universe right after this TOS episode. I wont give any details here, as you should watch it for yourself. I will say that Star Trek Continues is producing new episodes that look and feel like classic Trek. They've only produced three so far, but they are very good.

Returning to Mirror, Mirror, veteran composer Fred Steiner returned to the Trek universe to compose about 14 minutes of new music for this episode. Strangely he reused his Romulan theme from Balance of Terror as the 'Blackship theme' used here to represent the alternate, evil universe. There's a slow, romantic version of it too written for Marlena. Steiner always delivered good music for Trek and this is no exception.

That's it for Mirror, Mirror. Next up is The Deadly Years.

Lightning Storm!

The summer monsoon season in the desert southwest is a wonderful time. It gives the region life-sustaining rain. At the same time it gives photographers a vast treasure trove of beautiful sunsets, rainbows and (my favorite) lightning.

Last night there was an impressive lightning display in and around Tucson, Arizona and I was able to catch the show from my back yard. Lightning is easiest to photograph when it is dark and when the storm is relatively far from you. This puts the lighting in one general direction (helping you to know where to point your camera) and keeps the danger at a minimum.

My first catch of the evening wasn't all that impressive as the lightning bolt was too far away, but things got better. Except where noted, all exposures were 30 seconds.

Two 30-second exposures combined in Star Stax

I decided to try a new direction and caught two shots (combined above) and realized that I was pointing in the wrong place and that the real action was just beginning. Below are some of my favorite shots from the lightning display.

I couldn't resist combining all of my images into one mega shot of all the lightning strikes. The combined images represent 22 minutes of exposure. I also dropped the images into iMovie to make a quick time-lapse video. Here is the result:

There's a chance of more thunderstorms tonight through the end of next week. Hopefully, I'll be able to catch some more lightning.

The Sunrise Before the Storm

Moisture from Hurricane Norbert is supposed to possibly deliver heavy rains to Arizona this weekend. You certainly couldn't tell that from this morning's calm sunrise.

Enjoy your weekend.

The Quarter Moon and the Gibbous Moon

Here are shots of Tuesday's first quarter moon and tonight's gibbous moon.

First Quarter Approaches

Hey, it's football season! What better way to celebrate then by looking at the moon in it's nearly first quarter phase. All right, I'll admit that's a bit weak, but why not?

Above is a shot of the moon from last night, August 31 and below is tonight's nearly first quarter moon.

As the month moves forward I'll try to post pics of the moon when it is full (halftime) and in its third quarter phase too. Fourth quarter is tough though.

Star Trek: The Apple

It is time for another episode of Star Trek, today it is

While there are things I like about The Apple it certainly has more than a couple of flaws. It bears more than a strong resemblance to the season one episode Return of the Archons (a society controlled by a machine) with elements of Shore Leave (mysterious force threatening the Enterprise), This Side of Paradise (flowers that shoot stuff), and Who Morns for Adonias (phasering a structure at the end to save the day) thrown in too. Hey, they can't all be original, can they?

The Apple was written by author Max Ehrlich (with heavy re-writes by Gene L. Coon). Ehrlich was no stranger to TV or science fiction. He penned The Big Eye, a cheesy 1949 novel set a Palomar Observatory, which seems to borrow heavily from the 1933 novel When Worlds Collide, which was made into the 1951 movie of the same name.

The episode begins with the landing party, heavily stocked with Red Shirts, beaming down to Gamma Trianguli VI. Kirk explains that the previous ship in the area reported strange sensor readings and it is their mission to check them out and to make contact with the natives - basically their orders are to violate the Prime Directive, which apparently is more of a guideline than a rule.

They've beamed down a mere 17 kilometers (!), that's 10.5 miles, from the village they're going to contact, so they'd better get hiking.

I really like the planet set's orange sky that was created for Gamma Trianguli VI. Awesome stuff.

It's not a good day to be a Red Shirt, or Spock for that matter. The first Red Shirt to bite the dust, Hendorf, is killed by a flower even before the opening credits roll.

What, me worry?

Kirk calls up to report the death of a crewman and Scotty tells him that they are "losing potency in our antimatter pods" and the doesn't think it's serious, but they're looking into it.

Meanwhile Spock discovers that the rocks on the planet are explosive and he becomes the target of one of those pesky, killer flowers. McCoy can't seem to help him, so Kirk decides that the landing party, except for the two Red Shirts that have already started the long hike to the village, should beam up.

Except it doesn't work & the shuttle craft must be on the blink. It's okay though, as after the commercial break Spock is just fine.

Very suddenly a big storm rolls in and, wouldn't you know it, Red Shirt Number Two (Kaplan), gets hit by lightning and disintegrates.

 

Shortly afterwards, Red Shirt Number Three (Mallory), who was excitedly returning after having found the village, trips over one of those explosive rocks that Spock found while he was away, and is killed.

Marc Cushman's wonderful book These Are the Voyages TOS Season Two reports that this explosion sent the actor to the emergency room. As you can see in the shot above at right, he was directly on top of the charge. The earlier explosion, where Spock tossed the rock, was also a problem, giving the cast damage to their hearing.

We soon meet Akuta, the eyes and ears of Vaal their 'god'. When asked about Vaal, Akuta says, "He causes the rains to fall and the sun to shine. All good comes from Vaal." Spock's readings indicate that the real workings of Vaal lie deep beneath the planet's surface.

Meanwhile, things are not good on the Enterprise - they've been hit with a tractor beam and will be pulled out of the sky and burn up in 16 hours. To add insult to injury, Kirk tells Scotty that if he can't get the warp drive working he's fired. 

The people of Vaal are very friendly and welcoming. When Kirk asks about children in the village, Akuta is confused. Kirk further explains and Akuta realizes what he means, "Replacements. None are necessary. They are forbidden by Vaal." When asked about love and intimacy he gives a similar response, "The holding, the touching. Vaal has forbidden this." Prompting McCoy to say, "Well, there goes paradise."

Soon it is time for the people to feed Vaal, with baskets of fruit. There must be a Mr. Fusion in there somewhere.

For most of the episode Checkov has been trying to get close to Yeoman Landon, at one point prompting Kirk to say, "I know you find each other fascinating, but we're not here to conduct a field experiment in human biology." They finally get some alone time for kissing and are observed by two of the People of Vaal (that's David Soul on the right, who was later famous for playing "Hutch" in TV's Starsky & Hutch.), who decide to try it out for themselves. That's not something that Vaal is happy with. Akuta gets instructions from Vaal on how to kill the newcomers. 

The next morning Kirk and Spock decide to pay another visit to Vaal who zaps Spock with a bolt of lightning. Being a main character and all, he does not disintegrate the way Red Shirt Number Two did. 

Soon the villagers make their attack and are easily defeated, but not before Red Shirt Number Four is killed, certainly a more honorable death than being done in by a flower or tripping over a rock. The villagers are rounded up and locked in a hut.

Time has run out for the Enterprise. They try one big push with impulse power, but it's no use. The ship is going to burn up with everyone on board, so Kirk tells Scotty he's fired. Good move, Kirk. This likely will save Starfleet paying out some cash in survivor benefits to Scotty's nearest relatives. Maybe with the money saved they can build a new starship.

But wait, Vaal is hungry and must be fed. The landing party keeps the villagers locked in the hut and Kirk orders Scotty (who being the awesome guy he is obeys on his own time) to fire phasers at Vaal. Even though Vaal is protected by a force field, which the phasers never penetrate, and even though the real heart of Vaal is deep under ground, the phasers still manage to kill Vaal, saving the Enterprise and leaving the people totally on their own. I guess Vaal was really hungry and starved to death.

Akuta wonders how they will survive but Kirk tells them that they will figure it out and everyone, except the guy in the back on the right, seems happy to move on.

We get our happy ending and the chance to make fun of Spock by comparing him to Satan, even though it was Kirk who cast out the People of Vaal from paradise. Along the way there was discussion as to if their society was functioning or not and how this all played out with the Prime Directive but as we all know, when Kirk's ship is on the line all the rules go out the window.

The Apple is a fun episode if you check your logical brain and just go with it but doesn't hold up to well to any level of scrutiny.

There was almost no new music written for this episode. Several minutes of percussion were written and recorded for the episode but were never used. They are available on the La-La Land Records complete release of Star Trek TOS music, but nothing to write home about. Instead, why not check out the song for the episode written by the band Five Year Mission. It's pretty wonderful.

Next up, Mirror, Mirror.