Mirror Universe episode, anyone?
Any episode that had to follow up the opening of Season Six as its first standalone episode was going to have a tough time. No matter what they did, how do you follow up a war and a wedding without further raising the stakes to some lubricous height? You can't. So, you might as well focus on something deliberately more low key, something that gets to the heart of character relationships and dynamics and how our environment can affect the kind of people we are. I'm fully on board with that.
But did they have to do it with a Mirror!Bareil?
Don't get me wrong. He was enjoyable enough in previous seasons, and "Life Support" is one episode that will consistently make me teary-eyed. I just didn't think that he was a character that really needed to be brought back and explored any further. And certainly not in any romantic connection to Kira. I thought that she had more than moved on from him by now, so her immediately falling head over heels with hearts in her eyes felt a little strange to me.
Still, as far as Mirror Universe stories go, this was a fairly strong one. I enjoyed a lot of the little details, like how everyone kept staring at Bareil, even if it wasn't commented on. I also liked how Quark immediately figured out that he was planning on stealing the Orb. Did he tell Kira because he didn't want the Orb to be stolen, or out of petty revenge for Bareil refusing to work with him? Honestly, who can say?
The best scene for me, though, was easily the dinner date between Kira, Bareil, Dax, and Worf. If you're going to tell an unbelievable story, then you better make sure that you can prove it, and Bareil did just that. The payoff made me grin, and it was also the strongest bit of characterization that we got out of this version of Bareil. Yes, he's charming and funny and a little boastful, but he has the skills to back it up. It made me believe that he could break into the temple and steal the Orb.
My one major complaint, besides the use of Bareil to begin with, is how predictable everything was. You could not get more cliche if you tried, right down to the dialogue in the final scene between him and the two Kiras. Cliche isn't always bad, but you still need to do something with it to at least make it fun to watch.
For a moment, I wondered if they were going to do anything with the fact that Bareil was starving and eating all of the time. Maybe his metabolism got messed up during the trip between universes. Maybe staying here would become unsustainable and he would need to choose between staying here, with Kira, and resigning himself to an incredibly early death or going back home to a difficult, longer life as a thief on the run. You could even draw parallels with "Life Support" and how Kira fought to keep him alive the first time. Doesn't that sound more fun than what we got? It would very neatly write him off the show again too, since he obviously isn't coming back as a character.
I also am not the fondest of Mirror!Kira. She's fine in small doses, but the over the top sexuality puts me off most of the time, like during that "massage scene." I just wanted that to be over. I also hoped that she would interact with some of out other cast members, especially Sisko. Her being so confined to the characters that she interacted with feels like a missed opportunity, even if it was admittedly the only way that the plot could play out in the way that it did.
As it was, I would classify this episode as something nice to put on in the background as you're doing chores or folding laundry. Inoffensively decent quality, but absolutely nothing that requires you to really pay any attention to it.
Random Thoughts
I think this is the first time I've seen a character look up their mirror counterpart for context and background knowledge. In any kind of media.
This really was Nana Visitor's episode. She was in almost every scene and did well in all of them.
I also loved the banter between Dax and Kira about possible dates to bring to the dinner. I really felt the friendship between the two and it just felt so natural. And I'm with Kira. I wouldn't want to be able to see the brain of my date either.
Worf has his trophy from "Parallels" on the shelf during the dinner scene.
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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.
I agree, Honest Fangirl; I was never crazy about this episode either. I also agree that having Quark figure out what Mirror!Bareil was about was great. I also loved how Kira made Mirror!Bareil climb all those ladders at the beginning. And the dinner scene was wonderful.
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