The episode wastes no time in letting us know it's a comedy since Spock's snark about beads and rattles is even more humiliating than 90% of the season 3 dialogue accorded the character.
The use of stunt double for Norman, or "Normie" if the ship was ran by Maxwell Smart, is unintentionally hilarious - especially in Engineering as he's dawdling about.
Upon Kirk's asking "Who and what are we?" to him, Norman promptly undresses to flash his synthetic navel, which somehow made it past the censors who - in 1967 - always went bottoms up nutters whenever the belly button was shown. It doesn't help that the TOS-R CGI shows the ultimate bluetooth panel therein.
Of all people to ask Mudd why there aren't nearly as male androids, it's Kirk. As we see female androids knocking down crewmembers as if they're made out of paper, there's no real need for Mudd to have them at all... unless...
we consider Chekov's belittling of him with "That unprincipled, evil-minded, lecherous kulak Harry Mudd programmed you?" in an emotionally despondent, whiny, incel-inspired tirade over his (then-mistaken) belief that the androids he's apparently lusting over aren't "real girls". Erm, not "real women"? But if a bunch of sex robots turns him on to the point that he states "This place is even better than Leningrad." (a city that changed its name to St Petersburg but might change it back before the 23rd century arrives), just how great is-- oh good grief, I'm thinking into things I'm thinking into about too much into things about... whatever any of that means. If nothing else, until 1987, no single moment in TREK history was as awkwardly bizarre as that scene.
Spock has a field day asking Norman questions at his console, which has a very oddly shaped passively (lit from beneath) thing glowing in front of him as he caresses it. No worries, the console sans kinky part has been reused in a dozen or more episodes but it's the oddly shaped glowing thing that piqued my interested. It's obvious they all have their wi-fi mojo going so why do they need anything requiring tactile response?
It turns out, these androids, who killed their creators for a larf, know enough of human biochemistry to plop any ol' humanoid brain into their beryllium-titanium alloy with self-renewing plastic shell (based on the comedy in this script, I can only surmise they run off of corn oil and tons of it.) Uhura is quick to want a shell in her image (which also sets the stage for "And The Children Shall Lead" where they use Uhura's fear of aging against her, where she also imagines the mirror (which is part of the mental terrorizing from the kids, the mirror was never there in any other scene but that's another story.))
Scotty too gets lulled by the best circuit lab in the universe. Given other episodes that do the typically lame "I'm Scottish, give me that Scotch and watch me slosh it in my mouth before I act sloshed!" routine, it's rather nice to see Scotty's love of tinkering be at the forefront for a change. Which reminds me, I need to pick up some Laphroaig and Red Bull...
Most commercial break recaps are nicely handled, not feeling like they're breaking the 4th wall the way 60s television often did. Apart from when the audience is pretty much told that until (now) the proceedings were silly and it's time to get serious, as if the audience couldn't figure it out otherwise. Ruddy fourth walls...
Why would the androids not confiscate or smash the tricorder, medicine vials, and other goodies McCoy and the rest had on their persons?
Stella is a riot, chastising her sot Harcourt for all he's worth. The biggest downer is that her hair is intentionally made up campy for cheap laughs and that outfit is an obvious reject from a live action Betty Rubble/Flintstones high school stage play. Add in 1950s style incidental music and the stereotype marriage jokes are complete. The lamest part is that Harry felt harried enough to have one of her whipped up to make him feel harried with anyway. If that doesn't prove the over the top mustache twirling villain with twirled mustache doesn't have issues, then what does. And Roger C Carmel simply nails Mudd so perfectly that every episode could be just as spastic as this one and he'd make it all the better just by being there having a field day. Carmel is simply irreplaceable as Mudd.
Actually, all the androids are entertaining. The lines of unison delivery are perfect, and the f/x imposed where just having identical twins alone wasn't sufficient, were done extremely well. It's also logical that they respect Spock more than the others. But who wouldn't?
Here's a fun plot point: The glowing numeric badges were cleverly done considering the comparatively primitive technology of the time, with hidden wires behind the necklace.
Another plot point really stood out - the androids killed their creators. Is an obvious influence on the Battlestar Galactica 2004 reimagining and, of course, The Orville's Kaylon AI species. Unlike the neo-Cylons, the Kaylon wanted to understand biologics across the galaxy. But to kill them, not subdue them to let them have happy lives by being serviced. Norman and/or Alice 247 could serv-- anyway, it's this plot aspect about a rather clever way to control humankind - teleplay by Stephen Kandel (of Wonder Woman fame, where his humor is a lot more subdued) from a story penned by Gene Roddenberry himself that makes me wonder what other inspirations and influences he may have had. If any, it's easy to see how this episode loosely inspired TNG's "The Game" where the crew are taken over by - oh heck, words can't explain it and thankfully someone made a video about it. Wanna see it? It's not mine so you'll like it:
(Riker probably wished he got Spaceherp Type 47 instead of a discount VISOR, but I digress...)
As usual for TOS involving a maniacal bonkers computer system to be defeated, Kirk's also the one who gets to say the usual low hanging fruit of "let's throw heaps of illogic at it, then watch in adoration as it goes nuts and explodes." like how he did with Landru, Nomad, M5, Redjac*, and a slew of other masses of printed circuit boards...
Spock seems way too certain that the androids can't have independent subprocessors (multitasking/symmetric multiprocessing was already "a thing" back in the day, if memory serves the first multitasking paradigm was put into place in 1962... IBM, Burroughs, Sperry, UNIVAC, if not Cray, since the computer in "I, Mudd" is clearly, as the oh-so-2008 expression goes, "cray cray"... well, k, Cray supercomputers wasn't a thing until 1972 but it's all good...)
Yeah, the episode does start to get a little crackers with the mass display of illogic committed by the crew. But, heck, it's still fun as heck.
Worst of all, why didn't Mudd make a Jennifer series? You instinctively know he'd want Jenny 8675309...
In the end, fifty years goes a long way and this is one of those yo-yo episodes: On one viewing it's eminently enjoyable, then on a later viewing it's total suckage. Then it's fun again. Then one notices the shower curtains and sweatpants that don't leave too much to the imagination, but being androids that are said to lack any it's easy (and fun) to see why. It's an easy 8/10, for one reason if not another no matter how far up or down it is in the yo-yo cycle.
The use of stunt double for Norman, or "Normie" if the ship was ran by Maxwell Smart, is unintentionally hilarious - especially in Engineering as he's dawdling about.
Upon Kirk's asking "Who and what are we?" to him, Norman promptly undresses to flash his synthetic navel, which somehow made it past the censors who - in 1967 - always went bottoms up nutters whenever the belly button was shown. It doesn't help that the TOS-R CGI shows the ultimate bluetooth panel therein.
Of all people to ask Mudd why there aren't nearly as male androids, it's Kirk. As we see female androids knocking down crewmembers as if they're made out of paper, there's no real need for Mudd to have them at all... unless...
we consider Chekov's belittling of him with "That unprincipled, evil-minded, lecherous kulak Harry Mudd programmed you?" in an emotionally despondent, whiny, incel-inspired tirade over his (then-mistaken) belief that the androids he's apparently lusting over aren't "real girls". Erm, not "real women"? But if a bunch of sex robots turns him on to the point that he states "This place is even better than Leningrad." (a city that changed its name to St Petersburg but might change it back before the 23rd century arrives), just how great is-- oh good grief, I'm thinking into things I'm thinking into about too much into things about... whatever any of that means. If nothing else, until 1987, no single moment in TREK history was as awkwardly bizarre as that scene.
Spock has a field day asking Norman questions at his console, which has a very oddly shaped passively (lit from beneath) thing glowing in front of him as he caresses it. No worries, the console sans kinky part has been reused in a dozen or more episodes but it's the oddly shaped glowing thing that piqued my interested. It's obvious they all have their wi-fi mojo going so why do they need anything requiring tactile response?
It turns out, these androids, who killed their creators for a larf, know enough of human biochemistry to plop any ol' humanoid brain into their beryllium-titanium alloy with self-renewing plastic shell (based on the comedy in this script, I can only surmise they run off of corn oil and tons of it.) Uhura is quick to want a shell in her image (which also sets the stage for "And The Children Shall Lead" where they use Uhura's fear of aging against her, where she also imagines the mirror (which is part of the mental terrorizing from the kids, the mirror was never there in any other scene but that's another story.))
Scotty too gets lulled by the best circuit lab in the universe. Given other episodes that do the typically lame "I'm Scottish, give me that Scotch and watch me slosh it in my mouth before I act sloshed!" routine, it's rather nice to see Scotty's love of tinkering be at the forefront for a change. Which reminds me, I need to pick up some Laphroaig and Red Bull...
Most commercial break recaps are nicely handled, not feeling like they're breaking the 4th wall the way 60s television often did. Apart from when the audience is pretty much told that until (now) the proceedings were silly and it's time to get serious, as if the audience couldn't figure it out otherwise. Ruddy fourth walls...
Why would the androids not confiscate or smash the tricorder, medicine vials, and other goodies McCoy and the rest had on their persons?
Stella is a riot, chastising her sot Harcourt for all he's worth. The biggest downer is that her hair is intentionally made up campy for cheap laughs and that outfit is an obvious reject from a live action Betty Rubble/Flintstones high school stage play. Add in 1950s style incidental music and the stereotype marriage jokes are complete. The lamest part is that Harry felt harried enough to have one of her whipped up to make him feel harried with anyway. If that doesn't prove the over the top mustache twirling villain with twirled mustache doesn't have issues, then what does. And Roger C Carmel simply nails Mudd so perfectly that every episode could be just as spastic as this one and he'd make it all the better just by being there having a field day. Carmel is simply irreplaceable as Mudd.
Actually, all the androids are entertaining. The lines of unison delivery are perfect, and the f/x imposed where just having identical twins alone wasn't sufficient, were done extremely well. It's also logical that they respect Spock more than the others. But who wouldn't?
Here's a fun plot point: The glowing numeric badges were cleverly done considering the comparatively primitive technology of the time, with hidden wires behind the necklace.
Another plot point really stood out - the androids killed their creators. Is an obvious influence on the Battlestar Galactica 2004 reimagining and, of course, The Orville's Kaylon AI species. Unlike the neo-Cylons, the Kaylon wanted to understand biologics across the galaxy. But to kill them, not subdue them to let them have happy lives by being serviced. Norman and/or Alice 247 could serv-- anyway, it's this plot aspect about a rather clever way to control humankind - teleplay by Stephen Kandel (of Wonder Woman fame, where his humor is a lot more subdued) from a story penned by Gene Roddenberry himself that makes me wonder what other inspirations and influences he may have had. If any, it's easy to see how this episode loosely inspired TNG's "The Game" where the crew are taken over by - oh heck, words can't explain it and thankfully someone made a video about it. Wanna see it? It's not mine so you'll like it:
(Riker probably wished he got Spaceherp Type 47 instead of a discount VISOR, but I digress...)
As usual for TOS involving a maniacal bonkers computer system to be defeated, Kirk's also the one who gets to say the usual low hanging fruit of "let's throw heaps of illogic at it, then watch in adoration as it goes nuts and explodes." like how he did with Landru, Nomad, M5, Redjac*, and a slew of other masses of printed circuit boards...
* while stuck inside the Enterprise's computer, don't ask how the ship doesn't explode due to all processing time seizing up the input queue and main task handler and all other systems halted, including the matter/antimatter chamber and BOOM
Spock seems way too certain that the androids can't have independent subprocessors (multitasking/symmetric multiprocessing was already "a thing" back in the day, if memory serves the first multitasking paradigm was put into place in 1962... IBM, Burroughs, Sperry, UNIVAC, if not Cray, since the computer in "I, Mudd" is clearly, as the oh-so-2008 expression goes, "cray cray"... well, k, Cray supercomputers wasn't a thing until 1972 but it's all good...)
Yeah, the episode does start to get a little crackers with the mass display of illogic committed by the crew. But, heck, it's still fun as heck.
Worst of all, why didn't Mudd make a Jennifer series? You instinctively know he'd want Jenny 8675309...
In the end, fifty years goes a long way and this is one of those yo-yo episodes: On one viewing it's eminently enjoyable, then on a later viewing it's total suckage. Then it's fun again. Then one notices the shower curtains and sweatpants that don't leave too much to the imagination, but being androids that are said to lack any it's easy (and fun) to see why. It's an easy 8/10, for one reason if not another no matter how far up or down it is in the yo-yo cycle.
Really good stuff. I'll watch the TNG video later. 
Not when her brain is wiped clean by Nomad and there's no elapsed time between episodes as every episode was so encapsulated... 
