"Mudd's Women"
Season One, Episode Six
Stardate: 1329.8
"Take it. It's not a cheat. It's a miracle for some man who can appreciate it and who needs it."
--Harry Mudd
*While I am pretty much a walking Star Trek Encyclopedia on my own, I do not have absolute knowledge of Star Trek. So note that I use the real Star Trek Encyclopedia, written by Michael and Denise Okuda, and Memory Alpha for supplemental information regarding behind-the-scenes info and trivia.
Synopsis
The Enterprise is in pursuit of an unidentified, unregistered class-J cargo ship. The ship refuses to answer any hails and eventually becomes caught in an asteroid field. The ship is severely damaged, forcing the Enterprise to extend its shields around the ship to protect it. The Enterprise's engines burn out and the other ship is destroyed, but not before they rescue a man, who introduces himself as Captain Leo Walsh, and three of his cargo, extremely beautiful women named Eve, Ruth, and Magda. The women are so beautiful that the men on the starship are transfixed and hypnotized by them, save Mr. Spock, due to his Vulcan ability to suppress his emotions, and Captain Kirk, whose one true love is the Enterprise. Walsh was en route to planet Ophiucus III to deliver the three women to the miners there as brides. Kirk arrests Walsh and tries him in a hearing. The computer, which can act as an infallible polygraph machine, reveals that Walsh is not the man's real name. Leo Walsh was the captain of the starship who suddenly passed away en route to the planet. The man in the trial is none other than Harcourt Fenton Mudd, a smuggler and all-around nefarious man. Kirk charges him with galaxy travel without a flight plan or identification beam, failure to answer a starship's signal, thus affecting a menace to navigation, and operation of a vessel without a master's license (his license had been suspended due to his illegal activity). Kirk confines him to quarters, but the ship is in dire straits, their lithium crystal circuits having burnt out in the rescue of Mudd and his women. There is a nearby lithium mining operation on planet Rigel XII, so the Enterprise sets a course there.
Before they arrive, Mudd has Eve, who is increasingly becoming fed up with Mudd's entire mail-order bride operation, swipe Captain Kirk's communicator. He contacts Ben Childress, the head miner, and offers his women, and himself with all charges dropped, in exchange for the lithium crystals, but in the process of getting the communicator, all three women start to revert to their natural state. The three hyper-beautiful women are actually physically unattractive, but are being made artificially beautiful by an illegal drug called the Venus drug. Childress accepts Mudd's offer and insists that he will accept no other payment for the lithium crystals. If Kirk wants to save the ship, he must give Childress what he wants. Kirk eventually, and reluctantly, relents. However, on the planet's surface which is ravaged by electrical dust storms, Eve finds herself caught in one of the storms. Kirk and Childress attempt to find her. Kirk beams back to the Enterprise to try to use the ship's sensors, but Childress, being more familiar with the planet, finds Eve and takes her to his quarters for safety. Exhausted after the search, he lays down and falls asleep. He wakes up to find Eve cooking breakfast, and not long after Kirk and Mudd find Childress and Eve. Eve reveals her natural state to Childress, who is upset at Mudd's fraud. Upset at Childress' and the other miners' fixation on physical beauty, she takes what she thinks is the drug and becomes beautiful again, only for Kirk to reveal that she didn't take the drug at all. She took a piece of colored gelatin. It was her confidence in herself that made her beautiful. Satisfied, Childress allows the women to remain but Kirk takes Mudd back to his ship to be turned over to the authorities.
Themes:
While Star Trek was heavily known for pushing the boundaries of television, especially as regards racism (such as having a prominent black woman on the bridge, and even having television's first interracial kiss), it wasn't very good regarding its sexism. There was a lot of what could be considered sexism in The Original Series (and there were some questionable things in The Next Generation, too, which also happens to be my favorite of all the Trek shows). In this case, we have Harry Mudd, who is essentially a space pimp, and three "space hookers", selling their bodies (in this case, for six lithium crystals). So unfortunately while this episode has evidently been very well received, it had a pretty terrible message to it. Even knowing that Childress and the other miners were only interested in the women for their looks, they still chose to remain on barren Rigel XII rather than pursue a life more fitting elsewhere (either looking for better husbands or pursuing a life in some other field).
Also unfortunately (as related by Memory Alpha, quoting These Are the Voyages: Season One, written by Marc Cushman, et al) is that Gene Roddenberry apparently had urges to see his sexual fantasies portrayed on screen. He had to be talked out of them by the other people involved with the show. Shatner even relates that he felt the fact that "Mudd's Women" got made at all was a minor miracle.
Grade: D-
Reason for grade: The episode is at least watchable. I never felt bored during the show, and we got a good glimpse of how some of the formal ship travel is done, including how hearings are conducted aboard ship. However, the poor message of the episode really brings the grade down.
"Mudd's Women"
Directed by: Harvey Hart
Written by: Stephen Kandel
Starring:
William Shatner as James Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Spock
DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy
Also starring:
George Takei as Sulu
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
James Doohan as Montgomery Scott
Roger C. Carmel as Harcourt Fenton Mudd (aka Captain Leo Francis Walsh)
Karen Steele as Eve McHuron
Maggie Thrett as Ruth Bonaventure (last name not mentioned in episode)
Susan Denberg as Magda Kovacs (last name not mentioned in episode)
Jim Goodwin as Lieutenant John Farrell
Gene Dynarski as Ben Childress
John Kowal as Herm Gossett
Seamon Glass as Benton
Eddie Paskey as Connors
Trivia:
-In this episode, and the second pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before", the crystals that power the ship are called lithium crystals. In all future episodes, the crystals are called dilithium crystals. There are six crystals needed to power the ship. The change was suggested by some of the writers, since lithium is a known substance with known properties. Creating a new substance, dilithium, could grant the crystals extraordinary properties that make warp travel possible in Star Trek.
-In this episode, we learn that Vulcan internal organs have a different arrangement than humans. The Vulcan heart is roughly located where the human spleen is.
-Scotty states that the weight of the Enterprise is almost a million gross tons.
-Gene Dynarski, who plays Ben Childress, would later play Commander Quinteros in the TNG episode "11001001"
-This episode was the second of Farrell's three appearances, the first being in "The Enemy Within," and the next being in "Miri".
We also get glimpses of the following planets:
1) Ophiucus III -- A Class-M planet that was the destination of Harry Mudd's cargo of three beautiful women for settlers on the planet.
2) Rigel XII -- A barren Class-M planet with constant magnetic dust storms. There was a lithium mining operation there, with Ben Childress, Herm Gossett, and Benton as the only miners.
"What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
Season One, Episode Seven
Stardate: 2712.4
"In android form, a human being can have practical immortality. Can you see what I'm offering mankind?"
--Dr. Roger Korby
Synopsis
The Enterprise is investigating planet Exo-III, where Dr. Roger Korby and his expedition were presumed lost, his last message having arrived five years earlier. During their investigation, they receive a message from none other than Dr. Korby, who has apparently been kept alive by discovering an underground catacomb. He insists Kirk beam down alone, but as Nurse Christine Chapel is his fiance, he requests her presence, as well, once he learns that Nurse Chapel is aboard the ship. Doctor Korby is late for his meeting with Kirk and Chapel on the planet, so Kirk requests two security officers beam down, just in case. Kirk and Chapel meet Dr. Brown, one of Dr. Korby's assistants, but the two security officers are soon killed by Ruk, an android created by The Old Ones, the inhabitants of the planet long ago. The Old Ones created androids that turned out to be too perfect. When The Old Ones threatened the existence of the androids, the androids wiped them out. Now Ruk and Andrea are the only two androids left, and have been assisting Dr. Korby. Doctor Korby has been unfortunately vague about the reason he called Kirk down, and in an altercation in which Kirk has to try and stun Dr. Brown, Brown is has a gaping wound with wires and electrical circuitry -- Dr. Brown was an android. Doctor Korby soon reveals the reason he called Kirk down. He has been studying the androids and has discovered a way to make androids of his own. His gift to humanity will be android bodies that we can transfer human consciousnesses into -- android bodies that can never die. Despite Ruk and Andrea being emotionless, Dr. Korby believes that the human consciousness can be completely transferred, the human soul remaining intact.
Doctor Korby soon creates an android version of Kirk, but fearing that the android will attempt to take over the ship, Kirk implants the android with a suggestion in which he will snap at Spock and use a racial slur, which is out of character for the captain and should send Spock a message that all is not well. On the planet, Kirk manages to convince Ruk to turn on Dr. Korby, and Korby is forced to disintegrate Ruk. Kirk and Chapel manage to evade Dr. Korby, but Korby gets his arm caught in a closing door -- his wound reveals that Dr. Korby, himself, is an android. Doctor Korby's human body died five years ago, and Korby transferred his consciousness into his android duplicate. He insists he is still the real Dr. Korby, but he is unable to display any uniquely human qualities. Andrea disintegrates the android Kirk when he turns down her romantic advance, thinking him to be the human Captain Kirk. Finally, when Andrea surprises Dr. Korby by coming on to him with a romantic appeal, Dr. Korby, realizing the fatal flaw in his utopian vision, turns the phaser on himself and Andrea. Spock arrives on the planet with a security detail, but the threat is over. Kirk informs Spock that Dr. Korby was never there.
Themes:
The theme of this episode is one of the most common in science fiction stories, that of transhumanism -- can human consciousnesses be transferred into an imperishable android body, and the human person remain intact. If Dr. Korby transferred his consciousness into an android body, is that really Dr. Korby who is walking around as an android, or just an android who thinks himself to be Dr. Korby. Kirk seems to believe that this is not possible, and the episode seems to lean in that direction. You can transfer a human mind into an android, but everything that makes a human human will be lost in the process, so one's identity cannot be preserved in the transference.
Another theme in this episode is how an open environment is necessary for a civilization to thrive. As Dr. Brown mentions (referencing a lecture Nurse Chapel attended from Dr. Korby), freedom of movement and choice formed the human spirit. When the inhabitants of Exo III were forced to move underground, they went from being a free culture to a mechanistic one.
Grade: B
Not a bad episode, but not exactly groundbreaking, either. The twist of Dr. Korby being an android is one that seems a pretty obvious way to go.
"What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
Directed by: James Goldstone
Written by: Robert Bloch
Starring:
William Shatner as James Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Spock
Also starring:
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
Majel Barrett as Christine Chapel
Michael Strong as Doctor Roger Korby
Sherry Jackson as Andrea
Ted Cassidy as Ruk
Harry Basch as Doctor Brown
Vince Deadrick as Matthews
Bud Albright as Rayburn
Trivia:
-This episode started the trend of redshirt deaths, beginning with Matthews and then with Rayburn.
-This episode is one of only three that DeForest Kelley was not in, the other two being "Errand of Mercy" and "The Menagerie, Part II".
-We learn in this episode that Nurse Chapel gave up a job in bioresearch to join Starfleet.
-We also learn that Captain Kirk has an older brother named George Samuel Kirk. Jim is the only one who calls him Sam.
We also get a glimpse of the follow planet:
1) Exo III -- A barely habitable planet where a technologically sophisticated civilization once lived. Its sun had been fading steadily for a half million years, forcing the inhabitants of the planet underground. Its gravity is 1.1 of earth, its atmosphere was within safety limits, and its temperature got as low as 100 degrees below zero.
2) Midos V -- A planet lined with raw materials, where a small colony was located. Doctor Korby wanted the Enterprise to take him and the androids to Midos V to continue his research.
