Star Trek – Mudd’s Women

★★★1/2  October 13, 1966 Season 1 Episode 6

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog. 

This show was written by Stephen Kandel and Gene Roddenberry

Harry Mudd in today’s time would be a crooked car salesman and a good old con man. This is the first appearance of Harry Mudd, a con artist whose cargo is three lovely ladies. He would reappear on another episode called I, Mudd. Roger Carmel played this role over the top and it worked for this character. Harry Mudd attempted to evade the Enterprise, driving his inferior ship into a dangerous asteroid belt, narrowly escaping death thanks to Kirk’s persistence in transporting him on board instead of the alternative, sacrificing his own ship’s Lithium crystals which keep the power operative at effective levels. 

Now the Enterprise needs more crystals to go on and they will go down to the last minute trying to get them or the Enterprise will crash out of orbit. The three ladies are looking for husbands and have the males in the Enterprise all in a flutter. There is something different about them that attracts the attention of the crew…more than just a beautiful female would do. There is a humorous conversation between Kirk and Bones about why they are so attracted to them with an amused Spock listening to them. 

It is revealed why later on in the episode. It’s a good episode but not one of the great ones to me. There is a message from one of the ladies named Eve in the end. Asking a would-be husband if he just basically wanted a trophy wife or someone who would work with him. If you like Harry Mudd…no worries…he will return in another episode. 

Good episode

From IMDB

The velour uniforms used in this episode had shrunk since they were first used in Star Trek: The Corbomite Maneuver (1966). According to Robert H. Justman and Herbert F. Solow’s book “Inside Star Trek: The Real Story”, the velour uniforms shrank every time they were cleaned. The actors’ union requirements specified that the costumes had to be cleaned daily.

NBC program manager Jerry Stanley recalled that “One of the problems we had was in trying to talk Gene Roddenberry out of some of his sexual fantasies that would come to life in the scripts. Some of the scenes he would describe were totally unacceptable”. William Shatner noted “that NBC allowed ‘Mudd’s Women’ to be produced at all is still a minor miracle”.

During the very early pre-production days of “Star Trek – The Next Generation” (1987-1994), Gene Roddenberry proposed to have Roger C. Carmel return and make a guest appearance, possibly as Harry Mudd, in order to provide an extra link with the original series. However, nothing came of this as Carmel died unexpectedly at the relatively young age of 54, several months before the pilot show was filmed.

Production went a day over schedule due to the intricate camera setups used by director Harvey Hart, which had good results but were too time-consuming. Hart also made things difficult for the editors by “camera cutting” the show, leaving few choices of shot available. Due to these factors, Hart was not invited back to the show.

One of the more memorable bloopers in the series occurred while filming the scene where the women take the “Venus drug.” As Maggie Thrett’s (Ruth) reaction shot was being filmed, her right breast popped out of her scanty green costume. A shot of her stuffing it back in with an embarrassed smile appeared in the first season’s blooper reel.

Summary

After stopping a vessel in space, Kirk and the crew find a very odd captain with a very strange cargo. The captain of the vessel is Harcourt Fenton Mudd – known as Harry to his friends – and the cargo are three lovely women he is transporting as brides for lonely men on distant planets. Kirk has a major problem: while trying to rescue Mudd and his women from his disintegrating ship, the Enterprise’s lithium crystals used to power the engines were destroyed. They travel to a nearby mining colony where Mudd sets about to arrange marriages for the women, interfering with Kirk’s plan to buy the crystals. All the time, the ship’s orbit is deteriorating and risks burning up in the atmosphere.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Roger C. Carmel … Harry Mudd
Karen Steele … Eve McHuron
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Maggie Thrett … Ruth
Susan Denberg … Magda
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
Jim Goodwin … Farrell
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Gene Dynarski … Ben
Jon Kowal … Herm
Seamon Glass … Benton
Jerry Foxworth … Guard
Majel Barrett … Enterprise Computer (voice) (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Vinci (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Connors (uncredited)
Ron Veto … Starfleet Officer (uncredited)

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

38 thoughts on “Star Trek – Mudd’s Women”

  3. Obviously, this episode was a product of its time when women oftentimes would be portrayed primarily as “sex symbols”. As such, it probably wouldn’t fly nowadays. That said, the look on Spock’s face when he first spotted the women was priceless. When I was a young innocent kid, my “dream girl” needed to have long black hair – just like one of the lovely ladies did. Therefore, I would probably remember if I had watched that episode! 🙂

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    1. Well that was some of the message of the show about that very topic in a more raw way.
      When I was a kid…I had the biggest crush on Kate Jackson of Charlie’s Angels…not the other two…why Kate Jackson I don’t know.

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      2. No I get it… I met a girl in high school that I just loved…later on I started watch everything Drew Barrymore was in…it’s because Drew looked like that girl lol.

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  7. One thing Start Trek taught me as a kid. No matter how simple shit may seem, EVERYONE might die. It isn’t just “Look, our engine broke down, we need some new dilithium crystals, here’s our credit card backed by the United Federation of Planets, so you know our credits good, sell us a few”. Nope, can never be that simple.

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  8. I do admit they had some hot women on Star Trek, almost without exception. I also had no idea Roddenberry was a perv. That would explain a lot of things. These 3 were exceptionally pretty. What cracked me up was down on the planet where the dude had no interest in having a helpmate he only wanted a sexy sexual object. I would think he would be desperate for company beyond mere sexual urges. I didn’t like how she was practically begging that jerk to let her stay. It’s like, hell no, I want to stay on The Enterprise!

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    1. Well I didn’t either until I thought about what the female crew are wearing. That was a style back then but mercy! I turn into a pig talking about it lol.
      Yea she really wanted a husband but you could tell he liked her but didn’t want to say it. I did get the message that hey….being pretty is one thing but working together is better…maybe its wishful thinking on my part.

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  9. p.s. Oh yes, I just remembered something I keep noticing in these when they show the females’ faces close up: they either put vasoline on the lens to make them look “dreamy” or have weird lighting to accentuate their looks. Have you noticed that?

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    1. I’ve noticed that fogged look at times as well. It works Lisa! I’m still in love with Yeoman Janice Rand.
      In the one I just finished the post on…Sherry Jackson is in the lead role…wow. I can’t believe they got by with what she wore.

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    1. I was just talking about the fuzzy lenses with Lisa…another blogger…it worked. It makes everything soft.
      This one I only ranked 3.5 out of 5…is that fair? I’ve never been good at ranking because its so subjective.

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  11. I was 9 when this episode came out. My church-going parents weren’t in favor of letting me watch it. Thank God for syndication.
    The comments on Vaseline on the lenses took me back to art school. 3-in-1 and motor oil were other devices that took finesse to get the right effect. The hardest for me to learn was paraffin wax. Low-budget horror films used it for foggy looks. You had to have a deft hand to get it right. No wonder fog machines with dry ice are so popular today.

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    1. Oh yes I’ve heard of wax before also. I’m sure it’s an art to use because too much would be unseeable.
      Oh dry ice gives me nightmares…our band used that and breathing that in was not fun.

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