60 Years Ago, Star Trek's Most Debauched Episode Was Almost The Pilot
Could “Mudd’s Women” have launched the franchise?
When people talk about Star Trek’s hopeful vision of the future and a world without sexism, we generally don’t talk about the sixth episode of the series ever aired, “Mudd’s Women,” which hit TV screens on October 13, 1966. In “Mudd’s Women,” the Enterprise crew encounters a con man named Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel), who is ferrying three women —Eve ( Karen Steele), Ruth (Maggie Thrett), Magda (Susan Denberg) — destined to be the wives of miners on distant planets. The fact that the episode is basically about prostitution isn’t shocking in and of itself; the first Trek pilot episode, “The Cage,” introduced “Orion Slave Girls,” but what’s more surprising is that this episode, which has a decidedly mixed legacy, was also considered the second pilot of the entire series. Could Star Trek have survived had “Mudd’s Women” been the first episode ever filmed with Captain Kirk?
After NBC passed on the Desilu-produced Star Trek pilot, “The Cage,” in 1964, three other scripts were offered as possibilities to be the second, reworked pilot of the show, to be filmed in 1965. This was the moment Gene Roddenberry transformed several aspects of the series, including the introduction of Captain Kirk (William Shatner) in place of Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter), as well as a new take on the basic crew structure, which led to the creation of the characters of Scotty and Sulu and a total reboot of the character of Spock (Leonard Nimoy). But what story would launch this second take on Star Trek? Roddenberry offered three options: “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” written by Samuel A. Peeples, “The Omega Glory,” written by Roddenberry himself, and “Mudd’s Women,” written by Roddenberry and Stephen Kandel. NBC greenlit “Where No Man Has Gone Before” to be the script filmed as the second pilot, and the rest is history.
“Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the second pilot for Star Trek, which sold the series.
In retrospect, this seems like a no-brainer. Although “Mudd’s Women” was eventually filmed as the third episode in regular production, and is only the second episode ever filmed that has all the regular characters following “The Corbomite Maneuver,” its historic nature in establishing TOS dynamics remains somewhat under-discussed because aspects of the episode seem so dated or, in some cases, downright offensive. The basic premise is this: The Enterprise picks up con man Harry Mudd just before his small starship is nearly destroyed. Mudd’s “cargo” turns out to be three women he’s, apparently, legally transporting to become wives of lonely people out in space. Because this is an early episode, the idea that money is being used to purchase things throughout the galaxy is freely discussed, and while it’s possible we could assume, retroactively, that these are all non-Federation planets, longtime fans may find that the episode is not only problematic when it comes to gender depictions, but that the essential canonical truths about Star Trek are somewhat in flux, or absent altogether, making the events feel somewhat apocryphal in hindsight. Mudd himself is, of course, a big part of Trek canon, but “Mudd’s Women” is far less rewatchable than, say, the much better and more entertaining Season 2 Mudd romp, “I, Mudd,” featuring a planet of robots.
The sci-fi twist of “Mudd’s Women,” on paper, could be read as an early example of something like The Substance. All three of the women are apparently much older than they look and rely on something called “the Venus drug” to maintain their youthful appearance. It’s an old fantasy or sci-fi trope, though this Trek adventure doesn’t have much new to say on the matter, other than relying on this detail being central to a twist late in the episode. Compared to the much more thoughtful questions about psionic powers in “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” not to mention the deeply personal stakes for Kirk in that episode, it again feels shocking that Roddenberry would even put forth such a weak script as “Mudd’s Women” to become the second pilot.
In fairness, whatever version of “Mudd’s Women” that might have been filmed as Trek’s second pilot in 1965 would, in an alternate universe, look nothing like the 1966 version we got. When “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was filmed, there was no Bones or Uhura yet, and Sulu wasn’t yet the helmsman. Had NBC bizarrely decided that this episode was to be filmed for the second pilot, the result may have been less over-the-top than the version filmed for the regular series.
Then again, it feels equally possible that had this episode become the first episode filmed with Captain Kirk, there may not have been any Star Trek episodes after that, at all. Meaning, in a way, we should be happy we got the version of “Mudd’s Women” we did, more of an afterthought of a one-off story, rather than a proof-of-concept. Today, 60 years after Star Trek’s first season began airing, “Mudd’s Women” is a reminder that all works of pop culture relevance have their embarrassing moments, too. The Beatles have “Run For Your Life,” and Star Trek has “Mudd’s Women.”
