CONTAINS SPOILERS
Star Trek has an even longer, wider and richer history than Star Wars - there's a wealth of characters, events and plot points that can be mined for ideas for new stories, and this is precisely where the current series of Picard is heading.
Way back, in the The Original Series episode, "Mirror, Mirror," a transporter accident launched Kirk, Scotty, Uhura and McCoy into an alternative universe which became known as the Mirror Universe. Here, the 'Federation' is an ultra-right-wing organisation bent on conquest and destruction and the supremacy of the Human Race. Torturing is an acceptable interrogation technique, Nazi-style salutes are the norm, and assassinating your immediate superior is an approved way of achieving a promotion. The episode is one of the best of the The Original Series, and is well worth a watch (although you'll smile at the costume designs - Spock in a goatee, for example).
Picard's first series, The Next Generation, never visited the Mirror Universe, but it featured repeatedly in Deep Space Nine episodes - Crossover (Season 2), Through the Looking Glass (Season 3), Shattered Mirror (Season 4), Resurrection (Season 6), and The Emperor’s New Cloak (Season 7). The Terran Empire is battling against the combined forces of almost everybody else - the Klingons, Vulcans, Cardassians, Ferengi and so on. It also featured in the Enterprise series (with two standalone episodes) and much of Star Trek Discovery.
And it is in this Mirror Universe that Picard finds himself, courtesy of Q. It's not clear why Q is not his usual self - as Picard points out, he seems unwell and unstable, even by Q's own unhinged standards. Q drops some key hints as to Picard's location: his line, "This is no Yesterday's Enterprise." is directed to the audience more than to Picard: Yesterday's Enterprise was an episode of The Next Generation, and possibly one of the best. A previous version of the Enterprise, the Enterprise NCC-1701C is thrown forwards in time and out of a key battle between the Romulans and the Klingons. In the correct order of history, the Enterprise C makes a valiant sacrificial stand to protect the Klingons, and this leads to a lasting peace with them. When the Enterprise C ducks out of this battle, history takes a different turn and the Federation and Klingons are mortal enemies.
Q makes another overt reference to their new location when he comments about 'mirrors and smoke' - this is definitely the Mirror Universe.
And what a bleak place it is for mankind. Global warming has made it almost impossible to grow crops; the planet has a defence system of some kind surrounding it and worse of all, Picard is the key military leader who has made all this happen. His chateau now sports trophies of all macabre types: there are the usual weapons of war, portraits and military imagery, along with the skulls of some of mankind's greatest 'enemies': Gul Dukat (the Cardassian antagonist in Deep Space Nine); the Vulcan Sarek (who was executed in front of a crowd that included his son - Spock); General Martok (in our universe, a key Klingon who supported peace with the Federation). Things here are very, very wrong. But Picard is sick and tired of Q's interference, and wants none of his help. Ah, Picard, still as stubborn as ever. However, Q has still arranged for support for Picard in this universe, as we discover.
Seven awakens in the Mirror Universe, and we eventually realise that she's not Borg. Maybe the change in the timeline meant that her parents never flew off in search of the Borg; maybe humanity never encountered the Borg in this timeline. Maybe I'm being optimistic: the truth is a lot worse. This episode piles on the darkness and is relentless in making a bleak place even worse.
Seven very quickly runs some personal diagnostics, and concludes that she is still herself, in a strange environment: she is married, and no less than the President Of Earth (a role which the Emergency Medical Hologram once took on in the comical Voyager episode Bride of Chaotica!). She handles the transition with apparent ease, and after acclimatising to being married, sends her husband off and makes contact with Rios. Her husband suggests General Sisko (from Deep Space Nine, no less, but Seven knows exactly what she's doing.
This is a great scene; Rios is in the middle of a battle with the Vulcans (apparently near their homeworld) and accepts Seven's hail. Is the Rios in this universe the same Rios we know from our universe? Is Seven? After a few guarded comments, Rios asks: "Seven?" to which she replies, "Chris!" and they know that they are indeed in the same situation. He is given a presidential order to return to Earth - the team must reunite.
Raffi and Elnor meet in less than ideal circumstances. In this xenophobic, fascist, supremacist environment, aliens such as the Romulan Elnor are less than nothing. Elnor in particular is a terrorist, with a specialism in setting off bombs in high-rise buildings. He gets captured; his terrorist partner is shot dead. Fortunately, Raffi is now the planetary head of security. She's able to rescue Elnor; but who is able to rescue them? There are security troops all around and Raffi has to hand Elnor over to them - but he is to be kept alive as he possesses key intelligence and is to be interrogated.
Today is Eradication Day; in a grand ceremony presented by President Hansen and General Jean-Luc Picard, the last member of humanity's greatest enemies is to be executed. Vulcan? Romulan? Cardassian? Again, this episode makes a dark situation as dark as possible: as Doctor Agnes Jurati discovers, the species to be eradicated today is none less than the Borg. Humanity have driven the Borg to extinction: we are in a very grim situation. Agnes is still mentally unstable, and she makes a complete mess of acknowledging her transition to this new universe and of getting into character here. She's so clumsy that she almost blows the team's cover before she's even said a word. Seven brings her into line, as the two of them (plus Seven's husband) meet the Borg Queen - the final Borg in this Mirror Universe. Meeting a Borg Queen is always scary, and this is no exception - this one is alone, lost, slightly insane, but aware of the divergence in the timeline. She also still recognises Seven.
Picard and Seven meet up - they in turn are reunited with Raffi and her 'prisoner' Elnor. On whose authority is Raffi meant to keep hold of Elnor? On General Picard's, no less. Who else? The four of them all catch up on their situation: "I'm the human president of a xenophobic authoritarian regime." Sums it all up, really. This is an alternative reality, and the Borg Queen here can help the team understand the cause of the divergence. Hence, time travel is going to be necessary, to go back in time and 'put right what once went wrong' (to quote Quantum Leap). Time travel is very complex, but it can be done by sling-shotting a ship around a star at warp (Kirk did indeed do it on multiple occasions, in particular in Star Trek IV). The calculations are extremely complicated, Kirk was able to do this, because 'He had Spock', and the team realise they can use the Borg Queen, who will surely want to help them in order to rejoin her collective in the Beta Quadrant.
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| President Hansen, General Picard, Security Chief Raffi and their prisoner |
So that's the plan: lower (or make a hole in) the planetary shields to enable communication and beaming, so that Rios can beam the crew up to the La Sirena, along with the Borg Queen, who is in cold storage in Agnes's lab. What could possibly go wrong? In this universe: everything. After all, today is Eradication Day, and security is tight.
Picard plays for time; he plays to the crowd. He's running out of time, and running out of ideas and options. Agnes is trying to create maintain an open comm line with Rios, while Raffi and Elnor are trying to punch a hole in the Earth's shields so that they can all beam out - with the Borg Queen - at a time when security is tight and getting tighter. Nobody is making any progress, and Picard's crowd are getting impatient. In the end, he improvises and shoots the guards on the stage. As ever, just at the last possible moment, Seven, Picard, Agnes, Jaffi, Elnor and the Borg Queen are beamed aboard the La Sirena. Everybody runs to their stations: Seven takes the bridge and prepares the getaway, while Agnes starts preparing the La Sirena for a connection with the Borg Queen.
Does anybody else find the way that the Queen looks at Agnes disturbing?
It's all futile: Seven's husband beams aboard, followed by more armed security officers who seize the ship and place everyone under arrest as traitors.
Does anybody else think that the Queen will provide the escape route for the crew?
I thought the first episode was good, but this was even better. It had a completely different tone - last week's was romantic, with whimsical 'what-ifs' and bright optimism (harvest and graduation are celebrations of a long, successful effort); this episode was dark: Q isn't well; the celebrations are around death, extinction and eradication, and even the rebellion against the Confederation seems doomed to failure. The only hope in this grim universe is the Borg Queen - the epitome of darkness - which shows how dark the situation really is. Whatever happens, I shall be watching with great anticipation next week.
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