Star Trek: The Animated Series: Mudd's Passion Rewatch
June 16, 2020 6:56 PM - Season 1, Episode 10 - Subscribe
Harry Mudd is back, this time swindling miners with a love potion.
Memory Alpha has a confession to make about this episode.
Background information
Story, script, and cast
This episode taught me two new words when I was a kid. There weren't a lot of other 6-year-olds saying "ineluctable" or "miching" back then (and there are probably even fewer now).
On rewatch, this feels like a pretty tight 22 minutes. The story is well-paced and doesn't feel like it suffers from the "would you like to have seen more" thinness of some of the earlier episodes.
I hadn't realized until this rewatch and research that the same writer was responsible for all of the early Mudd episodes.
One does wonder why Harry himself didn't fall in love with Christine as he caught her during her dizzy spell.
The image of Kirk and Spock, arms around each other, proclaiming each other their "dear friend" must have launched a thousand slashfics.
McCoy's definitely a player ("Now, let's talk about your heart, my dear"), and the Scotty/M'ress interplay is fun.
Memory Alpha has a confession to make about this episode.
Background information
Story, script, and cast
- This is a sequel to the Star Trek: The Original Series episodes "Mudd's Women" and "I, Mudd", both of which also feature the character of Harry Mudd and were written by Stephen Kandel, who additionally wrote the story for an ultimately undeveloped third Harry Mudd installment for TOS, entitled "Deep Mudd". He found the process of arranging to write this episode for Star Trek: The Animated Series was fairly easy. "Dorothy Fontana just called me for a script," he said. "It was as simple as that." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 98)
- Along with Mark Lenard (Sarek) and Stanley Adams (Cyrano Jones), Roger C. Carmel (Harry Mudd) is one of only three actors, besides the regulars, to play the same character on both this series and Star Trek: The Original Series.
- This episode would represent Harry Mudd's final canonical appearance for almost 44 years until the release of the Discovery episode "Choose Your Pain" in October of 2017.
- This is also the last episode to feature the Chapel-Spock relationship previously seen in several TOS episodes, notably "The Naked Time" and "Plato's Stepchildren".
This episode taught me two new words when I was a kid. There weren't a lot of other 6-year-olds saying "ineluctable" or "miching" back then (and there are probably even fewer now).
On rewatch, this feels like a pretty tight 22 minutes. The story is well-paced and doesn't feel like it suffers from the "would you like to have seen more" thinness of some of the earlier episodes.
I hadn't realized until this rewatch and research that the same writer was responsible for all of the early Mudd episodes.
One does wonder why Harry himself didn't fall in love with Christine as he caught her during her dizzy spell.
The image of Kirk and Spock, arms around each other, proclaiming each other their "dear friend" must have launched a thousand slashfics.
McCoy's definitely a player ("Now, let's talk about your heart, my dear"), and the Scotty/M'ress interplay is fun.
Yeah, Mudd got played up as this naughty rogue a bit in the fandom (at least as I perceived it) when, as an adult, you realize that he's about the sleaziest character in the whole franchise. Even Rick and Morty's love potion episode, "Rick Potion #9", called out the date-rapiness of the basic concept (as well as had deep existential consequences for Morty, at least), which doesn't really get called out here. But the rock creatures having some enchanted evening helps a bit.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:26 PM on June 16, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:26 PM on June 16, 2020 [2 favorites]
Oh, and also the enforced heterosexuality of the concept seemed a bit... panicky.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:40 PM on June 16, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:40 PM on June 16, 2020 [2 favorites]
If you're into this show, you really must check out these trippy fan videos of "sequel" episodes done in the style of TAS. I'm not saying you'll want to watch them all but you've got to try one at least. The visual fidelity is pretty amazing and I applaud his dorky passion, but I wish he'd get a better mic. Since the last time I watched one it seems he's gotten an actress to play the female roles, and her performance may be kind of stiff but at least it's better than when he used to do it himself using a sped-up South Park-y voice.
AFAIK nobody has tried to take the audio from the TAS episodes and create a more lavishly animated show. That's kind of surprising. Like, how is that not a fan project already?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:54 AM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
AFAIK nobody has tried to take the audio from the TAS episodes and create a more lavishly animated show. That's kind of surprising. Like, how is that not a fan project already?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:54 AM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Well, there's been at least one fan-made animation series in this style. As far as making it better, I'm guessing that even modern animation with a lot of computer-mediated elements is simply too expensive and/or labor-intensive to be practical for a fan project. (Remember that the fallout from the crowdsourced Axanar debacle was that CBS put limits on what it would allow in terms of fan films; this pretty much killed any further crowdsourcing or commercialization of fan films.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:47 AM on June 17, 2020
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:47 AM on June 17, 2020
I definitely noticed that the editing was not just tighter, but more comedically deft. I think I genuinely LOL'ed two or three times, and in each case it was due largely to timing. Kirk had a couple of great reactions here. I wonder too if these actors are starting to settle in to voice acting more, because a lot of the line reads felt less stiff.
I also appreciated the more-or-less redemptive ending. An almost TNG-ish ending.
This episode taught me two new words when I was a kid. There weren't a lot of other 6-year-olds saying "ineluctable" or "miching" back then (and there are probably even fewer now).
This post taught me the word "miching"!
One does wonder why Harry himself didn't fall in love with Christine as he caught her during her dizzy spell.
I'd guess that for the past few years he's been building up an immunity to Siriux IX crystals.
McCoy's definitely a player ("Now, let's talk about your heart, my dear")
This supports Emony Dax's impression of him.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 6:34 AM on June 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
I also appreciated the more-or-less redemptive ending. An almost TNG-ish ending.
This episode taught me two new words when I was a kid. There weren't a lot of other 6-year-olds saying "ineluctable" or "miching" back then (and there are probably even fewer now).
This post taught me the word "miching"!
One does wonder why Harry himself didn't fall in love with Christine as he caught her during her dizzy spell.
I'd guess that for the past few years he's been building up an immunity to Siriux IX crystals.
McCoy's definitely a player ("Now, let's talk about your heart, my dear")
This supports Emony Dax's impression of him.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 6:34 AM on June 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
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Less launched- more sustained. You're very right about how tight this one was- very well plotted and paced. The only not great thing is the thing that's not great in pretty much all Mudd appearances which is the ICK ICK ICK factor of what he's doing when you think about it too hard. But- that's just Mudd.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 7:39 PM on June 16, 2020 [2 favorites]