This is an odd one. An episode about a smuggler trafficking women who are being enhanced by magic space drugs, but also tries to be about women's rights in the most jackass of ways. The episode starts with Kirk risking all the lives on the Enterprise chasing down an out of control cargo vessel at maximum speed burning out all the lithium (not dilithium, IKR!) crystals. Just before the cargo vessel explodes the dream transporter team of Spock and Scotty manages to beam the captain of the vessel and his three lovely companions/cargo onto the Enterprise.
All the men on the Enterprise other than Spock promptly lose their shit at how amazingly alluring the women are, so much so the Kirk realizes there must be something wrong. The captain of the cargo vessel is interrogated with a truth'o'scope which reveals his true name is Harry Mudd and he is a notorious space criminal with convictions for smuggling and using counterfeit money to buy a ship. Also operating a ship without a license which I guess makes sense as a crime, but is just kinda funny in the context of interstellar vessels.
Fairly soon we discover that Mudd is giving his women some sort of super sexy making drug that quickly wears off revealing their terrible awful secret! Without the drug they don't have makeup on/have really fake makeup making them look old. To get the Enterprise back off battery power they set course for the mining planet of Rigel 12. Mudd is ecstatic since this is the perfect place to find husbands for his three ladies. This is the part where we figure out he is also a space pimp apparently and he secretly contacts the space miners to work out a space deal.
The Enterprise beams the head of the miners and his one assistant up and they tell the Kirk they don't want his stinking money, they just want the women. Kirk isn't stoked about this, but since they live in a world with Orion slave women I guess he isn't too offended. Mudd, his women, Kirk and Spock beam down to the planet where we learn there are in fact only three miners on the whole planet and everything outside is a dust storm of death. Two of the girls seem totally stoked to be marooned forever on this lonely rock, but one of the girls is either upset at this horrible fate or mad none of the three miners like her. Either way, wow. She runs off into the death storm and the head of the miners go after her.
I want to remind everybody that this whole time the Enterprise has been losing power and will crash into the planet in less than an hour. But it's cool, no one seems to be in a rush of very upset about that. The miner manages to find his bride followed by a super awkward sequence of her cooking for him and him being all mad about it because that isn't what he wants from her, but then her drug wears off and she loses her makeup and he freaks. The conclusion to all this is even stranger than the build up. Kirk and Mudd show up to get the crystal or be mad I guess? The miner says he doesn't want the woman because she is ugly, but Mudd gives her the pretty drug and she gets pretty again, or does he??? Kirk apparently replaced it with a placebo or something so the miner must just really love her after all so everything is ok? I watched this pretty late at night after a long day at work, but I suspect it would leave me confused either way.
Mini Review: Not my favorite episode so far. Mudd's character is pretty despicable and the message of the episode seems to be it is great to buy a wife as long as you think she is pretty even if she isn't.
4 out of 10
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