Discovery 1x07: Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad

[rivendellrose]

For those who are currently watching, here is your discussion post for Discovery episode 1x07!

Please be aware that there will be spoilery comments on this entry. I'll be back later this evening to join in the party once our dinner is done and I've had a chance to watch the episode, and if the conversation hasn't gotten too far without me I might add some discussion starters or other remarks.

Looking forward to talking about it with you all!



- This episode falls into the grand old tradition of Star Trek time loop episodes (see a list of time travel episodes from all series on Memory Alpha, if you're interested); did this episode meet your expectations for the trope?

- When prompted by Stamets to tell her a secret she's never told anyone else, Burnham (presumably cued by her conversation with Tilly earlier in the episode) tells him that she's never been in love. How much did this destroy various pre-series fics you've been writing and put "I've Never Been in Love Before" from the musical Guys and Dolls in your head? ME TOO! Were you surprised by this? Or did you find it more surprising that Burnham can apparently eat three dark-matter marbles, reputed to be the most painful manner of death in the universe, and expire without so much as a squeak?

- How much are episodes where the crew dies heroically only to be safely revived at the end of the episode catnip to your heart? (My answer: SO MUCH.)

- Did Mudd get his due, or get off too easily?

- Do references to the bank of Betazed, Stella's dowry, and call-outs to money in the dance music at the beginning of the episode mean that this version of the Federation is no longer a cashless economy due to the interference of the Temporal Cold War from ENT, or am I just way too obsessed with canon?

- That was a goddamned Andorian space helmet that Mudd was wearing the first time he appeared walking out of the space whale, wasn't it? What is it with this show and constantly referencing the Andorians but never showing them?

- Where did Lorca's tribble run off to, and how worried should we be about it being loose on the ship?


Edited to add a few semi-silly discussion questions.

Comments

[nonelvis]

I don't know that I have anything coherent to say, because this episode hits several of my favorite tropes, so I probably can't judge it objectively. Time loops! Con men! Con men being conned! Characters slowly realizing they're attracted to each other! Practically all it was missing was two people being forced to share a bed, and if that had happened, I'd be watching it again right this minute.

Less incoherently, I am really enjoying Rainn Wilson's creepier take on Mudd. Mudd was always a bit cartoonish; Wilson has played that down in favor of Mudd's sharp edge of menace, and it really works for me.

[rivendellrose]

Yeah, I was planning to come up with discussion questions, but instead I'm kind of left a flailing pile of excitement because this episode was just so classic and it felt so like a Star Trek episode, and, as you said, it had so many of my favorite tropes!

Also I love that the Star Trek universe can now include pop culture like Beatles cover bands (3rd episode) and dance parties and all that.

And STAMETS, oh my god. I love Anthony Rapp so much right now!

[nonelvis]

HE WAS SO GREAT. I was really enjoying Cranky Stamets earlier in the season, but I am enjoying Stoned And In Tune With The Universe Stamets just as much.

[kore]

IT FELT VERY TREK. I'm so pleased.

[kore]

Me too. Mudd was always kind of OTT hammy, and I love that 'sharp edge of menace.'

[nenya_kanadka]

I love your icon so much. :D

/back to actual discussion

[tellitslant]

WHY would a Betazoid bank need security? They could just read everyone's minds if there was a theft!

Also, I am half-seriously expecting Mudd to encounter the concept of tribbles through Lorca.

[rivendellrose]

Ooo, I was stuck on the idea that banks are still a thing, but you're right. All they would really need is someone stationed at the door to read people's minds and say "Hey, this guy is planning to rob the bank!"

He might have! That's a really good point! Although he wasn't actually involved in the tribble thing, I don't think, was he? That was Cyrano Jones. Or did Mudd have a thing with tribbles that I'm forgetting?

[kore]

....wasn't there a telepathic bank robbery in one of the Trek shows? No, WTF am I thinking of? -- a Doctor Who ep apparently. I fail at non-TOS Trek knowledge.

[conuly]

If you have overpowering force, or an army of drones, you don't care if they can read your mind. Seems to me that having security is just good practice.

[kore]

I LOVED NEARLY EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF IT except the final VO which was kinda cheesy, "you were where you belonged all along" omg no. But so much of it was funny, and is this the first time the crew has all worked together? and STAMETS <33 and we got his meet-cute story with Hugh! and Wilson is just killing it as Mudd, I hope he comes back. Tipsy giggly Tilly with her great hair and "musician phase" was great, and who didn't enjoy seeing Lorca getting killed over and over? like Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow.

I am a complete sucker for time loop stories, and it also felt like they used some fanfic tropes ("Dance with me," "then this kiss won't count," the character with no cred who has to convince everyone) so I am really incapable of viewing this objectively. Altho I was annoyed at the "You've never been in love," because SHE LOVED PHILIPPA OKAY. (And if Ash, or as I call him, Pretty-Pretty, is her first love and is also Voq or a traitor, that's gonna suck.) They are just jossing all the Yuletide prompts left and right, LOL. Also, sob. -- I do wish they were including the rest of the bridge crew a little more, not just lampshading it with "random communications officer man," altho Wilson made that horribly funny.

I really liked the use of music - I Will Survive, Al Green, and whatever classical Mudd was blasting.

But now we only get two more eps to go before the split season ends and the break is til JANUARY 2018? That really feels like a mistake, it feels like the show's just now really finding its feet. Oh well at least we don't have to worry about a second season, in which I really hope we get Captain Burnham.

[rivendellrose]

The last VO was a teensy bit too on-the-nose, wasn't it? But oh my god, everything else, it was so much exactly what I wanted. And THANK YOU for saying that about Lorca, because YES! It was extremely cathartic to watch him get killed over and over!

SO MANY AWESOME TROPES. And then at the end, I'm not sure if Burnham meant "dancing" as a euphemism, but she sounded like she did, and it delighted me.

Altho I was annoyed at the "You've never been in love," because SHE LOVED PHILIPPA OKAY. (And if Ash, or as I call him, Pretty-Pretty, is her first love and is also Voq or a traitor, that's gonna suck.)

So many times all of this! Every bit. Because yes, she totally loved Philippa, she just did, and HOLY FUCKING SHIT she's gonna be so broken if/when Ash is revealed to be Voq and frankly so am I because all my self-defending "You're a BAD MAN!" shit is falling all to pieces because he's so freakin' cute.

I do wish they were including the rest of the bridge crew a little more, not just lampshading it with "random communications officer man," altho Wilson made that horribly funny.

Same, we need more named characters who have a chance to have actual personalities, I miss my ensemble-show-ness.

About the break... yeah. I'm not sure how I feel about that, either. I get it, they don't want to be playing over the holidays, but... it's a streaming-only thing? You could just... put up episodes for people to binge like every other really successful show does? Stop clinging to the past? I don't know. It's weird to be watching Stranger Things at the same time they're going through all this stuff. It's like they're trying to get this whole internet streaming thing and just not quite understanding how it works.

My only concern is that we're going to get Captain Burnham and then they're gonna be like "...wait, how do we do this without Bryan Fuller laying out the road map for us?" Because Fuller's original plan was a new story ever season (implied new characters as well), so... after this they have nothing planned to work from. So I really hope the team is up to it.

[nonelvis]

Altho I was annoyed at the "You've never been in love," because SHE LOVED PHILIPPA OKAY.

I am handwaving that bit away as Burnham not necessarily recognizing her feelings for Georgiou as love because she'd been trained so well to suppress her emotions and/or identify those feelings as "respect" or "faithful companionship" -- anything other than "love."

[conuly]

I've never been sure that the Federation really truly *is* a cashless economy, in any continuity. Canon is dubious on that front, and clearly nobody ever sat down to work out how their economy works without cash. Clearly, resources are allocated somehow, and just as clearly, we can't all have what we want. Syrup of squill is still a rare commodity. Not everybody can live on the Picard family vineyard, or have their restaurant in the fancy neighborhood. Post-scarcity might mean we all get enough to eat, and a roof over our heads, but it doesn't mean we all get delicacies and prime housing. (And are we supposed to believe that Quark is accepting IOUs!?)

[rivendellrose]

Yeah, it's confusing as hell, really. At a couple of points in DS9 they flat-out say, for instance, that Jake Sisko isn't getting paid for the writing he does for the Federation new service, but as a freelance editor and sometime-writer I could find examples of that now, too. "Working for exposure" and all that. There's no indication at all of how things actually work, and I could offer supposition but I am very much not an economist. But I did study anthropology, so I love pulling out details and trying to figure out what they might mean, culturally!

[lizbee]

And DS9 gave us stuff like the Orion Syndicate, and Trill families with ties to it.

Mostly I think contemporary writers have a really difficult time with the concept of a society without money, and capitalism really impacts contemporary drama. But I handwave it as saying, internally, the Federation is (mostly) cashless, but there is still an economy that exists for dealing with the outside universe.

[tassosss]

I want to say that In TNG Time's Arrow when they bring Mark Twain to the future, Troi tells him they don't have money anymore, but that's the only example I can come up with. It's definitely not consistent in portrayal.

[saturnofthemoon]

Breaking news! Lorca's tribble is alive and it has a name!

[rivendellrose]

BREAKING UPDATE: MERKIN IS A WORD, AND I AM DYING.



HE NAMED IT PUBIC WIG.

[kore]

//DIES OMG I love him and I love this whole thread too.

[tree_and_leaf]

Oh Jason Isaacs, you massive, massive, evil troll.

[karusell]

If anyone else feels they need more Stamets/Culber in their life, I strongly recommend the latest episode of After Trek aka Wilson Cruz pretty much making up his own fanfiction about the characters because he is barely on the show, like this: http://conners-kent.tumblr.com/post/166998917322

[artemis10002000]

Oh gosh that sounds adorable. I'll need to watch this episode.

[tree_and_leaf]

I have only just caught up because it's been a hell of a week, and that was such fun!

[madgastronomer]

Have finally watched the episode, just in time to be late watching the next one. (I watch Discovery with a friend, and we've been trying to get through Stranger Things during our limited tv time together.)

OK, so. I LOVE a GOOD time loop episode (SG1's is my personal favorite, but this almost equals it), but HATE a bad one. So I started cringing when it became apparent that that's what this was, but I didn't know yet if it was going to be good or bad. And then it totally broke my expectations! Yay for the viewpoint character NOT being the one who experiences all the loops! Yay for a preexisting condition that sensibly causes someone to experience them! Yay for someone sensibly asking for a secret! Yay for ALL THE THINGS!