Discovery 1x07 – "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" [** SPOILERS **]

pixelburp

Optimus Prime wrote: »

Really enjoyed it. Loved muds space suit. Thought it really tied in with the look of the original series , the helmet he had when he first came out the the alien creature.

I'd forgotten about that, as you say it looked quite like something from the Original Series, but with a modern inflection. The antenna styling made me wonder if it were andorrian in origin.

AtomicHorror

bajer101 wrote: »

Enjoyable enough, but Stamets could have easily solved it by simply advising the Captain not to beam it aboard.

Burnham and Tyler tried that, why would Stamets be more convincing? Saru quoted the regs.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

I'm a big fan of Time Loop TV Episodes and Films, so thoroughly enjoyed this episode.

bajer101

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Burnham and Tyler tried that, why would Stamets be more convincing? Saru quoted the regs.

They didn't try at all. Stamets knew and could easily have stopped it. He could have just told the captain don't beam that yoke on board and used the same advantage Mudd used.

I liked this show at the start and was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. But this is not Trek. I am getting less of a Trek vibe off it as each episode goes by. The Orville is much closer to Trek.

Bacchus

That felt much more like a classic Trek episode and I really enjoyed it. A bit of fun to change the pace of the serious Klingon war arc.

The ending was a muddled mess though that didn't resolve the issue neatly. I'm not talking about Stella and her Dad btw, I'm talking about how they actually bested Mudd. Sure, that is a typical flaw in time travel episodes but this one felt particularly lazy.

Ok, so Michael and Tilly (who is scanning the whale for some reason... cause only she could detect a friggin ship inside it!) discover the power source for Mudd's time travel device. Time reset though so they don't retain this knowledge to pass it on to Stamets. In any case, this discovery seemed to have no bearing AT ALL on how they beat Mudd. In the next loop, Stamets just reveals himself as the missing piece to save crewmembers... crewmembers that would simply be revived on the next loop. This might have come across as part of a masterplan except Michael had to put together a last ditch plan (revealing her identity to Mudd) to force another loop. Now, on the next loop, suddenly the entire bridge crew has been convinced of the threat and a devious plan has been put in place (when previous loops have shown how difficult it was to convince 2 or 3 people of the threat in time). That's kind of ok but it felt completely disconnected with everything in the previous loops. The previous two significant loops added nothing to this plan. Once Stamets had a way to convince Michael, we could have just jumped straight to the plan in the final loop. Finding the ship in the whale, Stamet's revealing he is the missing piece, Michael revealing who she was... none of it formed any part of getting one over on Mudd. Also, Michael should have had no knowledge of that she revealed her identity (and value to the Klingons) to Mudd on the previous loop but she references it anyway.

\rant

Bacchus

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Burnham and Tyler tried that, why would Stamets be more convincing? Saru quoted the regs.

Continuity fail here actually. Were Saru's "danger tentacles" having a day off?

server down

I agree. It needed an extra loop where the captain was convinced somehow. They had 30 minutes to convince everybody and no just hatch but carry out this complex plan. However they clearly want to keep Mudd alive.

seamus

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Burnham and Tyler tried that, why would Stamets be more convincing? Saru quoted the regs.

The thing about this episode is that they allowed it to be more fluid.

Time-loop episodes traditionally follow a formula, where you see them enter the loop (usually with a shocking death or explosion), then the second, 3rd, 4th, etc. And you see the characters slowly build realisation of what's happening.

This episode decided to go for loop 1, then an immediate jump to loop fifty-something.

In essence, at the end of each loop the viewer was left with lots of questions, rather than the benefit of knowing what was going to happen next time. The episode was attempting to make the viewer feel like they were being reset every loop too - rather than us getting Stamet's view of the loop, we got Burnham's (or at least as close as possible to it).

This also gives lots of free space and fluidity to what you can write. Any "why didn't Stamets just do X" question can be answered with - "he did, and it didn't work, so he tried something else".

I was a little unsatisfied by the ending. It was a darkly comic episode and then the tone at the end was suddenly light-hearted, even after Mudd had killed the entire ship potentially hundreds of times. But as pointed out above, they still have to align with TOS, so any ending which resulted in Mudd becoming an arch-nemesis of Discovery would need significant retconning to resolve before the end of the series.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty certain at one point they didn't beam it on, but Mudd still managed to get on the ship.

De Bhál

server down wrote: »

I agree. It needed an extra loop where the captain was convinced somehow. They had 30 minutes to convince everybody and no just hatch but carry out this complex plan. However they clearly want to keep Mudd alive.

well I guess just the captain had to be convinced then everyone else will follow his orders whether they believe the story or not.


The part I found questionable was that Burnham reckoned the Kilingon's valued her more than the Federations top weapon which they couldn't defeat.

Was T'Kavma that much of a hero, that when she killed him she moved to the top of the Wanted list.

Bacchus

Deleted User wrote: »

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty certain at one point they didn't beam it on, but Mudd still managed to get on the ship.

Good point. There was a loop where that happened but he still got on. Another fairly big inconsistency and only further highlights how irrelevant it was that Tilly found the ship.

De Bhál wrote: »

well I guess just the captain had to be convinced then everyone else will follow his orders whether they believe the story or not.

Which is why I say it kind of gets away with it BUT nothing was built on from the previous loops (as per my post above) so it felt like a very thrown together "oh we'll just do this now, how did we not think of it before" resolution.

De Bhál wrote: »

The part I found questionable was that Burnham reckoned the Kilingon's valued her more than the Federations top weapon which they couldn't defeat.

Was T'Kavma that much of a hero, that when she killed him she moved to the top of the Wanted list.

Yeah, I didn't quite buy that either. I'm sure they'd pay a lot for her but more than the ship?

The_Valeyard

To all those people pointing out 'inconsistency'

simple solution

Trouble with the space time continuum when using temporal devices. Sometimes a paradox can be created.

Asus X540L

Wow jumped the shark at the end.

Thought this was a much darker ST that ending would be ridiculous in the TOS

Bacchus

The_Valeyard wrote: »

To all those people pointing out 'inconsistency'

simple solution

Trouble with the space time continuum when using temporal devices. Sometimes a paradox can be created.

I'm not even talking about some awkward corner they wrote themselves into or some minor mistake. I'm talking about basic things like the discovery of the ship in the whale 1) being so hard to find in the first place and 2) ending up completely inconsequential to the outcome... yet it was made out as a significant find. Or Michael seemingly knowing about her own plan (which Stamets was not aware of) in the final loop.

An otherwise very enjoyable episode tarnished by some pretty lazy writing.

Inviere

Yet another solid episode, and a clever, refreshing take on the time loop concept. That said, the ending resolution was quite badly done.

seamus

I'm not sure if the writing was "lazy" as opposed to intentionally scattered to give the viewer the impression of also being in a time loop - lots of information just being sprung on you as if out of nowhere.

My understanding of finding the ship in the whale bit was that they were confirming what they believed about Mudd's method for looping and thus the realization that they'd need to force him to "reset" in order to save everyone.

We rarely saw them tell Stamets what they discovered - but they must have done so in order for him to carry it into the next loop. The entire episode was missing continuity from one loop to the next, but I believe that was the intention. Because the only two people who actually had continuity - Mudd & Stamets - were secondary characters. We were following Burnham, who had no continuity, and therefore we got no continuity either.

I'll have to watch it again. I had babies needing feeding and a wife walking in and out , so a second watch might clarify whether that was the intention or whether it was just a bit sloppy.

CramCycle

I just presumed that they presumed we would use our own common sense to fill in the blanks. Can you imagine how annoying it would have been if they took the time to fill in Stamets every time they learned something new.

We would be sitting here claiming worst episode ever, do they think we are idiots who need everything handed to them.

They made a point that he had done it over 50+ times at one stage. I just took it that if Stamets said something or they acted on something learned in a previous loop, they had filled in Stamets in some way, be it in person or over comms.

PhiloCypher

I think if writers tried to close every logic gap in time travel stories we would end up with very dry and humorless stories as most of the screen time would be devoted to the mechanics of time travel and who knew what when. Could a line by Burnham telling Tilly to find and fill in Stamets for the last loop have helped ,sure , but couldn't we all just assume that happened anyway like all the other looped conversations we weren't privy to.

AMKC

bajer101 wrote: »

Enjoyable enough, but Stamets could have easily solved it by simply advising the Captain not to beam it aboard.

I think Mudd only needed to get on board that way once and then after that he could probably transport on board the ship from his own ship even if it was not in the Discovery.

Optimus Prime wrote: »

Really enjoyed it. Loved muds space suit. Thought it really tied in with the look of the original series , the helmet he had when he first came out the the alien creature.

Me too at first I thought it was some sort of alien but then the helmet came off.

Deleted User wrote: »

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty certain at one point they didn't beam it on, but Mudd still managed to get on the ship.

I think he only needed it to be be beamed aboard the ship once and after that it did not matter as he was able to get on with or without it being on Discovery then.

Bacchus wrote: »

I'm not even talking about some awkward corner they wrote themselves into or some minor mistake. I'm talking about basic things like the discovery of the ship in the whale 1) being so hard to find in the first place and 2) ending up completely inconsequential to the outcome... yet it was made out as a significant find. Or Michael seemingly knowing about her own plan (which Stamets was not aware of) in the final loop.

An otherwise very enjoyable episode tarnished by some pretty lazy writing.

being so hard to find in the first place.

I think it was hard to find as it was not easy to scan what was inside the creature. It could be done just not with standard scans.

I enjoyed the episode but like other's I thought the ending could have been better.
I had also watched ''Cause and Effect'' yesterday and it is a classic TNG episode. Never get bored of it.

Bacchus

seamus wrote: »

I'm not sure if the writing was "lazy" as opposed to intentionally scattered to give the viewer the impression of also being in a time loop - lots of information just being sprung on you as if out of nowhere.

My understanding of finding the ship in the whale bit was that they were confirming what they believed about Mudd's method for looping and thus the realization that they'd need to force him to "reset" in order to save everyone.

They discovered that information in the loop where Mudd had already taken Stamets prisoner and the Klingons were on the way. A reset was a given anyway. What extra information did the discovery of the ship actually provide? Had they tried to use the ship to take control of the loop, then I would have been intrigued by how they used it. As it was used though, it had no bearing on need to reset that loop, or on any decision made in subsequent loops (as there was no way to pass it along to the next loop).

CramCycle wrote: »

I just presumed that they presumed we would use our own common sense to fill in the blanks. Can you imagine how annoying it would have been if they took the time to fill in Stamets every time they learned something new.

We would be sitting here claiming worst episode ever, do they think we are idiots who need everything handed to them.

They made a point that he had done it over 50+ times at one stage. I just took it that if Stamets said something or they acted on something learned in a previous loop, they had filled in Stamets in some way, be it in person or over comms.

It's not about filling in blanks or spoonfeeding of any sort. I can very well see what they did, I'm just saying it was poorly executed and the end resolution was mostly a montage of cut scenes that was independent of the previous loops and begs the question of why Stamets didn't just do this once he convinced Michael he was telling the truth.

AMKC wrote: »

I think Mudd only needed to get on board that way once and then after that he could probably transport on board the ship from his own ship even if it was not in the Discovery.

I find that a very threadbare argument. Mudd goes back half an hour just like everyone else. He starts the loop on the ship in that whale with zero control of the Discovery systems. How can something he does in the first loop change anything for him in subsequent loops? They made the point of saying he needs that power source to reset the loop each time, so if he didn't have it in one of the loops, it makes sense he shouldn't have been able to reset the loop.


I think I need to state again... I enjoyed this episode. There was a lot of good in it. However, from the moment it was clear Stamets reveal wasn't the part of some grand con job, it started fall apart for me.

TBH Mudd said he had done the loop close to 60 times (can't remember the exact number) and we see.. what... less than 10?

ezra_

Deleted User wrote: »

TBH Mudd said he had done the loop close to 60 times (can't remember the exact number) and we see.. what... less than 10?

I liked that element - you could see that Stamets was very weary of the whole thing at the point just before he starts to get through to Burnham.

pixelburp

Yeah, I think the script lacked a little structure, but the 'time loop' is such an exhausted trope of SciFi, any variation of the theme is welcome, which this episode managed. Heck, this wasn't even the first use of that trope this year on TV!

As mentioned, Mudd only needed to get access to the computers once to gain permanent control, at which point he probably accessed the transporter (demonstrated by his use of it against Lorca) and could beam himself ahead each time, whether or not the whale got transported. One way or the other he was always going to be ahead of the crew at each reset.

Bacchus

pixelburp wrote: »

As mentioned, Mudd only needed to get access to the computers once to gain permanent control, at which point he probably accessed the transporter (demonstrated by his use of it against Lorca) and could beam himself ahead each time, whether or not the whale got transported. One way or the other he was always going to be ahead of the crew at each reset.

How does that work when everything jumps back half an hour. He starts the loop on a ship, off the Discovery. How would he have control over any of the Discovery systems from that starting point? That could work maybe if he started the loop once the whale was beamed on board, but that's not what happened.

Inviere

Bacchus wrote: »

How does that work when everything jumps back half an hour. He starts the loop on a ship, off the Discovery. How would he have control over any of the Discovery systems from that starting point? That could work maybe if he started the loop once the whale was beamed on board, but that's not what happened.

One possibility is if he had total control, he could have used the ships prefix codes to take remote command (assuming prefix code usage was in operation at this time)

I think what I like most about this is that they don't treat the audience like idiots.

Bacchus

Inviere wrote: »

One possibility is if he had total control, he could have used the ships prefix codes to take remote command (assuming prefix code usage was in operation at this time)

You know, it's Star Trek, so I will concede that probably any inconsistency (except how Michael knew she was a value target to Mudd in the final loop) can be explained by "maybe he did x, y, or z off camera" and it might even make sense. If it was simply a case that I had a brainfart on something and missed some obvious bits that needed to be spoonfed to me, then sure I'd look back and think that was actually quite cleverly done, but I don't think that's the case. An otherwise solid, and fun, episode tripped over itself towards the end and sort of fell over the line. Papering over inconsistencies from the writers or editors does not equate to being spoon-fed, nor does it change how I look back on the episode.

I've probably said enough on the ending of this episode... I'll leave it at that.... until the next loop.

Inviere

Bacchus wrote: »

You know, it's Star Trek, so I will concede that probably any inconsistency (except how Michael knew she was a value target to Mudd in the final loop) can be explained by "maybe he did x, y, or z off camera" and it might even make sense. If it was simply a case that I had a brainfart on something and missed some obvious bits that needed to be spoonfed to me, then sure I'd look back and think that was actually quite cleverly done, but I don't think that's the case. An otherwise solid, and fun, episode tripped over itself towards the end and sort of fell over the line. Papering over inconsistencies from the writers or editors does not equate to being spoon-fed, nor does it change how I look back on the episode.

I've probably said enough on the ending of this episode... I'll leave it at that.... until the next loop.

My point is, there's tons we didn't see on screen, and more importantly, we didn't need to. As you say, in the majority of cases, there's ALWAYS going to be a possible in-universe explanation or theory anyway, so there's rarely a point asking the question

AMKC

Deleted User wrote: »

TBH Mudd said he had done the loop close to 60 times (can't remember the exact number) and we see.. what... less than 10?

He said he had done it 53 times.

AMKC

AMKC wrote: »

He said he had done it 53 times.

Was that in the last loop or were there other ones?