Iconic Star Trek Villain Calls Out Discovery’s Biggest Problem
While he only appeared in two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, few characters were quite as memorable as Harry Mudd, a villain who once clashed with Captain Kirk. This time around, the bad guy was played by legendary funnyman Rainn Wilson, and many of the character’s lines in “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” reflect the actor’s comedic sensibilities. One such line was when he called someone “random communications officer-man,” but the funniest thing about this line for long-term fans of the show is that it highlights Discovery’s most persistent problem: only focusing on a handful of characters at the expense of everyone else.
Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad
In case you were wondering, the crewman that Harry Mudd identifies as “random communications officer-man” was R.A. Bryce. It makes sense, of course, for an outsider like Mudd to not know the name of the Discovery’s communications specialist.
However, what makes this line so very meta is that, at the time, literally nobody had a way of knowing what his name was.
You see, while Bryce had appeared intermittently in the first season up to this point, he hadn’t been given a name onscreen. In a truly surreal twist, the only way for fans to learn his name when “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” first aired was to stick around and watch the After Trek episode.
His last name wasn’t heard onscreen in the actual show until “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum,” and he didn’t get a first name until the premiere of the second season.
The Invisible Bridge Crew
So, when Harry Mudd called the communications officer “random communications officer-man,” it was easy for fans to just chalk this up to the character’s caustic and sarcastic sense of humor.
However, in retrospect, it really looks like the villain was calling out one of the show’s biggest problems. Specifically, most of the bridge crew gets so little to do that it’s easy to forget their names or even that they’re part of the show.
Not An Ensemble Show
From the beginning, Discovery was intentionally designed to focus on only a handful of characters such as Michael Burnham and Saru. From a storytelling perspective, this was a double-edged sword, giving us a wonderfully intimate focus on some complex characters at the expense of many others.
This naturally felt jarring because Star Trek has traditionally been an ensemble show, and even if The Original Series focused more prominently on characters like Kirk and Spock, it was never so bad that we didn’t know the names of characters like, say, communications officer Uhura.
Inconsistent Bridge Crew
The issue that Harry Mudd is calling out was such a concern of fans that the second season premiere had a goofy scene where Captain Pike did a roll call, something which was meant to finally help audiences put names to faces.
This scene was really just a band-aid on a bigger problem, and Discovery never took the time to properly focus on its supporting cast.
Even in the final season, there was constant speculation all the way to the end about where beloved characters like Detmer or Owosekun had gotten off to because we hadn’t consistently seen them from episode to episode.
Lampshading
Looking back, part of what makes Harry Mudd’s comment about the then-nameless Bryce so annoying is that the writers were basically lampshading a problem they never intended to fix.
It becomes that much harder to rewatch the show and see the potential of these talented actors getting squandered in episode after episode.
Thankfully, Strange New Worlds is proof that we don’t have to time-travel into the 32nd century to find a Star Trek show that still has a proper ensemble cast.
