#unpopularopinion am I the only one who thinks that "Mirror, Mirror" from the original Star Trek was maybe a disastrous mistake? Like, the episode itself is probably one of the better TOS eps; it's not bad. But boy oh boy did it open the door to a thousand unwanted followups and imitators. Mirror universes are up there with time travel among the worst-abused devices for plot generation. It's not the AU itself that's necessarily the problem...ok, sometimes the AU _is_ the problem, and Trek's AU of itself is to Star Trek what Underfell is to Undertale, almost comically grimdark, or wannabe grimdark.
@kara_dreamer I don't know if TOS can really be blamed for everything it inspired. Like, a lot of those ideas are simple enough that they would've entered the popular culture some other way.
Though maybe in this case with some signifier of mirror evil other than the goatee.
@listelian perhaps you're right. one reason I think these episodes sit a little poorly with me, in Star Trek, is that they serve a similar purpose to other types of contrived episode like the holodeck episodes, in giving the cast a reason to give completely out-of-character performances. that's not a problem in itself, necessarily, except that then the limitations of some of the Trek shows' actors then get thrown into sharper relief, trying to act villainous and not convincing.