Mudd's Women
- FIRST SHOWN (US)
- 13 October 1966
- ON
- NBC
- STARDATE
- 1329.8
- DIRECTED BY
- Harvey Hart
- PRODUCTION NO.
- 04
WRITTEN BYTeleplay by Stephen Kandel; story by Gene Roddenberry
The Enterprise rescues a shady trader and three remarkably beautiful women bound for a remote colony, and soon the crew, the captain and a group of lonely miners all fall under their spell.
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSIS
Chasing an unregistered ship through an asteroid belt, the Enterprise burns out its lithium crystals while saving it. Aboard are a man calling himself Leo Walsh and three striking women he is taking to be wives for settlers. A hearing exposes him as Harcourt Fenton Mudd, a con man with a criminal record, and hints that the women's allure has a secret. With power failing, Kirk must obtain new crystals from the lithium miners of Rigel XII, but Mudd has already promised the women to the miners in return for his freedom. On the planet the truth comes out: the women rely on the illegal Venus drug, and without it their beauty fades. When Eve loses heart, Kirk hands her what she believes is another dose. It is a placebo, and her confidence returns on its own. Eve stays with miner Ben Childress, and Mudd is taken away to face the authorities.
- 01Roddenberry had put this story forward as a possible pilot before it became a regular episode. He had written an outline for it as early as July 1964.
- 02It was the second regular episode filmed, after “The Corbomite Maneuver”.
- 03Plans to bring Mudd back in the third season, in an episode called “Deep Mudd”, were dropped because Roger C. Carmel was busy with film work.