This episode features the return of Harry Mudd, a character from the first season episode \u201cMudd\u2019s Women\u201d in which he played a smuggler and con-man that was trafficking in chemically enhanced mail-order brides.\u00a0 This present episode is decidedly written as a comic story.<\/p>\n
A new crewman on the Enterprise named Mr. Norman hijacks the ship by overriding the helm and engine room with a Deadman\u2019s Switch that will explode the ship if it is tampered with.\u00a0 He sends the Enterprise to a planet that cannot directly sustain human life but requires domed habitats.\u00a0 When Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura and Chekov beam down to the planet they discover that the planet is inhabited by two hundred thousand androids and one human, Harry Mudd.\u00a0 When Kirk threatens Mudd if he does not release the Enterprise Mudd laughs at him and explains that Harry will give the orders because he is the ruler of this planet.\u00a0 His status is that of an absolute king and his title is Mudd the First.\u00a0 Harry tells Kirk that in escaping from a capitol crime he stole a spaceship and crashed on this planet and the androids took him in.\u00a0 He has had hundreds of beautiful android women created to serve him and surround him with beauty.\u00a0 And he has had one other android specially made, one that looks and acts exactly like his shrieking harpy of a wife Stella.\u00a0 Whenever he approaches her shrine he only has to say, \u201cStella dear,\u201d and she screams out his name, \u201cHarcourt Fenton Mudd,\u201d and then launches into a tirade of insults and accusations to which Harry only has to shout, \u201cStella shut up!,\u201d upon which she winds down and goes dormant. Mudd draws great solace from this ritual that allows him to always have the last word.<\/p>\n
But Harry also reveals that although he can have whatever he wants he can\u2019t leave.\u00a0 Because the androids desire to have someone to serve they keep him as a virtual prisoner.\u00a0 And so, he is desperate to escape.\u00a0 His plan is to use the Enterprise to sail off to life in the galaxy with some of the androids as his beautiful crew.\u00a0 In exchange he will leave the Enterprise crew on the planet to give the androids someone to serve.<\/p>\n
Kirk and his officers attempt to learn something that will allow them to regain the Enterprise before Mudd leaves.\u00a0 Spock learns that there are many series of identical androids, the Allices, the Maisies, the Roberts.\u00a0 But there is only one Norman.\u00a0 He is the central control for the rest of the androids and he may be the key to escape.\u00a0 We also learn that the androids were the servants of a race that came from the Andromeda Galaxy but was destroyed by a nova of their star.\u00a0 Meanwhile the androids inform Harry that they are not going to let him have the Enterprise.\u00a0 They recognize that Harry is a corrupt individual and should be kept away from civilization.\u00a0 They instead will take the Enterprise and use it to contact human civilization and both serve and control humanity for its own good.\u00a0 They intend to become so useful to people that they will leave all action up to the androids.\u00a0 The androids hope to eliminate war and other illogical activities that humans are prone to.<\/p>\n
Kirk and his crew and Harry Mudd devise a plan to overcome the androids.\u00a0 They exhibit illogical behavior and say nonsensical things and this has the effect of shutting down the individual androids in a sort of overload condition.\u00a0 Finally, Spock, Kirk and Mudd channel their efforts to overwhelm Norman.\u00a0 The last step is for Kirk to state to Norman that Harry Mudd is a liar and everything he says is a lie.\u00a0 Then Harry tells Norman, \u201cI\u2019m lying.\u201d\u00a0 The paradox of these two statements overloads Norman.\u00a0 Smoke comes out of his ears and he shuts off.<\/p>\n
The final scene has Kirk telling Mudd that the androids have been reprogrammed to terraform the planet.\u00a0 Mudd will remain there under their surveillance and will only be released when they decide he has been reformed.\u00a0 Mudd looks at the beautiful androids and decides that he can live with that.\u00a0 Suddenly the Stella android, no longer in a box, runs up to Harry and starts accusing him of skullduggery.\u00a0 But when Harry tells her to shut up nothing happens; she continues the diatribe.\u00a0 Several more Stellas show up and when Harry notices that one of them has the tag number 500 he begs Kirk to save him as the Enterprise crew walks away laughing.<\/p>\n
This episode is for laughs and should be evaluated in that light.\u00a0 The Stella gag is extremely funny and one that can be appreciated by any husband no matter how genial his wife might be, bless your heart, Camera Girl.\u00a0 And the end gag with the Stellas is even funnier.\u00a0 The familiarity of Kirk and the other crewman with Harry Mudd\u2019s crimes and foibles is somewhat amusing although at some points taken a little far.\u00a0 Shatner mockery points are restricted to some overacting when Kirk is belittling Mudd about his crimes and misdemeanors.\u00a0 But there\u2019s not much there.\u00a0 All in all, it\u2019s a satisfactory episode.\u00a0 Call it a 7 \/\/ 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This episode features the return of Harry Mudd, a character from the first season episode \u201cMudd\u2019s Women\u201d in which he played a smuggler and con-man<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,4,244,2149,240],"tags":[2150,2199,2556,2557,38,1355,44,309,265,1691,293,154,1692,837],"class_list":["post-11304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-star-trek","category-tv-reviews","tag-gene-roddenberry","tag-harcourt-fenton-mudd","tag-i","tag-mudd","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-tv-review","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-star-trek","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-william-shatner"],"yoast_head":"\n