Star Trek Discovery might be a very different show to the one that premiered fifty years ago, but its use of classic Trek tropes is very commendable.
The most recent one came in the first season's closing arc, featuring the return of the mirror dimension from the tenth episode of TOS' second season. Called Mirror, Mirror, said episode revolves around the crew of the Enterprise encountering a parallel dimension populated by their evil doppelgängers. Kirk is a pirate leader, Spock (now sporting an evil-guy beard), is his underling, and the rest of the evil crew don informal wear to hammer home their, well, evilness.
It's classic Trek through and through, and by far one of the most entertaining episodes from The Original Series. There are darker elements to it, as there are most episodes, but Mirror, Mirror's story of parallel dimensions, beard-wearing Vulcans and glittery-sash wearing space pirates is fun in the plainest sense.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
