We're going to talk about these in Quackcast 611 (29th of November).

There are so many stories about these things! They're usually always evil… They're from mirror universes or sometimes just a mirror.
Sometimes they're aliens or spirits that take on the form of a person too.

In reality they're just lookalikes -not twins or family members though because these are lookalikes that aren't related.
There is only so much variation to features, there's bound to be repetition somewhere, so it's inevitable that there will be duplicates. But the idea of supernatural doppelgängers is super scary to me.

So many possibilities with them.

It is you warning yourself about something to come. Or that you're about to die or in fact are already dead.

It is a soulless being out to steal your soul and become you. Better not sneeze.

It is your guardian angel. An ancestor who was your twin and looking out for you.

It is your shadow self. All that is evil in your soul that your deeds have given a separate life and out to wreck more havoc and replace you in this life.

A spirit with no face of its own that takes on yours and again craves to replace you or to steal your soul. Again don't sneeze or yawn.

Your conscience trying to save you from yourself or one of the spirits above. Your Astral for flying cover for you.

Or maybe when they made you they didn't break the mold but chose instead to put you into mass production because the invasion is here. Yabba-dabba-do (an episode of the Flintstones had Fred get a bunch and all it could say was Yabba-dabba-do. Then there was the Tick with the “I Arthur” clone)

So much to do and so little time so you get copies done. But better not make a copy of a copy because they never come out right. (Multiplicity)

Technohorror instead of supernatural horror… clones grown to adulthood and harvested for their parts, but they don't die as planned. Also, the inevitable teleporter accident – cue flickering lights, oops it's activating again, damn that ion storm. And, a personal favorite of mine, robots adopting human guise, replacing the originals. Using their skin.

@Bravo- excellent bunch of scary possibilities there!
I'm surprised you didn't mention the people who live in the mirror, coming OUT of the mirror to replace you.
Jeez, that one freezes my soul

@dpat57 - Ah, the robot replacement thing reminds me of the original Stepford wives and the original West World and Future World movies. I found those pretty scary.

Mirrors? It's any reflection. Some stories say that doppelganger were originally water spirits who saw human reflections and envied them. Only later did they come to inhabit mirrors.

So many great variations.

Just imagine that you could be replaced by a doppelganger and you'd never know it. For all intents and purposes it is so flawless that no one remembers or is that just the Mandela effect?

The movie Journey to the Far side of the Sun was originally entitled Doppelganger. Made by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson around the time UFO was in production. It was eerie and out there like the UFO series which also had a few episodes suggesting the aliens employed doppelganger. And of course that's how the Mysterons operated in the Captain Scarlet series. S.I.G.

Reminds me of the philosophical zombie. And how turning it upside down you arrive to things Kafka and Gogol (or the novel / movie La Moustache) dealt with: the loss of identity. Sometimes in a way that you change but no one notices and sometimes in a way that your change is more evident to others than to yourself. But anyway, doppelgängers are a stimulating subject on their own, can't wait to hear about it some more.

bravo1102 wrote:

The movie Journey to the Far side of the Sun was originally entitled Doppelganger. Made by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson around the time UFO was in production. It was eerie and out there like the UFO series which also had a few episodes suggesting the aliens employed doppelganger. And of course that's how the Mysterons operated in the Captain Scarlet series. S.I.G.

Thanks Bravo, I was desperately trying to remember what that movie was.
Another favourite would be Roger Moore in The Man Who Haunted Himself, another example of the evil twin, apparently released by a car accident.
I love Spock's evil counterpart in the season 2 episode ‘Mirror, Mirror’, a fine example of the mirror universe variation. He still applied logic, but it was the logic of a very different social construct.

Ironscarf wrote:
I love Spock's evil counterpart in the season 2 episode ‘Mirror, Mirror’, a fine example of the mirror universe variation. He still applied logic, but it was the logic of a very different social construct.

They open that up with Deep Space Nine and really use it to go places with the characters that they normally would never do. That's was the most interesting aspect of it for me in that later version.

The original introduced the concept to the Star Trek universe and examined the idea while the later versions expand on it and use it for part of the narrative of the whole series as well as play with characterisation.



Hmm… The Prisoner of Zenda and the much earlier Prince and the Pauper handle it in a different way. In those stories (and their MANY derivatives) the doppelgängers and just normal humans who look alike and the stories are very different- they switch places and end up helping one another… or one just helps the other.
This is the benign doppelgänger variation!


Rick and Morty features millions of doppelgängers. Mostly they're different versions of themselves from different universes, but some are clones, dream constructs, robots, splices, computer simulations and so many other things I can't even remember.

Star Trek Discovery really explored the limits of the Mirror universe especially the character of the emperor and her relationships with Michael in both universes. It even explains why the mirror universe is the way it is.

Fan produced Star Trek Continues actually has an episode explain what happened after Mirror Kirk arrived back on the ISS Enterprise.

And then there's the magnificent two part ST: Enterprise episode about the mirror universe where they even redid the opening credits as a mirror universe version of the show. A really wild ride that is a great tribute to ST: TOS and finally shows us what a Tholian looks like.

And that logo of the sword and earth is just so cool.

We talked about this in the Quackcast on the weekend :)