TODAY IN STAR TREK HISTORY: Jerome Bixby, Writer of Star Trek's famous "Mirror, Mirror" Episode, Is Born

Jerome Bixby wrote STAR TREK’s famous “Mirror, Mirror” episode.

JANUARY 11, 2023 - Star Trek’s mirror universe has been and continues to be a theme throughout the franchise. It appeared originally, of course, in Star Trek: The Original Series’ season two episode, “Mirror, Mirror,” and was featured again in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, and Discovery. Not to mention the novels, comics, video games, etc.

Today we celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of the writer who originated the mirror universe for that first TOS appearance, Jerome Bixby. Bixby was born on this date in 1923, in Los Angeles. He wrote for and edited a number of pulp publications in the 1950s and went on to write short stories and other screenplays, including three other TOS episodes and the short story “It’s A Good Life,” on which Rod Serling based the well-known Twilight Zone episode. Bixby also wrote westerns under a variety of pseudonyms.

Gene Roddenberry and producer Gene Coon, according to Marc Cushman, invited Bixby to pitch some new ideas, and he came up with a reworking of his short story, “One Way Street,” which he had published in the December 1953/January 1954 issue of Amazing Stories. The introduction to the story says, “The multiple-worlds theme is quite a common one in science fiction. It extrapolates some scientific theory — heaven knows which one — into the premise that you're really a limitless number of people in many worlds doing any number of things at the same time. Confused? Maybe this story will clarify it for you — and maybe not.”

Bixby and others (including Gene Roddenberry, D. C. Fontana, and Gene Coon) wrote and rewrote drafts of outlines and teleplays to clarify what we finally see in “Mirror, Mirror.” Bixby, again according to Cushman, was “thrilled” to be writing for his favorite television show. Memory Alpha notes that he and the episode’s director, Marc Daniels, even shared a 1968 Hugo Award nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation. Bixby would go on to garner three more TOS credits: “By Any Other Name,” “Day of the Dove,” and “Requiem for Methuselah.”

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s season seven episode, “The Emperor’s New Cloak,” which features the mirror universe, is dedicated to Bixby’s memory. Bixby had died ten months earlier, in April 1998.

Happy 100th birthday to Jerome Bixby!