Oh, no, hahaha! I’m screwed! Lol. Well, maybe this episode won’t be as cringe as I remember. And we can reference Austin Powers and his fembots as an homage. I’m sure I’ll be fine.
ONE
Captain’s Log. The Enterprise pursues an unidentified vessel. Trying to escape, it heads into an asteroid field where its engines overload and fail. Kirk decides to use their deflector screen to protect the other ship, even though Scotty warns him against it. Stand by transporter. Enterprise risks overloading its own engines.
Roll credits.
TWO
Power surge and the bridge goes dark for a second. One of our lithium crystals, Sulu says. Scotty can’t lock on to beam the other crew aboard. Zap — another dark surge. Uhura says, “We’re getting a distress signal.” In the transporter room Scotty, Bones, and Spock energize and watch.
Oh. Dear. Lord. Rakish hat, wide belt, puffy shirt, single earring, and van dyke moustache. Here he comes, transporting in. Cartoon music and a doubletake reaction from the crew. Oh, help. He even speaks with that terrible fake pirate Irish. In no rush, he’s affable while Spock and Scotty want to get on with it.
On the bridge, another lithium circuit zaps out. How many have transported aboard, Scotty? One, but we’ve locked onto three more. The transporter pads blink and surge. Meanwhile, on the bridge we see the vessel explode. Did you get the crew, Scotty?
Pause, and then they materialize. The woman on the left wears a bosom-enhancing dress, the one in the middle pivots away so we can get a booty view, and the one on the right wears only a poncho, legs bare, with gladiator sandals. They each give a little grind-wiggle while Fake Pirate watches the men. Easy there, Bones, lol. Ew, close-up of Miss Booty squinching her eyes at them. The framing does suggest that we should be suspicious, so there’s that.
THREE
Meanwhile, lol, Kirk’s on the bridge trying to get a report about the transport and if it succeeded. Finally, Scotty answers. Definitely creepy. The objectification of the women and the dumbing down of the men are intentional plot choices.
FOUR
Spock, the only one of the three men who can still think and move, leads the visitors to the Captain’s quarters. As they ride the lift, Fake Pirate recognizes that Spock is part Vulcan. “You can save it, girls,” he says. The scheme grows clearer. (Narrator: Actually, it doesn’t.)
And now we’re in the Captain’s quarters. I swear Spock relishes the reveal. Kirk turns, unsuspecting, and freezes at the sight. Hahaha! Close-up on Kirk as he reels. “Hello,” Miss Bosom whispers huskily. Is this your crew? Kirk asks. No, this is the cargo. Gross. Good line, though.
Captain’s log. These women have a mysterious magnetic effect on the male members of my crew, Kirk says. (We didn’t discuss in those days magnetic effects on the female members.) And there’s Spock grinning at the problem, which just isn’t right.
“Mr. Walsh”, grating brogue pleading his case, claims he’s due damages for a starship wrecking his vessel. Kirk will convene a hearing, and he openly calls Walsh a liar.
On the bridge, Spock in the chair, Sulu and the other crewman, Farrell, moon over the women. “You can feel their eyes on you.” Scotty approaches the chair. One lithium crystal left. Spock calls Kirk to the bridge.
Walsh meets with the women. Just answer every question and don’t submit to a medical exam. Ah, Miss Bosom calls him Harry. Of course I know he’s going to be revealed as Harry Mudd, but he’s still pretending to be this blarney-coated Irishman, Leo Walsh. This actor only wishes he could do a proper Barry Fitzgerald “zhuz, zhuz, zhuz.”
Scotty and Spock give Kirk the bad news. Every solution he suggests won’t work. Finally he says, “Well, Mr. Spock?” A lithium mining installation on Rigel 12, two days away. He was just waiting until Kirk caught up, lol, before presenting the solution.
In the meantime, the hearing is convened. Haha, the computer is a lie detector. The first words out of Walsh’s mouth, his name, are “incorrect”. He admits to his real name, Mudd, and then continues to try to lie. The computer pulls up his arrest record and reads it out. As Mudd starts to explain himself, spinning nonsense, we get close-ups of the women’s eyes and pouts. Twinkly music starts. I assume the men are being hypnotized or something. Bones and Scotty get a little dreamy, but Kirk stays on track and brings Mudd to the point. His job is to recruit wives for settlers. These, the cargo, are the wives. Kirk asks for a computer scan of the women. No data. However (lol), the computer reports that the men around the table are breathing heavily.
Mudd feels in the clear, so he speaks of these poor women who only want to comfort lonely men. Miss Bosom, who has an independence the other two lack, argues how important it is to her to leave her former planet and find a place with an available man to marry. However, Kirk rules that Mudd is to be remanded to authority. What is to become of the women? He doesn’t say, which seems a little heartless after her impassioned plea. Ah, she chases after him and asks. As she grips his arms, the ship’s power surges. That was the last crystal. Life support is now on battery reserves. After the crew leaves, hurrying the ship to Rigel, Mudd exults. The women will be rich, married to miners, and he expects to run the ship.
Captain’s log. The ship’s in trouble with 12 hours to go until Rigel.
Mudd is confined to quarters, but the women wander loose. Miss Booty squinches her eyes at Bones in medical. As she flirts, she walks past the medical panel. It flashes a light, but appears to have no reading. I don’t think she understands what’s happening, but Bones does. He asks if she’s wearing something radioactive. So, he’s curious. No answer, though. (Narrator: There never will be an answer.)
SWITCH
Kirk enters his quarters and pulls up short. Miss Bosom is laid out on his bed. All the men were looking at her and she had to find a place to hide. Now, wait. Where’s Janice? Where’s Uhura? Where’s Nurse Chapel? Not only do female crew not feel an attraction to Mudd’s women, they’ve completely vanished from the ship! This is a terrible episode! She flirts, she caresses, she pulls his head for a kiss, and he resists. Breaking out of seductress mode she says that she really does like him, and she can’t go through with Mudd’s plan (whatever it exactly is). Out the door she goes.
FIVE
The other two women report in to Mudd with what they’ve learned about the miners. As Mudd happily plots, Miss Bosom comes in, upset. She doesn’t like Mudd, but it’s more than that. “I don’t feel very good,” she says. “I think it must be near the time.” Dunh-dunh.
On the bridge Kirk snaps at Sulu and Farrell. They’ll limp into orbit around Rigel, pick up six crystals, and be right as rain. Kirk then asks McCoy if he’s examined the women. They’re both edgy, trying to keep working as normal. “What are they, Bones?” So, they know these women aren’t right, aren’t just beautiful, but that something extra is happening. What, though, they can’t figure out.
And Spock is still vaguely amused by it all.
Poncho gets a communicator for Mudd and he contacts the surface as the Enterprise establishes orbit. Aha, here’s a rare sighting of Uhura at comms, although she doesn’t notice Mudd’s broadcast. Wut?
Strange, abrupt cut to Mudd’s room. Miss Booty looks horrific. Aged and unglamorous. Poncho and Bosom, too. Messy hair, smeared make-up, and with skin imperfections. “What if someone sees us like this?” Wow, is this badly written. These women know they are to take some magic pill regularly, and Mudd hid them in case he was searched, and now he can’t find them? I think. Meanwhile, the two women are distressed to be ugly again. Bosom is more philosophical and fatalist about it. When the pills are found they take them like drug addicts. Again, except for Bosom. It’s a cheat, she says. It’s a miracle, says Mudd. She palms the pill. The other two are now glossy and wiggly.
Kirk and Spock receive two of the miners aboard. Instead of payment, though, these two want the women. Oh, we’ll look at them first to make sure they’re pretty enough, but then you’ll drop the charges against Mudd. No deal! Ah, look at Kirk go. You’re in the middle of space, guys. Maybe you don’t want to piss off the entire federation. (He says it more diplomatically than that.) Here come Mudd and the ladies. Bosom is young again. (What happened to her objections?) Spock still smiles. And Kirk proclaims, again, no deal. But the power surges and Mudd speaks very confidently.
Transporting down to the mining camp. Kirk tells the head guy, Childress, that he’s won. The women are all there, though, and the man will get to their crystals when he has the time. He’s a weasel-looking guy with a smarmy face. Two of the women dance with the men, but Bosom just stares out the window. She coughs, blaming it on all the dust, and weeps in the corner. With only the two women and three men, trouble starts. In the commotion Bosom runs out the door into the storm. Kirk follows. Childress also heads out into the wind. That surprises me, he seemed so unprincipled.
And now Kirk’s up on the ship, implementing a search from there. Childress and Bosom are still missing, three hours on and with the batteries rapidly draining.
Down on the surface we see Childress bring her home. He carries her in and lays her down (she’s still beautiful but unconscious), then crashes on a bench.
SIX
On the ship they still search, down to the last 45 minutes of power. Finally, they find the life signals and beam down.
SEVEN
At the house she cooks when he wakes up. She says something about wanting to repay him for saving her.
EIGHT
He’s remarkably cranky about it all. They have a tiff about how to clean his dirty fry pan. When he comes back in from hanging the pots in the blowing sand we see her playing cards. Reverse, and there she is in her real age. He yells at her for being homely just as Kirk enters. Mudd’s with him and Kirk insists he tell about the “Venus drugs”. How did Kirk learn this? Wow, key moments happening offscreen. Hahaha! The other miner guys, tricked, already married the two women while they were still beautiful. Goodness, much tell and no show going on here.
Childress whines and complains about the perfectly lovely woman, albeit sans make-up, next to him until Bosom grabs the pill from Mudd and swallows it. Is this what you want? she says. Someone vain and useless? Childress says her beauty is fake, and Kirk says nope. She took no drug. Even Bosom is surprised at that. Here comes the moral of the story: mumbo jumbo . . . believe in yourself . . . hokum blah blah. Childress decides she can stay.
NINE
Kirk and Mudd prepare to beam back up with the crystals. They’re quite jovial with each other as they leave.
Back in his chair, Kirk has his functioning ship again. Bones, Spock, Scotty, everyone on the bridge is normal, so ahead full. End.
My God, that was terrible. Beyond whatever offense of men and women behaving like stereotyped cartoons, the structure was a mess. The story was an excuse for vavoom women and silly men to cavort for an hour. Usually we get some stab at a human truth; this is a circus.
So, could it be fixed, if I even care to spend more time with this plot?
The One is straightforward.
The Two is a strange mix. Kirk, in a humanitarian move, puts his own ship in danger in order to save another. Nothing in the Eight addresses this Trouble. The result, the burning out of the lithium crystals, is resolved. They get replacements from the miners after negotiating over the women. This entire decision by Kirk, though, which has plot-wide ramifications, is just background noise.
The other aspect of the Two is the mystery and impact of the women. That is addressed in the Eight.
The Three is the thing that happens between the Two and the Four. The only thing worse than this kind of Three is no Three at all.
The Four is about learning Mudd’s identity and his true mission. By the way, what is his mission? Selling women, via this miracle beauty drug? Finding the highest bidder for marriage, with him taking a cut of the profit? For such a simple plot it’s remarkably unclear.
The Switch is good: Evie (I think that’s Bosom’s actual name) reveals something true about her character. After this the plot stops acting mysterious and starts delivering information.
And then we have the Five. We learn the women are on some time-release drug. Why is Mudd’s team together and how? What are the Rules of the Magic about this drug? Are the two women really just whiny, shallow gold-diggers? How does the crew resist them? Information is dropped without logic, or left unanswered completely.
The Six is Kirk again trying to learn something about his ship. Really, that’s sort of mirror-esque. But why? How does it advance the story? I think they just got subconsciously lucky on this.
The Seven — Evie decides to act wifely — directly affects the Eight but has no relevance to any plot questions from earlier. Suddenly this episode becomes a bedroom drama.
Here in the Eight answers drop without rhyme or reason. Evie gets a weasel-faced beau, the other two have an unknown fate, Mudd is going into custody (maybe), and the ship is all fixed.
Austin Powers did it better. Make the women robots. Women with gun barrel jumblies are less offensive to me than two women who think only of how pretty they are.