Product Details

• Actors: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Barbara Luna, Vic Perrin
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: CBS Paramount International Television
• DVD Release Date: February 13, 2001
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000055Z4J
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #40,525 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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  Movies & TV > Television > Classic TV > Star Trek: The Original Series

• For more information about "Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 20, Episodes 39 & 40: Mirror Mirror/ The Deadly Years" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

• This is item 20 in The Star Trek: The Original Series Series.

Editorial Reviews

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"Mirror, Mirror"
When their mission to secure a mineral trade ends in failure, a freak ion storm catches Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and Scotty in mid-beam-up and sends them to a parallel dimension where Federation leaders are as ruthless as the Klingons, and Star Fleet promotions are attained by assassination. They find themselves on an alternate Enterprise, peopled with evil counterparts to the people they know (all attired in glittery, glam-rock uniforms), including most famously an evil, goateed Spock whom Kirk must convince to overthrow the empire. Kirk and his landing party try to fit in with this crew of villains who are threatening with annihilation the planet where the mineral trade went sour, while searching for a way back to their world and fending off assassination attempts. Mirror, Mirror achieves the best of what Star Trek is capable, which is to say space opera brought to a high pitch by melodrama. Everyone appears to be having great fun turning their characters to the dark side, especially George Takei, whose evil Sulu beams when making his assassination attempt against Captain Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy, who makes Spock's shift from the meditative logician to the ruthless goateed one seem, well, quite logical. This episode in particular fueled popular culture in such a way that in some circles it is now impossible to sport a goatee without being called "the evil Spock." The story of the evil Spock is continued in the Deep Space Nine episode Crossover. --Jim Gay

"The Deadly Years"
While on the planet Gamma Hydra IV, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty are infected with an unknown disease that causes premature aging. The only member of the party unaffected is Chekov (Walter Koenig), who becomes McCoy's guinea pig while searching for a cure back on the Enterprise. A nifty idea with some poignant overtones, the story by David P. Harmon startles a viewer with the sight of these familiar folks rapidly graying, wrinkling, weakening, and suffering memory loss. At the same time, Harmon is careful to age each character as a unique individual. Kirk slows down more than the longer-lived Spock, while McCoy remains mentally keen, if physically brittle. As for poor Scotty, well...

The dramatic subtext in "The Deadly Years" concerns the perennial conflict over when and how to decide that someone has become too old to execute crucial responsibilities. In that sense, this episode feels constantly relevant and uniquely entertaining: let's just say some of these actors play "old" a little better than others. (Director Joseph Pevney has reported that there was a lot of conflict over who was stealing old-guy moves from whom.) With all this going on, one might not notice that guest star Charles Drake is a truly familiar face, having been cast in The Maltese Falcon and Now, Voyager. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

"Mirror, Mirror," Ep. 39 - Beamed up during an ion storm, Kirk and the landing party find themselves in a mirror universe aboard a U.S.S. Enterprise run by ruthless barbarians. "The Deadly Years," Ep. 40 - A landing party from the U.S.S. Enterprise becomes ill with a fatal aging disease and Chekov is the only one unaffected. Spock and McCoy search for a remedy using him as a guinea pig.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No Dogs in Volume 20, December 13, 2000

By	"adman_" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

The Star Trek DVD series is being issued in more-or-less the order in which the episodes were originally produced. So to date, some of the best episodes of the series have been issued in the same volume as some of the most, well, mediocre.

Both episodes on volume 20 are fantastic and emblematic of the best shows in the original series. "Mirror, Mirror" easily makes just about everybody's top ten list of best episodes. While the concept of alternate realities was hardly invented on Star Trek, this series (and its progeny) handled the "world-turned-upside-down" set up better than any. "Mirror, Mirror" is in many ways the inspiration for The Next Generation's "Yesterday's Enterprise" episode which finds the Federation losing an interstellar war to the Klingons. The mirror universe first introduced in "Mirror, Mirror" was the setting for a good half dozen episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

The premature aging concept at the core of "The Deadly Years" is hardly innovative either, but again, it is executed deftly on Star Trek. Watching the crew stumble into senility is amusing, but doubly so since we've got the benefit of still knowing the actors some thirty years after this story was filmed. Jimmy Doohan (Scotty) for one seems to age better in this episode than he would in real life.

If you're cherry-picking your way through this DVD series, this is among the handful of Star Trek volumes that you really must have.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Popular Treks on this DVD, March 2, 2001

By	Hank Drake (Cleveland, OH United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Volume 20 of Paramount's complete Star Trek collection contains two ever popular episodes from Season Two.

More than thirty years after its original airing, Mirror, Mirror, remains on most Trekkers' lists of Top Ten episodes. This story has also spawned a spinoff novel by George Takei, follow-ups on Deep Space Nine, and been touched upon in William Shatner's Star Trek novels. It's not hard to see why. From the redecorating of the ISS Enterprise, to the sexy uniforms, to being able to watch each Trek character engage in evil scenery chewing, this episode has something for every Star Trek fan. Indeed, this is one of the few episodes to make use of the entire ensemble cast. George Takei and Nichelle Nichols in particular shine here.

The Deadly Years is less effective now than it was originally. Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, it's a relief to know that the Star Trek regulars have aged more gracefully than portrayed here --even if some of them have been aided by cosmetic surgery and expensive hairpieces. Actually, hairpieces are one of the problems here. The visual restoration has been successful to the point that the seam in William Shatner's toupee is glaringly evident when the "old" Kirk's hair is combed straight back. (Look at the forehead, just under the hairline, and you can't miss it.) For the most part, though, the old-age makeup stands up to today's standards surprisingly well. The Corbomite reference near the episode's end is a testament to how seriously story continuity was taken.

Sound and picture have never been better.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Our Beloved Characters Turned Upside-Down, August 2, 2004

By	Michael K. Beusch (San Mateo, California United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Another reviewer hit the nail right on the head when he stated that so many times in the Star Trek: The Original Series DVD sets, a very good or great episode is paired with a real clinker. However, not this time. This DVD pairs up two terrific episodes that succeed on every level. Both episodes offer the varous cast members ways to play off of their usual characterizations on Star Trek:

MIRROR, MIRROR: I love watching films or TV episodes where you know that the cast and crew must have had a ball filming it. Mirror, Mirror is one of those episodes in spades. Those who have been to a Star Trek convention have, more than likely, seen the Star Trek blooper reel. It seems that a quarter of the bloopers shown are from this episode. William Shatner, DeForest Kelly, James Doohan and Nichelle Nichols must have felt cheated, not being able to play their snarling, savage altnerate counterparts for the entire episode. Of the four, only Shatner, in his inimitable small-screen Charlton Heston way, gets to play his evil self at all. George Takei gets the Snidely Whiplash prize for the most flamboyant evil counterpart. With his red uniform shirt, huge scar and lecherous leer, Takei jumps into the role with both feet as the Gestapo-like head of security on the I.S.S. Enterprise. Walter Koenig plays the alternate Chekov as a sneering rat and is, unfortunately, gone from the episode too soon. The best performance in the episode, however, is from Leonard Nimoy who manages to make Spock fit into the alternate universe while still maintaining the integrity and intellectual honesty that is so much a part of the character. It's one of the great episodes of the series and regretably wasn't followed up either later in the series or in one of the feature films. I would have loved to have seen how the crew of the I.S.S. Enterprise was doing 15-20 years in the future.

THE DEADLY YEARS: Star Trek fans have become used to the robust images of the original crew. So much so that even when the cast, some well into their sixties, appeared in the feature films from 1979 to 1991, the producers had them jumping through the same hoops as if they hadn't aged since the 1960's. (The Simpsons brilliantly spoofed the advanced ages of the Enterprise crew in a vignette called "Star Trek 6: So Very Tired.") In The Deadly Years, however, fans did get to see their heroes age and become physically weak and vulnerable. The writers of this episode do an excellent job of aging each character differently. (I especially liked the touch by DeForest Kelly of making Dr. McCoy's southern accent thicken as he aged). Most moving, however, is the relationship between Kirk and Spock when the aging disease takes hold. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy's chemistry works very well because of their divergent acting techniques. Shatner hams it up and emotes furiously while Nimoy underplays, letting only the smallest indication of emotions leak out. Of course, the way the roles were written do, to a large extent, dictate how the actors perform them. However, try to imagine Shatner playing off of the much more emotive Martin Landau who was originally cast as Mr. Spock. When Spock conducts the competentcy hearing that removes Kirk from the captain's chair, Shatner becomes emotional and accuses Spock of stabbing him in the back. Nimoy, through very subtle gestures, shows that the situation pains Spock just as much as it does Kirk. It's a terrific job of acting, writing and directing that works perfectly.

The picture quality is as clear as a bell. The only problem I have with this (and all the other) DVD's is that not enough extras were included. The DVD only offers teaser previews for the episodes on the disk. Too bad the producers of this DVD didn't include the bloopers from Mirror, Mirror -- they would have added immensely to the DVD.