Have you ever felt like you were repeating the same day over and over? “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” has got you there, as Harcourt Fenton Mudd returns with an elaborate plan to steal the USS Discovery and sell it to the Klingons.
Trekabout Episode 270: Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad
Cliffy73
-I would not be at all surprised to read on memory Alpha a year or two from now that “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mudd” was in fact the original title. But they changed it because they didn’t want to ruin the reveal.
mchan
-I think it was a good episode, with the nice twist of having the main viewpoint character be someone who was actually not caught in the time loop. A nice change of pace, though it did raise some questions with the shorthanding that the TV show did with the loops towards the end.
I’m still in agreement with Eric so far about Mudd, though. I don’t understand what the show gains by bringing him back as this type of character. TOS Mudd was more of a joke, and so Discovery takes it to a pretty dark place. This may be a spoiler (sorry Richard), but I’m viewing Discovery’s Mudd sort of like Benedict Cumberkhan: ok, thanks for showing us this, but did it have to happen? I don’t see anything that’s gained by using Mudd this way, and if anything the annoying banter in this episode made me really hate the character.
It was also a nice touch to have the soundtrack wrap back around to the Alexander Courage motif once everything was “back to normal.” I feel like the show’s finally getting good.
Electron Dance
-Yeah I don’t think making it Mudd adds anything at all apart from some dissonance which is not easy to shake. Strong links with TOS bother me as it becomes more difficult to ignore the vast distance between the two shows and their storyverse. I didn’t watch Discovery because I wanted to know more about the classic TOS characters, I just wanted to more Star Trek, you know?
And fortunately, with a time loop story for an audience well-versed in time loop story, we got that.
Eric Brasure
-The more I think about this episode, the more I find it indicates a show at war with itself. At first Disco seemed like the prestige serialized television Star Trek, in which case, Mudd adds nothing to the show or the story. Now though, it seems to be moving in a more standalone direction (which I am on board with, to be clear!), a type of storytelling that much better lends itself to a bit of fan service in the form of episodes revolving around characters from TOS.
Richard Goodness
-I want an episode with both Mudd and Cyrano Jones in it! Are they best friends? Do they hate each other? The people (me) want to know!
Eric Brasure
-Yes pls