Star Trek: Season 2, Episode 8: "I, Mudd"

 Summary:

To Spock, McCoy worries about a new, unfriendly crew member on board--someone who hedges about his background and acts... like Spock. But not you, he tells Spock; the pointy ears make all the difference. Next we see the man, he attacks a crew member and fiddles with knobs and dials. He turns the ship on to new coordinates, and overrides the overrides. Moreover, the ship is booby-trapped for anyone who tries to undo his work.

The he is an it--an android. It takes them to a planet ruled by Harry Mudd and his androids. They beam the entire crew down and replaced them with androids.

Analysis with spoilers:

The crew is quite content, actually. The androids will supply the crew's every want. They don't lodge protests until Capt. Kirk rallies them around the Enterprise. Kirk insists on getting his ship back. The crew work together to overload their circuits with illogic. McCoy rubs this in Spock's face--a whole crew of illogical humans won, but Spock says that's why the crew needs him--someone who has logic.

In the opening, Spock rather gently exposes Doctor McCoy's prejudice, which would likely not occur today. However, McCoy was correct about this particular man.

The "please" quote below is fascinating in its broad interpretation.  Does it mean they do not ask permission? that they don't ask permission because they follow commands? or, as a verb, that they aim to please without pleasing?

Harry Mudd is a more fascinating figure in this episode as one can see in the quotes below. Some would be amused, others dismayed by Harry speaking similar ideas, later spoken in the Internet age.

Shatner performance: Kirk's bemusement--his slight smile--strengthens both his own character and those he plays against. It enhances the others because he gives them his approval--albeit, not complete. It enhances himself in that he feels confident enough to grant amusement to someone who seems to have the upper hand.

Mudd starts off antagonistic toward the Enterprise and later--due to the androids not allowing Mudd aboard the Enterprise--allies himself with the crew.

They reprogram the android to harass Harry with 500 former, nagging spouses. The crew chuckle. This is supposed to stop Harry from exploiting the androids, but the androids were out to please Harry and Harry is not pleased. So in a sense, they are torturing Harry and the androids. Moreover, what might the long term consequences be of creating a race of powerful beings whose job is solely to annoy a human being?

Quotes:

• Android: There is a word. It seems to mean something to you but it does not to us.

Kirk: And what is that word?
Android: Please.

• Kirk: Do I know him? Harcourt Fenton Mudd, thief.

Harry: Come now.
Kirk: Swindler and con man.
Harry: Entrepreneur.
Kirk: Liar and rogue.
Harry: Did I leave you with that impression?

• Spock: He did not pay royalties

Harry: Knowledge, sir, should be free to all.

• How will my crew react in a world where they can have absolutely everything they want simply by asking for it?

• Android: We shall serve them, and you will be happy and... controlled.

• McCoy: It's worked so far, but we're not out yet.

Author: 

Stephen Kandel, same author of previous episode about Mudd.

*Notes:

1. Chekov!
2. We first met Mudd in Season 1, Episode 6: "Mudd's Women"
3. Mudd, like his first episode, begins as an enemy and ends as an ally.

Star Trek: Season 1, Episode 6: "Mudd's Women"

 Summary:

An unidentified ship flies erratically (rather like it's flying through air instead of a vacuum), flies into a asteroid belt. Enterprise puts deflector shield around self and other ship at risk of engine. They manage to beam aboard an Irish pirate looking chap, Harcourt Fenton Mudd, aka Leo Walsh*, aka Harry Mudd, and his "cargo": three women the Enterprise crew find irresistible. Mudd, wanted for a number of charges, is transporting wives to settlers. Mudd is to be transferred to authorities with no certain destination for the women. The women are upset... until they learn that the ship is without dilithium crsytals and must pick up new ones from a mining planet where there will be single men to marry.

Analysis with spoilers:

Mudd is elated. Apparently, whom the "ladies" marry is unimportant. Because Mudd doesn't want them medically examined, one suspects they are not real, perhaps aliens.

The ladies pour on charm on the officers to get information they need.  Mudd calls down to the planet, Rigel XII, to have miners deal crystals for women and Mudd. Women start to turn uglify without pills.

One gal--the one who refused to dupe Captain Kirk because she may be in love with him--is disappointed over the Venus drug game.  When they arrive on planetside, the miners fight which woman they want.  She runs out.  The balding miner rescues her, but he's disappointed--largely in her attitude.

Kirk plays a second trick--no more Venus drug--fakes handing it to the woman, and she becomes beautiful. See quote, which probably tried too hard to be quotable.  Only "one kind" ends up in an either-or, which suggests two kinds. Maybe the writer means that you're not a real man or woman if you don't believe in yourself. However, this doesn't explain the real changes the Venus drug made on the women--aging and splotches.  It doesn't explain, either, how medical scanner behaved strangely. Are they real women?

What really happened to Walsh is also an unresolved mystery. That Kirk never follows this up, allies and jokes with Mudd toward the end suggests that Kirk does not consider this worth investigating.

Quotes:

• Kirk: There's only one kind of woman.

Mudd: Or man, for that matter.

Kirk: You either believe in yourself or you don't. 

• Spock: The fact that my internal arrangement differs from yours, doctor, pleases me to no end.

Author: 

Stephen Kandel and Gene Roddenberry.  Kandel apparently wrote several teleplays from Wonder Woman to MacGyver.

*Notes:

1. First use of deflector shield. Has it been used elsewhere?  I don't recall its mention.
2. "Leo Walsh" is actually the name of who was supposed to fly the ship. 
3. First use of a lie detector. According to Mudd, the detector only knows what it knows, but why did it not suggest the true answers itself? Why doesn't it not know about the women? The extent of its database is unclear.
4. First friendly repartee between Spock and Doctor McCoy. They've bickered before, though.
5. Mudd appears again in Season 2, Episode 8: "I, Mudd"