In a recent interview with SFX , we asked Damon Lindelof to name his favourite original episodes of Star Trek , in a cheeky bid for clues about the upcoming J.J. Abrams sequel.
“‘City On The Edge Of Forever’ is up there,” he says. “Probably ‘Mirror, Mirror’ is my favourite episode of the original series. And I like ‘The Menagerie’, the two-parter, where they kind of repurpose the original pilot.”
So, what does this tell us about where Lindelof’s Trek sensibilities lie?
“The City On The Edge Of Forever” features Doc McCoy altering history when he wanders through a time portal called the Guardian of Forever. In saving a woman’s life in 1933 he inadvertently allows the Nazis to take over the world (oops).
In “Mirror, Mirror” a transporter mishap swaps Kirk, Spock and others with their evil counterparts from the Mirror Universe. You can tell it’s an evil Spock thanks to his new beard.
And “The Menagerie” sees Spock acting irregularly, kidnapping Captain Pike and hijacking the Enterprise. It seems like Lindelof enjoys a bit of messing with time (that box was ticked by the 2009 reboot), as well as choosing episodes that feature the people we know and love acting out of character.
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