{"id":4881,"date":"2017-04-19T17:54:16","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T00:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=4881"},"modified":"2020-10-18T11:46:35","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:46:35","slug":"fine-evie-fine-tos-mudds-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2017\/04\/19\/fine-evie-fine-tos-mudds-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Fine, Evie, Fine: TOS \u201cMudd\u2019s Women\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Enterprise rescues the crew of a rogue spaceship and deals with Harry Mudd, whose scheme is to sell women to lonely miners on distant planets.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net\/memoryalpha\/images\/0\/05\/Harcourt_Fenton_Mudd%2C_2266.jpg\/revision\/latest\/scale-to-width-down\/350?cb=20130221170711&amp;path-prefix=en\" align=\"middle\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As the story begins the Enterprise pursues renegade ship, Harry Mudd&#8217;s. In the enhanced graphics, we see a spaceship, complete with nacelles, whereas in the original series, the ship was a blob.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Trek physics<\/strong>: the astronomy is dicey. The Enterprise is pursuing this smaller ship, and someone comments that they\u2019re entering an asteroid belt. Really? Are they in a planetary system? You wouldn\u2019t come across an asteroid belt out in interstellar space. But they do, so the plot can cause the destruction of the smaller ship and the Enterprise\u2019s rescue of its crew.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Enterprise mechanics<\/strong>: now the crucial items are the \u201clithium crystal circuits\u201d which burn out, one by one, as the ship over-extends its power to shield the renegade ship. In another episode, the concern is about the matter\/anti-matter mix. Are these related? I\u2019m sure the fans rationalized these later, and maybe the producers had some relationship in mind in the series&#8217; &#8216;bible&#8217;, but seeing these early episodes just gives the appearance that these ideas were made up by separate writers without any overall guidance.<\/li>\n<li>Thematically, this episode is the most <strong>sexist and dated<\/strong> story in the entire series. The idea is that Harry Mudd, a lovable rogue type, is on his way to transport three beautiful women \u2013 who appear throughout most of the story in tight evening gowns \u2013 to find husbands. Because, you know, pioneering men out in space are lonely; and these women have no ambition in their lives other than to find a husband. Worse, when the women first appear on the ship, the male Enterprise crew members \u2013 McCoy and Scott, initially \u2013 seem hypnotized by this female beauty, as if their female crew members are, what, sexless, compared to these beauties? And so as the women arrive, and walk down the corridor, the composer, Fred Steiner, offers some swanky, hubba-hubba music.<\/li>\n<li>Mudd observes that Spock is part \u201cVulcanian\u201d, a term soon abandoned; Kirk\u2019s quarters are on deck 12, which doesn\u2019t make sense in terms of later schematics of the ship.<\/li>\n<li>OTOH, this episode features a four by two rising three then falling one <strong>theme<\/strong> that we hear over and over again, but in different instrumentations, being remarkably versatile to color a variety of different emotional situations.<\/li>\n<li>As they\u2019re down to one lithium crystal, they decide to head for Rigel XII, site of lithium miners, just \u2018two days\u2019 travel\u2019. I\u2019ve always thought Trek played <strong>fast and loose with real star names<\/strong>, using them for audience familiarity, without any regard for actual positions in the galaxy; I suspect if one plotted them out, the implied voyages of the Enterprise would make no more sense than stories about a Navy ship that visited Hawaii one week, London the next, and Antarctica the week after that.<\/li>\n<li>In the briefing room hearing scene, note the portrayal of the <strong>talking computer<\/strong>. The computer monitor displays a meaningless oscillating sine wave; the voice [by Majel Barrett] is underscored by teletyping sounds. This is a topic for how film and TV play &#8212; to this day, arguably, but especially 50 years ago &#8212; to intuitive, and wrong, ideas of how computers work; or more generally, how dramatic stories play to audience expectations, rarely, even in SF, challenging them.<\/li>\n<li>Harry has a nice line, accused of being a menace to navigation: \u201cMy tiny little ship in this *immense* galaxy? A menace to nav\u2014?\u201c, he scoffs. He has a point.<\/li>\n<li>Then he mentions planet Ophiuchus Three. Ophiuchus is a constellation, not a particular star. Again, the writers and production staff are not too careful about <strong>astronomical nomenclature<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>And the women are always shown in <strong>soft focus<\/strong>, as in movies of the 1940s.<\/li>\n<li>Of the three women, Eve McHuron is the only one with any character\u2014she\u2019s frustrated by Mudd\u2019s promises and put off by his wheeling and dealing. Harry tries to mollify her: \u201cFine, Evie, Fine\u201d, and she fires back, \u201cNo it\u2019s *not* fine.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The episode has several interestingly shot scenes, as with Kirk and Eve speaking to each other through a decorative grate in his quarters.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Trek physics<\/strong>: the Enterprise arrives at Rigel XII, but its remaining crystal allows only a \u2018shaky\u2019 orbit for only 3 days and 7 hours. Huh? A later episode, \u201cCourt Martial\u201d, pulls this stunt too, implying that without power, the ship\u2019s orbit will decay. (And \u201cThe Naked Time\u201d implies that too.) No. Not unless they\u2019re in such a low orbit that the ship is skimming the atmosphere. Otherwise they\u2019re in space, in free fall, in endless motion without anything to hinder it. Just like the moon is, around the Earth.<\/li>\n<li>The enhanced graphics have a better shot of the miners\u2019 camp than the original.<\/li>\n<li>Another early Trek theme: a \u2018magnetic storm\u2019 affects the ship and planet.<\/li>\n<li>Plot point: why doesn\u2019t Childress, the head miner, having gotten his woman, comply with Kirk\u2019s command to provide lithium crystals? Perhaps because Eve, coughing from the dust storm, seems obviously unhealthy.<\/li>\n<li>Eve runs off; the Enterprise searches for her from orbit; Kirk and Mudd confront Childress and Eve in his quarters, and reveal to him the secret of the Venus Drugs \u2013 that which made the women so alluring. \u201cIt gives you more of what you have\u2026\u201d Mudd explains, offering masculine and feminine examples. Eve, having become worn down, gives in to Childress\u2019 desires and takes a pill, but crying out in pathos: <i>\u201cAnd I hope you remember it and dream about it! Because you can\u2019t have it! It\u2019s not real!!\u201d<\/i> For me this is the most memorable line of the episode.<\/li>\n<li>But then it turns out she\u2019s only *acting* beautiful; she was duped. Is this resolution plausible? I\u2019ve never been completely convinced.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, here\u2019s an early episode that undercuts its drama with a <strong>flip, comedic ending<\/strong>, not just one but two. Mudd, about throwing away the key; Spock and McCoy, about the former\u2019s internal anatomy. These endings became common especially in Season Two, and in retrospect, I find them annoying.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Adaptation by J.A. Lawrence in MUDD\u2019S ANGELS:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Another late, very literal, adaptation, with a few extra lines and scenes here or there that are plausible, as if scripted and not shot, or shot but edited out for time.<\/li>\n<li>Replaces \u2018Vulcanian\u2019 in the broadcast show by \u2018Vulcan\u2019<\/li>\n<li>Note they\u2019re just two days from Rigel.<\/li>\n<li>Adaptation says \u201con landing\u201d when the broadcast script said \u201con arrival\u201d. Had the adapters ever seen the show?<\/li>\n<li>P18, in between Ruth\u2019s visit to Dr. McCoy, and Eve\u2019s to Cpt Kirk, there\u2019s a short passage with no dialogue in which Magda listens to Farrell talking about the ship\u2019s communication system. (A plausible scene to have.)<\/li>\n<li>The scene in which Harry finds the pills and hands them out ends with\u2026Eve crushing hers and dropping the dust on the floor. In the broadcast episode, we see you holding the pill in her hand, but don\u2019t see her actually take it.<\/li>\n<li>On the planet, Childress\u2019 line about getting lost a dozen feet from your doorway follows a question from Eve, \u201cI understand there were originally four of you\u201d, and his response, \u201cCharley Shorr stepped out into <em>that<\/em> last month.\u201d (These are plausible scripted lines, setting up Eve\u2019s idea of escaping into the wind outside.)<\/li>\n<li>Then follow a couple brief exchanges between the other couples: Gossett about how his house is exactly the same; Benson about the clicking sounds from the wind vanes on the roof. (Again, plausible passages, likely cut for time.) Magda and Benson then dance to the rhythm of the clicking.<\/li>\n<li>Kirk\u2019s bit of philosophy after Eve\u2019s pill is revealed as a fake is, in the adaptation, \u201cThere\u2019s only one kind of desirable woman, Eve\u2014the one who knows she\u2019s Woman.\u201d As broadcast, Kirk said, \u201cThere\u2019s only one kind of woman\u201d and then Mudd said \u201cOr man for that matter\u201d and Kirk continues, \u201cYou either believe in yourself, or you don\u2019t.\u201d Better as broadcast.<\/li>\n<li>And it ends, with a word or two variation, with Spock\u2019s comment about his internal anatomy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Enterprise rescues the crew of a rogue spaceship and deals with Harry Mudd, whose scheme is to sell women to lonely miners on distant planets. As the story begins the Enterprise pursues renegade ship, Harry Mudd&#8217;s. 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