Lieutenant Uhura: 5 landing party adventures in orginal Star Trek

“Mirror, Mirror” (season 2, episode 4)

In “Mirror, Mirror,” prolific science fiction author Jerome Bixby gave Start Trek a gift that continues to keep on giving: the Mirror Universe. An ion storm interferes with the transporter as a landing party of Uhura, Scotty, McCoy, and Kirk beam back from the surface of the Halkans’ planet. The group arrives in a “savage, parallel universe” where the Terran Empire rules with an iron fist, where the Enterprise is a cutthroat ship of war rather than peaceful exploration, and where you can tell Mr. Spock is evil because he sports a goatee.

Lieutenant Uhura truly gets to shine as a member of the “Mirror, Mirror” landing party. Naturally, the always gorgeous Nichelle Nichols was a knockout in her midriff-baring Terran Empire uniform. But more important, Uhura also draws on her acting talents to distract Mirror Sulu from his security board as Scotty interrupts the engine circuits to increase transporter power so the landing party can get back home.

See for yourself in the video above how Uhura’s diversionary tactics play out. Clearly, both Nichelle Nichols and George Takei enjoyed playing the scene. And it shows us Uhura is comfortable and confident using her sex appeal to tactical advantage when the situation demands. We’d see Uhura do so again on an away mission in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)—though that scene isn’t nearly as much fun to watch as this scene from “Mirror, Mirror.”