"In a Mirror, Darkly" is collectively the eighteenth and nineteenth episodes of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Enterprise, and originally aired on UPN on April 22 and 29, 2005. This installment was developed to be a sequel to The Original Series episode "The Tholian Web" and a prequel to "Mirror, Mirror". The decision to set an Enterprise episode in the mirror universe originated with a pitch to enable William Shatner to appear in the series. The teleplays for both parts of the episode were written by Mike Sussman, with Manny Coto contributing the story for the second part.
Set in the 22nd century, the series normally follows the adventures of the first Starfleet starship Enterprise, registration NX-01. However, these installments feature a mirror universe Jonathan Archer and evil counterparts of the normal characters, who serve the cruel and militaristic Terran Empire. In the first part, the ISS Enterprise learns of a Starfleet ship from the future of the main universe which is being stripped for parts by the Tholians, and seeks to take the ship from the aliens. The second part sees the surviving crew operating the USS Defiant and seeking to overthrow the Empire using its advanced weaponry.
The episode saw the reuse of footage from Star Trek: First Contact and the creation of an alternative opening credits sequence which included footage from other Paramount properties such as the film The Hunt for Red October. A three-quarters-around bridge from The Original Series era was constructed, as well as other sets from a Constitution-class starship. A Gorn and a Tholian were both created using CGI, with the Gorn using motion capture techniques. This installment also saw the return of Vaughn Armstrong as Admiral Maxwell Forrest after his main universe character was killed on screen earlier in the season in the episode "The Forge". This episode subsequently appeared in several lists of the best episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. It was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Hairstyling for a Series in 2005.
Plot
Part I In 2063, a Vulcan ship lands on Earth, making first contact with humans (as seen in Star Trek: First Contact). Instead of peacefully greeting them, Zefram Cochrane shoots the lead Vulcan and the humans storm and loot the ship. In 2155, Doctor Phlox and Major Reed demonstrate a new torture device to Captain Forrest and Commander Archer on the ISS Enterprise. Archer suggests to Forrest they travel into Tholian space, as he has heard rumors of technology they might wish to steal. The two argue, and Forrest returns to his quarters where he is comforted by Lieutenant Sato. When he leaves, he is ambushed by Archer and several MACOs (a military team) and sent to the brig.
Archer travels to the bridge and announces that he has taken command. After torturing a Tholian pilot for coordinates, he orders a change of course to the shipyard, and tells Commander T'Pol, whom he promotes to first officer, to install a Suliban cloaking device with Commander Tucker. Archer also appoints Sergeant Mayweather as his personal guard, and Sato proposes that she keep her job as Captain's woman. Archer has Sato send a message to Starfleet about their mission to raid the Tholian technology. Tucker is injured when the cloaking device is sabotaged. Archer questions Forrest, who denies all knowledge, and Reed tortures Tucker expecting him to be the saboteur.
T'Pol leads a team to free Forrest and reclaim the ship, but Archer encrypts navigation control to prevent a course change. Forrest tortures Archer, but orders his release after he receives word that Starfleet agrees with Archer's plans. Archer shows images of an alternate universe vessel from the future named USS Defiant (a Constitution-class starship, last seen in "The Tholian Web"), that has technology and power that is a century more advanced than ISS Enterprise. On arriving at the asteroid where the Tholians are holding Defiant, Archer, T'Pol, and Tucker transport aboard, and Tucker begins powering up the vessel. Tholian ships then attack, creating an energy web around Enterprise. Forrest orders the crew to abandon ship but remains behind as the ship is destroyed.
Part II Tholian ships create a web over the opening of the asteroid dock to prevent Defiant from leaving. T'Pol and Tucker restore power to the weapon systems, allowing Defiant to destroy enough enemy vessels to escape the trap. They recover 47 survivors from Enterprise, and Tucker is ordered to restore power to the warp drive. Sato goes to the captain's quarters and finds Archer perusing the ship's historical records, which includes parallel universe information about Starfleet, the United Federation of Planets, and their service records. Archer is surprised to learn his counterpart is an acclaimed and distinguished explorer, diplomat and politician.
Ensign Kelby is killed trying to repair the warp drive, and the crew discover, from Tholian slaves left on board, that a Gorn named Slar has sabotaged the ship. Archer, after hearing voices telling him to achieve more fame and honor, decides to lead an assault team and kills the Gorn. Tucker is able to repair the warp drive and the ship leaves to rendezvous with the ISS Avenger, arriving in time to save it from four rebel spacecraft. Avenger commanding officer Admiral Black comes aboard for an inspection accompanied by his first officer, Soval. After Black refuses Archer's request for captaincy of the new ship, Archer disintegrates him with a phaser pistol.
Archer gives a speech to the officers of both ships, saying that they should move against Starfleet and the Empire. Soval and T'Pol meet, contemplating a future where alien species are respected and treated as equals; they convince Phlox to join their movement and sabotage Defiant. As the sole alien allowed to remain on board, he succeeds in disabling the ship's systems. Soval, on Avenger, then attacks, but Tucker disables Phlox and restores power. Defiant destroys its attacker. When Sato and Archer celebrate in the captain's quarters, Archer dies after being poisoned by Sato and we see that Mayweather is now in league with Sato. Reaching Earth on the advanced and powerful Defiant, Sato contacts Admiral Gardner, demanding his surrender and declaring herself "Empress Sato".
Production
Writing and filming
The idea of returning to the mirror universe in Enterprise was first suggested by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. In "Mirror, Mirror", the tantalus field was used on several occasions and was thought to be a disintegrator. The Reeves-Stevenses proposed that it could be explained that instead of killing its victims, the field instead transported them back through time to a penal colony in the main universe. The Enterprise would then come across the penal colony, meeting Tiberius, portrayed by William Shatner.
Tiberius would seek to use the transporter aboard the Enterprise to return to his own universe, but discovers that it has not yet diverged from the main universe and does not exist. The episode would then have explored the creation of the mirror universe through actions by Tiberius and Captain Archer. The storyline was pitched by Shatner, who had worked with the Reeves-Stevenses on the Shatnerverse series of Star Trek novels, to Manny Coto, Brannon Braga and Rick Berman. Berman had already received a pitch by Mike Sussman that would have Shatner portray an ancestor of Captain Kirk, who happened to be the chef on the Enterprise (NX-01). The three pitched the idea to Shatner, but negotiations fell through and terms were not agreed on for him to appear on the show.
Sussman began development on a script that saw the USS Defiant from "The Tholian Web" being brought back in time, instead of Tiberius. It was intended to be a sequel to that episode, as well as a prequel to "Mirror, Mirror". Sussman developed the teleplays for both parts of the episode, with Coto contributing the story for the second half. It was decided to have the entire installment in the mirror universe in order to maintain the events of "Mirror, Mirror" as being first contact between the two universes. The mirror universe features evil duplicates of the characters from the normal universe. Sussman had previously sought to use the Defiant in the second-season episode "Future Tense", but both costs and issues with the plot resulted in it being replaced with a previously unseen timeship.
Part 1 was directed by James L. Conway, who previously directed the Deep Space Nine episode "Shattered Mirror" which also made use of the Mirror Universe. Part 2 was directed by Marvin V. Rush who normally served as Director of Photography on the show, and had worked with Conway dozens of times before and was familiar with his directing style. Rush looked at what was being done in Part 1 while he was preparing the second episode, and aimed to make his episodes fit with the that and not look like it was obviously directed by someone else. On the sixth day of filming the second part of the episode, news was received that Star Trek: Enterprise had been cancelled by UPN as of the end of the season, which meant that "In a Mirror, Darkly" would be installments 94 and 95 of Enterprise 98-episode run. "In a Mirror, Darkly" was Sussman's final contribution to the show; he had previously been a staff writer on Star Trek: Voyager and worked in the Star Trek franchise for ten years. He later described it as his favorites of the Star Trek installments that he wrote, saying that "I knew when I was writing them that they would almost certainly be the last episodes I would be writing for this particular incarnation of Star Trek, so I really treasured the experience." Part of Manny Coto's plans for season five of Enterprise would have included a return to the mirror universe crew first seen in "In a Mirror, Darkly". It would have been across four or five installments, which Coto described as a "mini-series within a series".
Visual effects and costuming The opening sequence featured the reuse of footage from Star Trek: First Contact, where Zefram Cochrane makes first contact with the Vulcans, for which both James Cromwell and Cully Fredricksen agreed to accept Screen Actors Guild minimum salaries. Herman Zimmerman had kept the lower portion of the Vulcan vessel from that scene, and made it available to use for reshoots. While Enterprise was normally shot in digital, the mirror-First Contact scenes were shot on film so that they would match the appearance of the original footage. An alternative opening credits sequence was created, which Sussman credited Coto for. It featured footage used in other Paramount Pictures productions, including the Soviet nuclear submarine Konovalov firing a torpedo from The Hunt for Red October. Other elements include an atomic explosion, battleships, tanks and fighter jets.