One of the big problems with the attempt to reboot Lost In Space was that when you think about the show, when you think about the cultural touchstones it spawned, you think of the evil, cowardly ham Dr. Smith, the boy wonder Will Robinson, and the robot. Maybe the daring space ranger Major West and maybe the intrepid Captain Robinson.
But the womenfolk in the original show were an underwhelming lot. Maureen Robinson was a highly stereotypical 50s housewife, Judy was a love interest and a damsel in distress and Penny ... well, Penny was also there.
So the reboot had to more or less invent characterizations, meaningful roles, and acceptable 90s niches for the women of the cast, which makes it feel like a completely different show. I think it was the right choice, but it was a big hurdle.
What does all this have to do with Star Trek? Only this: Of all the ways in which 60s sci-fi ages badly, none is so hard to overcome as the casual sexism of the era. This is my experience with Heinlein's otherwise masterful Stranger in a Strange Land, too. What do women do in space? The same thing they do down on Earth: cook, clean, look pretty, and let the men work.
I cringe when I see it on Lost In Space, but when I see it on Star Trek, my home, the idealized future I choose to buy into on a weekly basis, it pains me. And that's how I feel about Mudd's Women. It's a sexist mess.
Of course, it's also the debut of one of the most celebrated peripheral players of the Original Series: Harcourt Fenton Mudd. And he's actually a pretty good, compelling character. Star Trek is not Star Wars, and it's never gotten a handle on the criminal element or the civilian spacefarer. Star Trek stories tend to be clashes of governments. What Joe the Plumber does in the 24th Century is just not in our purview. Episodes like TNG's "The Outrageous Okona" try to give us a Trek Han Solo and miss the mark.
But somehow Mudd works. He's funny without being grating and he's scheming without being villainous He's a foil for Kirk's sense of law and order, which is an important quality in a Captain and one that can sometimes get lost up against Kirk's more well-known penchant for daring, risky maneuvers. But he doesn't suffer fools in his crew or on his ship, if he can help it.
The Enterprise ends up with Mudd as an unplanned passenger when they rescue him from his exploding ship (which he did not have a license to fly). He has a "cargo" of three beautiful women in tow (dressed more or less like Vanna White) and they have an almost hypnotic affect on the crew. The women, Mudd claims, are wives for space settlers and Mudd is basically their pimp.
There aren't really any twists after that. The Enterprise is running low on lithium crystals. (it seems like it ought to be dilithium, but this time, lithium. Just go with it.) They find a lithium mine in range, with three miners working in it. Mudd manages to contact the miners ahead of time, and when Kirk and crew arrive the miners won't exchange the dilithium for anything but the women.
This is sort of a lot like buying and selling people, but that point is never really addressed in the episode. Instead, the big Star Trek conceit is something called the Venus drug, which makes women more beautiful. See, these space bimbos aren't really beautiful at all. They're uggos! And Mudd is deceiving the innocent miners with drugs. I mean, yes, they're still smart, brave women, still skilled at cooking and cleaning, and not actually that bad looking, but they're NOT IMPOSSIBLY GORGEOUS and Mudd almost tricked these miners into marrying them. Isn't he evil?
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| The drug works kind of like make-up, actually. And I guess it also does their hair? |
This is a case where the slight that the show is trying to sell us is so laughably dwarfed by the sexism the show ignores that it's all pretty dumb. Who cares if these women are taking drugs that makes them look prettier? Shouldn't we care that their only aspiration in life is to live on a desolate rock in space cooking and cleaning for skeezy space miners? (Where, of course, the Enterprise leaves them at the end, happily ever after.) And that's not even to mention the part where Kirk gives Eve a placebo and it works just like the Venus drug because it was self-confidence all along that made them pretty, apparently.
I liked Mudd. But that's about all there was to like here, for me. I'm not entirely sure what the show was swinging for, but I do think it missed. I'm looking forward to the other Mudd appearance, which, if I recall correctly, has less sexism but still some, and also robots.
Random Observations:
- Vanna White comments aside, the costume designers on TOS do nice work here.
- The women of the crew are barely in this episode, which is a shame because they provide a nice counterbalance as women with careers who aren't just in space to find husbands. Apparently a scene where Mudd tries to talk Uhura into taking the drug landed on the cutting room floor.
- For that matter, the crew is barely in this episode. There are several scenes that are just guest stars including a pretty long sequence between Eve and the miner. I think the episode suffers from the regulars being so badly sidelined.
- Because I took Christmas off, our schedule is sort of messed up; this ought to have been a Deep Space Nine week. Expect a double Tuesday or an extra mid-week review at some point to get us back on track.
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