I, Mudd

With the possible exception of “The Trouble With Tribbles,” this is the goofiest episode in the entire set. Still, the cast is clearly having so much fun with it that it’s hard not to be charmed at least a little by the silliness.

The Enterprise is hijacked to a planet populated entirely by androids. Well, androids and one human: our old friend Harcourt Fenton “Harry” Mudd (again played to a T by Roger C. Carmel). The robots are making a study of human beings, so they’ve been catering to Mudd’s every whim. They even built him a robot version of his shrewish wife Stella (Kay Elliott) that he activates every once in awhile just for the pleasure of pulling her plug in mid-scold.

For reasons that aren’t altogether convincing, Mudd wants to escape this paradise planet and return to his old habits. But the only way his robot captors will release him is if he supplies them with other specimens. Hence the abduction of the Enterprise and its entire crew.

Faced with life in the tender care of look-alike androids, the principals cast about for a way out. They inadvertently discover that their logical captors have trouble processing illogical behavior. Indeed, the more irrational the people act the longer the machines have to freeze up with whirling-wristwatch expressions on their faces. So our heroes figure if they can act strangely enough that maybe they can short out the whole system.

The resulting pageant of absurdity is not to be missed. Everyone does strange, incongruous routines worthy of the strangest avant garde theatre production. And when the poor robots turn to Mr. Spock to make sense of it all, he turns on them with lines such as “Logic is a field of pretty flowers that smell awful.” In short order every robot on the planet shuts down.

Once order is restored and the robots revived in a less demanding mode, Mudd is left in their care. In particular, the Stella series is increased to multiple units with no off switches.

Silliness aside, one of the fun parts about watching this episode is the use of twins. All of the robots except the boss are released in series. So instead of one beautiful female android named Alice, there’s a whole line of Alices. As long as only two of them are in the shot at the time, no problem. But sometimes as many as six are required. Thus the production not only employs more twins in one place and time than we’ve seen since Josef Mengele’s operation got shut down, but then they’re multiplied further by split screen tricks.

Episode rating:

Stardate: 4513.3

Episode type: Comic relief

Written by: Stephen Kandel and David Gerrold

Original air date: November 3, 1967

Catspaw / Metamorphosis

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