Having escaped from Klingon captivity, Harry Mudd carries through on his threat to torment Captain Lorca as he plots to steal Discovery and its technology and sell it to the Klingons. And with help from an alien device that allows Mudd to relive the same 30 minutes over and over again, he might just be successful.
Several things that made Discovery's take on the time loop trope unique and satisfying. First was how they played all the expected beats of that story. The "tell me how to convince you of the truth next loop" moment elicited a powerful and personal secret from Burnham. We almost certainly could have guessed that she'd never made room for love in the life she's led, but it still cost her something to say it out loud. And Stamets' reaction to it was pretty great, not just sorrowful and empathetic in the moment, but in the way he was then willing to sacrifice a few time loops (and die a couple of grizzly deaths) to focus on that personal problem as much or more than the jeopardy.
The "deaths" are also a big part of the time loop conceit, and Discovery certainly had fun with them. We got first person perspectives of people burning in an exploding ship. We got grizzly deaths by purple pellet. And we got a comedic/horrific montage of Lorca deaths including one only Trek can do: spacing-via-transporter.
But Discovery also refreshed the time loop conceit by hitting a few beats the trope doesn't normally cover. It was interesting to have a love story in the mix that did not involve a character actually aware of the loop. This wasn't the Groundhog Day arc of learning how to really be with somebody, this subplot existed outside of that and will continue to be fuel for future episodes. Also, many of the expected "highly memorable moments you expect to see repeated" weren't always actually repeated -- the collision in the hallway, the phaser fight in the cargo bay, and so forth.
Discovery also upped the ante by not just making the episode about escaping a time loop; the crew also had to foil a heist. As I find myself often saying on this blog, I do love a heist -- so the combination plot certainly worked for me. It also worked fairly well as a Harry Mudd gimmick, I think. The Mudd of the Original Series has an established history of getting his hands on more fantastical technology that you'd think. He's also a bit of a scamp/buffoon, which you saw more of here than in his previous Discovery episode. He took many loops himself to enact his plan, leaving room for Stamets to be able to stop him. A smarter, more ruthless man wouldn't have wasted as much time killing Lorca over and over just for kicks, wouldn't have been so slow to figure out everything he needed. And that playfulness here let Rainn Wilson really have fun with the role and chew some scenery.
There is the prequel problem, though. At the end of the adventure, Mudd has to be put back in the package where we find him in the Original Series, and this episode did that a bit over-neatly. Fun as it was for Trekkers to actually see the real Stella (and her overbearing father), it strains credibility that Mudd wouldn't be thrown in prison for his antics here.
I also wasn't sure about the use of Tyler's character in this story. He seemed a bit too gung ho for a relationship here, after the psycho-sexual ordeal of his Klingon imprisonment. He actually feels a bit too jovial in general, though that could certainly be a cover, an overcompensation -- and I'll respect the show a lot more if it digs into that in future episodes.
Still, great moments throughout this one. There was a party that felt like an actual party instead of a stuffy work function (complete with real party music; either mash-ups are still a thing in the 23rd century, or an ironic retro throwback). There was lots of fun Tilly, trying to be Burnham's wingman. Groovy, trippin' Stamets remains humorous.
I give this episode an A-. Discovery is really only just getting to "stand-alone" episodes, but this is their best of those so far.
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