Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

. . . especially the Mirror Universe episodes of the past two Fridays.

I keep forgetting to mention, but I continue to get a kick out of this final season of "Star Trek: Enterprise", in spite of the relatively slow pace of developments on the Tripp-T'Pol front (loved Tripp being the only male immune to the Orion women's pheromones, through his enduring telepathic bond with T'Pol, though I wish they'd quit with the Junior High "punching-each-other-on-the-arm-and-running-away" method of dealing with their mutual attraction -- but then, I suppose they wouldn't be Tripp and T'Pol, if they weren't making with the verbal fencing most of the time).

And I thought the latest two episodes, with the different opening and closing credits with darker music and mood in keeping with the darker and more hostile nature of humanity in the Mirror Universe (much as Joss Whedon did with the alternate universe opening credits in the "Buffy" episode "Superstar") did a really interesting job of planting a plausible history for the Original Series episode "Mirror, Mirror" and the backlash that led to the enslavement of Terrans that we encountered a century later in the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" crossover episodes in seasons 3 through 7.

More than that, I found the distortion of relationships and characters in the episodes credible enough to be quite disturbing. Tripp and T'Pol using each other (and especially T'Pol's use of her mental powers to mind-rape Tripp into doing her sabotage for her) was truly the darkest and most distorted version of what I think their relationship is really about. Phlox dissecting (I hope! I don't even want to think about the possibility of vivisection) small animals at every opportunity, instead of keeping a LIVE menagerie in his sickbay, and Malcolm Reed sharing the "credit" for inventing the Agony Booth -- yikes! And then the alternate Jonathan Archer going a little nutso with insecurity after discovering how famous and important his counterpart had been in the other universe, and turning into psycho-Kirk, right down to the green command shirt and hand-to-hand combat with the Gorn . . . and having it always go WRONG, somehow! Plus, alternate Archer's inverse (in relation to OUR Archer) development of hostility towards Vulcans (instead of starting out somewhat hostile, blaming them for holding back his father's dream, etc., and then growing to respect, trust, and like many of them, and even carry the Katra of Surak for a time, THIS Archer claims he never used to have a problem with Vulcans, until they got "uppity" and joined the rebellion against the Terran Empire, and T'Pol started raining on his parade by giving him skeptical looks during his attempts to make the grand gestures) -- that was rather interesting, especially coming just a couple of weeks after the re-run of the season 3 episode where T'Pol devotes her life to being live-in nurse and companion for a brain-damaged Archer. Emotional whiplash!

Of course, it's always a pleasure to see Gary Graham as Sivol, and he did a good job of upholding the tradition that "male Vulcans look really sexy with a buccaneer beard" in the Mirror Universe. And then there was the fact that as soon as you saw Reed and his men in the red shirts, you knew they were going to get blowed up -- another fine tradition from the Original Series maintained!

But most of all, there was something very salutary about seeing Hoshi Sato turn the tables on me and everyone else who thought she was just eye-candy (or, in the alternate universe, any-captain's bed-warmer) and a glorified telephone operator. Finally, Uhura gets to be the boss -- metaphorically and by extension, at least! Empress Sato in command! Not the ending I was expecting or hoping for, but it felt REALLY appropriate!

And, when I was thinking about the episodes afterwards, I found it hard NOT to put together T'Pol's prediction that humanity would one day suffer payback for their arrogance and brutality and Archer's insistence that might made right and that he should be in charge, with the result that the Terrans who found out about the United Federation of Planets (and presumably Hoshi DID go ahead and erase the data-base, since it was only AFTER Spock's revolution that the Mirror Universe's then Powers-That-Be set up protocols and warnings to watch out for any future crossover events) again chose Empire and oppression, rather than equality and cooperation with other species. Yes, of course T'Pol's words were prophetic, in terms of what DID happen to Terrans after they finally tried to become peacemakers.

But, more than that, I got a sneaking feeling that perhaps the choices confronting Terra in the two universes (Empire or nascent Federation) might be intended to represent some of the choices confronting a super-power in the world today: arrogance and unilateralism upheld by military force, or genuine internationalism and mutual cooperation to improve the lot of every person on earth. And, since we know what the future of the Federation looks like in the 24th century, vs. what the Mirror Universe looks like then (Emperor Worf and the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance enslaving humans and pushing everybody else around), presumably the message is that ignorance and brute force may triumph in the short run, but mutual respect is the only way to go, in the long run.

The previews of this coming week's episode (which I have to believe are somewhat misleading, and possibly showing flashback scenes from that season 3 episode in which Tripp and T'Pol's middle-aged son showed up commanding an Enterprise that had become a multi-generation ship, because when have they had time to make a baby in this timeline?), insofar as they depict Peter Weller as a human-supremacist wanting to turn Earth isolationist and keep it "pure" from Alien influences and DNA, seem to support this "Now is the time of decision" theme (or as Moses might have put it, "...I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendents may live," -- Deuteronomy 30:19).

Or maybe I'm just reading WAY too much into this. It happens!