When I clicked on ‘Play next episode” this morning in preparation for writing this article, I have to admit, I groaned aloud when I saw that it was “Mudd’s Passion”.
Now, don’t get me wrong.. I like Harry Mudd as a character. He’s sleazy and slimy and goofy and plain ol’ good fun. But Mudd selling love potions… that’s a rehash of the original series episode “Mudd’s Women”, more or less. Once again, the writers decided to take something that was fairly decent to begin with and run it straight into the ground. I doubt that this episode can be saved by any measure. I’m really hoping it’s incredibly comedic, since Harry Mudd lends himself so well to sleazeball comedy. But it probably won’t be.
So…the episode starts, once again, with the good captain making an entry in his log. They are approaching the Arcadian star system on a mission to locate an old friend. Spock stares up at the viewscreen above his head, almost as if in longing. It turns out the “old friend” (or should I say frenemy?) they’re trying to find is none other than the sleaziest sleaze of the seven galaxies, Harry Mudd. Spock spouts some jive about a ‘motherlode’ of something or other being 81%…plus or minus .53 percent, of course. McCoy and Spock engage in some friendly banter, trading quips with each other as they’re prone to do. Mr. Arex then informs the captain that they are coming up on parking orbit (which always makes me giggle a little… I imagine a giant parking garage, like the kind you see at shopping malls, floating in outer space with a neat little slot just for the Enterprise).
Down on the planet, Harry Mudd is attempting to give some miners his schtick like the snake oil salesman he is. I love how the camera pans back to show the crowd of two humans, one something-or-other that looks like a melted candy bar, and two half-wolf/half-ape/all-stupid-looking men. Or perhaps they’re women… one of them definitely has a chest. Harry Mudd is attempting to sell them some kind of crystal which contains a magic elixir that will make them irresistible to the opposite sex. In other words, 23rd century Viagra mixed with space-Spanish Fly. According to Harry, it doesn’t matter if you’re fat, ugly, stupid, smelly… this liquid will make you as hot-to-trot as a Swedish supermodel who smells like bubblegum and farts glittering rainbows. But then the captain and Spock show up to spoil his fun… you know, like always.
One of the wolf-ape things in the crowd roars and is restrained by his companion who demands proof. “Proof? I’ll give you proof!” crows Mudd, whose assistant (a rather ugly blonde with a snake wrapped around her upper arm) comes on stage to help him out with a demonstration of the pill’s powers. He simply applies a little of the magic elixir, and suddenly the woman is panting for him, begging him to come back to the ship. The miners are impressed and Harry says it can be theirs for the asking… for 300 credits of course. Love potions don’t come cheap, after all. But true love is worth any price… isn’t it? That’s when he notices the good captain looking annoyed but in a good mood, as well as Spock who is dour as ever.
The captain wants to take him in on charges of fraud, illegal drug manufacture and swindling. Mudd tells them that this planet is not under Federation rule, therefore they can’t extradite him back to Earth for a much-needed vacation inside a jail cell. The miner who’d asked about the price barks that Kirk needs to keep his big nose out of their business before striking a deal with Harry. Spock points out that Mudd’s potion is an illusion. The miner seems surprised, so Spock shoots the young lady with his phaser and she disappears completely, turning into a large lavender lizard called a Rigellian Hypnoid. Uh oh… this crowd doesn’t like that at ALL. Things could get messy.
Kirk tells Harry he can’t be arrested but he CAN give himself up, which might be a prudent thing to do seeing as the crowd is probably gonna hang him by his ankles in the town square for trying to trick them. After being pelted with rocks and pistol-whipped with a phaser, he does give in and surrender himself to Kirk, if only to save his greasy hide. Using his phaser, Spock creates a barrier between them and the angry miners, giving the three of them time to beam up to the ship in safety.
Meanwhile back on the ship…Harry grouses that what Kirk did was a ‘miching’ trick (I have NO idea what that means… but that’s what it sounded like he said and that’s what the captions said so… if anybody knows what a ‘miching’ trick is, let me know) and he’s lost EVERYTHING. Including the love pills. He’s gonna sue, dammit. Fine, whatever… let him have his day in court. Kirk takes him down to the brig, where Harry is attended to by the lovely Nurse Chapel. He’s got some bumps and bruises, but he’ll live.
“Dude, I thought we left you on that robot planet… on a permanent vacation,” says Kirk, and Mudd looks defensive. You should never underestimate the tenacity of Harcourt Fenton Mudd. He “borrowed” a vehicle and beat it out of there as quickly as he could because there was no profit (and probably a lot of boredom) to be found on the robot planet. He cruised on over to Lyra VI, a charming planet full of innocent, friendly people who were just right for the swindling.
“Dude… you tried to sell them the Starfleet Space Academy!” Kirk interjects. That’s like trying to sell ocean front property in Arizona, man.
“A fraud, yes, but for enough credits to get to Sirius IX,” adds Spock, while Mudd just gives this “Oh pooh!” look and explains that’s where he found a miracle love potion, a “boon” to all humanoid life forms everywhere. Except it made the people on Sirius IX sick as dogs. He hadn’t, after all, counted on their unusual biochemistry apparently. It was, of course, only logical to pack up and leave in the night, like the thief he is. Still, he insists, the love potion DOES work.
“Tell it to the judge,” Kirk says, and immediately turns to leave after telling Spock to prepare an arrest report. Spock requests a medical report from Nurse Chapel, but you can tell Harry has something up his sleeve. Whatever it is, it’s not going to be good. Nurse Chapel is practically swooning with her desire to praise Spock for trapping him so cleverly. Why doesn’t she just tell him she has a thing for him and get it over with? Yeesh. Spock is clearly annoyed and says that she’s just exaggerating and that her medical report needs to be more precise. Ouch. That had to hurt.
Mudd comes to the door of his holding cell and comments on what a lovely intelligence Spock is. He can see Nurse Chapel has that look on her face like she’s just been slapped and wants to cry. She admits he’s a good officer but, as Mudd points out, he’s a little lacking in emotion. He then proceeds to butter her up, complimenting her lavishly on her talents. You can see where this is going, right? Harry offers her one of his crystals, free of charge. It’s not an illusion and it’s not a scam, he insists. Chapel is so desperate for Spock’s affection that while she doesn’t fall for it at first, she does eventually give in.
Up on the bridge, they’re all set to explore an uncharted star system with a binary sun and an M-class planet. Alright… time for some real fun… running around on uncharted planets! Woohoo!
Down in the Brig, Mudd is extolling the virtues of his mystery liquid to Nurse Chapel. All you have to do is rub a little on yourself then touch someone else and you’ll be totally irresistible to that person. Nurse Chapel, however, is a little skeptical. As she should be… this is, after all, Harry Mudd, the guy who could sell ice cream to Andorians with ease. Mudd is annoyed at her scepticism, insisting that one touch after you’ve been rubbed with the mystery liquid will cause the man or woman of your dreams to fall completely in love with you. Guaranteed. Mudd proceeds to tell her that not only is she a beautiful woman, but she’s a scientist and here… take this FREE SAMPLE. It’s a gift.
Now, when I was a kid and we were going through our anti-drug education, we were told that’s how drug dealers got people hooked. They offered free samples at first, to show you how awesome their weed/crack/heroin was. And that’s what Mudd is doing here… he wants to get Chapel hooked on his seemingly harmless love potion. She says, well… she doesn’t believe his claims but she COULD analyze it. I can almost see Mudd twisting his handlebar moustache like a villain in an old time movie when he says, “Of course…”
Up on the bridge, Mr. Arex (who’s spoken more this episode than any previous ones, I believe) says they’re in parking orbit and the weapons system is ready to go, should it be needed. Spock reports on the planetary conditions – it seems like an okay place, if you like planets without intelligent life on them. We go back to the Brig where Nurse Chapel mutters something about letting Mudd know the results of her scientific analysis of the crystal’s contents. But Mudd says that laboratory test would ruin it, destroy it even. So she’s going to have to test it out on herself. Oh this can’t go wrong… not at ALL. With an evil grin on his face, he tells her if it does all that he claims it does, Spock will be hers… forever. Muhahaha!
All she has to do is break the crystal open, rub the liquid on her skin and touch Spock. Couldn’t be simpler… right? Tempted, Chapel does as he says and crushes the crystal between her hands. When the liquid touches her skin, she gasps. Mudd assures her it’s a mild side effect as he props her up like a buddy propping up a drunk at the pub. Within moments, however, she manages to shake off the sick feeling and order Mudd back to the brig. Once again, the animators give Harry that weird, creepy, almost scary look as he mildly agrees with her, grinning evilly. Back to his cell he goes and she turns on the force field. As she’s leaving, Mudd advises her to find Spock before the potion wears off. Christine can’t get out of there fast enough. The moment she’s gone, however, Mudd pulls out a neat little device which disables the force field and allows him to sneak about the ship, causing mayhem and destruction.
In Spock’s quarters, Nurse Chapel says she has the summary of the arrest report that he’d ask for. Handing it to him is the perfect excuse to touch him too… and she accidentally falls into his lap, apologizing. Spock, ever the logical Vulcan, asks her if she’s feeling alright. Oh she’s feeling juuust fine, Spock. Juuuust fine. Mrrow.. she can’t wait to get her claws into him. Chapel asks Spock if HE’S feeling ok and he’s like “Yeah. Why?”. No reason… no reason at all. Unless there’s something else… he REALLY wants to get to that arrest summary report. Chapel stays perched on his lap however, looking disappointed. She asks him if he wants her to stay to help him. But staying would be… illogical. She’s really upset, tells him that yeah, her staying around would be downright stupid and stomps off. There’s a close-up on Spock raising an eyebrow in confusion, almost as if to say “Silly humans… I will never understand them.”
Outside Spock’s quarters however, Nurse Chapel is cursing Mudd for the lying cheating scoundrel that he is. But when she goes back to yell at him, he’s gone. She also realizes that her ID card is missing… Harry appropriated it and has zapped her face off it, replacing the image with his own. Using her card, he lets himself into the shuttle bay and giggles like a kid in a candy store. Ha ha! He needs a ship and there are several here… ripe for the plucking.
Back in his quarters, Spock is making some sort of a log entry, stating that the arrest report had some stuff added to it by Nurse Chapel. Something is definitely not right, however. Spock starts going on about Christine’s sweet, sweet… summary. It looks like the love potion DOES work on Vulcans after all. This is going to be interesting, that’s for sure. Whenever Spock starts acting emotionally, it’s always entertaining. Right now he’s looking like a weed-fiend, stoned to the gills and grinning like an idiot, babbling on about dear, sweet Christine. At least for a moment or two. He seems to get a hold of himself, shaking off the drug’s effects.
Down in the shuttle bay, Christine karate chops Mudd from behind, knocking him to the ground and he drops her ID card which she then retrieves. She pulls out a phaser and points it at Mudd, who is starting to look panicked and angry.
Back on the bridge, however, things are seemingly normal. Well, as normal as you get in outer space, anyway. Spock tries to get the captain and Dr. McCoy’s attention, saying he wishes to report a number of strange emotions. Looks like he wasn’t able to fully shake off the drug’s effects after all and his voice is contorted, odd-sounding. Like he’s confused and really uncomfortable with the way he’s feeling right now. Both Bones and Kirk are like, “Whaaaaat?”
Now we go back to the shuttle bay, where Nurse Chapel still has Mudd held at bay with her phaser (which looks like nothing more than a woman’s electric razor, if you ask me). Mudd says it’s not possible the potion didn’t work… it ALWAYS works. Except when it doesn’t. But it usually does. And it should have worked on Spock. Vulcans are, by nature, very cold and it probably just took a little more time. He suggests she go find Spock… now. But Chapel’s having absolutely none of it. This is shit up with which she will not put… Harry Mudd is a fraud and she can’t believe she was so stupid as to be tricked into thinking that he was giving her a magic love potion.
Mudd urges her to put down the phaser, to not be so damned hasty. He wants to discuss things calmly and rationally. Oh, don’t worry, Christine tells him. I won’t kill you… I’ll just knock you on your ass a bit. She orders him to activate the comm system and Harry tries to back track, saying the crystal he gave her must have been defective somehow. Maybe she should try another one? But that’s it… she’s not having any of this and she attempts to stun him. In a surprising burst of grace and athleticism, he beats a hasty retreat as she activates the red alarm. Somehow, he manages to use her own phaser to stun her, saying he’s REALLY sorry but he needs a hostage.
Up on the bridge, Mr. Arex tells Kirk the blaring is because somebody has tripped an internal security alarm in the shuttle bay. Kirk tells him to put it up on the screen. Spock is surprised to see that it’s Mudd and that he has Nurse Chapel, his beloved. She’s in danger. He MUST go after her. Cue the entire bridge looking at Spock like “WTF?” and Arex lets out a long, low whistle. Mudd steals a shuttlecraft and Kirk surmises he’s headed down to the planet. Spock’s mad. You can almost see him pouting and stomping his foot like an angry toddler as he shouts “NO! Not with MY Christine!”
In the shuttlepod, Mudd tells Chapel to relax, he’ll stash her somewhere safe before he takes off, going on the lam. On the bridge, Spock insists that he needs to lead a landing party to go after them. McCoy tells him that’s not medically advisable, seeing as Spock is definitely not himself. But dammit… Spock wants to go, and he wants to go NOW. The entire bridge crew stares on as Spock rants about how he can’t stand the thought of his woman in danger. He goes on and on about how he wants to hold her and kiss her and squeeze her and call her George. All I wanted to do was laugh, because the way Nimoy voice-acted it is so over-the-top. It sounds downright ridiculous!
Kirk says fine, but he’s not going down there without backup so he’s coming along. Spock says “Fine!” and storms off like a knight setting out to rescue a damsel in distress. Bones asks if it’s wise to let him do this, and Kirk more or less shrugs, like “You gonna stop him? ‘Cuz I ain’t.” Scotty is shocked that Spock is in love, and M’Ress, with a furrowed brow, says she simply can’t imagine it. She wrinkles her nose, sniffing. Something is coming out of the air vents. This can’t be good. Scotty sighs and murmurs, “Ah…love.” I wonder what that’s all about?
In the transporter room, Spock is growing visibly annoyed as he barks at the engineer to hurry up already, dammit. His woman is in trouble and he needs to get to her. NOW! Bones breaks in saying that a search party found two of Mudd’s crystals in the shuttlecraft bay. Now we know what’s wrong with Spock… he’s been poisoned with Harry’s Love Potion #9. Bones also reports that some of the crystals were smashed against a grate which covered a tube connected to the ship’s air system. Kirk says it’s a good thing they don’t work, but Bones isn’t so sure. And here comes the love-struck Scotty, acting totally punch-drunk on the big L. But Kirk doesn’t have time for this… Spock is insistent they beam over to the shuttlecraft RIGHT NOW. He tells McCoy to check it out while they’re gone.
On the bridge, M’ress relays the coordinates of where Mudd landed on the surface to the transporter room, where Spock and Kirk are beaming down. There’s something strange about her voice… has she been zapped by the love potion that got shoved into the air supply system too? Scotty makes a horrible joke about the captain, Mr. Spock and transporters. Ha ha ha. Like it’s the funniest thing in the world. M’ress laughs at his bad joke and tells him he’s funny. I get the feeling she’s got the hots for him, thanks to the love drug. As she puts her hands on his shoulders like she’s about to kiss him, Scotty just looks on with that goofy, goo-goo eyed look on his face. Like he wouldn’t say no if she kissed him and asked him back to her quarters for a little time at the ol’ scratching post. Prrrp!
On the planet, Mudd is reassuring Chapel that she’ll be found soon enough. She’ll be totally safe and he’s gonna be so far gone that Kirk won’t be able to catch up to him. Christine is doubtful but Mudd reminds her there is always a way, if you’re desperate enough and clever enough. He starts monologing…somebody wake me when it’s over.
Bum bum bum…cue the dramatic music as the camera pans over the scenery and suddenly, what looked like a lump of rock suddenly grows an eyeball. It seems there is life on this planet after all. And it probably wants to kill and eat the humans.
The love potion is still wafting out through the air vents, causing everybody on the bridge to be in a REALLY good mood. Everybody has goofy looks on their faces and Arex is playing some sort of an instrument that looks vaguely like a guitar, and singing. Loudly. He asks, almost as an aside, if anybody is keeping an eye on the captain and Spock. I get the feeling nobody gives a damn… they’re all too zonked on the love drug. But apparently M’Ress is, and she hits a button, activating a view screen above her head (incidentally…I noticed her hands are more like paws. I’d have thought they’d be more like human hands, though).
Planetside, Spock sinks into the surface and nearly topples over backwards. Kirk grabs him and is rewarded with a strange smile as Spock thanks him, calling him by his nickname “Jim”. He’s SO happy to have such a SPECIAL friend, and Kirk feels the same way. Clearly, the love potion works on him too but in a different way. There’s always been a sort of bromance going on between these two, after all. They put their arms around each other and I half-expected them to start kissing but no… they go after Mudd and Christine instead.
More dramatic music as the rock monster looks left, then right, then left again (I suppose even the aliens aren’t immune to the dreaded eye-waving). Mudd leans out of the shuttle pod, looking menacing, just as the ground starts to shake and he falls over. The source of the shaking is the rock monster, which now lifts itself up, snake like. It waves it’s stubby, clawed arms at them in a threatening manner and growls. Christine, who seems to have recovered from her fall, just looks at Mudd like “Dude. You so deserve this.” The rock monster tries to smash the shuttle craft and we see a shadow which I suppose is Mudd dashing across the landscape, followed by a smaller shadow I assume is supposed to be Christine.
The rock monster is coming after them… it wants to kill and eat them. Mudd and Christine stand there, looking shocked and horrified, as if they’d just seen their lives flash before their eyes. Kirk and Spock, some distance away, can only stand there and stare. Spock decides he doesn’t just want to stare… he wants to DO something, so he takes off in Mudd and Christine’s direction.
The rock monster hurls the remains of the shuttle pod at them, and Mudd and Christine duck just in time to avoid being smashed flat. Mudd tries to stun it, but that only makes the creature mad. Spock and Kirk add their phaser power to Mudd’s but it doesn’t seem to do much good. It’s just making the creature madder and when he whips his tail, he wakes up another rock creature (this one resembling an alligator or crocodile of sorts) who roars, thrashing back and forth. Spock grabs Christine, calls her darling and asks if she’s alright. Chapel is stunned… darling? What does he mean ‘darling”? This is everything she ever wanted and now that she has it, I don’t think it’s exactly what she thought it would be. Kirk orders the transporter room to beam them up, NOW, before the rock creatures come after them. But the transporter engineer is busy romancing a female crewman, dancing around the transporter room to some groovy music.
The rock creatures are REALLY annoyed and roar and thrash, causing the ground to quake. Harry Mudd looks positively terrified, while Spock clutches at Christine. He assures her she’ll be safe when the creatures start to move towards them. She smiles and sighs, “Oh yes, Spock,” like she’s finally figured out what’s going on.
“DUDE! SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!” wails Mudd. The creatures are getting closer and closer, and they want to eat the humans. The quartet flees, their shadows dashing across the landscape and behind some rocks. Or at least, they LOOK like rocks… the way the monsters did prior to waking up, anyway. Kirk calls for another emergency beam up, demanding somebody – ANYBODY! – get on the line NOW. But there is no response, and Kirk seems pissed that Spock can’t seem to keep his hands off Nurse Chapel. This is no time for romance… they’re going to be eaten by the rock monsters if somebody doesn’t DO something. Spock growls back that it’s none of the captain’s business ,and Christine begs them not to fight. Spock calls Kirk “Jim”, and then pauses.
“No… Captain,” he says, as if the logical part of his brain is finally starting to come back online and shut down his emotions once again. He says their reactions are only because of the drug and they might fight it. Mudd seems surprised that it actually worked. Kirk agrees they have to try and control their emotions or they aren’t going to get out of this mess. Nurse Christine is visibly upset and Spock cradles her to him in a romantic gesture.
Up on the ship, a love fest is in full swing. McCoy is sitting on a bench with a lovely red-dressed crew woman on his lap, telling her some sort of story. The crew woman can’t resist him… to her, he’s hot stuff. I hope the potion wears off soon, because all this love is starting to make me sick. Kirk wants to know some answers, but Harry admits he doesn’t really know. According to the people he’s already swindled, it shouldn’t last that long though. But this is no time for talking… the rock monsters are getting closer and they look like they’re ready for human steaks, cooked so rare they’re bloody.
Kirk decides to try to contact the Enterprise again, even though he hasn’t had much success up to this point. He suggests everyone tries to distract the monsters, and Spock, in a fit of pique, says that is a really, REALLY dumb idea. It’s not just dumb… it’s outstandingly stupid, according to him. Then he apologizes… it was the drug talking, not him. Sure.
Suddenly Kirk gets an awesome idea. Let’s throw the remaining two crystals at the rock monsters and see what happens. Harry is shocked the captain would suggest such a thing… after all, they’re worth a fortune. But he relents, given that the monsters are about to chomp on them and swallow them whole. The bridge crew is finally starting to feel the effects of the post-drug hangover, especially Scotty who complains about how much his head hurts. M’Ress growls that he’s talking too loud, and Scotty says he doesn’t like her much either, so there! Over the comm system, you can hear Chapel’s voice begging for an immediate beam up. Kirk says he hopes they last long enough to have something left of them to beam up, and he orders the guys to have their phasers at the ready.
As Spock and Mudd shoot at the creatures, Kirk dashes in and tosses the crystals into the open maw of the nearest rock monster, who shuts his (her?) mouth with a snap. Just as he’s about to crush Kirk like a bug, it stops. Apparently the love potion works on rock monsters as well as humans. Kirk gives a knowing, boyish grin as the monsters go after each other instead of the landing party. They’re beamed back to the Enterprise and all is well. Except for Harry Mudd, who seems to be confessing his crimes as Christine records him with a tricorder. The door slides open and Spock asks if she needs any help. But she doesn’t want his help… not now, not ever. Spock soliloquizes that he had a few moments of love that ended in a few hours’ worth of hatred. It’s just not fair. I almost expect Spock to fall to his knees, clutch his hair and wail “WHY AM I ALLOOOONE?”. But he doesn’t… that would be too emotional and he’s fully back in control of his emotions again. Oh well… que sera sera, says Harry with a devilish grin.
This episode wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it was still pretty awful. Getting through it was quite a slog and I was glad when I finally finished and could put this article to bed. I’m nearly half way through the 22 episodes, which I’m assuming only get more ridiculous from here on out. I’m taking a break over the summer, dear readers, so I’ll see you in the fall for the rest of the series.
Have a good summer, everyone!
– GG
