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I, Mudd - what a stinker

Delta Vega

Delta Vega

Commodore
Commodore
Watched this earlier and I was cringeing for the cast in this episode. I hate the Mudd character and his presence brings this episode down to a piss poor level.

Had never regarded it as one of Treks worst, until now, its awfulness had no bounds.


Sorry
 
Completely disagree with the OP. Yes, it's a silly episode, but that's not a negative. The 2nd season brought some much needed humor to the series and it was nice for an episode not to involve Kirk about to be killed or a planet about to be destroyed.

Some of the exchanges in the episode are fantastic.

"Typical Police Mentality. They've got no sense of humor, they arrested me!" Mudd says.

"Oh, I find that shocking," McCoy

"Worse than that, do you know what the penalty for fraud is on Deneb V?" Mudd

"The guilty party has his choice. Death by Electricution, Death by Gas, Death by Phaser, Death by Hanging." Spock

OF COURSE Spock knew that. :lol:

The way they win against the Androids is silly at the end, but again, it's a silly episode, so that's fine. I don't take this episode seriously, if you do, you're not gonna like it. Just enjoy the silly.
 
one of the best and funniest episodes of TOS, up there with "A piece of the action" and "trouble with tribbles."
 
Younger viewers more used to the ultra-reserve shown by the 24th century crews will find this episode cringe-making, I'm sure. Me, I respect their willingness to suspend their dignity for one episode, and get this ridiculous. I love non sequitur humor, and love seeing them all weirding out the androids with insane contradictions. Also, we get to see the show mocking itself a bit: they poke fun at the stories where Kirk chose hard work and struggle over "paradise", by having Scotty die of too much happiness (was it Scotty?), and they do a parody soliloquy about striving and suffering...
 
There are some genuine laughs in this episode, but there is absolutely no sense of menace from the androids. They are proposing to strand the crew, high-jack the ship and impose the caregiving ways onto an unsuspecting galaxy. If they had been more like Roger Corby's androids from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?' I might have bought it, but not as they're depicted here: as cartoons.

Despite the laughs I find this a rather poor episode.
 
I like this episode, too. Yes, it's played mostly for laughs, and I can understand how episodes like this could be annoying to fans who want every Trek episode to be serious and realistic. But even though I'll admit to generally preferring the more serious episodes myself, I do really like the variety TOS provided.
 
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LeadHead said:
...The 2nd season brought some much needed humor to the series and it was nice for an episode not to involve Kirk about to be killed or a planet about to be destroyed.
Click to expand...
Boy do I disagree with this. You can find humor in a situation without making the show a farce. I liked these episodes when I was a kid but I find them stunningly unfunny as an adult.
 
It is awful. Awful. And I am one of the Old Ones, not brought up on 24th c. stuff. I was brought up on Man Trap and Menagerie, Corbomite, Corby, and Kor.
 
Gary7 said:
You definitely can't take it seriously. It almost borders on a parody, like "Trouble with Tribbles", "A Piece of the Action", and "Plato's Stepchildren". (See Top 10 Funniest Star Trek TOS episodes).
Click to expand...

Can't take it seriously? It's a total, obvious, flat-out comedy episode!! Do you need a laugh track? As for "parody", I think you might mean "comedy", though I might be wrong. A "parody" has to be a parody OF something-- another show, say, or a show could even parody itself. (This ep does a little of that, as I said earlier.) "Parody" doesn't just mean a funny story. I've heard fans use the word that way. So, "I Mudd", a comedy with a hint of self-parody in it.
"Plato's Stepchildren" is a serious episode. The scenes that some people think are supposed to be funny are really meant to show Kirk and Spock being humiliated.
 
I love this episode. And I saw it, oh, a couple of months ago, too, so I'm not going on memory. I don't see anything cringe-worthy about it at all, unlike, say, "Paradise Syndrome." That's one I haven't seen in years and I truly loathe it with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns, but I've promised myself that when I get to it on my current tour through TOS, I will force myself to watch it one more time and see if I can see any of these strengths that other Trekkies, including some whose opinion I value, seem to find in it.

But I digress. One of the many things I loathe (with a white-hot heat, etc.) about "Paradise Syndrome" is that it is so bloody pretentious and takes itself sooOOOoooOOooo seriously. And TOS, much as I love it, had a tendency to take itself sooOOOoooOOooo seriously. But here with "I, Mudd" we have one of the few episodes in which Trek just goes out for fun. And why not? It's a TV show. Isn't it supposed to be fun?

And BTW, the fact that Mudd is such a self-serving, slimy, craven little con is one of the things I like about it. What a nice change from most of the humans we see on TOS, who, let's face it, are at times almost antiseptic in their purity.
 
JustKate said:
It's a TV show. Isn't it supposed to be fun?
Click to expand...

Nope. Fun stories are supposed to be fun, dramatic stories are supposed to be dramatic. Saying all TV should be fun is like saying all movies or all books should be fun. It's not just an entertainment box meant to divert and distract.
 
^ OK, allow me to amend my statement. "It's just a TV show. Isn't it supposed to be entertaining?" And BTW, good drama is entertaining as well. If you don't find "I, Mudd" entertaining, you don't. There's nothing you or I can do about it, and believe me, I honestly do believe you have a right to your opinon. What I absolutely reject is your premise that dramatic shows should always be dramatic. But fortunately, with TOS, you have a lot of that to choose from as well.
 
IDK - the scene between Kirk, and Spock where Harry Mudd explains how he got to the planet has always been one of my favorites.
 
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