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!
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.
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.
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." 🤯😆
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.
"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.)
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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 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
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!"
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 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 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 .👍
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"
"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.
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.
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 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.
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...
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.
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.
"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...???
"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.
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!
"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!
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.
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.
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 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.
Hi Steve, Your analysis of "The Enemy Within", something I watched in the 1960s, helped me realize something. Combined with my general reading and a documentary I saw with lions and their prey drinking water near each other but the other animals sensing the lions were fed and not looking for food, I had the idea that in the inner mental landscape that one had both cooperative and violent impulses. "Keep your inner lions fed, was my insight" And has served me well in my general Stoic goal of Self-Control (where Possible). I can see now how this Matheson story was a vivid illustration of the hungry lion on the loose. Thanks Monsieur Shives. Shatner going big taught a whole generation of Teenagers how to ham it up. (in perpetuity with reruns) When creating evil twins one only should change one or two characteristics. Experimenting with Fagin make up, Alec Guiniss noticed that if he changed too many details he just got a bloated original face. So he was selective and only changed the nose and ears and voila, a new face. Jacques Mexico
"He contains multitudes, or at least two guys." So, multidudes? Leather Mommy Kira was what kept me watching those DS9 Mirrorsodes. Überhorny pansexual Kira made me feel things... Leather Mommy Georgiou calling Dr. Culber "Papi" also made me feel things...
I love that you dislike Season 3 of Picard so much. It makes me happy to be reminded of the fact that you had to watch the whole thing whenever you have a bad take.
Vic Fontaine's Mirror Universe counterpart only appeared in a cameo in DS9 but his death was memorable... as he was blasted apart by a disruptor or something he was revealed to be not a hologram, but a ROBOT! It was a nice bit of things-are-never-quite--the-same-over-here bit of mirror universe weirdness. I don't recall if he was evil or not.
This split into good and bad is very similar to what the Navajo believe happens when people die. And the evil part becomes a spirit that can possess people.
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." 🤦
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..."
@@st.anselmsfire3547 Leave 'em wanting more!
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.
Another spicklesparkle entry from Steve here. Keep it grenchy.
Steve is always streets ahead with his use of current slang.
The alien facsimile of the Voyager crew is my favorite just for how cartoonishly evil they are.
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.
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.
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.
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." 🤯😆
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.
The Enterprise computer and Lwaxana Troi
*WHEEZE*
Oof
the TOS Enterprise's computer and Christine Chapel too, then.
"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
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.
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.
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. 😄
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!
"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.
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.
Jean-Dupe: Chef's kiss.
Hmmm... Jean-Luc-alike hits an additional level, IMHO.
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
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.
"I've made felt goatees for everyone until you can grow your own"
6:00 now that you mentioned it, Leaonard Nimoy would have been great as Loki!
"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.
😁
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 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
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!"
Your Kinkos / Fedex line - perfecto deep cut for us old school zine creators.
34:47 I was waiting for it and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s not a Steve Shives Star Trek video without it. 😆
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.
A goatee, the trope indicating you’re the evil twin, unless you’re Bender Bending Rodriguez. Then you’re the evil twin!
"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!"
Lore is such a magnificent bastard, but Mirror Sulu is the one I enjoy most.
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
Slick Kinko's reference 😊
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 .👍
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"
"I am not ... Less perfect... Than Lore!"
I never knew that Buffy episode was a Star Trek rip. I've never seen Star Trek. Why am I watching this video?
🗣️ WHERE IT'S AT 📣
🎶 I've got two turntables and a microphone 🎶
"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.
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.
Shatner devours scenery like Joey Chestnut devours hot dogs.
Cool video - quite spickle sparkle!
This old man loves the Electric Company call-out with Datalore.
"Dat and Lore pause to create a meme template" gave me a good chuckle :)
The Picard photo play was so good
Doing Datalore as an Electric Company bit was hilarious.
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.
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
I would have to say, even if it doesn't count, I liked B'elanna Torres & her 'Klingon half vs Human half'...
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.
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...
This video is mad spicklesparkle
Spock with a beard evil twin…he is so logical he seemed like a benevolent Spock.
3:31 So you’re saying… don’t take away Captain Kirk’s pain, he needs his pain!
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.
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.
A great video from Shive Steves.
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.
Evil Odo could have been a huge menace, instead he fucking exploded.
"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...???
2:12 The second episode written for Shatner, Nick Of Time, is somehow as forgettable as his first episode is iconic
"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.
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.
Lore was indeed a badass evil twin
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’s wasn’t that evil.
Kira’s was hot. Lore was just diabolically unhinged
"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!
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.
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.
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.)
Two turntables and a microphone 11:40
Do a breakdown of amnesia episodes next!
The best factoid about mirror Spock: he gave rise to one of the coolest band names ever: Spock's Beard!
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.
Fun episode, Steve. I loved Discovery's Mirror Universe episodes. Largely because of the character, Emperor Philippa Georgiou.
Funny that both of your first two evil twin episodes are written by Twilight Zone writers.
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.
There was Hitlercard in Season 2 of Picard too, but we barely see him
Heading in for a physical early is especially bold for Jean Dupe since it’s like 99% of a Starfleet doctor’s job to detect imposters and possessions.
"If you enter a scenery-chewing contest with this guy, you're competing for second place."
Truer words were never TH-camd.
Hi Steve, Your analysis of "The Enemy Within", something I watched in the 1960s, helped me realize something. Combined with my general reading and a documentary I saw with lions and their prey drinking water near each other but the other animals sensing the lions were fed and not looking for food, I had the idea that in the inner mental landscape that one had both cooperative and violent impulses. "Keep your inner lions fed, was my insight" And has served me well in my general Stoic goal of Self-Control (where Possible). I can see now how this Matheson story was a vivid illustration of the hungry lion on the loose. Thanks Monsieur Shives.
Shatner going big taught a whole generation of Teenagers how to ham it up. (in perpetuity with reruns)
When creating evil twins one only should change one or two characteristics. Experimenting with Fagin make up, Alec Guiniss noticed that if he changed too many details he just got a bloated original face. So he was selective and only changed the nose and ears and voila, a new face. Jacques Mexico
Conjugating wise up. Wise up. Wose up . Wizen Up. We have all Wizened up to evil Sulu's agenda.
Data Lord's it over Lore's Lore. Laurel-ly
19:26 huge belly laugh there! Well done!
"He contains multitudes, or at least two guys."
So, multidudes?
Leather Mommy Kira was what kept me watching those DS9 Mirrorsodes. Überhorny pansexual Kira made me feel things...
Leather Mommy Georgiou calling Dr. Culber "Papi" also made me feel things...
I love that you dislike Season 3 of Picard so much. It makes me happy to be reminded of the fact that you had to watch the whole thing whenever you have a bad take.
Beardless Steve Shives
A truly terrifying mental image!
Vic Fontaine's Mirror Universe counterpart only appeared in a cameo in DS9 but his death was memorable... as he was blasted apart by a disruptor or something he was revealed to be not a hologram, but a ROBOT! It was a nice bit of things-are-never-quite--the-same-over-here bit of mirror universe weirdness. I don't recall if he was evil or not.
I think the past tense of "where it's at" is "I got two turntables and a microphone"
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.
This split into good and bad is very similar to what the Navajo believe happens when people die. And the evil part becomes a spirit that can possess people.
The FedEx Office joke is the reason I watch people my own age on TH-cam
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."
🤦
Steve Shives, the hardest working man in show business 👏 😂
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!
23:01 Its the "I Rike This" meme :)
O’Brien has been “smiley” in my house since the first time he gets called that
We had multiple Identical twins when I was in high school Period like statistically Out of order level😂
I think that would be Tuvix.