25th April, 2024: an introduction.
Right …
It’s official.
It’s Discovery night!
OK, alright.
It’s Thurday.
Which means …
Once I’ve had dinner!
I’ve got just one question.
Why on Earth didn’t I but some sliced cheese, when I got the chance?
Then shifts …
To show us Cleveland ‘Book’ Booker (David Ajala), recording his personal long: reminding himself that his mentor — Cleveland Booker 4th — always said that “… the one thing you always had was a choice.”
Book knows this is true: from the choices — good and bad — he, himself, has made over the years.
It’s an opportunity he feels he can extend to the villainous Moll (Eve Harlow): as and when he meets her.
Something he feels he may be able to do, soon: as the USS Discovery is at the last known co-ordinates of Moll and L’ak’s ship.
Up on the bridge of the Discovery?
We see that Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) is with her senior staff: for a big briefing from Commander Stametz and Lieutenant Tilly (Anthony Rapp and Mary Wiseman).
The Discovery is at the apparent location of the next piece of the Progenitors puzzle: a place that contains absolutely nothing, as Moll and L’ak’s warp trail disappears into apparently empty space.
Empty space that is less empty than it looks.
Stamets and Tilly have realised the area’s contents are buried deep in an obscure part of the electro magnetic spectrum: and show that there’s a wormhole* that’s hidden from view: a wormhole that’s opening and closing on a regular basis, and only enterable some of the time …
It’s a metaphorical rabbit hole down which Moll and L’ak’s ship … has disappeared …
There’s only one thing for it.
Captain Burnham is going to need Book, a gun, a shuttle … and for Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) and company to beef up communications, whilst she’s gone.
She’s got a job to do.
~≈🖖≈~
Now … what did I make of “Mirrors”?
Of an episode with much to much to unpack … ?
First things first?
My irreverent side tells me that — in the flash back scenes? — Moll looks like a cross between Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter films, and Pris, in Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner.
 |
| Moll |
 |
| Hermione |
 |
| Pris |
That’s possibly beside the point.
The first thing I should say? Is that I made a prediction in my review of episode two: that Moll and L’ak (Elias Toufexis) would find a piece of the puzzle, wait for the Discovery to catch up, then steal the Discovery’s pieces from them in a dramatic confrontation in the last episode.
In a big dramatic finale, or stunning denouement, what-have-you!
After all: something similar happens in Doctor Who’s Key to Time season.
Look up The Armageddon Factor, if you get the chance.
I was half wrong, and half right.
I was expecting Moll and L’ak to gain possession of a vital piece, and have the associated showdown, a lot later in the series.
I’m surprised … but not shocked
And very entertained by the story I’ve seen.
~≈🖖≈~
There’s other things that caught my eye.
Something I’ve noticed about the Star Trek franchise, over the years?
Is the fact it — if it’s not perfect at it — then, at least, makes an effort with world-building.
And? We see that, again, with “Mirrors”.
There’s plenty of throw-away lines about Commander Rayner’s Kellerun people, for example.
The episode also reintroduces the Breen: and — in a series of flashbacks that tells how Moll and he first meet — we find that L’ak is a member of the mysterious people.
I am impressed, especially with the re-designed costumes … but also slightly annoyed about their reintroduction.
On the upside … ?
We get to learn more about the Breen: we learn what they look like, learn a little more about their culture, and that — yes — they can speak other languages apart from their own†.
On the downside?
I had to switch the subtitles on, when watching L’ak’s masked interactions with Moll.
As ever? And whilst masked? Breen voices are heavily distorted.
That’s something that made L’ak hard to understand: for me, putting the subtitles on, was very helpful.
~≈🖖≈~
There’s one last thing.
The setting for most of this episode, the reason it’s called “Mirrors”?
Is the fact most Star Trek episodes set in the franchise’s mirror universe, the evil twin of regular setting first seen in a classic Star Trek episode called “Mirror Mirror”, will have the word in the title.
In the case of “Mirrors”? It’s because the ship hidden in the wormhole, the one Moll and L’ak are hiding in?
Is the abandoned ISS Enterprise: the mirror version of the Federation’s USS Enterprise: the one in the original series, and in Star Trek Strange New Worlds.
A ship that’s been abandoned by its Terran crew, many years earlier.
Seeing that ship?
Again, leaves me impressed with the show’s world building: and impressed at the production work.
If even an armchair fan, like me, is impressed with the Terran Empire detailing on that ship? With the re-dressed Strange New Worlds sets?
You can bet your favourite body parts the production crew have done their jobs, well.
~≈🖖≈~
Now …
Even given the one flaw — the audio — in “Mirrors”?
Did I enjoy this episode?
Even given that one, audio flaw, yes I did!
And … ?
Given that … ?
Yes: I’ll be watching the next episode, next week.
I’ll be watching that episode — “Whistlespeak” — on Thursday, 2nd May: and posting my written and video reviews of it on Friday, 3rd May.
I’ll see you then!
“Mirrors”.★★★☆
* Tilly has to get the ship’s computer to filter the image of the area by “compensating for the Lorentzian co-efficient, and high energy spectra.” Mary Wiseman is very good at technobabble and bafflegab.
† Apparently? Their speech was inspired by Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music LP. I can see how, as I’ve just listened to a few minutes of the album on Spotify. A minute was enough for me,
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