I like to imagine the Bashir Changeling had to quickly Google medical advice every time he was called upon to perform even the most basic medical treatments (a bit like on Resident Alien)
Ah, intendant Kira; bisexual, professional, efficient, amazing dress style, a real people person. And who can forget her evil twin, major Kira - cranky, terrible taste in boyfriends, and a terrorist too!
The only thing that knocks Intendant Kira down a peg for me is the "depraved bisexual" trope. Yes, I understand it's fun to go wild with the character, and Visitor herself has said that it's more of a narcissistic infatuation with herself, but... up until recently, it's been a lazy writing shortcut to make someone seem creepy and nefarious by making them sexually ambiguous. For clarity, I just think that it's unfortunate considering previous depictions in media, not something I'm too bothered about.
@@HermanVonPetri It's a tough call for me. I'm not a fan of the "depraved bisexual" trope either, but sometimes certain actors pull it off so well that I almost want to give it a pass, and Nana Visitor as Intendant Kira is one of those examples. It's almost like mental junk food; I know it's not a positive stereotype being played out, but the actor is so damn good, and makes it so much fun that I can't help but love it. Problematic favourites, I suppose.
@@HermanVonPetri Imo is not so much "sexually ambiguous" as it is "sexually unrestricted", as in promiscuity amped up. And promiscuity IS a nefarious characteristic by definition. Unless you oppose the notion that good and evil characters have their own sets of pre-established hallmarks, in which case the MIrror counterpart dynamic would lose all meaning.
@@thing_under_the_stairs Guilty pleasures wouldn't be so much fun without a little naughtiness. And we know that the DS9 writers have their hearts in the right place considering depictions in other episodes. I don't begrudge them swinging for the fences on this one.
Mirror Sulu gets my vote. As much as I love Mirror Kira, Mirror Georgieu, and Lore, all of them overstayed their welcome. Mirror Sulu got two scenes and that was exactly enough. We hadn't seen much of Prime Sulu, so this was Takei's chance to cut loose, and it was glorious. It was also a chance to see an epically gay man parody us straight guys, and that was hilarious, too.
He shows up for a single scene in Star Trek: Shattered Universe for the PS2 and it is the best part of the entire game. Ensign: Transmittion from the other Excelsior, Captain. Sulu Prime: On screen. Mirror Sulu: "YOU! This is all YOUR fault! My ship is destroyed! Hundreds of my crew are dead! Chased halfway across the Galaxy by your accursed 'Federation'. You want to go back to them? I will send you back to them! AS A BROKEN, FLAMING WREEECK!!!" Sulu Prime: "Oh my..."
You have a great point! Watching George Takei devour the scenery, even for a couple of scenes is truly amazing. And watching him hit on Nichelle Nichols so wholeheartedly is a delightful almost-parody of Shatner with... every other female Trek character!
Honorable mention to Tom Riker, Trek's worst best twin. Unless you subscribe to the notion that everyone who uses a transporter dies and is replicated, it's a quantum coin flip whether he is the OG Riker who had his life and career stolen from him. Never even got invited to family dinner.
I wouldn't count Tom Riker as evil. The Maquis were absolutely right. The Federation sold the colonies out to buy a peace that was never going to last.
Let's say "subtly different". Kind of a weird comment honestly. Yay proper grammar! I'd say you been watching too many Trump supporter videos if that's impressive to you. I get it though, he did go off on that grammar tangent didn't he?
I was thinking more about that time when Avery Brooks played his historical alter ego that was all about writing a future world where space stations that are deep in space exist. His character is inside an insane asylum and... _Why is he evil in that?_ Because in that one episode, his character is a catalyst towards screaming at every viewer that Star Trek... in its entirety... is just a fictional work of entertainment that should never be deeply thought about or interpreted in any way. OK. The first episode of this whimsical 'what if' notion was entertaining and all that. Fun little bit of fluff. But... no. They had to go into a sequel episode that feels like its almost sole purpose is to pull everyone out of the voluntary illusion of seeing Star Trek as something more than fictitious. Lose that one episode and... you lose nothing at all. That makes him evil in a very twisted way. One that will never be so surface level as any of the good/evil characters mentioned in this video.
I think Brent Spiner deserves a special shout-out in the episode "Power Play" by making the possessed Data act like a distinctly different character from Lore. The possessed-Data is irritable, hostile and ready to kill at a moment's notice. Possessed-Data is *not* having fun holding people hostage and waiting for the Enterprise to get near the southern polar region, whereas Lore would have found it all amusing and probably turned a few of the hostages into torches just for the sheer fun of it. That's great acting on Spiner's part, great writing and of course one of the MANY reasons I hold that TNG's fifth season is still their best.
Got a preview of that when he had to snap at his first officer when in command of the USS Sutherland while apart of the fleet operating the tachyon net.
Great observation. Lore is the proverbial kid with a magnifying glass torturing ants. Whoever possessed Data in that episode (one of my favourites, and so close to my favourite Barclay episode too!) was just a horrible, evil, vicious little man. The second guy would be happy being some gangster's mook and never getting promoted.
Used to work with a young lady named Hope. We got to know each other fairly well. One day, I saw her at the mall. "Hi, Hope," I said. "I'm not Hope," she replied. Her smile was unsettling. "I'm her sister, Faith." I told Hope about it the following workday. She thought it was hilarious. Hope moved on, as did I. About a year later, I saw one of them in public again. Cautiously, I approached. "Which one are you?" I asked. "Hope, or Faith?" She replicated that unsettling smile. "Neither," she said. "I'm their sister Charity." 🤯😆
"Carved into the side of his face like an open parenthesis. " I had to stop right there at that moment, because i can't stop laughing. Damn Steve... damn awesome
@@agranero6 He does have a daughter, so he's probably not gay. But there's also Kelvin Universe Sulu who's in a same-sex relationship, so he's probably not straight, either. (That's a divergent timeline, not a universe where fundamental things are different.)
There's a meme I see sometimes where it's like: Spock and Leonard Nimoy would probably get along great, whereas Kirk would kick Shatner's ass in an Applebee's parking lot
_"I'm... not the man... they think I am... at home._ _No, no. No... No._ _I'm a... ... rocket man."_ - W. S. ... Personally, I vote that one of the first public passengers aboard the _(soon to be... probably)_ Warp Drive equipped SpaceX rocket should be William Shatner. He's already gone into orbit. He should see the real Warp Drive in action.
"Brothers" had to be the most physically demanding episode that Brent Spiner ever made, playing not one, not two, but THREE parts that regularly interacted with each other in the same scenes. The only show I think can actually beat that is Orphan Black. If I came across a twin or clone of me, I think I'd be totally beside myself. 😁
The GREAT PUMPKIN who embodies the very spirit of Halloween has an evil twin. He's big and round and orange and oh so SCARY + EVIL!!! And allegedly cooked some french fries at a McDonalds recently...
I'm waiting for the big reveal that clean-shaven Riker was replaced by his Mirror Universe bearded doppelgänger sometime between Seasons 1 and 2 of TNG.
Great overview of evil twin episodes, but my personal favorite is from Voyager. They did a whole episode in the Mirror Universe, where the Doctor gets transported to an evil version of Voyager, but it's very low key, they don't reveal that it's the evil universe until the very end. It's Season 2, Episode 24.
In the mirror universe, Gol Dukat's twin is his "GOOD" twin and is generally a rad dude. He's revered on Bajor for once marshaling the Cardassian Navy to save their planet from a rouge asteroid.
I forgot if Garak had a "good" or "bad" twin depending on your point of view of Garak in "Prime" universe - is he good, bad or merely a humble tailor? Ha ha.
I always remember Mirror Chekov from the game Shattered Universe. In that game, Chekov spends 80% of the game chasing the ISS Excelsior captained by Prime Sulu across the galaxy. He only relents when Sulu saves him, and then they team up to fight the Empire and get the Excelsior crew home. Chekov is driven and relentless, but when Sulu shows him kindness and helps him against the Tholians, it changes how he views things and becomes a loyal friend. I love Shattered Universe.
Loved that game too, though a couple of times I did find myself asking "So what did Mirror Kirk actually do in his 5-year mission if these things are still around?"
@@ZoeMalDoran Clearly, he didn't do much. though I doubt the Empire is as interested in exploration as it is in expansion, which probably takes longer, so they didn't reach those areas of space, or they just marked them as "not worth it" and moved on.
@@ATADSP well, he DID somehow tame the Planet Killer... even if he didn't finish off the M-5, the Amoeba, or resolve things with Balok like in the books
My favorite evil twins are honestly the Voyager ones in "Living Witness." Like you, the only mirror universe episode I genuinely love is the TOS one, but Voyager's evil versions are used in an interesting way.
Mirror Georgieu... Michelle Yeoh was just clearly having so much fun, and like you said when it comes to evil, she was just so gloriously evil, I mean eating another character's brains! Its like they've thought "Lets design the most comically evil character we can and then decide what the most evil thing we can think of for them to do"
probably one of the highlights of Discovery - and the other is Strange New Worlds - fans demanded more Captain Pike, and CBS delivered - ironic that Discovery arguably the most hated of Treks has now sporned two spin-offs - Section 31 and Strange New Worlds.
I'm calling it now: for next month's Trek Actually video, the series that Steve will say ruined Q will be *furtive glancing around before stage whispering* VOYAGER! Specifically, he'll point to the Q civil war and "Give me a baby, Kathy!" Q.
Seriously. Q was always annoying to the people he chose to pick on, but turning him into an incel Reddit troll is such lazy writing. "How would Q antagonize Janeway? What flaws dows she have that he could pick at? ...Oh, I know, she's a lady!"
This video was the bees knees as the kids say. Those aliens were so good at impersonating Picard it is surprising they really needed to study authority. It feels like they had pretty much all the information their experiments would have yielded before engaging in them...
Since Georgieu is killed of in the pilot episode, mirror Georgieu became technically the main version of the character. Thus Disco avoids all the fun that could have been possible with seeing alternate versions of familiar characters, in a setting where nothing matters and therefore everything is possible (like in earlier mirror episodes).
Overuse of the mirror universe was one of the reasons I ultimately gave up on ‘Discovery’. It’s an interesting quirky idea that works as a one off, but not much else. The fact that Mirror Georgio goes from being space Hitler to being somehow one of the good guys simply by hanging out with them for a season is perhaps the worst redemption arc ever penned.
"While the real Picard is stuck in that cell acting out his own variation on Five Characters in Search of an Exit--for budgetary reasons there are only four of them in this version--" Ahaha! Perfect. "In the hallway, Data and Lore pause to create a meme template--" 🤣 Great humour in this one. Good job, Steve!
I was not a huge fan of most seasons of Discovery but it was the Emperor Georgiou arc that kept me coming back. Eating Kelpian for dinner definitely took the cake.
Mirror Garrak is substantially less cunning imo… he doesn’t say he’s boring as a complicated misdirect, he’s actually just a boring bureaucrat… seemingly in the exact same rat-race as Dukat.
Mirror Garak basically shows that Garak's core skillset comes from a position of unassuming innocence and unnoticed power; he's a spy, after all. Of course he's not really anything special as a soldier in the mirror universe; if you KNOW the power a spy has, that spy's failed.
@@EinDose let’s be real, his core skill set comes from generational trauma and family abuse… Mirror Tain either wasn’t impressed and killed Mirror Mila before she could introduce him to his son, or he just wasn’t a spymaster himself for whatever Mirror Universe reasons 😂
I love Lore, because Brent Spiner is obviously having so much fun playing him. Also hes not a 'if your environment was different, youd be this way too'. He is evil cuz he fkcing loves it!
I'm mildly surprised you didn't make a brief mention of all the other Kirk impostors: The android built by Dr. Korby, or Captain Garth's and Marta's transmorphed disguises as Kirk. The salt vampire disguised as McCoy. I'm sure there were more impostors of the regular cast members over the various shows.
Anyone else here really good at telling identical twins apart? I had friends in high school who were identical twins and by senior year I knew exactly which one was which at all times. There were subtle differences fiscally but the voices were different one had a slightly higher pitch in his voice.
In The Mirror Darkly is a fun episode, but that's really the best thing I can say about it. C-tier. TOS Mirror Mirror is still my favorite mirror universe episode of Star Trek.
I was never a big Star Trek fan. I haven’t seen any of the Franchise since Insurrection. Your channel has made me curious to check Star Trek out some more .👍
A) I fuckin love "MABILF", goddamn B) I've always found it strange Lore implied he would've died had he not been disassembled and deactivated when the Crystalline Entity attacked. Does that imply his circuits count as "life" for the giant snowflake? How come the computers on the planet seemed fine? I get that the writers' intent in the early seasons was that Soong had successfully blurred the lines between man and machine, it's a little reminiscent of how Troi got a psychic sense from Data when Q briefly gave him emotions. It's just... not really how Data or Lore were presented later. (His emotion chip didn't let Troi read him, as I recall. And that scientist lady thought Data would survive an attack.)
In regards to a sort of "mirrored" version of the TNG Enterprise, the militaristic loosing a war with the Klingons Enterprise C time loop one was a little similar in concept as well. Different uniforms, vibe and much more aggressive behaviour, but not evil I guess.
I'm very disappointed in you, Steve. When discussing "Datalore", you neglected to play off one of the most notorious gaffes in all of Trek. After a whole episode emphasizing that Data could not use contractions while Lore could, Data's response after Lore is beamed away? "I'm fine." 🤦
"When Shatner is allowed to go for it..." 😃 Mirror Spock is not evil because he is twisted but because he willingly serves an evil system --- Hello, 20th Century Earth! And, Steve... you ... have... a... beard... are... you...???
While not the "best" under nearly any metric, the Mirror Mirror Spock is the most influential in my eyes. When you cross both generational and genre with your concept, that's something special.
16:40 - Liking this video because you referenced one of my top 5 favorite episodes of Twilight Zone, and arguably the best written alongside A Game of Pool and Nothing In The Dark
Aww, what about the evil Voyager doctor in "Darkling"? or his ethics-removed counterpart in "Equinox"? Robert Picardo could chew scenery with the best of them.... We had no less than three sets of twins in our youth orchestra back in the day, but only one set was identical. Their big trick was to switch instruments, with the violin-playing twin going over to the viola section and vice versa. They could both play either instrument, but not as well as their own specialty. The conductor could usually tell within a few bars and was usually not amused. Yeah, we were nerds. That was our version of youthful hijinks.
That sounds like something a pair of identical twins I'm good friends with would have done back in the day! They pulled a lot of identity trading pranks... until one of them transitioned, and now they obviously can't get away with it anymore. But they're now a gorgeous pair of male/female fraternal twins!
@@spikeoramathon My college graduation class had a set of identical twins who were both on the volleyball team: Kari played in the back row, & Katy was a setter. On at least one occasion, Katy illegally attacked the ball from the back row, so they switched positions for the remainder of the rally to cover the mistake.
@@spikeoramathon We've always wondered about their exact genetics too, but thus far they've never been tested, so we have nothing but theories. All we really know is that they always *looked* identical... until the hormones started working, and then they didn't!
The Enemy Within was basically the framework for Buffy's season five episode The Replacement, which had the fun addition of an actor's actual twin playing the split version! I find it hard to pick one as the best, as I grew up with TNG and Lore will always hold a place in my heart. Like all the Mirror versions, letting Brent Spiner emote and show aspects we hadn't seen before is always fun; maybe that is me casting my vote for Lore, now I think about it
"The Enemy Within" makes Star Trek V into the mother of all accidental callbacks. Kirk is adamant that he Needs His Pain. And he's actually had the opportunity to prove it.
Mirror!Kira is probably my favorite evil twin in Star Trek. She is a lot of fun whenever she's on screen. When it comes to the recreated classic Trek sets, I like them for the attention to detail more than anything else. Oh, and also I like that the actors act like it is all hugely advanced technology, which I think is neat.
"if you enter at scenery chewing competition with this guy..." Shatner is able to subsist entirely upon lumber, drywall, and paint. It's really not a fair competition.
This was a good one. I just wanted to add, you may have over looked the window of another version of evil Picard. And that was in Picard season 2 episode 1 when Q returns. He gives a monologue of Picard in the alternate history that is created.
14:45 Landscape artist. Before the road that would lead to the Third Reich, he was an art student. You can still find some of hia pieces today; not bad, all things considered, but he had difficulty with faces.
Discovery had a pretty significant mirror universe plot. Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs) was probably one of the most interesting characters in Discovery.
Mirror Smily O'brien is the reason the Terran Empire returns as the Terran Alliance, as seen in Prodigy. Smily brought over many designs from Starfleet for use against the Cardassians/Klingon/Romulan Alliance. Even a Mirror Janeway after getting the Mirror Terran Voyager still went to the Delta Quandrant to become a borg
Timely video given Lower Decks opener for S5 was about temporal rifts, and alternate universes and meeting one's counterpart - not necessarily evil twins - but just as nutty as their normal selves.
My favourite thing about Intendant Kira is that you can see how Kira could become her. Like, they have the same mannerisms and little ways of interacting with people (eg the mock-pity cutesy voice) that Intendant Kira loves to use, and Kira has used on rare occasions. Mostly when snarking at Cardassian war criminals.
Bashir's changeling counterpart was so convincing that even Alexander Siddig didn't know for several episodes.
I could be wrong, but probably the writers didn't even see that coming.
Yeah I feel like that was just shoehorned in at the last minute and they ran with it.
@@benjaminstanley4364 that is likely, but it's cool to think they didn't tell him on purpose.
Lore is here on earth today!
Mark Zuckerberg!
I like to imagine the Bashir Changeling had to quickly Google medical advice every time he was called upon to perform even the most basic medical treatments (a bit like on Resident Alien)
Ah, intendant Kira; bisexual, professional, efficient, amazing dress style, a real people person. And who can forget her evil twin, major Kira - cranky, terrible taste in boyfriends, and a terrorist too!
@@tomharrison1393 may I present to you: The Internet! It's all yours.
The only thing that knocks Intendant Kira down a peg for me is the "depraved bisexual" trope. Yes, I understand it's fun to go wild with the character, and Visitor herself has said that it's more of a narcissistic infatuation with herself, but... up until recently, it's been a lazy writing shortcut to make someone seem creepy and nefarious by making them sexually ambiguous.
For clarity, I just think that it's unfortunate considering previous depictions in media, not something I'm too bothered about.
@@HermanVonPetri It's a tough call for me. I'm not a fan of the "depraved bisexual" trope either, but sometimes certain actors pull it off so well that I almost want to give it a pass, and Nana Visitor as Intendant Kira is one of those examples. It's almost like mental junk food; I know it's not a positive stereotype being played out, but the actor is so damn good, and makes it so much fun that I can't help but love it. Problematic favourites, I suppose.
@@HermanVonPetri Imo is not so much "sexually ambiguous" as it is "sexually unrestricted", as in promiscuity amped up. And promiscuity IS a nefarious characteristic by definition.
Unless you oppose the notion that good and evil characters have their own sets of pre-established hallmarks, in which case the MIrror counterpart dynamic would lose all meaning.
@@thing_under_the_stairs Guilty pleasures wouldn't be so much fun without a little naughtiness.
And we know that the DS9 writers have their hearts in the right place considering depictions in other episodes. I don't begrudge them swinging for the fences on this one.
Mirror Sulu gets my vote. As much as I love Mirror Kira, Mirror Georgieu, and Lore, all of them overstayed their welcome. Mirror Sulu got two scenes and that was exactly enough. We hadn't seen much of Prime Sulu, so this was Takei's chance to cut loose, and it was glorious. It was also a chance to see an epically gay man parody us straight guys, and that was hilarious, too.
He shows up for a single scene in Star Trek: Shattered Universe for the PS2 and it is the best part of the entire game.
Ensign: Transmittion from the other Excelsior, Captain.
Sulu Prime: On screen.
Mirror Sulu: "YOU! This is all YOUR fault! My ship is destroyed! Hundreds of my crew are dead! Chased halfway across the Galaxy by your accursed 'Federation'. You want to go back to them? I will send you back to them! AS A BROKEN, FLAMING WREEECK!!!"
Sulu Prime: "Oh my..."
You have a great point! Watching George Takei devour the scenery, even for a couple of scenes is truly amazing. And watching him hit on Nichelle Nichols so wholeheartedly is a delightful almost-parody of Shatner with... every other female Trek character!
"Take us dangerously close to the pulsar!" would be a banger Dr Evil line.
The alien facsimile of the Voyager crew is my favorite just for how cartoonishly evil they are.
That was one bad ass voyager battleship though, not gonna lie. That thing was like one giant phaser emitter.
Honorable mention to Tom Riker, Trek's worst best twin. Unless you subscribe to the notion that everyone who uses a transporter dies and is replicated, it's a quantum coin flip whether he is the OG Riker who had his life and career stolen from him. Never even got invited to family dinner.
Based on how the replicator seems to work _both_ are OG Riker.
Even if we use your logic, it's riker undoubtedly used a transporter before the Tom incident so neither are the "original"
Unfortunately, Thomas was locked up in Cardassian Supermax for being a Maquis.
I wouldn't count Tom Riker as evil. The Maquis were absolutely right. The Federation sold the colonies out to buy a peace that was never going to last.
@@sierra1513 that was my point. If you believe that theory neither can claim it. If you don't, then one is.
Thank you for not conflating 'psychoanalytical' with 'psychological'. It's good to see someone who understands these are completely different things.
See also: systemic vs systematic. I don't think I've ever seen Steve mix those up.
Let's say "subtly different". Kind of a weird comment honestly. Yay proper grammar! I'd say you been watching too many Trump supporter videos if that's impressive to you. I get it though, he did go off on that grammar tangent didn't he?
The Enterprise computer and Lwaxana Troi
*WHEEZE*
Oof
the TOS Enterprise's computer and Christine Chapel too, then.
I know it's not technically an evil twin, but Avery Brooks' scene-chewing turn as Dr. Noah in "Our Man Bashir" deserves a mention.
I was thinking more about that time when Avery Brooks played his historical alter ego that was all about writing a future world where space stations that are deep in space exist. His character is inside an insane asylum and... _Why is he evil in that?_ Because in that one episode, his character is a catalyst towards screaming at every viewer that Star Trek... in its entirety... is just a fictional work of entertainment that should never be deeply thought about or interpreted in any way. OK. The first episode of this whimsical 'what if' notion was entertaining and all that. Fun little bit of fluff. But... no. They had to go into a sequel episode that feels like its almost sole purpose is to pull everyone out of the voluntary illusion of seeing Star Trek as something more than fictitious. Lose that one episode and... you lose nothing at all. That makes him evil in a very twisted way. One that will never be so surface level as any of the good/evil characters mentioned in this video.
I think Brent Spiner deserves a special shout-out in the episode "Power Play" by making the possessed Data act like a distinctly different character from Lore. The possessed-Data is irritable, hostile and ready to kill at a moment's notice. Possessed-Data is *not* having fun holding people hostage and waiting for the Enterprise to get near the southern polar region, whereas Lore would have found it all amusing and probably turned a few of the hostages into torches just for the sheer fun of it. That's great acting on Spiner's part, great writing and of course one of the MANY reasons I hold that TNG's fifth season is still their best.
Got a preview of that when he had to snap at his first officer when in command of the USS Sutherland while apart of the fleet operating the tachyon net.
Great observation. Lore is the proverbial kid with a magnifying glass torturing ants. Whoever possessed Data in that episode (one of my favourites, and so close to my favourite Barclay episode too!) was just a horrible, evil, vicious little man. The second guy would be happy being some gangster's mook and never getting promoted.
Used to work with a young lady named Hope. We got to know each other fairly well. One day, I saw her at the mall. "Hi, Hope," I said. "I'm not Hope," she replied. Her smile was unsettling. "I'm her sister, Faith." I told Hope about it the following workday. She thought it was hilarious. Hope moved on, as did I. About a year later, I saw one of them in public again. Cautiously, I approached. "Which one are you?" I asked. "Hope, or Faith?" She replicated that unsettling smile. "Neither," she said. "I'm their sister Charity." 🤯😆
Another spicklesparkle entry from Steve here. Keep it grenchy.
Steve is always streets ahead with his use of current slang.
I was half-expecting you to announce the best "evil" twin to be B4 as a joke before going into Lore hahaha
B4 belongs on a _worst list,_ all right.
That FedEx office location joke isn't gonna land with your whole demographic, but I liked it .
I loved the reference, but yeah, it’s gonna be crickets for a lot of the audience. 😄
"Carved into the side of his face like an open parenthesis. "
I had to stop right there at that moment, because i can't stop laughing.
Damn Steve... damn awesome
The mirror universe is so evil, it turned Sulu straight. 🤣
Oh my
I will repeat what George Takei said: Sulu is straight, do not confuse him with me (paraphrasing).
@@agranero6 He does have a daughter, so he's probably not gay. But there's also Kelvin Universe Sulu who's in a same-sex relationship, so he's probably not straight, either. (That's a divergent timeline, not a universe where fundamental things are different.)
@@faithgrins I forgot Kelvin timeline. Talking about divergent timelines he forgot the dictator Picard timeline that Q take them in Picard.
"We meet the evil twin of Captain Kirk!" Oh, you mean William Shatner?
There's a meme I see sometimes where it's like: Spock and Leonard Nimoy would probably get along great, whereas Kirk would kick Shatner's ass in an Applebee's parking lot
_"I'm... not the man... they think I am... at home._
_No, no. No... No._
_I'm a... ... rocket man."_ - W. S.
...
Personally, I vote that one of the first public passengers aboard the _(soon to be... probably)_ Warp Drive equipped SpaceX rocket should be William Shatner. He's already gone into orbit. He should see the real Warp Drive in action.
"Brothers" had to be the most physically demanding episode that Brent Spiner ever made, playing not one, not two, but THREE parts that regularly interacted with each other in the same scenes. The only show I think can actually beat that is Orphan Black. If I came across a twin or clone of me, I think I'd be totally beside myself.
😁
"I've made felt goatees for everyone until you can grow your own"
The GREAT PUMPKIN who embodies the very spirit of Halloween has an evil twin.
He's big and round and orange and oh so SCARY + EVIL!!! And allegedly cooked some french fries at a McDonalds recently...
lol, that’s actually pretty clever since the great pumpkin was canonically a good guy. Making the evil twin thing work.
Lore is the maga version of Data.
@@williamkarbala5718also wonderful that the Great Pumpkin is known for being scarce, and its evil twin won't just GO AWAY
I wonder how many medical centres were inundated with cases of food poisoning after that?
@@aylbdrmadison1051 Couldn't be, Lore is highly intelligent!
Just slap a goatee on a character and... now you're just somebody that I used to know. 😉
I'm waiting for the big reveal that clean-shaven Riker was replaced by his Mirror Universe bearded doppelgänger sometime between Seasons 1 and 2 of TNG.
That joke made me spit out my breakfast. Well played.
Great overview of evil twin episodes, but my personal favorite is from Voyager. They did a whole episode in the Mirror Universe, where the Doctor gets transported to an evil version of Voyager, but it's very low key, they don't reveal that it's the evil universe until the very end. It's Season 2, Episode 24.
That was my headcanon to even keep watching that show. Wasn't willing to watch some cowardly murderers for five more seasons
"Dat and Lore pause to create a meme template" gave me a good chuckle :)
In the mirror universe, Gol Dukat's twin is his "GOOD" twin and is generally a rad dude. He's revered on Bajor for once marshaling the Cardassian Navy to save their planet from a rouge asteroid.
I forgot if Garak had a "good" or "bad" twin depending on your point of view of Garak in "Prime" universe - is he good, bad or merely a humble tailor? Ha ha.
@@andrewmurray1550 Mirror universe Garak and prime universe Garak are the exact same dude. Literally no difference.
Jean-Dupe: Chef's kiss.
Hmmm... Jean-Luc-alike hits an additional level, IMHO.
I always remember Mirror Chekov from the game Shattered Universe. In that game, Chekov spends 80% of the game chasing the ISS Excelsior captained by Prime Sulu across the galaxy. He only relents when Sulu saves him, and then they team up to fight the Empire and get the Excelsior crew home. Chekov is driven and relentless, but when Sulu shows him kindness and helps him against the Tholians, it changes how he views things and becomes a loyal friend. I love Shattered Universe.
Loved that game too, though a couple of times I did find myself asking "So what did Mirror Kirk actually do in his 5-year mission if these things are still around?"
@@ZoeMalDoran Clearly, he didn't do much. though I doubt the Empire is as interested in exploration as it is in expansion, which probably takes longer, so they didn't reach those areas of space, or they just marked them as "not worth it" and moved on.
@@ATADSP well, he DID somehow tame the Planet Killer... even if he didn't finish off the M-5, the Amoeba, or resolve things with Balok like in the books
My favorite evil twins are honestly the Voyager ones in "Living Witness." Like you, the only mirror universe episode I genuinely love is the TOS one, but Voyager's evil versions are used in an interesting way.
not really evil twins as such. It was the way the aliens interpreted Voyager's records so as to depict them, as Q puts it, a grievously savage race.
34:47 I was waiting for it and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s not a Steve Shives Star Trek video without it. 😆
Lore is such a magnificent bastard, but Mirror Sulu is the one I enjoy most.
I would have to say, even if it doesn't count, I liked B'elanna Torres & her 'Klingon half vs Human half'...
"I am not ... Less perfect... Than Lore!"
Mirror Georgieu... Michelle Yeoh was just clearly having so much fun, and like you said when it comes to evil, she was just so gloriously evil, I mean eating another character's brains! Its like they've thought "Lets design the most comically evil character we can and then decide what the most evil thing we can think of for them to do"
probably one of the highlights of Discovery - and the other is Strange New Worlds - fans demanded more Captain Pike, and CBS delivered - ironic that Discovery arguably the most hated of Treks has now sporned two spin-offs - Section 31 and Strange New Worlds.
I'm calling it now: for next month's Trek Actually video, the series that Steve will say ruined Q will be *furtive glancing around before stage whispering* VOYAGER! Specifically, he'll point to the Q civil war and "Give me a baby, Kathy!" Q.
Seriously. Q was always annoying to the people he chose to pick on, but turning him into an incel Reddit troll is such lazy writing. "How would Q antagonize Janeway? What flaws dows she have that he could pick at? ...Oh, I know, she's a lady!"
This video was the bees knees as the kids say.
Those aliens were so good at impersonating Picard it is surprising they really needed to study authority. It feels like they had pretty much all the information their experiments would have yielded before engaging in them...
Evil Odo could have been a huge menace, instead he fucking exploded.
"slap a goatee on a character", or if you're Tom Riker pull off your fake sideburns, revealing that it was a goatee the whole time!
Your Kinkos / Fedex line - perfecto deep cut for us old school zine creators.
Since Georgieu is killed of in the pilot episode, mirror Georgieu became technically the main version of the character. Thus Disco avoids all the fun that could have been possible with seeing alternate versions of familiar characters, in a setting where nothing matters and therefore everything is possible (like in earlier mirror episodes).
Overuse of the mirror universe was one of the reasons I ultimately gave up on ‘Discovery’. It’s an interesting quirky idea that works as a one off, but not much else.
The fact that Mirror Georgio goes from being space Hitler to being somehow one of the good guys simply by hanging out with them for a season is perhaps the worst redemption arc ever penned.
How did you feel about the DS9 mirror universe episodes? They seemed to draw from that well again and again.
@@johncattley5919 I thought the first one was good. After that they milked it a bit.
@@johncattley5919at least DS 9 only did one Mirror Episode per season, thus avoiding the overuse of the theme.
Cool video - quite spickle sparkle!
🗣️ WHERE IT'S AT 📣
🎶 I've got two turntables and a microphone 🎶
Slick Kinko's reference 😊
Most evil twin on Star Trek: 500 Android Duplicates of Harry Mudds ex-wife, Stella.
I loved the actress that played Stella! Wouldn't it be cool to see the real her and find out WHY she became such a shrew?!
"While the real Picard is stuck in that cell acting out his own variation on Five Characters in Search of an Exit--for budgetary reasons there are only four of them in this version--" Ahaha! Perfect.
"In the hallway, Data and Lore pause to create a meme template--" 🤣
Great humour in this one. Good job, Steve!
Shatner devours scenery like Joey Chestnut devours hot dogs.
I never knew that Buffy episode was a Star Trek rip. I've never seen Star Trek. Why am I watching this video?
6:00 now that you mentioned it, Leaonard Nimoy would have been great as Loki!
I was not a huge fan of most seasons of Discovery but it was the Emperor Georgiou arc that kept me coming back. Eating Kelpian for dinner definitely took the cake.
Mirror Garrak is substantially less cunning imo… he doesn’t say he’s boring as a complicated misdirect, he’s actually just a boring bureaucrat… seemingly in the exact same rat-race as Dukat.
Mirror Garak basically shows that Garak's core skillset comes from a position of unassuming innocence and unnoticed power; he's a spy, after all. Of course he's not really anything special as a soldier in the mirror universe; if you KNOW the power a spy has, that spy's failed.
@@EinDose let’s be real, his core skill set comes from generational trauma and family abuse… Mirror Tain either wasn’t impressed and killed Mirror Mila before she could introduce him to his son, or he just wasn’t a spymaster himself for whatever Mirror Universe reasons 😂
Maybe Mirror Tain was just actually a good father
I love Lore, because Brent Spiner is obviously having so much fun playing him. Also hes not a 'if your environment was different, youd be this way too'. He is evil cuz he fkcing loves it!
Spock with a beard evil twin…he is so logical he seemed like a benevolent Spock.
I'm mildly surprised you didn't make a brief mention of all the other Kirk impostors: The android built by Dr. Korby, or Captain Garth's and Marta's transmorphed disguises as Kirk. The salt vampire disguised as McCoy. I'm sure there were more impostors of the regular cast members over the various shows.
Since he included “Allegiance”, I was surprised at their omission, too.
If you’re entering a scenery chewing contest with Shatner and Nicholas Cage you are going to go home hungry because they won’t leave any for you.
Anyone else here really good at telling identical twins apart? I had friends in high school who were identical twins and by senior year I knew exactly which one was which at all times. There were subtle differences fiscally but the voices were different one had a slightly higher pitch in his voice.
Some identical twins are easier to tell apart than others (some have more obvious physical difference than others) in my very limited experience.
My lesbian heart beats for Intendant Kira.
Also, Jean-Dupe is the fuckaround and find out clone. But honestly, Evil Janeway takes the cake for me.
I really think Spiner's best line read ever is: "Do you have any idea of the kind of death you've earned, little man?" Chilling.
In The Mirror Darkly is a fun episode, but that's really the best thing I can say about it. C-tier. TOS Mirror Mirror is still my favorite mirror universe episode of Star Trek.
Fun episode, Steve. I loved Discovery's Mirror Universe episodes. Largely because of the character, Emperor Philippa Georgiou.
Lore was indeed a badass evil twin
surprised not to hear about duplicate lieutenant riker. a nice developed duplicate tainted by jealousy of being the copy.
The twist being.... he wasn't the copy.
Technically, neither were the copy
This old man loves the Electric Company call-out with Datalore.
I was never a big Star Trek fan. I haven’t seen any of the Franchise since Insurrection. Your channel has made me curious to check Star Trek out some more .👍
31:03 Lore kicks Worf's butt by looking at him
Given that that money doesn't exist, I'm perplexed by faux Picard announcing that drinks are on him.
"That' where it's at?" Assuming we are a similar/overlapping generation, I think the colloquialism you are looking for is "That's ultra rad man!"
Doing Datalore as an Electric Company bit was hilarious.
A) I fuckin love "MABILF", goddamn
B) I've always found it strange Lore implied he would've died had he not been disassembled and deactivated when the Crystalline Entity attacked. Does that imply his circuits count as "life" for the giant snowflake? How come the computers on the planet seemed fine?
I get that the writers' intent in the early seasons was that Soong had successfully blurred the lines between man and machine, it's a little reminiscent of how Troi got a psychic sense from Data when Q briefly gave him emotions. It's just... not really how Data or Lore were presented later. (His emotion chip didn't let Troi read him, as I recall. And that scientist lady thought Data would survive an attack.)
This video is mad spicklesparkle
A spickle sparkle episode as always
In regards to a sort of "mirrored" version of the TNG Enterprise, the militaristic loosing a war with the Klingons Enterprise C time loop one was a little similar in concept as well. Different uniforms, vibe and much more aggressive behaviour, but not evil I guess.
My favorite mirror villain is actually Michael in Discovery. She's such a good actress
2:12 The second episode written for Shatner, Nick Of Time, is somehow as forgettable as his first episode is iconic
I'm very disappointed in you, Steve. When discussing "Datalore", you neglected to play off one of the most notorious gaffes in all of Trek. After a whole episode emphasizing that Data could not use contractions while Lore could, Data's response after Lore is beamed away?
"I'm fine."
🤦
The opening of Enterprise with dark recreation of the ending of Star Trek: First Contact was enjoyable.
"When Shatner is allowed to go for it..." 😃
Mirror Spock is not evil because he is twisted but because he willingly serves an evil system --- Hello, 20th Century Earth!
And, Steve... you ... have... a... beard... are... you...???
A goatee, the trope indicating you’re the evil twin, unless you’re Bender Bending Rodriguez. Then you’re the evil twin!
Boss Jefferson Davis Hogg on "The Dukes of Hazzard" had a good twin named Abraham Lincoln Hogg who dressed in black. No goatee though.
While not the "best" under nearly any metric, the Mirror Mirror Spock is the most influential in my eyes. When you cross both generational and genre with your concept, that's something special.
I new Lore would make the top of the list Data is my favorite character in the entire franchise
16:40 - Liking this video because you referenced one of my top 5 favorite episodes of Twilight Zone, and arguably the best written alongside A Game of Pool and Nothing In The Dark
Aww, what about the evil Voyager doctor in "Darkling"? or his ethics-removed counterpart in "Equinox"? Robert Picardo could chew scenery with the best of them....
We had no less than three sets of twins in our youth orchestra back in the day, but only one set was identical. Their big trick was to switch instruments, with the violin-playing twin going over to the viola section and vice versa. They could both play either instrument, but not as well as their own specialty. The conductor could usually tell within a few bars and was usually not amused.
Yeah, we were nerds. That was our version of youthful hijinks.
That sounds like something a pair of identical twins I'm good friends with would have done back in the day! They pulled a lot of identity trading pranks... until one of them transitioned, and now they obviously can't get away with it anymore. But they're now a gorgeous pair of male/female fraternal twins!
@@thing_under_the_stairs That's so nifty! one wonders about genetics... but we know so little.
Identity switching hijinks are always fun.
@@spikeoramathon My college graduation class had a set of identical twins who were both on the volleyball team: Kari played in the back row, & Katy was a setter. On at least one occasion, Katy illegally attacked the ball from the back row, so they switched positions for the remainder of the rally to cover the mistake.
@@spikeoramathon We've always wondered about their exact genetics too, but thus far they've never been tested, so we have nothing but theories. All we really know is that they always *looked* identical... until the hormones started working, and then they didn't!
The Enemy Within was basically the framework for Buffy's season five episode The Replacement, which had the fun addition of an actor's actual twin playing the split version!
I find it hard to pick one as the best, as I grew up with TNG and Lore will always hold a place in my heart. Like all the Mirror versions, letting Brent Spiner emote and show aspects we hadn't seen before is always fun; maybe that is me casting my vote for Lore, now I think about it
"The Enemy Within" makes Star Trek V into the mother of all accidental callbacks. Kirk is adamant that he Needs His Pain. And he's actually had the opportunity to prove it.
Two turntables and a microphone 11:40
Beardless Steve Shives
A truly terrifying mental image!
Mirror!Kira is probably my favorite evil twin in Star Trek. She is a lot of fun whenever she's on screen.
When it comes to the recreated classic Trek sets, I like them for the attention to detail more than anything else. Oh, and also I like that the actors act like it is all hugely advanced technology, which I think is neat.
"if you enter at scenery chewing competition with this guy..." Shatner is able to subsist entirely upon lumber, drywall, and paint. It's really not a fair competition.
A great video from Shive Steves.
When mirror Kira crossed over into the prime universe, I was disappointed that we didn’t get to see her interact with the prime characters.
This was a good one. I just wanted to add, you may have over looked the window of another version of evil Picard. And that was in Picard season 2 episode 1 when Q returns. He gives a monologue of Picard in the alternate history that is created.
14:45 Landscape artist. Before the road that would lead to the Third Reich, he was an art student. You can still find some of hia pieces today; not bad, all things considered, but he had difficulty with faces.
Discovery had a pretty significant mirror universe plot. Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs) was probably one of the most interesting characters in Discovery.
I think George should have been given an award for his mirror performance.
Mirror Smily O'brien is the reason the Terran Empire returns as the Terran Alliance, as seen in Prodigy.
Smily brought over many designs from Starfleet for use against the Cardassians/Klingon/Romulan Alliance.
Even a Mirror Janeway after getting the Mirror Terran Voyager still went to the Delta Quandrant to become a borg
Timely video given Lower Decks opener for S5 was about temporal rifts, and alternate universes and meeting one's counterpart - not necessarily evil twins - but just as nutty as their normal selves.
My favourite thing about Intendant Kira is that you can see how Kira could become her. Like, they have the same mannerisms and little ways of interacting with people (eg the mock-pity cutesy voice) that Intendant Kira loves to use, and Kira has used on rare occasions. Mostly when snarking at Cardassian war criminals.
I think the past tense of "where it's at" is "I got two turntables and a microphone"
The best factoid about mirror Spock: he gave rise to one of the coolest band names ever: Spock's Beard!
I wonder if we are already at the point where you have to be "of a certain age" to get the FedEx Office joke... That got me pretty good!
I'm surprised Thomas Riker didn't merit an entry in this list, in particular in light of his appearance in DS9.
I guess Steve thinks stealing a warship to shoot space Nazis and reveal their secret space Nazi fleet isn't evil. At least, I do.
Excellent episode, as always. Can't wait for Q! ❤