STD: Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad

[AlucardNoir]

http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/c107.php

Here lies Chuck Sonnenburg, formerly of sound mind. Driven to the brink of insanity by real life and Dragon Age II ... and beyond it by Star Trek: Discovery. Star Trek Discovery, the only show as bad for your health as Syphilis.

[BunBun299]

Welp, this did it. This episode destroyed any lingering hope I had that this series might somehow be good in spite my misgivings about them shoehorning in the main character as Spock's foster sister.

Harry Mudd was never a good man. He was always trying to take advantage of someone, somehow. But in spite this, there was a certain depth and likability to the character. You'd never trust him for an instant, but you enjoyed watching scheme. This episode, turned him into Bill from Rampage (not the recent video game movie starring The Rock) with magic time powers. I cannot reconcile the likable rogue from TOS with this serial mass murderer. I could potentially see Harry Mudd of old trying to steal Discovery and sell it to the Klingons. But he'd do something like dump the crew on some primitive class M world before flying off with it. Not repeatedly, gleefully gun them down, and relish repeatedly shooting Lorca in particular.

The time travel stuff I don't mind. The crew having to battle a foe with Time Loop powers sounds like a really interesting premise for an episode. But the outright character assassination, that kills it for me.

[CrypticMirror]

This episode really makes me appreciate Enterprise. That is how bad it is. I would rather sit through Season 1 of Enterprise again than watch any more of STD>

[Revolverman]

This may be the most edgelord thing I've ever seen in Star Trek.

[Jonathan101]

I guess you could compare this to a 70's sitcom having recurring minor character called Ted. Ted is a womaniser, an underachiever, tells the odd lie for fun, but overall he's likeable, good looking, helpful and even volunteers for a suicide hotline, so he seems at worst like he's a bit of a rogue with a hidden heart of gold.

Then you do a special episode following him and learn that he's a sadistic serial killer and necrophiliac with a horrible temper, and while he's nice to the rest of the cast he's pretty horrible in private and is just able to turn on the charm.

It's not unreasonable for Harry Mudd to be a loveable rogue in the handful of episodes we see him in but really be a murderous psychopath underneath that- that, indeed, would dovetail fine with him being a con-man to begin with.

But yes, obviously this is a retcon, and its understandable that people don't like these changes to Mudd's character. Just don't confuse that for this being unrealistic- real life Harry Mudd's come in various flavours.

EDIT: Well, even this is a bit harsh- Dis Mudd isn't THAT bad either.

[CharlesPhipps]

At the risk of also undermining people, I'm not sure if you have the power of resurrection that you can be called a traditional murderer.

[Worffan101]

Long time SFDebris fan, first time poster, and I just wanted to chime in that this is the first episode where I realized that this show had no substance and instead consists entirely of hack writing, lazy attempts at fanservice, and lazier attempts to ape nuBSG without any of the careful writing that made the first 2 seasons of that show interesting. I had hated the show before this for its dehumanization of the Klingons, the "Spock's sister" thing, and the generally weak writing, but this was where it all crystallized and I realized this wasn't just teething problems like with the bad season 1 DS9 episodes, the whole SHOW was bad.

Also, why don't they lock Mudd up? They WON. They have him at their mercy once he shuts off the time thing. Boom, they won, they captured Mudd...and they send off the guy who cheerfully murdered them lots of times off with his wife?

Sure, Mudd is well-acted, but that's just the thing; the whole series is well-acted (except for Sarek, who I find to be off-puttingly bland), it just isn't very well-written.

[DanteC]

I've not watched any TOS with Mudd in them so can't say anything about his characterisation in those vs here, but I'd have figured that anyone would be at least peeved against the person who didn't rescue them from being a prisoner of a hostile race (no matter how deserved). Who knows how long it took Mudd to escape, or worse, how long he was a Klingon's prison bitch.
Now that's a horrific thought. Though there's probably some Rule 34 for it out there.
In defense of this episode (freely admit I'm biased, I like the show), there isn't a full-blown magic reset button that's far too common with time travel in Trek, the other characters get to do things, and the sequence of Mudd repeatedly gunning down Lorca is amusing (waiting for someone to swap Lorca's figure with Neelix.)

[rickgriffin]

I guess you could compare this to a 70's sitcom having recurring minor character called Ted. Ted is a womaniser, an underachiever, tells the odd lie for fun, but overall he's likeable, good looking, helpful and even volunteers for a suicide hotline, so he seems at worst like he's a bit of a rogue with a hidden heart of gold.

Then you do a special episode following him and learn that he's a sadistic serial killer and necrophiliac with a horrible temper, and while he's nice to the rest of the cast he's pretty horrible in private and is just able to turn on the charm.

It's not unreasonable for Harry Mudd to be a loveable rogue in the handful of episodes we see him in but really be a murderous psychopath underneath that- that, indeed, would dovetail fine with him being a con-man to begin with.

That . . . doesn't sound reasonable.

The thing with fiction is that when you pull the rug out from under the audience and say "aha, it turns out this guy was someone completely different underneath all along" you need some grounding for it.

I mean, think about with DS9 if you suddenly had an episode where it turns out that Quark was actually a serial killer. He's a lovable rogue in the same vein as Harry Mudd, willing to get his hands dirty and overlook a lot of nasty things to make money. But it still flies in the face of everything that's been IMPLIED about Quark's character. Now, Mudd only had two TOS episodes and one TAS episode, but you'd still have to bend PRETTY FAR to squeeze "vengeful psychopath" out of him and NOT make it feel jarring.

[Jonathan101]

I guess you could compare this to a 70's sitcom having recurring minor character called Ted. Ted is a womaniser, an underachiever, tells the odd lie for fun, but overall he's likeable, good looking, helpful and even volunteers for a suicide hotline, so he seems at worst like he's a bit of a rogue with a hidden heart of gold.

Then you do a special episode following him and learn that he's a sadistic serial killer and necrophiliac with a horrible temper, and while he's nice to the rest of the cast he's pretty horrible in private and is just able to turn on the charm.

It's not unreasonable for Harry Mudd to be a loveable rogue in the handful of episodes we see him in but really be a murderous psychopath underneath that- that, indeed, would dovetail fine with him being a con-man to begin with.

That . . . doesn't sound reasonable.

The thing with fiction is that when you pull the rug out from under the audience and say "aha, it turns out this guy was someone completely different underneath all along" you need some grounding for it.

I mean, think about with DS9 if you suddenly had an episode where it turns out that Quark was actually a serial killer. He's a lovable rogue in the same vein as Harry Mudd, willing to get his hands dirty and overlook a lot of nasty things to make money. But it still flies in the face of everything that's been IMPLIED about Quark's character. Now, Mudd only had two TOS episodes and one TAS episode, but you'd still have to bend PRETTY FAR to squeeze "vengeful psychopath" out of him and NOT make it feel jarring.

It is reasonable because in real life that sort of dissonance happens all the time.

Fiction shouldn't have to be more consistent than reality, and besides the serial killer analogy I made was probably a bit extreme since Mudd is more like a guy who has snapped after months of torture and a betrayal, plus I suppose in his mind its okay if he keeps resetting time so that nobody REALLY dies.

Quark is a bit different since we see much more of him than of Mudd...but if that had happened, we probably would have rolled with it, like it or not. Might have depended on how early it was of course. In the case of Mudd its just weirder only because he debuted 50 years ago and wasn't in it enough to leave any other impression, but looking back at him I don't think it is TOO inconsistent for him to have this sort of thing in him under the right circumstances.