Star Trek: The Original Series
"I, Mudd"
Air date: 11/3/1967
Written by Stephen Kandel
Directed by Marc Daniels
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
An android commandeers the Enterprise, taking it to a planet inhabited by androids—which is also where the devious Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel) now resides. Prohibited from leaving the planet by the androids unless he finds them new subjects to observe, Mudd intends Kirk and his crew to replace him. Unfortunately for Mudd, the androids decide to still prohibit him from leaving, finally forcing Kirk and Mudd to team up in an attempt to escape.
"I, Mudd" is a lighthearted comic romp featuring the lively scoundrel in a far more entertaining episode than "Mudd's Women" from season one. Mudd and Kirk's verbal jousts are right on target; Mudd's handy-to-muzzle "wife android" is a funny gag; and an ending where Kirk & Co. engage in ultra-bizarro behavior to overload the androids with illogical slapstick and circular reasoning is amusing through its desire to go for broke. Goofy, yes; believable, not really—but I laughed, and that's the only test probably required in this case.
Previous episode: Catspaw
Next episode: Metamorphosis
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43 comments on this post
Tue, Jun 19, 2012, 9:56am (UTC -5)
Fri, Nov 15, 2013, 3:11pm (UTC -5)
Thu, Feb 6, 2014, 11:47pm (UTC -5)
Wed, Apr 9, 2014, 9:39pm (UTC -5)
I kindly give this zero stars.
Mon, Aug 4, 2014, 4:59pm (UTC -5)
I enjoyed the lightheartedness with which the crew launched their assault of irrationality on the androids, and I think there was some amount of meta-joke in there somewhere -- the way they point their fingers and make phaser whirring sounds, for instance, is only marginally more difficult to accept as "real" than the plastic guns with low-quality special effects they normally do. But anyway, creativity, humour and play are useful weapons against the threat of technological servitude, right?
The episode is inessential; we've already had a look at what 24th century pimp/bastard Mudd is like ("I, Mudd"), episodes about massive computer control ("Return of the Archons"), Kirk Outsmarts The Computer With Logical Paradoxes ("The Changeling"), the crew is stranded on an apparent paradise and has to give it up for freedom! (lots...I guess "This Side of Paradise" most notably) and so on. But I find it fun -- a low 3 stars seems fair to me.
Tue, Sep 9, 2014, 12:08am (UTC -5)
Just to see the crew burst into a Cossacks dance ritual for a few seconds was worth one star. I low 3 stars from me too.
Sun, Aug 16, 2015, 9:16am (UTC -5)
Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 3:13pm (UTC -5)
This is rock bottom, one of the very worst moments in Star Trek history, and that's saying something.
Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 1:21pm (UTC -5)
this eposide was at least somewhat plausible, unlike most TOS episodes, st least the writers came up with a decent story that was possible-ish.
What looses it points is :
VERY much sexism, one thing I generally hate about TOS
Kirk outsmarts the computer [TM] AGAIN!! please that gets old to fast!
and again they destroy one species.. and a perfect opportunity to actually learn something (more advanced = new gadgeds + prime directive)
Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 7:20am (UTC -5)
Sexsistic, yes ! But it is funny and partly reflect the time in which is was created.
What really puzzled me was how they came back on the ship again. As I understand someone must man the Transporter and all staff was transferred to the planet.
Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 10:51am (UTC -5)
Mon, Aug 1, 2016, 11:21pm (UTC -5)
"Scotty! Scotty's dead! He had too much happiness; but now he's happier because he's dead!"
I give it 3 out of 4 just for that.
Sun, Aug 28, 2016, 11:46am (UTC -5)
Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 9:59pm (UTC -5)
The other aspect that stood out to me simply wasn't well fleshed out. And that was the android's stated means of conquering the universe by serving humanity. It's a good story, and could be used to great effect. While This Side of Paradise considers the perils of utopia, that episode showed simply a "natural" utopia. Norman's conquest here made utopia seem more sinister, more akin to Brave New World than This Side of Paradise. Which is interesting, since it runs up against Roddenberry's TNG-style utopia. After all, the utopian ideal is much the same: between the replicaters and the holodeck, we can have everything we could ever want. All that machinery is there to serve us. So would we then, in the Roddenberry utopia, end up being "conquered"? Maybe, but the episode brings up the idea and then runs away from it so fast that we never really explore that plot element. It would have been better than spending more time with Mudd's harping wife, that's for sure.
Thu, Jan 12, 2017, 10:27pm (UTC -5)
I believe the point of the episode is this: that paradise for humanity comes as a result of focusing on humanity, not on machines. Mudd's moral 'crime' here is wanting technology to serve him so that he doesn't ever have to do anything for himself, whereas the Trek vision says that technology should free man up so that he can improve himself. Mudd doesn't want to improve himself; he wants to wallow in luxury. To some extent I think this is a real question to be asked of humanity in the face of technological paradise: wouldn't some people prefer, exactly as Mudd does, to be little better than pigs at the trough rather than spend their new leisure productively? This episode doesn't address how to deal with that possibility, but does strongly suggest that there is something inherently dangerous in using technology as a way to surrender our will. This is a theme touched upon in various science fiction stories, such as Dune for instance. Mudd does exactly that, and the episode plays out as a cute display of what happens when human beings take a back seat to machines; it not only renders them powerless, but also makes them more like machines as well.
As for the ending where illogical behavior breaks the computer, I'd like to think that the energetic display is meant to play as a piece of human creativity at work, which serves as a counterpoint to the slovenly Mudd whose greatest desire is to never have to think. Purely logical statements are easy to come up with; to play a mix of logic and illogic requires thinking on your feet and inventing, like a comedian. The power of the creative mind is, indeed, the ultimate refutation for anyone who thinks the greatest joy would be a life of sloth.
Sat, Jan 14, 2017, 3:23pm (UTC -5)
Sat, Jan 14, 2017, 4:45pm (UTC -5)
Wed, Mar 1, 2017, 3:30pm (UTC -5)
Harry Mudd is an entertaining character but the whole episode, I felt, was being acted tongue-in-cheek. Kirk never really seemed truly angry at Mudd. It was more like seeing an old friend.
The ending with overloading the androids with logic is a low point for Trek. What is it supposed to prove?
I guess it's a question of taste. Others might find a nugget of value in "I, Mudd" but I don't. I give it 1.5/4 stars -- what's entertaining is Mudd, the premise and story for the episode is very weak. A forgettable episode.
Sun, Mar 12, 2017, 10:57pm (UTC -5)
Sun, Aug 27, 2017, 3:46pm (UTC -5)
If it was, it would focus more on the Androids plot to "control" the human race, and how that despite given everything the crew wanted, to not have personal freedom is basically prison, much to the confusion of the androids. I liked that aspect of the episode although it did not explore it more, it gives the option for plenty of room for interpretation and thinking, which I like.
It looked like the actors had banter filming it, and Kirk just looked stressed out the entire episode, Spock was a cheeky mofo, and McCoy just behaved like he was drunk most the episode, which was funny to watch imao.
I can see why people don'tlike it because of its sexist undertones, Mudds character is a prick anyway, thats why its extra sexist this episode, but I decided i didn't care and to just enjoy the outdated humour and sillyness of it all
Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 7:01pm (UTC -5)
What more can I say? This is an episode that depends on the audience liking the characters enough to go with the flow. It's not as effortlessly comedic as the sublime "Tribbles" or even "A Piece of the Action" later this season, but it's a fun little ride that gives us lots of classic character moments. The Cossack dance and imaginary phaser scenes are part of a surreal sequence that only works here because of the go-for-break execution by the cast. I for one dig it. And I don't understand, as an earlier commenter remarked, how anyone could think this episode is sexist when Mudd -- the source of all the sexism of the android society -- is so clearly a figure of ridicule not to be taken seriously. If you want to see *real* sexism, presented without any irony or humor, watch the gender relations on "Game of Thrones." But perhaps we tend to excuse our own generation too readily; the 1960s were far less reactionary in many ways than what we see on TV in "historical drama guise" today.
Sun, Dec 24, 2017, 7:24pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Dec 29, 2017, 6:39pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 10:49pm (UTC -5)
Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 9:15pm (UTC -5)
I think that's what a lot of people are missing from this and the fact that those androids are not people, they are a hive mind. They have no sex but the one we choose for the bodies, even then, they lack reproductive and so on. So people viewing these things as anything other than things are already incorrect.
Secondly, yes, this is a pretty insightful episode. You have too look, listen, and understand what was going on. Kirk early on even said, why would anyone want to leave this paradise. Well, it inhibits humans and takes away anything to keep them from going forward. Someone above said that it would've been awesome for Bones and Scotty because they have advanced technology for them to experiment. My question to all of you is, why? You're held captive and everything you want is at your whim. There's really nothing to gain. So no, it's pretty bad.
To go on with that, Mudd is a scummy person. I wouldn't say he's borderline narcissistic and greedy. Even he wanted to leave. There was someone else above me that said he wanted to stay but his whole mission was to get out and have Kirk take his place. Mudd thrives on bamboozling and conning. I'm sure he gets a rush off of it and would become incredibly bored in his predicament if he were to stay. Obviously, with such a sexist guy, he's going to make attractive androids. It's a reflection of that character. Just to kind of repeat myself, they are robots.
It was also a fun episode. Watching them act out everything was great and entertaining. Androids don't understand emotions or acting really so it being really cheesy made it even better. They took a gamble and won. I would've done it if it were me and staying there. I'd rather be exploring space, ya know?
Anyways, it was a great episode regardless of what people thought this episode represented.
3.5/5
Sat, Mar 30, 2019, 10:29pm (UTC -5)
Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 10:49pm (UTC -5)
The Kirk Outsmarts the Machine part (again!) was extra stupid, with the antics reminding me of that painful DS9 episode, Move Along Home.
I did like how they screwed over Harry by making copies of his shrewish wife, at the end. Just think of the Wrath of Kahn had been The Wrath of Harry, instead. :)
Average TOS fare.
Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 10:58am (UTC -5)
Harcourt really doesn't do all that much to earn his reputation as Star Trek's Hilarious Clown that the series wants him to be. And I don't necessarily blame the actor for that. Norman, on the other hand, was pretty well acted, a solid robo-antagonist given the material.
The two sisters who play the Alices are actually credited as 'Alice #1 through 250' and 'Alice #251 through 500', respectively. That was the biggest chuckle I got out of the episode this time around.
Wed, Jan 8, 2020, 11:59pm (UTC -5)
The last 15 minutes is handsomely executed by the whole cast. And in general it was nice to see Uhura getting more screen time as well as hearing Chekov delivering yet another outrageous Mother Russia line, "This place is even better than Leningrad!" XD
Mudd is actually a somewhat likeable character thanks to Roger Carmel's pompous portrayal; and even though it was meant to be funny, I couldn't shake the feeling that it indeed was inhuman to leave him on the planet with 500 nagging wife androids. Uncharacteristically cruel punishment by Kirk & co.
II I/II of IV
Sun, Sep 20, 2020, 10:49pm (UTC -5)
It's often presented as a struggle against the rigid order imposed by technology, as in this episode where the humanoids have to argue to death the androids that want to conquer them by waiting on them hand and foot, or in "Return of the Archons" where Landru's "peace and joy" stagnates a society, much as Vaal stagnates the primitives in "The Apple." But it's also there in "The Paradise Syndrome"; thought Kirk is unspeakably happy among the quasi-Indians, his salvation is to return to the ship, rather like Picard returning to the Enterprise from a lifetime on a planet long dead.
I'm almost starting to wonder if any episode ISN'T about "this is the best of all possible worlds, so embrace your hardships; they're better than happiness."
I'm not one to believe that message myself. Oh, sure, striving to overcome hardship has a certain value, but paradise would sure be nice.
Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 10:37am (UTC -5)
That was more a TOS trope, and a common trope found in the science fiction of the era. And so - typical of the zeitgeist of the time - Kirk's always railing against tyranny, fascists, hippies, techno-authoritarians, commies, utopians, with a kind of vague conception of 1960s, ruggedly individualistic western democracy covertly held up as the best of all worlds.
A strong skepticism of technology also runs through TOS. Cribbing from 1940s-50s science fiction, it promotes the idea that too much technology, and too many creature comforts, leads to stagnation, a kind of blind stupor, minds no longer challenged. In this way it flirts with a kind of Darwinian worldview (the old fascist credo, "hard times make better men"), but gets away with it because the Federation ultimately comes across as fairly egalitarian. Struggle is fine when you're base comforts are comfortably met.
TNG tends to be far less tech and/or utopia phobic. Indeed a lot of TNG plots reverse the messages of TOS plots. Men don't go crazy when granted power, androids are friendly, people infected with technology become better people etc. The skepticism of tech was still there (The Game, the Borg), but generally more even handed.
Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 8:19pm (UTC -5)
Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 7:38am (UTC -5)
Star Trek season 2 episode 8
"Knowledge, sir, should be free to all."
- Harcort Fenton Mudd (1967)
"Information wants to be free”
- Stewart Brand (1984)
3 stars (out of 4)
There are a few lines in this highly enjoyable hour that show that not only is Intellectual Property alive and well in Kirk’s time, but that there is no exception to paying royalties even to help “backward planets”, and the penalty for selling unauthorized use of a Patent on some planets is death - something that would have been horrendous at the end of the 1960’s when this episode first aired, and equally horrendous today, 50 years later.
To wit,
MUDD: I organised a technical information service bringing modern industrial techniques to backward planets, making available certain valuable patents to struggling young civilisations throughout the galaxy.
KIRK: Did you pay royalties to the owners of those patents?
MUDD: Well, actually, Kirk, as a defender of the free enterprise system, I found myself in a rather ambiguous conflict as a matter of principle.
SPOCK: He did not pay royalties.
MUDD: Knowledge, sir, should be free to all… . I sold the Denebians all the rights to a Vulcan fuel synthesiser.
MUDD: Do know what the penalty for fraud is on Deneb Five?
SPOCK: The guilty party has his choice. Death by electrocution, death by gas, death by phaser, death by hanging.
MUDD: The key word in your entire peroration, Mister Spock, was, death.
The key word is death.
Needless to say, Kirk does not turn Harry Mudd over to the Denebians for execution. But he leaves Mudd at the end with a fate perhaps worse that death, henpecked for the rest of his life by a automaton version of his nagging wife. Actually, 500 copies of his nagging wife. The phrase “kill me now” was invented for just such a torture.
One of the few things Discovery has gotten right is Harry Mudd. Played 50 years later by the always-enjoyable Rainn Wilson, in that prequel Mudd has a key line that featured prominently in the trailers for the episode,
"Have you ever bothered to look out of your spaceships down at the little guys below? If you had, you'd realize that there's a lot more of us down there than there are you up here. And we’re sick and tired of getting caught in your crossfire.”
Harry Mudd is a thief and a con man. And he’s not wrong. What kind of ridiculous world would stop a backward planet’s progress just because they hadn’t paid IP rights to the vulcans?
The other interesting scene is chocolate obsession, Uhura, who shows a soft side for the fem-bots:
ALICE 263: These are our Barbara series. The body is covered with a self-renewing plastic over a skeleton of beryllium-titanium alloy.
KIRK: Very impressive.
UHURA: I should say so.
Yes Uhura, you should say so ;) As Chekov might say, this place is even better than Leningrad!
-
@Skeptical, I think the point you raise is really the heart of the episode. There is scene where Kirk discusses with Spock, quite genuinely,
SPOCK: Perhaps of more concern is the fact that this android population can literally provide anything a human being could ask for in unlimited quantity.
KIRK: Yes, I know. That's what worries me. How will my crew react in a world where they can have everything they want simply by asking for it.
And just to answer the question, we get TNG twenty years later :-)
As to @Skeptical’s conversation with @Peter G., I think of Scotty and Bones are a lot like the boy Harry (!!!!!) in TNG’s "When the Bough Breaks” who really likes the sculpting tool.
It is very cool to be able to do something you never thought you could. That’s what tools allow us to do.
For a man who likes to build and create and explore - like Scotty or Bones, or the boy Harry in TNG - access to such a facility can be as enticing as the sex-bots were to Chekov, or eternal youth was to Uhura. The episode does a good job of showing that temptation means something very different to different men and women.
The only one immune to the temptations on offer was Kirk. Because Kirk was not lying when he said that the only thing he wanted was the Enterprise. “It's a beautiful lady, and we love her.” Oh, indeed. We saw Kirk’s unique immunity to temptation in the wonderful season 1 episode "This Side of Paradise” (wonderful post @Trish!).
@Peter G., I would disagree to some extent that this episode is “not Shakespeare.” During the play-within-the-play where Scotty dies, his long drawn out death soliloquy instantly brought to mind Bottom’s speech in Midsummer’s Night Dream where he enacts the death of Pyramus:
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
Now am I dead,
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky:
Tongue, lose thy light!
Moon, take thy flight!
Now die, die, die, die, die.
- Midsummer’s Night Dream, Act V scene I
And here’s Scotty’s rendition:
https://youtu.be/YbHtzqCge_8?t=84
SCOTTY: Goodbye, cruel universe.
I don’t know about you, but I was amused!
Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 10:44am (UTC -5)
One small detail I would contest is that the episode is really saying anything about the death penalty. It's a comedy, and they're injecting some scary-sounding consequences to that Harry can quake in his boots, and more importantly, so that we can see how severe the laws are that he's *still* willing to break to make a buck. In other words his desire to con people even exceeds the common sense of caring about his own safety. He's a nut, essentially.
As a side point, I expect that Deneb Five isn't a Federation planet, and as a non-member it having the death penalty doesn't say anything about Trek values. The Klingon in Trouble with Tribbles references a "Denebian slime devil" which I assume means the Klingons visit that planet, which in turn means that it's not a Federation planet but rather non-aligned. There's also this quote from TAS which I found in Memory Alpha:
"An Academy of Science on Deneb V was dedicated in 2270. The crew of the USS Enterprise represented the Federation at the ceremonies. "
By sending a delegation to represent them at a ceremony, it almost certainly shows that it's not a Federation world. Otherwise the Federation would already be there :)
Wed, Apr 7, 2021, 1:52am (UTC -5)
Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 9:16pm (UTC -5)
Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 12:34pm (UTC -5)
Sat, Mar 19, 2022, 9:37pm (UTC -5)
Sun, Jul 10, 2022, 10:13am (UTC -5)
I wouldn't call this a great classic, but it was so damn entertaining and I laughed a lot--good enough for Jammer and me!
Roger C. Carmel's performance as Mudd-the-First was *so much better* than his stint in "Mudd's Women." There he was obnoxious and annoying. But here, maybe because of the different type of script, he has a much-improved, more madcap handle on the character.
The way this all is set up, I don't think we're meant to take "I, Mudd" too seriously. But as @Peter G and @Trent talked about above, Star Trek is again saying something here about how "A cage is still a cage, Jim," and how humanity is not quite ready for paradise as there's more truth and necessity in struggle. It even makes the neat little point of how in this one case, a man who *doesn't* have an idiotic smile on his face (Norman) is damned suspicious (smiles being a running philosophical gag on Star Trek at this point). And of course, it's another example of Star Trek questioning our relationship with technology.
Speaking of technology, all those female androids were absolute smokeshows--talk about paradise! (Mudd: "I have a fondness for this particular model, Mr. Spock, which you, unfortunately, are ill-equipped to appreciate.") Now these are sentient AI's that I can get behind, as long as they *stay* "beautiful, compliant and obedient!"
Kirk's explanation of his strategy to escape the androids' grip is priceless, and he should be an expert on this with all his previous experiences of making powerful computers short-circuit: "We must use wild, insane, irrational logic!" Because they don't have any Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez videos on economic policy available, they put on a bunch of goofy summer-camp skits. It's always fun to see this cast cut loose, and the presentation was cringingly absurd but still got some hearty laughs from me.
I loved that Mudd created that one android of his nagging wife as well. I tried to read something noble into this--maybe Mudd subconsciously knows that he needs at least one way of keeping himself in check. Maybe deep down that's still true, but more likely, apparently he just wanted the satisfaction of being able to tell her to shut up and having it actually work this time. I had to laugh at Mudd's ultimate punishment ("F--Five hundred?!?!") I agree with @Sleeper Agent -- this is just existentially cruel and unusual! Damn, Kirk, you'd better hope Mudd never escapes from this place; I'd fully understand him going completely Captain Ahab on you.
Guess how many fucks I give that this episode is sexist (or as @Maq puts it above, "sexsistic"--which is a much better word that I simply must start using). Believe me, it adds to the fun here. It probably didn't play too well during the 1970's-80's rerun days, but watching sexy/sexist tropes of this 1960's sort in 2022 is wonderfully retro in a refreshing, mind-freeing way. This is like a South Park version of Star Trek -- if it offends you, I'm glad.
Best Line:
Chekov -- "This place is even better than Leningrad."
Leningrad? HA! As if! (I know, I know--1960's)
My Grade: B
Tue, Oct 4, 2022, 3:00pm (UTC -5)
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