Star Trek Reviews

Return to season list

Star Trek DS9 - Season 4 - Episode 20

Star Trek DS9 - 4x20 - Shattered Mirror

Originally Aired: 1996-4-22

Synopsis:
Sisko follows his son into a war-torn alternate universe after Jake is lured there by the living counterpart of his late mother. [DVD]

My Rating - 7

Fan Rating Average - 5.34

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 11 12 2 10 23 9 6 18 18 14 9

Filler Quotient: 0, not filler, do not skip this episode.
- This is the third DS9 mirror universe episode.

Problems
None

Factoids
- Mirror Kira "knows Breen icicles that are warmer than" Mirror Jennifer is.

Remarkable Scenes
- Jake walking in and seeing Jennifer sitting with Sisko.
- Mirror Bashir hitting Sisko back to settle the score from the previous mirror universe encounter.
- Mirror Worf, as a regent in the Klingon military.
- Seeing the Defiant under construction. Cool!
- Mirror Bashir and Mirror Dax evading the Alliance fleet.
- Mirror Kira: "You know I bet if we put our... heads together, we could create a little excitement for ourselves." Guard: "You sentenced my wife to death." Mirror Kira: "Isn't that a coincidence? I was hoping you weren't married!"
- The Alliance attacking the station.
- Sisko taking command of the Mirror Defiant.
- Mirror Kira murdering Mirror Nog even though he was on her side!
- The Defiant kicking some ass!
- Mirror Kira murdering Mirror Jennifer.
- Mirror O'Brien: "Shields are down to 40%! That cruiser has us in weapons range! Should we make a run for it?" Sisko: "We run all right, right at it!" Mirror O'Brien: "Ah, pattern suicide!"
- Sisko taking the helm.
- Mirror Bashir and Mirror Dax showing up at just the right time.

My Review
Picking up from where we left off in DS9: Through the Looking Glass, Bashir hits Sisko back. :) Okay, seriously, the rebellion has made progress. They captured Terok Nor, and moved it! (Bajor is no longer in the background.) O'Brien stole the plans for the Defiant during his last visit to DS9. Everybody's manipulating everybody in this episode. Jennifer manipulates Jake, O'Brien manipulates Sisko, Garak manipulates Worf, and so on. A complex web of drama ensues. In the end, we get a rather basic confrontation. The Defiant struts her stuff against a fleet of Alliance ships! Maybe it was all a cheap excuse to show us a completely inconsequential VFX battle, but it was a lot of fun to watch! Nothing like a mirror universe episode to to superfluously spice up a season. :)

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Chris Wright on 2011-11-28 at 10:46pm:
    I liked this episode a lot, but it would have been nice if mirror universe Worf had confronted Sisko face to face. I also see this episode showing us how incredibly powerful the Defiant is. If the Federation can make one it can makes thousands and never worry about the Klingons or the Dominion. Loved the Bashir-as-Han Solo-you're all clear kid-moment.
  • From L on 2013-05-27 at 6:21am:
    I missed the episode that set all this up due to a scratched library dvd. So in the alternate universe everyone's a jerk and inappropriately sexual? Got it.
  • From McCoy on 2017-01-21 at 7:32am:
    Well, that was a horrible episode. I really like DS9 more than other series (exept TOS - this one is my fav), but all the mirror episodes are just bad. However I like one moment in this episode - Worf: "Make it so!".
  • From Armsauce on 2018-07-15 at 3:05pm:
    Mirror Nog is great

Prove to me that you are a real person and not a spam robot by typing in the text of this image:

Return to season list