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| Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel), with his human cargo. |
Original Air Date: Oct. 13, 1966. Teleplay by: Stephen Kandel. Story by: Gene Roddenberry. Directed by: Harvey Hart.
THE PLOT
The Enterprise intercepts an unregistered ship, whose attempt to evade the starship leads to its destruction. The transporters are barely able to rescue the captain and his "cargo" in time... said cargo being three beautiful women, wives being transported to a colony world. The captain is a man of large figure and personality named Leo Walsh - though he is, in reality, a con man named Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel).
When the Enterprise must divert to a mining colony in order to replenish its supply of dilithium crystals - the last of which were worn out by the rescue of Mudd - the con man sees an opportunity not only for profit, but to evade the charges Kirk is preparing against him. He makes a deal with the miners: the women in return for payment and protection from Kirk. Kirk is forced to agree to Mudd's terms. If he refuses, his ship's orbit will ultimately decay, his ship and crew destroyed!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Kirk: Not much new in this installment, though he is - against expectations, and perhaps even later character development - shown as an absolute stickler for regulations here, reluctant to deal with Mudd even when his ship is in direct jeopardy. Though suitably entranced by Eve, the most sympathetic of Mudd's women, his prime loyalty remains to his ship and his crew. As Mudd himself observes, Kirk is "married to (his) ship."
Dr. McCoy: Unlike Spock, he is far from immune to feminine charms, absolutely mesmerized any time any of the women stray near him. He is observant, however, and is the first to notice clues that not everything about these women is as it seems.
Hot Space Babe of the Week: Of the three women, two are barely characterized at all beyond "eye candy." However, Eve (Karen Steele) develops an immediate rapport with Kirk, and shows a degree of reluctance to go along with Mudd, whom she despises. At the mining colony, she ends up with the only miner to get any characterization, making her likely the only of the three women who will find a happy ending in this situation.
Villain of the Week: The first appearance of Roger Carmel as space rogue Harry Mudd. I almost typed "loveable rogue," except Mudd isn't very loveable in his first appearance. In fact, he's a downright nasty piece of work, happy to see hundreds die as long as he can escape responsibility for his actions. Still, he's a memorable figure: larger than life (in more ways than one), selfish but shrewdly intelligent, and possessed with a certain wit and charm, even when he's behaving as the scum of the galaxy. Carmel is wonderful throughout, though this is almost certainly the lesser of his appearances.
THOUGHTS
Unfortunately, Carmel or no Carmel, this episode is not good. The interplay between Shatner and Carmel - who spark off each other wonderfully from their first screen encounter to their brief, reluctant partnership at the end - is beautiful to behold. These two actors have real rapport, and they do much to carry the episode. For its first half, Mudd's Women is thin stuff at best, but it works passably well on the strength of the performances.
Then we reach the mining colony, where things grind to a complete halt. The miners are shown to be, if anything, an even nastier lot than Mudd. Eve correctly observes that they aren't really interested in wives. In fact, Mudd could probably make more money - and leave his customers ultimately happier - by running whores back and forth to them, instead of delivering wives. It's pretty clear where their real interests lie, ahd I almost felt sorry for Eve to be left with even the least cretinous of this lot at the end.
I say "almost," because the arrival at the mining colony coincides with Eve's apparent lobotomy. Upset when the men are avoiding her in favor of the shallower, more fun-loving girls, she runs out into a sandstorm. The words, "too stupid to live," spring to mind. A good ten interminable minutes pass with Eve and Slightly Less Cretinous Miner finding each other in the storm, then Eve cooking for him. Then the climax arrives, to tell us all that looks really do matter, but a good girl should be able to automatically transform herself into a Playboy Bunny with just a little self confidence and a sugar cube. It's not only mind-bogglingly stupid, but more than a little insulting toward women - even by 1960's gender standards.
The remastered version sees some nice enhancements to the effects at the mining colony. That's not all good, though, since the strong establishing effects now jar considerably with the very obvious studio shots. Still, a bit of eye candy makes the last (worst) part of this episode go down a bit easier, I suppose, and that's something.
Rating: 4/10. Not quite awful, but far from good.
Previous Episode: The Corbomite Maneuver
Next Episode: The Enemy Within
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One thing I've never understood about this episode is the huge plot hole. I mean, yeah, it's sexist as all get-out, and the fact that the THIRD EPISODE is about space prostitutes, when Roddenberry could have been talking about more interesting science fictional premises just boggles the mind.
ReplyDeleteBut that plot hole: when Harry Mudd and the miners tell Kirk that he has to give the women to the miners for the lithium crystals or the ship will go down, um, Harry Mudd and two of the miners are ON THE SHIP. All Kirk has to do is not let anybody transport down to the planet and then say, "Oh, you say my ship is going down? Well, you're ON the ship, so if it goes down, YOU DO, TOO. Still don't want to deal?" We know Kirk can pull this off; Kirk always makes it a point to have bigger balls than anybody else in the room. :-) And it seems a more Kirkian remedy to me than caving in to the miners' demands would be. Eve and Childress could still have their moment, just on the ship...
Right on, Random Musings guy! Haven't got one damn thing to nitpick with your nitpicking. I was still a kid brought up in the misogynist atmosphere of the time, and found this episode major
Deleteoffensive. But I still kept watching!
Aside from the sociological problems here, the other big plot hole is the one at the start of the episode, concerning the dilithium crystals:
ReplyDelete1) We're supposed to believe that this incredible starship's entire means of propulsion can be burned out just by chasing a shuttlecraft and placing a force field around it? It's ridiculous1 we've seen this ship fight Romulans, Klingons, travel across the barrier on the edge of the galaxy! But chasing this little ship renders them helpless?
2) If the entire drive of the ship IS in fact dependent on these crystals, why then do they carry NO SPARES? We're to believe that in order to continue functioning they have to finds the intergalactic equivalent of a gas station?
So, right from the start the episode is suspect. But Carmel's performance is of course a great one.