MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD! ANYONE YET TO WATCH “A CASE OF CHIAROSCURO” SHOULD PROCEED WITH CAUTION TO AVOID VIOLATING TEMPORAL PRIME DIRECTIVES.
You’re on a top-secret mission to recover a lost Federation probe from enemy territory. A close encounter with a Klingon cruiser forces you into hiding on the surface of an alien world, which — thanks, in part, to the local star’s radiation making everything appear stylishly monochrome — looks like it’s been lifted from a classic 20th-century film noir. You dress up as one of the locals on this occupied world, and quickly learn that you’re the spitting image of the leader of the local resistance. What are the chances?
This being “Star Trek”, the odds are nowhere near as long as they could — and maybe should — be. In fact, the galaxy is so chock-full of doppelgangers, clones and lookalikes that it’s a wonder Una “Number One” Chin-Riley hadn’t encountered her double before the latest episode of “Strange New Worlds”, “A Case of Chiaroscuro”.
This may explain why Dr M’Benga doesn’t think anything is particularly amiss. “In a universe as vast as ours, the real mystery is that we don’t stumble onto our doppelgangers more often,” he claims. “That we have found Una’s is a momentary stroke of luck.”
That said, the origin stories of Trek’s previous escapees from the planet Xerox are usually a little more complex — and outwardly sci-fi — than coincidence. The matter transporters found on every Starfleet vessel, for example, have repeatedly given actors the chance to play two roles at once.
In theory, transporter tech breaks you down into your constituent atoms, beams those particles across space, and reassembles them in the right order at the other end. But, in the event of a glitch, transporter rooms effectively become highly sophisticated 3D printers, creating duplicates indistinguishable from the original beamee.
In the “Original Series” episode “The Enemy Within”, James T Kirk is split into two versions of himself, one good, the other evil. In this metaphysical exploration of self, it turns out you can’t have one half without the other, forcing Spock and co to reintegrate the two Kirks in order to save their captain.
Will Riker also experiences transporter-induced imposter syndrome in “The Next Generation” episode “Second Chances”. He learns that a beaming error on the USS Potemkin created an exact facsimile eight years earlier, and Riker 2.0 has been living alone on the remote Nervala IV ever since. Alas, this alt version (who opts to go by the name of Thomas) doesn’t find it easy living in the shadow of the Enterprise-D’s highly commended first officer, and eventually quits Starfleet to defect to the Maquis resistance organization.
When Bradward Boimler experiences similar duplication issues in “Lower Decks”, it’s his double, William, who makes better use of their resources. He ultimately finds himself in the captain’s chair of a top-secret Section 31 vessel staffed by doppelgangers from alternative realities, including “Deep Space Nine”‘s Dr Bashir, “Enterprise”‘s T’Pol, and multiple incarnations of “Voyager”‘s perennial ensign, Harry Kim.
“Trek”‘s parallel universes are arguably even more conducive to duplication than transporter accidents. Indeed, even the Harry Kim who eventually makes it back from the Delta Quadrant in “Voyager” is an alternative version, transferred from a USS Voyager slightly out of phase with the original. (To be fair, OG Harry had just been sucked into the vacuum of space, so the switcheroo was easy to justify — and good news for actor Garrett Wang.)
But “Star Trek”‘s most famous doppelgangers from another dimension hail from the infamous Mirror Universe, where the morally dubious Terran Empire crushes non-Earthers under a bloodthirsty boot — while the Federation traditionally comes in peace, these guys make no secret of their love of shooting to kill. Crews from “Enterprise”, “Discovery”, the Original Series, “DS9” and “Prodigy” have all come face to face with their evil twins. Few imposters have been quite as easy to spot as Terran Empire Spock, however, whose trademark goatee is something of a giveaway.
Shapeshifters are even trickier customers, seeing as they can — in theory — take the form of anyone they want. Kirk shares facetime with himself when Chameloid Marta impersonates him while messing up their attempt to escape the Rura Penthe penal colony in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”.
“I can’t believe I kissed you,” says Kirk. “Must have been your lifelong ambition,” Kirk replies — sort that one out, Sigmund Freud.
The metamorphing Changelings of the Dominion also prove a particularly tricksy enemy in “Deep Space Nine”, thanks to their ability to replicate everyone from Dr Bashir and General Martok to the Federation’s in-house shapeshifter, Odo.
And then there’s “Trek”‘s dalliances with the more traditional sci-fi trope of cloning, the most famous example showing up just in time for “The Next Generation” crew’s final mission.
The Big Bad in the 2002 movie “Nemesis” is Shinzon, a Jean-Luc Picard duplicate created by Romulan scientists to infiltrate the Federation. The irony, of course, is that this clone looks nothing like the source material. In fact, the chances of anyone buying that Tom Hardy will one day look like Patrick Stewart are close to zero — Dr M’Benga may believe that we should bump into our doppelgangers more often, but even he wouldn’t fall for that one.
New episodes of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays.
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