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Old 10-14-2016, 12:26 PM
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October 13th, 1966, "Mudd's Women"

This is Take Two due to the server glitch. Hence a bit shorter and less nitpicking.

The fiver (by Derek)
Memory Alpha Page
Transcript

The episode:

* When can I stop complaining about lithium crystals? At least by now we've starting moving away from "crystal as fuel source" and toward "crystal as key engine component."
* I'm interested in the idea that somehow Vulcan hybrids look different enough to normal Vulcans that Mudd can see that. If Spock isn't the first, I'd assume that they're pretty rare.
* Women as "cargo." Um, yeah...
* Silly Mudd trying to claim he didn't know the Enterprise is a starship. Cue rants about energy output profiles, ID transponders, warp field signatures, etc. here.
* I'm sad that the "hypnotic effect" of the women must largely be communicated via Captain's Log because there isn't money for unnecessary extras. I'm reminded of how effectively NextGen did a similar scene in "The Perfect Mate".
* Just three miners? Obviously they can't even have offscreen workers because they'd fight over the women and use up screentime. There are ways to work around this. The three are at a remote outpost and the married guys are elsewhere, the others are too old or young to be desirable, the others are criminals or aliens that would be considered undesirable, etc.
* I do wish that the true nature of the Venus Drug was more consistent. Just a gelatin placebo? Well then you can't have onscreen transformation like that. A real drug? Well then they have to have a Kirk speech convincing them that they don't need it. It was real until the final scene when Kirk tricked them with gelatin placebos? A variant of the Kirk speech.
* I'm still confused about why the women would want to live in this place of complete isolation, constant storms, and constant hard labor. There weren't any transports going in the direction of Earth available?

The fiver:

I get the Powerpuff Girls references, but maybe there were a few too many.

Mudd: Hi, my name is Walsh.
Spock: Your speaker credits say your name is Mudd.
Mudd: Who are you going to believe, the fiver or me?
Spock: Welcome abord, Mr. Walsh.

Zeke, there's a typo there. Anyway, nice dig at the unreliability of the fiving process and the fivist himself (jk Derek )

Memory Alpha notes:

* Harlan Ellison visited the set during the filming. Even though he enjoyed himself, that's still unfortunate.
* I had forgotten about the subspace radio marriage idea. This is a loaded issue worthy of an essay by itself.
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