TOS, Ep. 4: "Mudd's Women"

Links: Wikipedia, Memory Alpha, IMDB.com, Star Trek.com

The original "Star Trek" always had some sex appeal. Sex was always one of the ways in which Roddenberry set his show apart from the rest and established it as adult fare. Also, it was standard operating procedure at the time for the star of an action show to meet, fall in love and smooch with a beautiful guest star in each episode. Interestingly, Kirk is pretty much unfazed by Mudd's beauties and is in this case the sole man on the Enterprise (except for Spock) who fails to drool over them. Instead, this episode is much more concerned with setting up Kirk as a the commander — the guy with hundreds of lives resting on his every decision. Despite every attempt to do the right thing, Kirk finds that the foolish, childish Mudd beating him at every turn and putting the ship in extreme danger.

This episode, originally one of three stories Roddenberry proposed for the series' second pilot, really has a bit of everything — drama, humor, sex and action — making it a prime example of the series' many strengths and its potential to be a truly top-notch TV series.

Here's the running commentary:

Looks like Sulu's collar has been fixed so it matches the rest of the crew uniforms. Other costume notes include Uhura still wearing the gold skant dress, a shot of McCoy in the transporter room switching between his regular tunic and his scrub tunic, and Farrell's tunic missing its chest emblem in one shot.

Lithium (later dilithium) crystals were first introduced as a power source fro the ship. This ep's not clear on exactly how they're used — and the specifics were later altered.

I don't know if Mudd was intended from the start to be a slightly comical character or if the idea was for him to be more of a rogue-ish scoundrel. Actor Roger C. Carmel definitely has some fun with thim.

The women's dresses are, interestingly, green, pink and blue — almost replicating the colors of the crew tunics. Again, 1966 was the early days of color TV and they played up bright colors as much as possible.

Obviously, 23rd century grooming habits don't extend to some magical cure for the carpet of body hair that peeks out from under Mudd's tunic.

The girls look like they could break out into a round of "Stop! In the Name of Love" any moment.

Spock takes obvious pleasure in introducing the women to Kirk, whose reaction he likely anticipates will be ... fascinating. His glance at their booty as they leave is priceless, though out of character.

The plot of bringing wives to settlers is a classic Western tale that was developed as part of Roddenberry's promise to deliver to NBC a show that could be described as "Wagon Train to the Stars." This was one of the scripts developed as a potential pilot.

Now that George Takei's homosexuality is public knowledge, it's interesting to watch him leer at the girls.

The security guards posted to watch Mudd and his women is another early example of the diversity the show came to represent.

Mudd's hearing is the first of many legal proceeding that are convened on the Enterprise. At this point, they likely hadn't designed or made the dress uniforms worn at hearings in later episodes.

For a conniving scoundrel, Mudd isn't too swift. He should know that Starfleet technology would quickly expose his fake identity of Leo Walsh.

In Mudd's record, it's weird to see he has a "Future Police Record-Code." It's kind of a relic to see things in sci-fi that are futuristic actually called such. Mudd also appears to be wearing the same clothes in the mug shot as he has on now ... more proof he's not the most cleanly of guys.

The soft focus on the women is really strange to modern eyes, though it was a common technique in decades past.

Thank god the computer has the good taste not to mention the boners Scotty, Bones and Ferrell are sporting.

Magda's disruption of McCoy's medical scanner is the first such disruption of the device in the series, though she too obviously seems to activate it by touching the side of it.

Magda's line, "No, I'm just me!," it's a bit of a low point for the acting in this episode.

Bones does some nice Trek-style thinking (with his big head) long enough to wonder if these women are really as beautiful as they seem.

The sudden appearance of the women in their "ugly" modes is a bit of a shock. While the secret of the intensity of their beauty has been a question to be resolved, this is the first hint that there is something specific behind it or that the women are anything but attractive young women.

That it's a pill of some kind turns Mudd into a sort of drug dealer, taking advantage of the lonely young women's insecurity and loneliness for his own gain. Given that the drug culture was on the rise, this take on the drug as not being completely destructive is a bit ahead of its time.

Kirk's a tough negotiator, but he can't compete with the emotional (and hormonal) argument Mudd makes tot he minors with logic alone.

The alien planet is not the best effect, but the blowing fake snow and clouds obscure it. I love how the minors live in what's basically an Airstream trailer on the outside and a styrofoam cave on the inside. The same trick was used in alter episodes and in "Star Trek II."

At this point, characters are still being defined and Kirk's devotion to the ship is still dominant. Interesting to note the way Kirk is able to argue with his crew — look at how he snaps at Scotty and then apologizes — something that was deemed verboten by Roddenberry on "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Karen Steele as Eve and Gene Dynarski as Ben are both very good in their small roles — something that you can't always say about a TV show from any era.

Eve's dilemma is an interesting one. She's lonely enough to seek out a husband through Mudd, but resists the overbearing men who expect her to be only a wife and cook. Childress' reaction is understandable — he's lonely, too — but to his credit, he smartens up very quickly.

I'm not sure what they're saying by having Eve's final transformation be achieved with a placebo, but it punctuates a classic "Trek" message of women and men as equals — one that was a bit harder to play out on a regular basis than it was in this single episode.

Harry's description of the Venus Drug makes it sound like any of the dozens of ill-defined prescription drugs that are now advertised on television.

The comedic tag with Mudd and Kirk is one of those odd relics of the era. The final tag, with the banter between McCoy and Spock, was another tradition in the making.

I remember back when "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was in its first season that there was talk of Roger Carmel reprising his role as Mudd for Captain Picard and crew, but he passed away before the episode could be made.