THE SPACE PIMP RETURNS AND THIS TIME HE IS PIMPING EVERYBODY

 

Episode Title:  Mudd's Passion

Air Date: 11/10/1973

Written by Stephen Kandel

Directed by Hal Sutherland

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock        DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              James Doohan  as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”, Lieutenant Arex, unnamed Human Miner, and unnamed Male Ursinoid Miner         George Takei  as Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura and unnamed Female Ursinoid Miner       Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel, Lieutenant M’Ress, and Lieutenant Lora           Roger C. Carmel as Harry Mudd         

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Copernicus NCC-1701/12

Planets: Motherlode and unnamed rocky planet

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise begins its adventure in charge of a police action.  The crew of the Federation’s finest starship are to locate and arrest their old “friend” Harry Mudd for a boatload of charges, up to and including trying to sell Starfleet Academy.  They find Mudd on the planet Motherlode, a nice name for a mining colony.  There the conman is trying to sell a type of “love potion.”  These crystals when consumed makes anyone you touch fall madly in love with you.  The colonists all seem interested so instead of telling them that brain washing people romance and sex is wrong, Spock exposes Mudd as fake by showing them that the woman who Mudd uses a test subject isn’t even real but an illusion brought on by a creature that Mudd has with him.  With the mob now angry and wanting to kill him, Mudd agrees to be taking back to the ship.

In the brig Mudd cons Chapel, who he knows has the hots for Spock, to experiment with the love crystal. She decides to give it a try, and while she is doing that Mudd begins to make his escape.  Chapel’s attempt to woo Spock with this special drug apparently fails, so she decides to confront Mudd and realizes he is gone.  Chapel tracks him to the shuttle bay and the two of them struggle.  While they are struggling some love crystals fall and break with their powered heading into the ventilation shaft. Mudd overpowers Chapel, kidnaps her, steals a shuttlecraft, and heads for a planet nearby.

Chapel trying her moves on Spock

 On the bridge they notice two things: the stolen shuttlecraft and the love drug has defiantly worked on Mr. Spock.  As serious as the situation is Spock’s anger at the loss of Nurse Chapel goes way beyond character.  Kirk decides to take Spock with him on the landing party to retrieve Nurse Chapel and arrest Mudd.  He justifies this as a way to calm things down.  However just as they are leaving the love drug is working its way through the ship’s air causing the crew to go crazy with lust.  Scotty gets freaky with the cat lady, McCoy is hitting on a young woman, and no one is attending to their duties.

Mudd making an escape!

When they materialize on the surface after confirming how lucky they are to have such a great friendship, Kirk and Spock find Mudd and Chapel.  This makes Spock very excited because it means he gets to put his hands on Chapel.  However, there are these awful rock monsters living on this rock planet and those monsters look like they are going to eat them.  They also can’t get back to the Enterprise because the entire crew is love sick and not paying attention to what is happening on the surface. Kirk then takes the rest of the love crystals and throws them in the creatures’ mouths.  This causes the creatures to fall in love with each other.  With the crew starting to recover they are able to beam back on the ship.

Nasty things

The episode ends with Mudd being shipped off to prison, and the entire crew dealing with a love hangover that caused everyone to despise the person they thought that they were in love with. All is well that ends well.

Additional thoughts: Love is one of the best and most frustrating things about life. One of the worst parts about it is how it doesn’t make too much sense.  There is no way to predict how it turns out.  You fall in love with someone who you see as being perfect for you, and by what that person says they want you would be the perfect fit for them too.  However, for some reason they aren’t that into you.  They have dated people like you, in terms of looks and personality, both before and after you took your shot.  Yet, they weren’t interested in you.  Many of us have gotten a break up notice where your now Ex is explaining how wonderful you are and hope you find someone but they are just not ‘feeling it.’  The old “it’s not you it’s me” line.  Wouldn’t it just be nice just to be able to skip the confusion and magically just wish there to love where you think it should be. The concept of “love potion” is an old fantasy and plays often in fiction. There are of course some clear problematic elements of this.  Using a form of mind control to create love is really a dark recipe for disaster.  If you are using mind control to create love then it really isn’t love, is it?

McCoy making moves

Speaking of love isn’t it interesting that love is the game that Mudd is always playing.  The first time we meet him, in “Mudd’s Women,” he is helping some women catfish some rich men with the help of drugs to make the women appear more beautiful, and in “I, Mudd” he is leading a planet with a great many androids who have kindly built some lady androids for Mudd’s amusement. Now he is trying to sell a cheap love potion and just like before what he is selling does not meet the eye.

My favorite scene in this episode is a love sick McCoy trying to hit on a young officer, "I've saved just about everybody on this here ship. If the Enterprise had a heart, I'd save her, too. Now, let's talk about your heart, my dear."  In addition to that I must confess I don’t have a lot of affection for Spirk slash stories.  Death of the author and all but I have never seen much sense in trying to pretend that Kirk and Spock were lovers.  This only works if you highlight certain scenes out of context and ignore everything else about the characters.  This not to say that people who like that sort of thing are in any way ‘bad Star Trek’ fans.  If stories like that give you joy then by all means continue to enjoy them.   I am just saying they never worked for me.  However, there is a real Spirk moment on the planet when both guys are affected with the love crystals.

Best buddies

On one final note, does anyone know why they didn’t use the tractor beam on the shuttlecraft.  I kept shouting for them to use it and was slightly frustrated when they didn’t.  Oh well, no episode is ever truly perfect.

FINAL GRADE 3 of 5