My kind of scoundrel
by Erica Frank
Let’s start at the beginning: the Enterprise is pursuing a smaller ship as it careens into an asteroid field. Captain Kirk orders his crew to protect the ship, burning out nearly all of their lithium crystals, and then beam the crew onboard. Mister Scott first beams over a man who initially introduces himself as "Leo Walsh". Then Mister Scott beams over three women — Eve, Ruth, and Magda — who pose elegantly on the transporter pad.
"Walsh" shows up wearing some kind of swashbuckler's outfit with a bejeweled earring just a little smaller than a golf ball. He says the three lovely women he's escorting are not his crew but his "cargo." He quickly explains: he's delivering them to their husbands-to-be on a mining colony.
Introducing: Leo Walsh, matchmaker from the stars
Right away, we can tell there's something sketchy about him. He smiles too widely, brushes aside questions, and tries to sneak away to talk with the women. They're all terrible liars, so it quickly comes out that his name is not "Leo Walsh" but Harry Mudd… in more ways than one.
Mudd's got a rap sheet: He's wanted for crimes like smuggling and counterfeiting, not for anything violent. He lies; he cheats; he steals; he runs away and does it again at the next port. He swindles people out of money, but he's not trying to ruin lives; he's just trying to enjoy his own.
Sure, he's trying to scam the potential husbands for the three ladies he's escorting (more on that shortly), but the women are planning to be good wives, to be partners and helpers to the men they marry, and they're willing to live in a very isolated place for that.
Eve, Ruth, and Magda, wearing the only clothes they own after being rescued
While Mudd and "his" women are involved in some kind of scam that the crew is trying to figure out, the ship itself is having problems. It's out of lithium crystals and can't travel faster than a slow crawl. Fortunately, there's a lithium mining planet with — as luck would have it — exactly three men, all single and desperate for wives. The three women immediately agree to abandon their former betrotheds (whom they'd never met) to latch on to these new, closer, wealthier strangers.
By the middle of the episode, we have a tangle of conflicting interests. Mudd wants to get paid (needs to get paid; his spaceship was destroyed) and would really like to stay out of prison. The three women would like husbands who can keep them in the type of luxury they'd enjoy. The Enterprise needs crystals or it's dead in space. Captain Kirk would like to know what the scam is so he can deal with his prisoner appropriately. The miners would like wives, and would be especially happy with beautiful, alluring wives. Doctor McCoy would like to know why every man on the ship (except Spock) acts like they're being enthralled. (This is difficult when he himself is subject to their charms.) The cops presumably would like Mudd behind bars for his past crimes.
I was worried this was yet another "mind control powers" episode, and was delighted to discover it was not. Mudd's been giving the women "the Venus Drug" which makes them beautiful and sexy. All three women are homely, unable to find husbands because they are so ugly. Their plan was to get married on a remote planet; by the time they ran out of the drugs, their husbands would be stuck with them and Mudd would be long gone.
As you can see, his name really is Mudd.
Kirk throws Mudd in the brig while he tries to figure out what's going on. However, in accordance with standard Enterprise security, the women are free to come and go as they please, visiting officers at work, breaking into Kirk's cabin, and coordinating to help Mudd. Mudd can't leave the brig, but they can not only visit him, they can bring him a communications device. He contacts the miners and arranges a deal for his own freedom.
The lithium miners must have a powerful union, almost as strong as the fashion industry: Mudd, not Earth (or starship command, or whomever Kirk reports to), tells Kirk that he's not only to be set free, but delivered safely to another planet after the women are settled. Presumably, Kirk verifies this with his superiors instead of just taking Mudd's word for it, but I'm never sure how much anyone on this ship pays attention to chain of command.
The crew beams down to the mining planet. Even when the plot is hokey, Star Trek's visual impact is breathtaking.
Eve has second thoughts about the whole thing. She runs off into a sandstorm, gets rescued by the head miner, and winds up telling him the whole truth. At first, he rejects her because she's ugly; eventually, after some shenanigans between Kirk and Mudd, both she and the miner realize that the drug isn't (entirely) what made her enticing — it may have removed a few wrinkles and added a bit of sparkle, but it's her own actions that made it effective: She was beautiful because she believed she was.
Kirk tells her: "There's only one kind of woman–" Mudd interrupts him to say, "–or man, for that matter," and Kirk finishes with, "you either believe in yourself, or don't."
Childress, the head of the mining colony, and Eve, the woman too ugly to find a husband on her home planet
They decide to make a go of it, and so do the other women, thus avoiding the likely violent reaction to the truth if the change had happened without giving them a choice. Hurray. The women get husbands who are willing to accept them as they are; the men get wives who are willing to put up with the isolation of a mining planet; the Enterprise gets the crystals it needs to function; and Harry Mudd gets a presumably fair trial.
Harcourt Fenton Mudd is obviously a conniving, selfish liar and con artist, but he's not trying to hurt anyone, and he's devoted to a life of leisure and flamboyance. That's hard to manage as the captain of a tiny ship drifting between the stars. It's not mentioned in the episode, but he must spend some of his time managing the ship and addressing its technical needs, and much of the rest looking out of viewports into the inky blackness of space.
Would you buy a used spaceship from this man?
Mudd's a ruffian, a scalawag, a scofflaw: a criminal to his bones… but he's relatable (we all know someone like him) and has managed to stay mentally sound, to be optimistic even, in a setting that could drive men mad. Humans are social creatures; we need each other to survive. Any sailor will say that ocean life is lonely; a starship is even more isolated — and yet Harry Mudd rejects companionship on his journeys.
It takes a strong will to maintain enough social skills to wheel and deal with those who are planetbound — and an even stronger one to be a maverick, obviously not following society's rules or moral standards, but in a way that says "I'm a rebel outlaw" rather than "I've been living alone for so long I've forgotten which fork is used for ice cream."
I don't know that I'd like Harry Mudd in person, but I am certainly entertained by him at a distance. I admire his dedication to his chosen lifestyle, and the skills and mental strength he must have to pull it off.
Three and a half stars. It would be four, but there are no shirtless men in this episode.
The Message
by Robin Rose Graves
The introduction to "Mudd’s Women" is ripe with promise. Action and intrigue. How did these three otherworldly attractive women end up traveling with a space pirate like Mudd? And what makes them so irresistible that even a crew of professional men can’t help but gawk? These questions ensnared my initial interest, filled my head with theories. I was ultimately let down.
“Confidence is beauty” is the moral of the story upon the revelation that the pills did nothing to change the normal human girls’ appearances, but instead gave them confidence, leading to them being perceived as supernaturally beautiful. While I don’t disagree with the message, I was nonetheless disappointed. Confused, even, at how the show decided to depict the beauty of the women. Under the influence of the Venus pills, the girls have glamorous makeup and clothes. Once the pills wear off, the women are stripped of their make up and they, along with those around them, act as if they are appallingly homely looking. Otherwise, they appear the same as before, particularly to me, who still found the actresses chosen to play the parts to be attractive.
Disheveled, maybe… but ugly?
The overall message feels out of place in a science fiction world. It’s one that felt unchallenging compared to the better episodes we’ve seen thus far. The final act of the episode feels as if it could have happened in any mundane situation comedy program. I’m not opposed to science fiction tackling issues of our society (in fact science fiction at its strongest does) yet I felt this episode didn’t go far enough. Compare it to a favorite Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder” where the plot differs greatly, but the question answered remains the same – “What is beauty?”
“Eye of the Beholder” subverted expectations. The episode built you up to expect the main character to be as ugly as everyone around her treats her, only to reveal her face looks like ours but everyone around her has large noses, sunken in eyes, and puffy lips – what is considered attractive in their universe. Twilight Zone went to greater lengths than “Mudd’s Women” to challenge the beliefs of their viewers, and six years before Star Trek. I expected more from a show that has at its best moments challenged modern television programs, and the way the episode began promised more than what was delivered.
3 stars.
Clear as Mud
by Jessica Dickinson Goodman
Many moments in "Mudd’s Women" beg us to ask: are Eve, Ruth, and Magda property or people?
The episode follows a fairly simple structure: a chase, passengers rescued at great cost to the Enterprise necessitating an emergency refueling using fuel which Captain Kirk can only attain by trading the passengers’ lives, which he does. Or does he trade valuable cargo to the lithium miners of Rigel 12, with the cargo's willing consent?
The women explain what drove them from their home planets: hardship, unequal treatment, and a lack of hope for a real future. But we are not getting the whole story:
We discover that Mudd is supplying them with “Venus drugs,” that seem to alter the women’s appearances and charisma for a short time. Or do they? Towards the end of the episode, Kirk gives Eve a placebo pill without her informed consent and it has the same effect as the real thing. We are left to wonder: were the women’s transformations like those in The Man Trap, where Nancy Crater’s face aged depending on point of view? Or were these women actually aliens with a natural talent for appearing, as Erica described it as we watched, to have undergone a four hour hair and make-up treatment within moments of downing a sparkling pill?
Setting aside for a moment these mixed-up metaphysics, Eve, Ruth, and Magda clearly believe they need the drugs that Mudd controls access to. There is a harrowing scene where he goofily searches for more pills as the women rot and wither around him, bodies wracked with discomfort and with physical changes they believe they are powerless to control. This desperation and enforced dependency must color every other statement we hear from them about their consenting to their impending futures.
On Rigel 12, Mudd offers to trade Eve, Ruth, and Magda for his own freedom and crystals to fuel the Enterprise. What follows are several deeply upsetting scenes where Captain Kirk first refuses, and then — without any on-screen consultation with Eve, Ruth, or Magda — agrees to Mudd and the miners’ demands. Kirk transports them down to the mining camp to become wives of the miners. On the surface, we see a party where Magda asks a man to dance and men fight over her; a man asks Eve to dance and she says no, after which he publicly shames her for not consenting. Furious and distraught, Eve shouts: “Why don't you run a raffle and the loser gets me?” before running into a deadly sandstorm, with men baying after her.
Seven hours later, the miner who tried to shame Eve has her in his cave, where she is cooking for him. They fight, and he lays hands on her, only to growl: “I didn't touch her” when Captain Kirk and Mudd materialize, looking for lithium crystals. Moments later, Kirk gives Eve the placebo. Then he lectures her on womanhood and the importance of self-confidence before leaving.
“I didn't touch her.”
The episode ends without us seeing what became of Magda or Ruth. But we do see Kirk abandon Eve on a remote mining post with a violent man, taking Harry Mudd along with him for trial.
If Eve, Ruth, and Magda are “cargo,” then there is nothing wrong with Captain Kirk, Harry Mudd, or the miners’ actions. You cannot bruise a sexy automoton. Its tears have no meaning. It has no will or sense of adventure or right to privacy. It cannot yearn for freedom. But if Eve, Ruth, and Magda are people, then Mudd was cruel to withhold medical care they believed they needed; Captain Kirk was cruel to trade their bodies and lives for fuel; and the writers are cruel for writing a narrative that expected us to go along with it.
All in all, the metaphysics and the intended humanity of the women in this episode were as clear as mud.
One star.
(Will the next episode be better? Join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings) to find out!!)
What an uneven episode. It never seems to know quite what it wants to be. At times it appears to be a comedy, at others a much more serious drama. And hovering over it all is a Western theme with the wiving of settlers, not surprising for a show that was, as I understand it, pitched as Wagon Train to the stars.
The business of bringing women out to the frontier did happen. Some readers may recall the hit musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" from several years ago. Generally, though, it was the result of lonely hearts correspondence, and both the men and women had at least some idea of who they were getting involved with. The recruitment of women to travel west to find husbands only happened a couple of times and involved much larger numbers than three.
I've seen Roger Carmel in quite a few things, and he can be very funny and also quite menacing. Trying to do both at once was a mistake. The story would probably have worked better if Harry Mudd had been a nasty piece of work, through and through. I enjoy a good lovable rogue such as Erica describes, and Carmel would be a good choice that role, but it was wrong this story. It's a pity, since it turns out to be a waste of a potentially fun character.
At least we'll never see him again. Though we might see the actor — he played two different characters back to back in I, Spy, even wearing the same clothes!
Ha! I now have no hesitation in dubbing this new series "Wig Trek."
As an 11-year-old watching NBC's new sci-fi series, some of this teleplay didn't interest me, all this lovey-dovey stuff, but I relished the scenes with the hostile surface of the miners' planet. I'd glimpsed it in the "NBC Week" ads that had been tantalizing me with a clip of Captain Kirk struggling against the bitter wind. Strange, dangerous alien worlds fascinate me. It seems the miners live in a sort of cave. If I remember rightly, so did Dr. Crater in the season opener, "Man Trap." Maybe this series will turn out to be "Cave Trek" as well as "Wig Trek." I'm getting my Lindy ballpoint pen (with the performing seal on it) to start drawing a Star Trek parody — home-made comic book parodies being one of my ways of expressing my enthusiasm for my favorite TV programs, etc.
ooo! I hope you'll share it with us. We may have to start a Trek-themed 'zine (assuming this show makes it past the mid-season…)
There goes the U. S. S, Undersize, with its drunken Captain Kork at the hem, who relies on the ship's confuser, er computer, to tell him what to do. Science Officer Spark is the real brains of the outfit. And so begins another episode of the Star Truck, which looks like a pickup truck with power tubes or pontoons attached. In fact, come to think of it, it is on the way to the planet of the hostile Pontoons, who threaten Earth in some way I can't figure out, but I'll get idea from my best friend at school tomorrow.
According to Mudd, Spock is part "Vulcanian" – an idiosyncratic terminology, perhaps indicating that different parts of the Federation see the Vulcans differently?
What is the "Federation"?
Oops. My fan theory is that Earth is part of some sort of multiplanet organization – but I shouldn't assume everyone else knows what I'm guessing.
That's all right. We know there are aliens in this future polity. The tastes of Spock's ancestors included both humans and Vulcanians…
This was an interesting episode for sure. Mudd is indeed a charming con artist and rogue for sure, but the assertion that he has not harmed anyone is unclear. Yes, he may have no bad intentions in his mind but the fact that he does cheat, steal and abscond before he can face the music does harm the persons he victimized. Yes, he hasn't done any physical harm, but some psychological harm could be done depending upon the disposition of the person. Therefore he is not completely harmless.
I do find it interesting that crime is still alive and well in this future time; it goes to show some things about humanity may not ever change. The one thing I thought was very funny about Mudd: in his rap-sheet it stated that was sentenced to psychiatric treatment and the effectiveness was disputed. That was a laugh-out-loud moment.
We have crime in the future and incompletely effective ways of dealing with it, we see!
Crime will always be a problem in a galactic polity where criminals and psychopaths can skip off into the Beyond, as Jack Vance has been reminding us with his recent Demon Princes novels.
Regarding this episode of STAR TREK, I feel it was pretty slight and silly, and a drop in script quality from the likes of 'The Man Trap' 'Charlie X,' and 'The Enemy Within' (or whatever the Good Kirk-Bad Kirk episode was titled).
Nor do I get good a feeling from seeing Lurch from THE ADDAMS FAMILY featured in a pic from the next one. Nothing against the actor, just the way he's costumed and made up in that pic is not auspicious of serious SFnal intent, more of 1950s Hollywood saucerian monsters.
I think STAR TREK may turn out to be seriously variable — a very up-and-down thing in terms of quality and the intelligence involved in the script-writing. Frankly, this one was a little dumb.
Ted Cassidy was actually the best part of that next episode, which we will have a review for next week!
Wow. I wasn't expecting so much cheesecake on this series. (Weren't the miniskirt uniforms enough?) And the stripper music that plays on the soundtrack when the women walk by. Yikes! It made me think that Mudd wasn't really intent on selling these women as wives, but as renting them as . . . something else.