1.10 — “Mudd’s Passion”
Plot: Kirk arrests Harry Mudd, who is discovered hawking love crystals to miners on a planet ungoverned by Federation law. After he tricks Nurse Chapel into helping him escape, however, Mudd’s crystals get loose on the ship and wreak havoc.
Thoughts: This is the funniest Star Trek episode yet. What a find! They finally found a way to use Harry Mudd that would be subversive and funny and not make me irritated by the character.
The laugh-out-loud lines in this episode are tremendous. I don’t even want to spoil them by printing any here. It’s the context that makes them funny, anyway. Alright, just one: 7 years after the premiere of Star Trek, Spock finally gets to say “That is an outstandingly stupid idea.” Memory Alpha has the sound clip here: http://tinyurl.com/n9hw4hc
This episode is a shipper’s paradise. I can’t believe I had never seen the picture of Kirk and Spock with their arms around each other before. I was originally going to bust the episode for the heteronormative statement early in the episode about the drug only making same sex pairs feel friendship for each other, while opposite sex pairs fall in love, but this scene between Kirk and Spock makes it all worth it. The producers were clearly pushing the bounds just as far as they could go.
I say, does M’Ress’ fur look a little mussed at the end? I love the anonymous crewmember couple dancing in the transporter room. Yes, they would probably be doing more than that, but this is a children’s show from 1973!
The one drawback to the mayhem in “Mudd’s Passion” is that Nurse Chapel comes off as a patsy. I would have liked to see her escape with more dignity–but all of us have lapses, and Mudd seems so harmless! I like that she gets her moment at the end to take control and spurn Spock.
It may not seem like it, but we are getting close to the end of original Trek. With this episode, we are 45% of the way through TAS, and then there are only the six films, which don’t feature minor characters such as Nurse Chapel, except in cameos. This came home to me reading a piece of trivia on Memory Alpha, stating that this episode is “the last episode to feature the Chapel-Spock relationship.”
For being funnier than “Shore Leave,” “Mudd’s Women,” and “I, Mudd” put together: 4.5 out of 5 passionate Vulcans.
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