Through The Looking Glass

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Sisko sleeps his way to the top of the parallel universe. Oh, there's more to this, but that's pretty much the whole story. And is that a bad thing? Probably.

O'Brien kidnaps Ben at gunpoint, beaming him to the Mirror Universe. Of course, it's Smiley, who carelessly lost his previous Sisko and needs a new one.

The MU's Local Ben (full-on bastitch though he was) got a full-on rebellion going against the Evil Alliance before he full-on exploded. Our Ben has inherited a band of merry men... Merry Rom, Merry Tuvok, Merry One-Eyed Dennis, Merry Dax. Amidst all the merriment, there was marriage, too:

Pirate Ben's estranged widow Jennifer is a scientist building a trans-spectral sensor for the Alliance that would doom all humans. I hope that job has great benefits. I hear Catsuit Kira poached Jen from Ming the Merciless.

Quickly giving up on any pretence that he doesn't want to interfere, Sisko seems to treat the whole experience like a dream or holodeck excursion. There's a Prime Directive, and a Temporal Prime Directive, but if there's a Parallel Prime Directive Ben isn't REMOTELY following it! Punch and shoot, shoot and punch, regular off-camera sex with duplicates of his co-workers, and finally pitching woo at a woman physically identical to his dead wife.

By sheer coincidence, my buddy Ron just ran Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' for me. If you should want the creepy vibe of the guy falling for a copy of his former lover. Not really my thing, as it happens. But at least Ben isn't forcing Evil Jennifer to wear her costume from 'Emissary'.

Mirror Garak's command to his troops to "Pursoooooo!" is my personal favourite over-the-top moment. Maybe from the entire series!

"Through The Looking Glass" with Mirror Sisko, and now Mirror Rom, added to the pile of dead characters that started with Odo and Quark, one wonders how this place stays "Parallel". But one does not wonder too hard. It's not a show about thinking hard. I like Dax lounging about in a tiny tank top as much as the next guy, but... I... what was I saying?

PURSOOOOOO!!!