I hope you kept that nerd belt buckled...

Don't you face palm me, you...meme...

Before you roll your eyes at another post about Star Trek, keep in mind that the new series starts a week from today and we fans are both stoked and trepidatious about whether or not it's going to be good. Or should I say trekidatious? Huh? What's that? I should be ashamed of myself? Yes, that's fair. Where was I? Oh, right, new Star Trek show. Well get this, Jonathan Frakes, who directed an episode of Discovery for season one, just blurted out a spoiler and its...well, it's a thing.

Pictured: Commander Riker,
awkwardly mounting a chiar.

Since it's super difficult to discuss the spoiler without telling you what he said and in the process spoiling it, I'm going to go ahead and say 'spoiler' now, so you can stop reading if you want. You know, if you haven't done so already. So, 'spoiler.' Still there? Ok, so at a Star Trek convention in Chicago today, Jonathan 'Commander Riker' Frakes-who's a director now, revealed that Star Trek: Discovery will feature an episode involving the Mirror Universe. Don't know what that is? Great, you're in luck, nerds love to nerd'splain. 

The Mirror Universe is the fannon name given to the parallel universe visited by Kirk and the original series crew in the episode 'Mirror Mirror.' It's just like the regular Star Trek universe...but eeeevil. The Federation is The Empire, Spock's got a goatee, and Uhura wears a crop top...an evil crop top I guess? 

Above: regular universe Uhura distracting not-gay parallel universe Sulu
with feminine wiles. Because TV in the 60's was apparently bananas.

There's homage and then there's
alterna-Spock shouting Khaaaaaan!
One's ok, the other is pictured above.

The episode was as preposterous as it sounds, but it's a fan favorite and both DS9 and Enterprise would have their own 'Mirror' episodes because Trek writers love to make multiple trips to the same well. Which brings us to the 'uh-oh.' As another be-coloned Star Trek spin-off, Discovery is going to be derivative. And that's fine. It's a sequel/prequel to stories we've already seen before, so of course it's going to draw from the source material. But holy shit, that's a fine line and one that Star Trek has historically been really bad at walking. 

Above: turns out TV in the 80's
was pretty bananas too...

Aside from the basic premise of a starship flying around and doing Star Trek stuff, Discovery's already leaning a bit on elements that have been done. There're Klingons, and Harry Mudd and the main character was recently revealed to be Spock's here-to-fore unmentioned human foster sister. And that's all fine, but this Mirror Universe thing kind of sounds like a retread and it's only season one. Of course, TNG's writers did that too, remember? They ripped off the original series episode with the crazy space disease that makes everyone act drunk and make out? It wasn't their best work.

But TNG got better. In fact, it's objectively the best Star Trek (yes it is, that's what objectively means). So maybe we should all just calm down and look forward to the new show. And besides, it's entirely possible Jonathan Frakes just loves to fuck with the fans.

"Yup, Mirror Universe. And then in episode five, Commander Riker is going to travel back 
in time and have sex with everybody on Discovery. Everybody. Episode six: Tribbles."

-Jonathan Frakes, fucking with us