Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x07 - "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad"

[MakeshiftPython]

It's just the latest thing he's using to justify his hate for the series. He obviously had a hard time finding something to complain about in this episode.

We just had someone in this thread point out the stardate being ahead of TOS, which proceeded into to a silly debate over whether TAS was canon.

All because of a stardate.

Most fans don't care about stardates, but if it appears that DISCO goofed up on the tiniest detail then that's A MAJOR FUCK UP that we need to call out on the makers.

Goofed up stardate = NOT MY STAR TREK

 

[Nerys Myk]

The party was organized by the ship's SCA chapter. Next month's will be based on the music of the mid 18th Century.

 

[Lior .B.]

I Enjoyed it a lot but wondered why Stamets just didn't tell Lorca not to beam the whale on board (yeah beside the fact that the episode would have ended very soon).

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

The party was organized by the ship's SCA chapter. Next month's will be based on the music of the mid 18th Century.

And the one after that will be themed around early 23rd century "aquatic synth punk".

 

[Nightdiamond]

Now that is how you show a party! I liked the party scene -- it looked more realistic or realatable than past series where everything is a stuffy social function and everyone is polite and all. It was pretty weird episode overall.

The Mudd does come off as evil--I instantly don't like him and want him to fail every time I see him. So maybe they wrote his character well or it's a big fail, can't quite say yet.

I have to say it though, this isn't Star Trek. It just isn't, everything is almost a contradiction, or a rehash, the style is totally off, and it's a little awkward in some places. It's almost a reboot.

But it has some refreshing things about it.

 

[jaime]

Its a fantasy of the older men behind the show and also its reality. E.g What did much younger Mrs Catherine Zeta Jones- Douglas II see in much older Kirk Douglas? Guess how old Sir Patrick Stewart's aka Captain Picard (third? fourth?) wife is?

I think they just went for the passing resemblance this time.

 

[Succubint]

I Enjoyed it a lot but wondered why Stamets just didn't tell Lorca not to beam the whale on board (yeah beside the fact that the episode would have ended very soon).

Wouldn't they still be obligated by the regulations which were quoted in the episode to try to save the ultra endangered Space Whale and take it to a preserve? Remember it had that ship stuck inside of it.

Even if they didn't beam the Gorgamander on board, Mudd could have just used the time crystal to figure out how to beam from his ship to the Discovery. He already beamed directly into engineering (rather than being inside the Space whale) on a different iteration.

 

[Noname Given]

I Enjoyed it a lot but wondered why Stamets just didn't tell Lorca not to beam the whale on board (yeah beside the fact that the episode would have ended very soon).

I can see Lorca's Court Martial hearing now:

Admiral: "Okay captain Lorca...tell me again WHY you ignored the Federation Endangered Species Act?

Lorca: "Well, my Engineer told me there was a time-travelling rogue in the creature's belly and that if we beamed the creature on board, we'd be repeating a 30 minute loop of time until said Rogue could commandeer and sell the Discovery to the Klingon High Command."

Admiral: "Thank you Captain. {To his Aide]: Yeah, have the psychologist who cleared Lorca for return to duty psychologically screened himself and removed from duty; and let's get a competent Captain on the Discovery and ship Lorca to the Federation Funny Farm IMMEDIATELY!"

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

There must've been something else to aide him in combatting Betazoid telepathy, outside of the time loops.

But then, now that I think about it, Betazoids probably have somewhat lax security, since they would rely on their telepathy to spot would-be thieves.

And I would think that Betazoid society doesn't practice invasive telepathy.

Meaning, they don't go around scanning people without warning. That would be obnoxious and rude. And particularly demeaning to offworlders like Harry. So if he's at least disciplined enough to put a lid on his emotions, I think he could have pulled off a bank robbery or two.

 

[Succubint]

Also, Burnham and Tyler both try to veto beaming the Gorgamander on board due to Stamets' warning. They get over-ruled by Saru and Lorca. One can assume that in a few iterations Stamets himself may have even barged up to the bridge to try to stop that from happening, but was overruled somehow as well.

 

[Tim Thomason]

I posted about this the other day, but I was on my phone, so I couldn't talk about it in detail: Does anyone get the idea that this episode was one of the two added to the show after the intial order of 13 episodes?

My reasoning is basically as follows. They would not add two episodes on to the end of the season, because that would result in a very anticlimactic ending. So they would have to find somewhere to sandwich two episodes in the middle of the already plotted arc. This episode does call back to earlier continuity, but judging by the trailer for next week, it's sort of awkwardly jammed in the middle of the "Cornwell mini-arc." It also wrapped up things very well, to the point of almost being a self-contained episode. The only possible exception is the burgeoning relationship between Burnham and Ash Tyler, but since they don't actually remember their conversation in the iteration where they kissed, and Burnham made it clear she wanted to "go slow" they could go right back to acting professional for several episodes.

I guess we'll see in the longer run if anything which took place in this episode is referenced anywhere else. If it happens in a single episode, it could always be chalked up to that episode being a mid-arc insertion as well. But if there are multiple references we could conclude that this may indeed have been a story inserted into the arc late in production.

I recall Harberts, I think, mentioning that they were making the episodes slightly "episodic" (instead of straight serial Chapter 1, 2, etc.), and specifically cited as an example there being a "Mudd episode". Some took that to mean Mudd only had one appearance, although that's now not the case.

It's possible that Mudd's revenge was planned for Season 2, or maybe just the second half of this season, but was moved up in pre-production, and they used it to further the Stamets story, Tyler romance, and maybe to stick a fun episode inbetween serious drama.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Mudd does come off as evil--I instantly don't like him and want him to fail every time I see him. So maybe they wrote his character well or it's a big fail, can't quite say yet.

I'm starting to think that there may be something that happens to Harry somewhere down the line that shatters his ego and his worldview. Turns him from the cold, calculating murderer he is in DSC, into the charming rogue of TOS.

 

[Tim Thomason]

And I would think that Betazoid society doesn't practice invasive telepathy.

Meaning, they don't go around scanning people without warning. That would be obnoxious and rude. And particularly demeaning to offworlders like Harry. So if he's at least disciplined enough to put a lid on his emotions, I think he could have pulled off a bank robbery or two.

I don't know, Lwaxana seemed to enjoy rummaging in Picard's head, although that might've been surface thoughts only.

She also nonchalantly exposed the Antedean plot to blow up Pacifica in Manhunt.

 

[Psion]

I suppose the one thing that throws me off about the music choices is that high-quality copies of those recordings would actually survive over the next 230(?) years.

If the song has been broadcast via radio at any point between when it was written and the 23rd century, and if you have faster-than-light stardrive, and if you can build a sensitive enough receiver, then it is a very, very simple matter to recover any music broadcast. You just warp out a few hundred light years, point your receiver at Earth, and wait for all the songs of a given era to accumulate in your data banks.

Or they're stored in a vault somewhere.
Or the Vulcans indexed all of Earth's broadcast culture for linguistic and metaphorical analysis.

In fact, maybe a lot of 20th and 21st century songs were lost for a couple hundred years and have only just been recovered, sparking a Federation-wide revival of music by long-dead artists. That might be why some of those songs were playing at Disco's party ... to their ears, those songs were new!

 

[SolarisOne]

I'm starting to think that there may be something that happens to Harry somewhere down the line that shatters his ego and his worldview.

Stella. Stella is what happens to him.

 

[jotap]

Let me get this straight...this man just almost killed all the crew..practically condemned all humanity and allies to defeat if succeeded of course...and the punishment he has is to be delivered to the daughter of some rich guy???
what is this Alice in Wonderland??
This guy should have been detained, at least, in some high security prison forever. Not delivered to the arms of a girl.
oh pls....

 

[zar]

They could have kept the suspension of disbelief down to a minimum by having one of the characters say: “Hey, cool idea to have a 20th century theme party!” But nope. That was apparently too much effort.

They need to have at least one scene in every episode where the background freezes and a character turns to the camera to make sure everyone is following along and knows the reasons for everything.

- "Hey, I'm Voq. That's T'Kuvma. He's kind of our foster dad, in a way. We're all a little different here. You're probably wondering how the Klingon Empire ended up in this situation. Well, it all started many years ago..."

- "Hello, I'm Gabe Lorca. You might have noticed I seem a little less virtuous than some of your other favorite captains, too. Well, I represent Starfleet's desperation, you see..."

- "Oh, here comes Michael. Now watch out for this next scene, I'm about to ignore safety standards and activate site-to-site transport. I'm unconventional, you know."

- "Remember me from the pilot? We're inside my mind now. Oh, that? No, that's not a moon. Vulcan has no moon."

- "Hi! It's Tilly again. By the way, I'm not autistic. Now I know what you're thinking... Disco on the Disco? Well, let me tell you a story about our DJ..."

 

[eschaton]

Let me get this straight...this man just almost killed all the crew..practically condemned all humanity and allies to defeat if succeeded of course...and the punishment he has is to be delivered to the daughter of some rich guy???
what is this Alice in Wonderland??
This guy should have been detained, at least, in some high security prison forever. Not delivered to the arms of a girl.
oh pls....

At the very least, they should have had some memory wipe technobabble.

 

[jotap]

this not even on alice the wonderland...i hope this doesn't continue like this.

 

[Guy Gardener]

At the very least, they should have had some memory wipe technobabble.

The dad is going to castrate Mudd eventually.