Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Star Trek: I, Mudd

Episode: "I, Mudd"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 2, Episode 8
Original Air Date: November 3, 1967
via Memory Alpha
"I, Mudd" marks the return of one of my least favorite Trek characters: Harcourt Fenton Mudd.  Actually, I don't really object so much to the character.  An interstellar sleaze bag seems only inevitable.  It was his original episode, "Mudd's Women," that I didn't like (review here).  In this Season 2 adventure, Mudd has finagled his way into ruling a planet of androids.  At Mudd's urging, one of his minions manages to infiltrate the Enterprise crew, hijack the ship and abduct the entire gang back to the planet for research purposes.  We eventually learn, of course, that the robots hold the upper hand over Mudd, too, and have simply allowed him to believe he was the leader for the sake of their own manipulations.

This wasn't my favorite Season 2 episode but it didn't irk me nearly as much as "Mudd's Women" did.  Our heroes manage to defeat the androids by confusing them, allowing ample silliness like Bones and Scotty pretending to play invisible instruments while Chekov and Uhura waltz.  Identical robots were created partly through camera tricks but also through the casting of several pairs of twins.

*****
via Wikipedia
Roger Charles Carmel (Mudd) was born September 27, 1932 in Brooklyn, New York.  Carmel had a long career in television including appearances on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Batman and The Patty Duke Show.  He did have one regular starring role on NBC's The Mothers-in-Law but was replaced after one season, allegedly due to excessive drug abuse.  There was voice-over work, too, including Smokey the Bear. Film credits were more modest but he did appear in 1981's Hardly Working with Jerry Lewis. Carmel died November 11, 1986 of hypertensive cardiomyopathy.

10 comments:

  1. This was a memorable episode if not the best. I was hoping he'd show up in Star Trek 2 played by Steve Harvey.

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    1. It was fun. I speak of it more disparagingly than it deserves due to my own predisposition. It's good to have a few goofy episodes amid the more serious ones.

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  2. I do remember this episode maybe because I disliked the Mudd so much from the first year.
    I wanted to make an overall comment but I didn't know if you saw this series the first time around. I didn't want any spoilers not that it is a story spoiler.

    cheers, parsnip

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    1. I don't know the series episode for episode the way I'm exploring it now but I'm familiar enough with the big picture so don't worry about spoilers. I'd love to know your thoughts.

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  3. If I'm not mistaken, this episode has my favorite ST line ever. "Kirk: Scotty's dead! He had too much happiness!"

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    1. I believe you are right. As causes of death go, that would be a nice one.

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  4. Oof! Sounds like one I should not add to my queue.

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  5. The silly illogic was fun (though so campy... was the Batman TV show a hit right around then?), but the portrayal of Mudd's ex-wife Stella was pretty cringeworthy.

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    1. This episode was definitely campy. Batman ran almost exactly the same years as Trek: 1966-68. It was certainly in full swing at this point.

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