Anybody else watching Star Trek: Discovery? I’m not gonna pretend it’s top tier television, but I do feel like it’s unfairly maligned. It’s a great new spin on Trek that’s going its own way while also adhering to the world as its been established. I could do without the f-words and Klingon nudity (seriously), but I can recommend a Trek series for the first time since Next Generation and that’s no small thing.

Anyway, SPOILERS AHEAD for the latest episode for those who care about such things…

I love that Discovery is now doing a deep dive into the Mirror, Mirror universe. I love parallel universe stories and seeing the evil versions of characters we’ve come to know is great fun. I obviously had no idea the current SF storyline would line up with what Discovery is currently doing, but it’s pretty cool. I especially love it when characters get to meet other versions of themselves. It’s fun to compare similarities and differences. But, for all the fun Discovery is having, I think they missed a huge opportunity to truly shock the audience… and it’s what I’ve been doing with SF since several chapters ago.

From the outset, Discovery has been criticized for being a darker, grimmer, more warlike Trek. It seems obvious now that this first season is at least partly about moving away from all that and into something brighter and more positive–more like the Trek we know. But what if they had done something different? What if Discovery had actually been taking place in the Mirror, Mirror universe this whole time, and it was only with these latest episodes that we finally discovered that fact when the crew crossed over to another universe and… they found better versions of themselves, not worse?

I think that would have been cool. And yeah… that is EXACTLY what I’ve been doing with SF. Earth-Avalon is the inversion of the Mirror, Mirror trope (and it IS a trope at this point). I wanted see what would happen if I did that. Would that audience go along with it? Would they feel betrayed? As it is, this may be something that’s a bigger deal in my head than it is to all of you, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Captain Spectacular has a beard, after all! Not quite a goatee… but it’s close!

See you on Monday with 754 – Not Strong Anymore!