History Recap / StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E19ThroughTheLookingGlass

* DepravedBisexual: The obvious [[ScrewYourself attraction]] Intendant Kira showed toward Major Kira in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E23Crossover Crossover]]" starts getting [[{{Flanderization}} exaggerated]] into [[AnythingThatMoves indiscriminate sexual voracity]], a trend that continues through her appearances in later MirrorUniverse episodes. Nana Visitor was reportedly not happy, as she'd intended the Intendant's vamping on the Major to be a sign of extreme narcissism, not a normal expression of her sexuality.

Thought reluctant to interfere in this dimension, Sisko cannot allow Jennifer to die in this dimension as well, so he accepts. Sisko arrives at a resistance cell hideout in the guise of Captain Sisko, where he meets the mirror versions of Bashir, Rom, Dax, and [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Tuvok]]. Though the rebels are suspicious of Sisko due to reports of his death, he wins over the crowd by bedding Dax, who is his mirror's lover in this dimension. He then campaigns to rescue Jennifer rather than assassinate her, with Dax and Smiley's support. Bashir and Tuvok oppose him, but Sisko punches Bashir, and that settles that.

On Terok Nor, Kira lounges with some love slaves that look suspiciously like Sisko while stewing about his betrayal, his death, and the general state of the station. She summons Jennifer to discuss the sensor array and ensure her cooperation. Jennifer wants peace and was not on good terms with her husband before his death, so she is willing but unenthusiastic about the plan.

The guards quickly catch up and surround the rebels. Kira orders that everyone except Jennifer be killed, but Sisko reveals that he has used his knowledge of his universe's Deep Space Nine to change its command codes and start its self destruct sequence. He promises to give Kira the new codes once all his people have made their escape. Kira tries to call his bluff, but he's telling the truth. She reluctantly lets them all go.

--> "I guess you could say we just stepped '''through the looking glass'''."

As Sisko and Smiley launch their rescue operation, Rom appears on Terok Nor ahead of them and informs Kira of the impending operation. Sisko and Smiley's raider is ambushed, and they're captured. Dragged before the intendant, Sisko tries to go right back to seducing her with Captain Sisko's devil-may-care swagger. Kira still plans on killing him for his betrayal, but she's more than happy to play with him first. As Sisko languishes in confinement, Jennifer visits him for a confrontation with her wayward husband, and Sisko explains that he's there to rescue her. Jennifer is reluctant to defect, but Sisko sends a signal to Smiley to set the real plan in motion.

* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The name of this Mirror Universe episode is "Though the Looking Glass." This is of course a reference to ''Literature/ThroughTheLookingGlass'', in which Alice steps through a mirror into another world.

The commander quickly deduces that they're in the dimension that Kira and Bashir [[[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E23Crossover visited last year]]. This version of Miles, who goes by Smiley, tells him that he'll send him back home after he performs one mission. The Resistance against the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance is at a crisis point. Sisko's wife Jennifer is still alive here and working on a trans-spectral sensor array for the Alliance. Captain Sisko of this dimension has recently died in battle, so only Commander Sisko can convince her to switch sides. Otherwise the Resistance will try to kill her.

Odo and Sisko interrogate Quark, who has been caught preparing for some vole fighting with Morn. Quark protests his innocence, but Sisko orders their voles confiscated anyway. At Ops, Miles approached Sisko wearing civilian garb and suddenly pulls a phaser on Sisko. He forces the commander into a teleporter, and they transport onto a Terran raider. When Sisko asks where they are, Miles announces that they're "through the looking glass."

The commander quickly deduces that they're in the dimension where Kira and Bashir [[[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E23Crossover visited last year]]. Miles, who goes by Smiley here, tells him that he'll send him back to his home dimension as long as he performs one mission. The Resistance against the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance is at a crisis point. Sisko's wife Jennifer is still alive in this dimension and working on a scientist named trans-spectral sensor array for the Alliance. Captain Sisko has recently died in battle, so only Commander Sisko can convince her to switch sides. Otherwise the Resistance will try to kill her.

As Sisko and Smiley launch their rescue operation, Rom appears on Terok Nor ahead of them and informs Kira of te impending operation. Sisko and Smiley's raider is ambushed, and they're captured. Dragged before the intendant, Sisko tries to go right back to seducing her with Captain Sisko's devil-may-care swagger. Kira still plans on killing him for his betrayal, but she's more than happy to play with him first. Jennifer visits Sisko to confront him, and he explains that he's there to rescue her. Jennifer is reluctant to defect, but Sisko sends a signal to Smiley to set the plan in motion.

In Ore Processing, Smiley fiddles with some circuits to contravene security, overpowers a guard, and stages a slave rebellion. Meanwhile, Sisko takes up two disruptors and asks if Jennifer is in. Though still dubious, Jennifer throws caution to the wind and joins him. Both groups fight their way through the halls to the docking bay, where they find Rom's body pinned to the bulkhead. It turns out that the ever-suspicious Garak tortured the Ferengi into revealing the true rescue attempt, and he's brought a whole squad of guards to put it down. He and Kira try to talk the rebels into surrendering, but they flee back to Ore Processing instead.

The guards quickly catch up and surround the rebels. Kira orders that everyone except Jennifer be killed, but Sisko reveals that he has used his knowledge of his universe's Deep Space Nine to start its self destruct sequence and change its command codes. He promises to give Kira the new codes once all his people have made their escape. Kira tries to call his bluff, but he's telling the truth. She reluctantly lets them all go.

The Mirror Universe version of Miles O'Brien kidnaps Commander Sisko and transports him to his universe. Turns out the Mirror Sisko has been killed, and the other Sisko has to impersonate him in order to complete a mission for the Rebellion that he left unfinished. The reason Sisko is needed is because in the Mirror Universe Jennifer is alive and working as a scientist for the Alliance. Unless Sisko manages to convince her to change sides, the technology she's working on will be used to crush the Rebellion once and for all.

* ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin: The Mirror Sisko isn't exactly "evil", but he's certainly more of a bastard than the regular Sisko is. Jennifer notices the difference and eventually figures out that this Sisko is not her husband.

* ContinuityCameo: [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Tuvok]] makes a brief appearance as a member of the rebellion, and even gets a few lines.

* BedTrick: Mirror Jadzia seduces Ben thinking he's Mirror Sisko, who goes along with it (mostly) to maintain his cover. The QuestionableConsent here seems to have only occurred to the writers later.

** And speaking of voles, this isn't [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E15Destiny the first reference]] to Quark hosting live vole fights.

* BizarreAlienBiology: Quark says that confiscating Morn's voles will break his hearts (yes, plural).

* BedTrick: Mirror Jadzia seduces Ben thinking he's Mirror Sisko, who goes along with it (mostly) to maintain his cover. The QuestionableConsent here seems to have only occurred to the writers later, as [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E20ShatteredMirror the next episode where they both appear]] has her threaten him with a knife if he even thinks about touching her again. (There's no such contretemps with Mirror Kira, but then she's {{flanderized}} into an ExtremeOmnisexual starting this episode anyway.)

* RewatchBonus: A minor one but it's interesting watching this after the revelation of Prime!Bashir being genetically enhanced as his Mirror Universe counterpart is almost exactly the same despite the fact he'd have grown up a slave without access to genetic engineering. This indicates that maybe all that engineering wasn't even needed and Bashir would have matured into a handsome and smart man all on his own. On the other hand, Alexander Siddig later explained that he played the mirror Bashir as being the antithesis of normal Bashir, describing him as "unstable, difficult, and stupid."

* ReverseMole: Rom informs on Sisko's "survival" to the Alliance and informs them of how to capture him, but he's actually doing so as part of a plan to get Sisko and O'Brien aboard Terok Nor. Unfortunately, Garak finds out the truth eventually.

* DepravedBisexual: The obvious [[ScrewYourself attraction]] Intendant Kira showed toward Major Kira in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E23Crossover Crossover]]" starts getting [[{{Flanderization}} exaggerated]] into [[AnythingThatMoves indiscriminate sexual voracity]], a trend that continues through her appearances in later MirrorUniverse episodes. Nana Visitor was reportedly not happy, as she'd intended the Indendant's vamping on the Major to be a sign of extreme narcissism, not a normal expression of her sexuality.

* DepravedBisexual: The obvious [[ScrewYourself attraction]] Intendant Kira showed toward Major Kira in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E23Crossover Crossover]]" starts getting [[{{Flanderization}} exaggerated]] into [[AnythingThatMoves indiscriminate sexual voracity]], a trend that continues through her appearances in later MirrorUniverse episodes.

* ContrivedCoincidence: There's no in-universe explanation why Mirror Dax and Mirror Bashir just happen to be among Mirror Sisko's crew, they seem to be there just so Creator/TerryFarrell and Creator/AlexanderSiddig would have something to do in the episode.

* DepravedBisexual: The obvious [[ScrewYourself attraction]] Intendant Kira showed toward Major Kira in [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E23Crossover "Crossover"]] starts getting [[{{Flanderization}} exaggerated]] into [[AnythingThatMoves indiscriminate sexual voracity]], a trend that continues through her appearances in later MirrorUniverse episodes.
* EvilIsHammy: Nana Visitor and Andrew Robinson are particularly over-the-top in this episode.

** Avery Brooks also breaks out the ham when impersonating his mirror counterpart

* SeriesContinuityError: Alliance ships are shown de-cloaking in this episode. A later episode (The Emperor's New Cloak) uses a major plot point that the Mirror Universe doesn't have cloaking technology. This also contradicts the ''Enterprise'' episode "In A Mirror Darkly", where the NX-01 has a Suliban cloaking device. There are various ExpandedUniverse attempts to explain this apparent contradiction.

The Mirror Universe version of Miles O'Brien kidnaps Captain Sisko and transports him to his universe. Turns out the Mirror Sisko has been killed, and the other Sisko has to impersonate him in order to complete a mission for the Rebellion that he left unfinished. The reason Sisko is needed is because in the Mirror Universe Jennifer is alive and working as a scientist for the Alliance. Unless Sisko manages to convince her to change sides, the technology she's working on will be used to crush the Rebellion once and for all.

* RewatchBonus: A minor one but it's interesting watching this after the revelation of Prime!Bashir being genetically enhanced as his Mirror Universe counterpart is almost exactly the same despite the fact he'd have grown up a slave without access to genetic engineering. This indicates that maybe all that engineering wasn't even needed and Bashir would have matured into a handsome and smart man all on his own.
** On the other hand, Alexander Siddig later explained that he played the mirror Bashir as being the antithesis of normal Bashir, describing him as "unstable, difficult, and stupid."

* SeriesContinuityError: Alliance ships are shown de-cloaking in this episode. A later episode (The Emperor's New Cloak) uses a major plot point that the Mirror Universe doesn't have cloaking technology. This also contradicts the Enterprise episode "In A Mirror Darkly", where the NX-01 has a Suliban cloaking device. There are various ExpandedUniverse attempts to explain this apparent contradiction.