I, Mudd marks the first return antagonist to Star Trek, Harry Mudd. Mudd isn't as competent a villain as Q, but he is just as flamboyant. The episode manages to dodge and weave it's way around several pitfalls that could have turned it into a rather bland episode. It also marks the third time that Kirk has destroyed a powerful artificial intelligence by acting illogically, it is a wonder Spock survives his presence.
The episode begins with McCoy pointing out an out of place crewman to Spock, but fortunately for crewman Norman he doesn't do anything other than that. Norman goes directly to the auxiliary control room where he disables the crewman working there and overrides the ships navigation. He goes from there to engineering where he sabotages the controls to prevent interference and starts up the warp drive. Kirk is understandably upset to have his ship out of his control, but before he can do anything Norman shows up on the bridge. Norman tells them that the ship will fly for 5 days to a planet and that he is an android, but pretty much nothing else.
Arriving at the planet Norman forces the captain and officers to beam to the surface where they are greeted by female androids who lead them to their ruler, Harry Mudd. Mudd is having a great time explaining how he took over the place when he found a planet of androids desperate for leadership. He tells them their every wish will be granted, but they are stuck here. They explore around and figure out he was pretty much telling the truth. Suddenly Scotty arrives and Mudd explains he has emptied the Enterprise of crew and will be leaving them behind and taking their ship. Kirk explains to one of the androids that he can't be happy without his ship and it takes her a while to process.
It is time for Mudd to leave, but the androids won't let him. He is apparently too flawed for them and they decide humans are too dangerous so they must be helped by being conquered by the androids. Fortunately Kirk figures out their only weakness, being illogical. They fake an escape because apparently the androids are expecting it (not sure why Kirk is so certain of this, but whatever). Then they start acting crazy and dancing and pretending to have invisible bombs until all the androids shut down except for Norman. Kirk pulls out the old logical paradox of, "everything Mudd says is a lie," followed by Mudd saying, "I am lying." This causes Norman to overload. Before marooning Mudd on the planet Kirk mades 500 androids of his ex-wife to keep him in line.
Lookback: I was kinda dreading this episode since Harry Mudd is a pretty goofy villain, but this one manages to have enough story and action to keep things fun. It is nice to see Uhura tempted by immortality, too often the characters it Trek are such exemplars of moral fortitude they seem like machines.
7 out of 10
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