"Smiley," the Mirror Universe version of O'Brien, abducts Sisko and takes him to the other side. The Mirror Benjamin Sisko has been killed, and Smiley wants our Sisko to impersonate him for one important assignment: persuade a scientist to abandon her work for the enemy and join the Terran Rebellion. That scientist? None other than the Mirror version of Ben's own wife, Jennifer.
This episode might just be the peak for the Mirror Universe (excepting the original series episode that started it all). Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, and Discovery would all return to this well, but generally just for action thrills and schticky violence. Of course, pure escapism has its place -- but I do enjoy the character-driven pathos of this story, of Sisko having to interact with a specter of his late wife. Incredibly, that wasn't actually the core of the story pitch. Originally, staff writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe's suggestion was just to have Sisko go to the Mirror Universe to replace his counterpart. Show runner Ira Steven Behr came up with the idea of having it be to rescue Mirror Jennifer. I guess that's why he got to run the show.
There's a nice arc between the two Siskos, with Jennifer starting out cold (hearing her ex-husband has been killed) and ultimately warming to Benjamin -- to then ultimately figure out on her own that our Sisko is not hers. There's meaningful dialogue between them about the line between freedom and slavery. Plus, Avery Brooks gets to cut loose and have some fun as Sisko playing "Sisko." (I particularly love his gleeful delivery of "I changed it!", speaking of the station's security access code.)
But Sisko sleeping his way around the Mirror Universe is a bit troubling when you stop to think about it. Sure, it's nice to see that he's not a celibate character -- this would seem to be the first time on the show (and since the death of his wife) that he's had sex. But to do so with both Jadzia and Kira -- even when it's "not really them" -- is kind of creepy. It's faintly exploitative even as the episode is trying to be empowering by having Intendant Kira use sexuality as a weapon against anyone and everyone.
Because Mirror Odo and Quark were both killed off in the last Mirror Universe episode, the "prime" versions of the characters are featured in a comedy cold open at the start of the episode. Also, new Mirror characters are introduced that we didn't meet last time: Bashir, Rom, Jadzia (who doesn't seem to be joined with Dax), and Tuvok (a Voyager cameo requested by executive producer Rick Berman).
As always with Mirror Universe efforts, most of the fun comes in watching the regular actors perform "out of character." Everyone does seem to be having fun, especially Nana Visitor as the Intendant. (Reportedly, she loved the persona and hated the costume. She had to stand in front of a fan between takes to avoid sweating in the non-breathing rubber, which could easily discolor.) Colm Meaney gets to show us a more assertive "Smiley" than last time, Alexander Siddig gets to swap Bashir's usually clueless pomposity for bold swagger, Avery Brooks gets to swashbuckle all over the screen, and Max Grodénchik gets to bring us a brave and noble version of Rom.
Money is spent in the right places. They save it by not building new sets for any ships -- the corridors of Smiley's ship are just Defiant hallways bathed in red light. They then spend it on a pretty well-executed action sequence at the end of the episode, full of phaser blasts and fun stunts.
Other observation:
- We see a decloaking Cardassian ship in the Mirror Universe. It was a fun detail reminding us of their alliance with the Klingons -- but a detail the writers would later wish hadn't been included. The final Deep Space Nine Mirror Universe episode would revolve entirely around the idea that cloaking technology doesn't yet exist there.
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