Star Trek – The Original Series, Vol. 2, Episodes 4 & 5: Mudd’s Women/The Enemy Within
Nov/095
Description
“Mudd’s Women” (Ep.4): Conman Harry Mudd brokers the marriage of three beautiful women to a mining colony to escape Kirk. “The Enemy Within” (Ep.5): A transporter malfunction splits Kirk into good and evil entities.Amazon.com
This second volume of episodes on DVD from the original Star Trek includes the popular and sexy “Mudd’s Women,” which introduces the character of interstellar huckster and fugitive Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel, later to return in another classic episode, “I, Mudd”). The Enterprise beams aboard Harry and three beautiful and scantily clad women whom the con man is carrying as cargo. The transport damages the starship, forcing Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to take a detour to a mining world for a supply of dilithium crystals. Harry uses the women as bait to get the miners to help him flee from the authorities–but a revelation about his liberal use of an attraction-enhancement drug adds a twist to things. This clever and novel installment in the series grafted the unlikely element of a petty, colorful crook onto a science fiction show, an obvious forerunner of Deep Space Nine’s inclusion of Quark among its own major characters.
Also in this volume is another outstanding episode, “The Enemy Within.” Written by renowned novelist-screenwriter Richard Matheson (The Incredible Shrinking Man), the story proposes a transporter malfunction that results in Captain Kirk being divided into two versions of himself, one aggressive and brutal, the other sensitive and good. Essentially, the personality mix that makes Kirk an effective leader and balanced man is scattered like so many marbles, and the result is one captain running around mauling women and wreaking havoc while the other is frightened and indecisive. The production is very effectively done, and Shatner’s performance is among his most interesting. –Tom Keogh
Star Trek – The Original Series, Vol. 2, Episodes 4 & 5: Mudd’s Women/The Enemy Within
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5:58 pm on November 24th, 2009
I got this one as well as the other 4 TOS DVDs currently available, and we all know and love’em, don’t we. Cheesy as heck, naive to a fault, yet the excitement and sheer thrill of the series never falter.
Shatner never really could act his way out of a paper bag if he had to, Spocks lack of emotions is probably due to Nimoys relatively poor capabilites as an actor and who in their right mind would ever truly believe that Scotty was Scottish? Yet….the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and when the theme strikes up and that voice goes on about “startdate this” or “stardate that” we’re all ready to go along for the ride….
And of course, to replay our fave Star Trek game: Who’ll get the red shirt this time?
If you never liked Star Trek, there’s no point getting these, but if you did, you’ll be as thrilled as ever. Now all I want to know is when are they ever going to start releasing Next Gen, Voyager and DS9 on DVD?
Rating: 5 / 5
8:32 pm on November 24th, 2009
I loved re-discovering it again. But I gave the DVD 4 stars for the lack of Spanish in the dubbed/subtitled options. A huge portion of the U.S.A. is hispanic and I being married to one would enjoy this much more if my wife who speaks english as well as spanish could also enjoy it in spanish which of course she understands better. Please add more languages in the future releases.
Rating: 4 / 5
10:45 pm on November 24th, 2009
Mudd’s Women…Kirk beams up Harry Mudd & 3 ultra-sexy women who no man can seem to resist. But are they really that beautiful? Watch & find out.
The Enemy Within…Kirk is duplicated in a transporter accident. See Shatner portray Kirk’s “evil side” with absolute brilliance.
Rating: 5 / 5
11:17 pm on November 24th, 2009
Mudd’s women is probably one of the best episodes from the original series. Harry Mudd is the typical slimy salesman we all expected in that era.
Enemy Within is a little more hokey than most Episodes, and it is boring (to me) to watch it more than once a year, but it is a good plot (with now expected poor acting). The dog is cool though, as is the very frozen Sulu *one of the best one-liners in the series, “I don’t suppose you could lower a line with a pot of coffee”*. (it may be misquoted slightly as I really do hate watching this episode frequently).
Rating: 5 / 5
12:43 am on November 25th, 2009
Gene Roddenberry’s moralising continues on Vol 2 with 2 more great episodes. In “Mudd’s Women” we are introduced to the likeable villain Harry Mudd who tries to sell wives to lonely miners except that the women only keep their beauty with regular intake of pills. Why Harry doesn’t get normal girls to begin with isn’t explained but I suppose we’ll give them poetic license and get on to the overall moral which is to not judge a book by its cover and to seek out the beauty within. On “The Enemy Within”, the moral seems to be to accept that we all have good and bad parts of our personality but the secret to success and happiness is to control both impulses for good and evil to hopefully end up with a synergistic, “whole greater than the sum of its parts” situation. Not among the stronger episodes in the entire series but not among the worse either and so recommended.
Rating: 3 / 5