79. I, Mudd

"We meet again, Kirk. Remember me? I'm the comic relief!" — Harry F'n. Mudd

I, Mudd, The Original Series, Season 2, Episode 8

Much like my review of ‘The Enemy Within,’ I’m really going to attempt to look at this episode through the lens of when it was made, what its intent is, and what they’re trying to say with it. But I’m not sure how successful I'm going to be with that. Because, damn, this episode it completely effing nuts. For the record, that's nuts not in a way that I enjoyed.

Much like the androids who sought to overthrow the galaxy, I just can’t process this episode. I just… I just can’t. It hurts my robot brain. What I find frustrating about that is, the premise of this episode is damned terrifying. The concept of unstoppable, immortal robots who seek to supplement humanity as a step towards galactic conquest is a threat as large as any crew in Star Trek has faced. The cold open involves an android taking control of the Enterprise and delivering the crew to his home planet. He does this having infiltrated the crew, passed as human for weeks, and rigged the ship to blow itself to bits if the crew interfered with its plan. But when the ship arrives as its destination, the crew is beamed down to face hundreds of thousands of the androids.

"You. Know. I. Am. Dane. Jer. Us. Be. Hold. My. Ro. Bot. Guts." — Evil Android Norman

And one Harcourt Fenton Mudd.

And his space-handlebar mustache.

From there the adventure takes a turn for the absurd as Mudd, the ne'er-do-well space swindler that the crew had faced before. Mudd's a fan-favorite, but I don't get him. The characterization and appearance is over-the-top, scenery-chewing, wtf-is-happening and oddly out of place in the Star Trek universe. All he does for me is heighten the stylized nature of the show. While Mudd's appearance should provide a counterbalance to the dangerous nature of the threat, all it does is work to undermine it. The second Mudd appears on screen, all real danger gets thrown out the window. Kirk goes from concern to amused. The situation degenerates quickly from oh-shit-we're-all-going-to-die to oh-for-the-love-of...

Mudd prances around declaring himself Emperor, and even has a robot version of his cartoonish shrew ex-wife he can boss around, who's played with subtlety worthy of the Flintstones. The robots try to please their new human masters by provideing them with their heart's desires. Scotty gets a workshop. Checkov gets vomen to manhandle. McCoy gets an advanced medical bay. Uhura is tempted by immortal beauty in a way that is not in the slightest way horribly sexist.*

Everyone is given what they want except Kirk, who just wants to boss people around. And denied of that, he decides to ruin everyone else's fun. Kirk is really only happy when Kirk's in charge. I'm kidding, of course. Not even Kirk is that shallow. Shatner maybe, but not Kirk. The Captain sees the android planet for what it is, a prison. A nice prison, and one with very nice toys, but still a prison. Kirk knows he can't take on the androids head-on, so they devise another plan. One that does not compute.

Not in the slightest.

They defeat the machines with silliness. Bonkers, Laugh-in-style nonsense is how they define humanity for the robots in hopes that it'll overload the androids logic circuits. It’s a completely bananas plan. And it goes on forever. Like, way beyond what could be expected for either the androids or the audience to stand. The crew speak contradictions, dance to no music, profess love and hate at the same time and confuse the androids (and me) into submission. Seriously, this could not —not — end fast enough.

"You can danze iv you vant to. You can leave your friendz behind!" — Ensign Checkov

Now's the part of the review where I say something nice about the episode. All I can really think of is that it's over and I never have to watch it again. It's too harsh to say I hated this episode, but, lord, I did not enjoy it.

Yet, this episode is inarguably iconic. So much so that the premise that robots can be defeated by paradoxes and illogic has permeated everything from Futurama** and Portal 2.*** It's now a much-used trope of science fiction. Even if someone has never seen Star Trek, they probably know about this episode. If they don't, they probably know. That. Ro. Bots. Talk. Like. This.†

So, who am I to argue with history?

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Up next, Beverly Crusher is at the center of a mystery in Remember Me.

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*I lied, it is. 

** In all fairness, there’s not much in science fiction that Futurama hasn’t hit upon, but the point is, this episode is preposterously famous.

*** Portal 2 a thing that I love, btw. 

† But, meh, so does Shatner. 

#93 Future's End, Voyager, Season 3, Episodes 8 & 9

This is where I take a beat to remind everyone reading that this is not my list of the Top 100 Trek Episodes of All Time. This exercise for me is a chance (an excuse, really) to examine a brand I love and revisit some great moments of science fiction television. So, not my list. I say this because I would have never...

Neh-vher...

...Put the two-part  'Future's End' on any list of anything other than Top 100 things I don't ever need to see again. The Voyager crew travels back in the past to the 1990s to stop a catastrophe in the 29th century and... Because... Ed Begley, Jr.? There's a time paradox and a ship from Voyager's future and the crew dresses all 90s and... Ugh...

Trek is known for its comedic episodes. And this one, well, falls flat. There's a lot of forced attempts at humor in this episode. Neelix watches tabloid tv! Voyager is an UFO on the news! Ed Begley, Jr. is a villain! Janeway wears a pantsuit with giant, giant shoulder pads! The crazy homeless guy who claims to be from the future is actually from the future! Tuvok wears a hat!

"This hat hides both my alien heritage and my dignity." — Tuvok

We even lose some of the time-travel-fish-out-of-water shenanigans because Tom Paris is supposedly an expert on 20th century. And, for all that seems to be be going on with the future time ship, stealing technology from the future, trying to stop the paradox, Tom's romance with an astrophysicist...

Hold up.

Is that...?

Holy crap, that's Sarah Silverman. Mind... blown...

Okay, I digress. For all that's going on, they're seemingly spread too little episode over too much time. It's so thin, that they throw in some survivalists/government conspiracists at the end of the second episode to hold Chakotay and B'Elanna hostage seemingly to just run out the clock and provide a modicum of action. Hacker Begley, Jr.'s main threat to Voyager is taking over their computer so there was a lot of evil typing while grinning maniacally.

Silverman's character, Rain Robinson, is an astrophysicist working for Ed Begley's Harry Starling and is not having any of Tuvok's and Tom's shenanigans. She sees right through their attempts to be 90s. She calls out their odd behavior and isn't fooled by Tuvok's hat covering his ears. She's surrounded by spacemen, aliens, holograms, starships and takes it all in stride. She's written smart and it's refreshing to have someone call bullshit on the things going on around her. If there's one thing that works in this episode, it's one of the icons of the alternative comedy movement playing it straight. A feat of cosmic irony, which I calculate as making zero-point-zero sense.

Silverman makes zero filthy jokes in these episodes. What's wrong with the universe?  

According to rumor, Silverman was considered to be made a series regular, joining the crew. And one can't help but wonder what direction the show might have taken if she had been part of the retooling of Voyager and not Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One. Fewer formfitting silver catsuits, probably, but we'll never know for sure.

Speaking of casting against type, Ed Begley, Jr. plays a billionaire mogul driven to steal technological advancements from the future at any cost so he can sell them for even more billions! He's selfish, destructive, and sociopathic, and carries about as much weight as a substitute chemistry teacher. If I've noticed anything in episodes that I've not really connected with is a villain who's non-threatening or miscast (I'm looking at you Kivas Fajo).

And in complete trekkie nitpickery, there's not one single mention of the Eugenics War that was supposed to be happening on earth at the time of this episode. Not even an obligatory 'historical records must have been off by a few decades' or 'the timeline's been altered.' Come on, Trek! 

Now, it's time to say something nice. These episodes provides the show with an excuse to let the Doctor out of sickbay with a piece of technobabble from the 29th century. Something that the show will play with throughout the remainder of the series. The Doctor, as always, is fun.

Trek in all of its iterations has its ups and downs. What surprises me is how well this episode is rated.   The reviews are generally positive, citing both Begley and the time travel bits as clever. I'm here to offer the counter argument, I guess. This one was just not for me.

Sorry, Sarah.

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Next up, it's back to Deep Space Nine with the Magnificent Ferengi.