- Title: Star Trek: Discovery – Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad
- wiki: link
“Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” offers a time loop episode featuring the return of Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd. Through the use of an injured, and endangered, space creature and a time crystal, Mudd is able to sneak on-board Discovery and keep resetting time as he searches for the secrets of the ship which he plans to sell to the Klingons. He also spends quite a bit of time killing Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) over and over as revenge for the captain living Mudd in a Klingon prison. While not as clever as something like “Cause and Effect,” and problematic for glossing over how Mudd acquired (and could figure out how to use) such technology, the episode does have its moments including the use of a Trojan Horse and making use of Stamets‘ (Anthony Rapp) altered physiology to explain why he alone remembers the various loops.
Through the use of the party scene, which we’re shown variations of over the course of the episode, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) is allowed to explore her more emotional side and explore her feelings for Tyler (Shazad Latif). While the pair’s first kiss may have been erased in a time reset, the last loops still furthers their relationship. Even if the episode never adequately explains Mudd’s possession and use of the time crystal, Wilson is having a grand time reprising his role. The episode’s conclusion also harkens back to the kind of karmic justice Kirk found for Mudd in the character’s final appearance on the original Star Trek which proved far more fitting than simply taking the con man into custody.
