Star Trek TOS Re-Watch

"I, Mudd" by Stephen Kandel (per Wikipedia: "Although Kandel is the credited writer on the episode, David Gerrold performed an uncredited rewrite. The final script was heavily revised by the staff, and Gerrold admits that only one original idea of his made it into the final episode.")

This episode is So Much FUN! We have some great Spock/McCoy banter, delicious and snappy dialogue, and a playfulness to the performances that can't be beat. MUCH better than "Mudd's Women."

I'll steal the plot from Wikipedia here: An alien android posing as a Starfleet lieutenant and identifying himself as Norman, hijacks the Enterprise by sealing off engineering and setting a booby trap which would cause any attempt to restore control to destroy the ship. Captain Kirk finds his ship and crew taken to an unknown planet populated by androids, and meets an old nemesis, the outlaw Harry Mudd. Calling himself "Mudd the First" and ostensibly ruling the androids, Mudd displays a darkened glass panel, which he calls a "shrine" to his wife Stella. It contains an android version of his wife which nags him as she did, but he is able to silence her instantly by ordering her to "shut up".

Roger Carmel is a joy, as always. Shatner and Carmel play brilliantly off each other. Everyone has a chance to shine: McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, and Chekov all get some great scenes. I could quote tons of terrific bits, but I just adore this one:

CHEKOV: Harry Mudd programmed you?
ALICES: Yes, my lord.
CHEKOV: That unprincipled, evil-minded, lecherous kulak Harry Mudd programmed you?
ALICES: Yes, my lord.
CHEKOV: This place is even better than Leningrad.

Nimoy really does a terrific job of being illogical for a purpose, especially when mucking with the Alices. And Kirk's impish smile when he's about to subject Harry to 500 Stella androids... it's just perfect.

It's a brilliant, humorous episode and I laughed out loud several times. Very enjoyable!

 

So is Chekov amazed that from such a mind comes such beauty, or is he thinking that he and Mudd have the same taste in girlfriend personalities?

 

One of my least liked episodes. It’s total nonsense and the way the androids are depicted is absurdity belonging on Lost In Space or any other Irwin Allen sci-fi.

It’s easy to see why Roddenberry decreed no more comedies. This is cringe inducing.

 

Humor is subjective. YMMV

 

I've never seen this one. I'll have to check it out!

 

I think I find Discovery's characters to be a bit entitled and whiny. It's nice to have some characters like that, but I think they bungled the mix a bit ( caveat - I do still enjoy Discovery). I do think TOS could definitely have used more interpersonal moments. Kirk walking the corridor at the end of BoT replenishing his captain armour was actually a very subtle but powerful moment. Spock asking for Plomeek soup in Amok Time is a tiny crack but very affecting. Spock's frisson with the Romulan commander, and I love Miranda Jones keeping all the men at arms length, even if the behaviour of the male characters was clumsily scripted. Season one hit the mark more often I think but Immunity Syndrome and Tholian Web are good ones to watch the way that the characters behave, to peek under the hood.

Maybe that's my beef with Discovery. I like to feel clever when they give us a peek under the hood to the characters' inner selves. Discovery has everything on the roof rack... I'm still rooting for Tilly and her dweeb love interest accidentally tripping into each other's arms during a lab accident. And Detmer's breakdown at a staff dinner was so disturbing to watch, I really stopped caring about everyone else in the room and just wanted her to get an episode of her own.

Strange New Worlds has the balance a bit better, I think. La'an has a professional and a personal persona that sometimes grind against each other. Spock and Chapel bump along like two rafts on the rapids.

 

I find it quite a weak, but at least amusing episode. I think my issue is the failure to join the dots between any of these many sophisticated androids. Just forget about them and introduce yet another unrelated one a few episodes later.

I would say though that this is the kind of episode that would have been great for a Yeoman Rand guest spot.

 

TOS had to invent new techniques to actually get the show made, it was always behind. 24 episodes was too much of a grind...29 ridiculous. They did fewer of their FX in camera like some of the other complex shows...A lot more opticals.

Lets not even compare it to a 60s sitcom or a 50s scifi series with cardboard sets and cans on strings.

But stories were the hardest thing. In Bottom of the sea you could just base the story on a badly executed monster, not so in Trek.

 

Bolding what I especially agree with. I think you nailed one of the core reasons why DISCO is dead last on my list of shows in STAR TREK. I've never liked entitled, whiny, or bratty people in real life.

The final shot of Kirk in "BALANCE OF TERROR" is an excellent example of subtlety and quietly conveying multiple things at once. (It's one of my favorite final shots in all of TOS, and another reason why that episode is one of my two absolute favorites of TOS.)

I don't know if it's because acting styles have changed over the decades, the writing, a combination of the two, or something else, but I miss the more subtle things in scenes, like your example. Or from "IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT", how Vreenak first explains that his drink is only a fair approximation, but as Sisko laid out point after point on why the Dominion is a threat to the Romulans, he takes another sip and says he forgot for a moment that he was drinking replicated kali-fal... indicating Sisko was getting through to him, if only briefly. Or how in the same episode, Sisko disrobes little by little as the story continues, shedding off a piece of himself as he takes more and more steps into getting the Romulans into the war.

THAT is what I have been missing... the subtlety. I feel like DISCO does not do subtlety well.

It's one of the things TOS did well with their characters, those subtle moments and scenes.

 

Yeah that'll be it. It's the glances between Chapel and M'Benga and the quiver in Chapel’s voice that convey the horrors of the war.

Obviously TOS had a lot of unsubtle stuff too. Plus I suppose it isn't fair to be elitist. Star Trek has a lot of autistic fans who might miss out on a lot of subtext if it's always too subtle.

 

While not in TOS, it has been stated in other Trek that there's a sound.

From Star Trek: Enterprise, "The Andorian Incident":

 

Pike's transporter was deafening. No sneaking in for that crew.

 

Lost in Space fell behind in its first year also, so a few episodes were filmed back to back so make up production time. Same with Voyage in its first year - both shows were still in their "good episodes" stage with more complex stories. LIS was generally stagebound with few guest stars and effects and Voyage was reusing model footage by the end of the first year. I'm actually surprised Trek didn't do that a couple of times. It would have been just as easy to split up Shatner and Nimoy as it was to split Hedison and Basehart and give them solo shows. Space:1999 also did that in its second year.

Trek was mostly behind in its first season. Once they got their sfx straightened out, and got the writing staff in a groove, they seemed to have no more or less trouble meeting airdates than the other shows of the era. Sure everyone was tired, but they were used to it. It was the norm. It's not that ridiculous and they produced a decent average of good episodes vs not in that time. Star Trek survived as a franchise for 5 TV series in that format.

Longer seasons were just the norm for every show then. They filled in a little over half a calendar year with new programming. Today it's still around 22 episodes for network TV. The 10 - 13 episodes are mostly for streaming platforms which survive on subscriptions and pour more money per episode into it. Also serialization makes a 22 or more episode season a REAL grind. It would be like one giant 22 hour episode. As a viewer, I prefer a 22+ episode season every year over a 10 episode season with a break of 2 years before the next one.

 

Very broooaaad humor. I like that we got a precursor to the android proclivity in the Mudd Short Treks.

 

Of the three TOS episodes that were out-and-out comedies, I'd say "I, Mudd" ranks between "The Trouble with Tribbles" (best) and "A Piece of the Action" (worst).

 

True. But I was raised on The Muppet Show, so broad works for me.

 

With the end of the Cold War, Leningrad has gone back to being known as St. Petersburg. And yet Chekov knows it as Leningrad. Is it known as Leningrad again in the 23rd Century???? How did THAT happen????

 

I think he is saying that with Mudd's lecherous mind, if he programmed a female android, then that android is likely to be open to engaging in some....exotic acts which Chekhov himself recognizes he would also enjoy.

 

I suppose it depends on who you ask - maybe some people call it one name, while others use the other (Bombay/Mumbai, Kiev/Kyiv). Trek wasn't quite so bold as to change it back to St. Petersburg in their future.

 

That Which Survives ***

Yet another 3rd season episode that separates Kirk from the Enterprise, leaving Spock on board as a surly sub. At least we got a break from McCoy being obnoxious about it.

This one is a grudging three stars because I love the concept and the execution is mostly good. The episode is spooky with some lovely lighting on the planet. Lee Meriwether is really excellent as the tortured Losira and, in a rare move, they didn't exploit the former beauty queen's stellar looks, burying her under a weird wig and makeup. The vanishing act she does is fun, like shutting off a TV of the era.

We have our sacrificial new crewmember, D'Amato, who actually has a personality. Arthur B. makes him tremendously likeable, so his death is more moving than others of this kind. And the landing party really seemed to care.

We also get the first indication that there's real awareness of surroundings - and even body movement - in the transportation process (extended here for dramatic effect). And the effort expended to put the planet's Styrofoam rocks on gimbles is impressive.

Points against:

Spock's Snark Level is amped up to 100. Not sure why he's such a dick this week, maybe it was the impact of the occipital area of his head with the arm of the chair. But his bitchy to everyone. Uhura gets it, Scotty gets it but Spock has a real jones about giving Rhada the business.

Kirk has his moments too, razzing Sulu mercilessly when all he's doing is trying to help.

Scotty's 3rd season panic mode is also a bit high (I feel like this was the episode Chris Doohan reviewed before playing his dad in Star Trek Continues), but he gets a lot to do, so it's actually more of an observation rather than a point off.

It takes a little too long for Sulu to recognize Losira. I feel like D'Amato's reaction time was a bit more realistic under the circumstances: they just dealt with the shock, how would the same woman get there so fast at that distance, maybe the transporter sparkles obscured her, etc. But it felt like Sulu was taking a bit too long to make the connection. YMMV.

D'Amato dies and they can't bury him, so they find a bunch of rocks (and a Sharpie) to cover him up with. To paraphrase Chekov: "why not simply waporize him?" Star Trek was big on decent burials, though....Mr. Boma should have been on this mission. I guess I understand it, it was a sign of respect for a guy they really seemed to like.

Kirk and McCoy are REALLY sound sleepers. Sulu fires his phaser multiple times, with loud explosions when he shoots at the ground and they only wake up after Sulu yells Kirk's name. Kirk also has no idea he's immune when he really sort of allows Losira to touch him.

The dialog. On one had, John Meredyth Lucas knows the characters, so they all pretty much sound right. There are also wonderful references to past episodes. Mentioning Chekov when he's not in the episode is actually cool. However, there are some really obvious lines, and weird filler dialog.

"What does it mean, Jim?"
"Well for one thing...it means we're stranded." (Dramatic stares into the distance)

"I wonder what killed him?"
"I don't know. But someone, or something, did." (this is right out of Plan 9 From Outer Space)

"I don't want to have to kill a woman!" (my sister and I laughed at this even as kids)

"This thing is gonna blow up. And there's nothing in the universe can stop it." (Spock: "Hold my plomeek soup.")

"Spock, the computer, destroy it!"
Lemli knows exactly where to fire instead of thinking it was a disco light or anything else. Of all the times Shatner did his underhand point, this would have been the one time it was useful. And I know Kirk's phaser blew up, but where was everyone else's? Any one of them could have done it, but conveniently, nobody was packing. Did they bury D'Amato with his phaser?

I'll allow that the Enterprise was going back towards the planet when it kicked into warp 15ish (no Iguana's here) so they got back really fast. And I loved the reverse polarity would take some doing, but it was just a matter of switching the screwdriver handle. Great suspenseful scene, though.

In the end, there's a lot about this episode I like, but feel like another pass over the dialog and maybe an extra day of production would have helped tremendously.