TOS 7: Mudd's Women

Original air date: 10/13/1966
Star Date: 1329.8

Summary: The Enterprise stumbles upon the starship of felon Harry Mudd, known counterfeiter, smuggler and all-around slimeball.  Mudd tries to evade the Enterprise by entering an asteroid field, a maneuver which ends with Mudd's ship destroyed, along with all but one of the Enterprise's lithium crystals, leaving the Enterprise with minimal power.  Kirk sets course for nearby mining planet Rigel 12 to obtain replacement lithium crystals, and in the meantime Harry Mudd is put under scrutiny.

Mudd was beamed to the Enterprise just before his ship was destroyed, along with his 'cargo': three beautiful mail-order brides who are all unnaturally alluring to the men of the Enterprise.  Mudd is arrested on various charges, but sees an opportunity on Rigel 12.  He contacts the miners via subspace communication before the Enterprise arrives, and makes his own deal with them.  When Kirk sits down to bargain with the miners, they inform him that the lithium crystals are not for sale; but they will trade the crystals to Kirk in exchange for the women and Mudd's freedom.

Kirk initially objects, but with just hours left before the Enterprise loses all power and starts an inexorable spiral toward the planet's surface, he agrees to the miners terms and the women are beamed down to the planet's surface.  However, one of the women, Eve, runs out into a sandstorm and is lost for several hours.  After the miner Childress finds her and brings her back to his cabin, he notices that she is no longer beautiful.  Kirk and Mudd arrive to explain that Eve's unnatural beauty, as well as that of the other two women, is the result of them taking an illegal drug supplied by Mudd.  Eve then demonstrates by consuming what she thinks is the drug, becoming beautiful again.  Kirk explains that she took a placebo, but she is beautiful again because she believes she is.  With this new, more enlightened understanding of human beauty, Childress gives Kirk the lithium crystals, and Kirk takes Mudd back to the authorities.

This episode isn't nearly as bad as The Enemy Within, but it does leave you scratching your head.  Roger C. Carmel is very good as Harry Mudd --- he's slimy, opportunistic and despicable.  And the way we are first introduced to him is good, too: he suddenly materializes in the transporter room, looking very much like an 18th century pirate.

For roughly the first half of the show, we are left wondering why the women have such a strong effect on the crew of the Enterprise.  At one point, one of the women, Ruth, accidentally walks in front of a medical scanner in sickbay, and it behaves strangely, leading the viewer to believe that she might perhaps be an android or some other synthetic life form.  Of course later on, we learn that all three women are rather ordinary-looking in reality, and their exceptional beauty and effect on men is a result of taking the "Venus drug", which is an illegal substance supplied to them by Mudd.

Mudd's scheme is to sell these women off on unsuspecting husbands.  This is awfully close to human trafficking, and the one saving grace is that the women are participating voluntarily; they want husbands badly enough to go along with Mudd's plan.  The question of what will happen to them after they're married off and stop taking the Venus drug is never really addressed.

The fact that the women want to marry the Rigel 12 miners *almost* makes Kirk's decision to agree to the miner's demands palatable.  Heck, lithium is expensive; if Kirk can get it from the miners by letting the women do what they want to do anyway, where's the harm?  The only harm --- and it's no small matter, really --- is that the miners are allowed to think that trading lithium for human beings is acceptable.

For about 40 minutes, though, the show makes sense.  Mudd seems to have wriggled his way out of trouble and have Kirk over a barrel.  Eve returns to Childress' cabin with less than an hour until the Enterprise has used up all of its power, and Kirk still doesn't have the lithium crystals.  Mudd has won, it seems.

And then all of a sudden, Kirk tells Spock: "Have Mudd meet me in the transporter room," and babbles something about "the name of the game".  At this point, there is no reason to think Kirk knows about the Venus drug, and also no reason to think that Mudd will gladly accompany Kirk to the surface to help obtain the crystals, even if he did.  And yet, that's exactly what happens.  Mudd and Kirk sit down with Eve and Childress, and Mudd explains about the Venus drug.  He hands Eve a placebo which Kirk had previously given him, and Eve takes it, thinking it's the real drug.  When Eve regains her beauty, Mudd and Kirk together explain how it could be possible without the Venus drug, saying:

Kirk: "There's only one kind of woman,"
Mudd: "Or man, for that matter."
Kirk: "You either believe in yourself --- or you don't."

Touching, yes.  Bushwah, yes.  And totally inconsistent with the dynamic between Mudd and Kirk up until that point in the show.  I was really hoping that, in the last two minutes, we would hear some great explanation from Kirk about how he figured Mudd must be using the Venus drug on the women, how he forced Mudd to help him, etc., etc., but no.  Nothing.  Mudd's change of heart comes completely out of thin air, and thus is completely unbelievable.

Other observations on the show:

Mudd's ship is destroyed as the Enterprise is in the process of beaming the women over.  The women don't arrive in the transporter room until 15 seconds or so after the ship is demolished.  How does that work?

The hearing where the board of Kirk, Scotty, and other men are interrogating Mudd is quite amusing.  They play the standard "lie detector" game, where the computer calls out each of Mudd's lies, but the really funny part is when Spock asks the computer if it can tell anything about the women by doing some kind of scan on them.  The computer reports nothing unusual about the women, but reports: "Unusual reading on male board members.  Detecting high respiration patterns, perspiration rate up, heart beat rapid, blood pressure higher than normal."  Kirk orders Spock to strike these observations from the record.

The miners all reject Eve initially despite her beauty, because the dust in the air makes her cough.  The rejection sends her into despair, and she runs out into a sandstorm for more than 3 hours.  When Childress finally finds her and brings her back to his cabin, she doesn't cough once.

If Uhura's skirt were any shorter, this episode would be X-rated.

The Moral of the Story: Self-confidence is sexy.