astronomy

Mudd's Women

Mudd's Women is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mudd's Women rather than just read about it. In short: "Mudd's Women" is the seventh episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Stephen Kandel, based on a story by Gene Roddenberry, and directed by Harvey Hart, it first aired on October 13, 1966.

Key takeaways

Mudd's Women belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mudd's Women to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mudd's Women from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

"Mudd's Women" is the seventh episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Stephen Kandel, based on a story by Gene Roddenberry, and directed by Harvey Hart, it first aired on October 13, 1966. In the episode, the Enterprise pursues a vessel and rescues its occupants Harry Mudd, an interstellar con man, and the three mysteriously beautiful women he is transporting to become the wives of settlers. This is the first of two episodes of the original series to feature Harry Mudd. He also appears in "I, Mudd", the animated series (TAS) episode "Mudd's Passion", and in Star Trek: Discovery, as a recurring character.

Plot The USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain Kirk, is in pursuit of an unregistered cargo spaceship. The ship overloads its engines in an escape attempt through an asteroid field. Kirk orders Enterprise's shields extended around the other spacecraft to protect it until its occupants can be transported aboard Enterprise. This action severely strains the Enterprise's systems and destroys all but one of the lithium crystal circuits in the Enterprise's warp engines. The Enterprise beams the cargo ship's three passengers and captain aboard, just as an asteroid impact destroys their spaceship. In the transporter room, the captain gives his name as Leo Walsh. The three women who accompany him are stunningly beautiful, and they distract the male crew members of the Enterprise, excluding Mr. Spock, whose Vulcan heritage makes him immune to female charms. The women are intended as wives for settlers on the planet Ophiuchus III and are introduced as Ruth Bonaventure, Eve McHuron, and Magda Kovacs. All three signed on with Walsh to escape a situation in which their marriage prospects were slim or non-existent. Kirk convenes a hearing, during which the computer contradicts Walsh's testimony, reporting that his ship master's license has been revoked and forcing him to reveal his true name, Harcourt Fenton Mudd, a criminal with an extensive record. The hearing ends as the final lithium crystal fails. Without lithium crystals, the Enterprise must limp on reserve power to the storm-plagued planet Rigel XII to obtain new crystals from the miners there. Ben Childress, the chief miner, having been in contact with Mudd, demands his release along with the women in exchange for the crystals. The Enterprise's remaining power is insufficient to maintain the ship's orbit for more than a few days, threatening a fiery reentry into the planet's atmosphere, so Kirk is forced to allow Mudd and the women to beam down to the planet. However, once there Childress reneges on the deal. At an impromptu party with the three miners, Eve becomes angry when they begin fighting over the other two women, and runs away into a magnetic dust storm, with Childress and Kirk in pursuit. Kirk beams back to the Enterprise to try to locate them from orbit. Childress finds Eve, brings her to his quarters, and falls asleep. On waking, he is confronted with a much plainer Eve. Kirk and Mudd beam back down to the planet to deal with Childress. The captain reveals that Mudd has been giving the women the Venus Drug, which creates a transient, illusory beauty, and that the other two miners have already been married to Ruth and Magda. As Childress confronts Mudd over the deception, Eve snatches a dose of what appears to be the Venus Drug, but is in fact a placebo. This restores her self-confidence to the point that Childress finds her as attractive as before. Pleased, he gives Kirk the replacement crystals. Kirk offers to take Eve away with him but she opts to stay with Childress. Eve tells Kirk, "You've got someone up there called the Enterprise." The ship continues on its way, with Mudd in custody.

Production The story was one of three submitted for production as the second pilot of Star Trek, the others being "The Omega Glory" and the selected episode, "Where No Man Has Gone Before". It was filmed as the second episode of the first season, after "The Corbomite Maneuver". Gene Roddenberry told Stephen Kandel he wanted a swashbuckling character as the guest lead. Several weeks later Kandel presented his idea, "Mudd's Women", and started to write the script but disliked that Roddenberry repeatedly rewrote it. Roddenberry took credit for the story when screen credits were submitted to the Writers Guild for approval; Roddenberry had written a story outline for "Mudd's Women" as early as July 1964, long before Kandel's involvement with the show.

Reception Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode an 'A' rating, describing the character of Harry Mudd in particular as "a familiar character type, but an enjoyable one". In 2015, Wired suggested this episode was skippable in their binge-watching guide for the original series. In 2016, TVLine ranked Eve finding out Kirk had given her a placebo rather than the beauty pill as number 13 on the top twenty moments of Star Trek: The Original Series.

Notes

References

External links

"Mudd's Women" at Wayback Machine (archived from the original at StarTrek.com)

"Mudd's Women" at Memory Alpha "Mudd's Women" at IMDb "Mudd's Women" Review of the remastered version at TrekMovie.com "Mudd's Women" Full Episode for viewing at CBS.com

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mudd's Women

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mudd's Women claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mudd's Women before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mudd's Women ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mudd's Women

In research: Mudd's Women appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mudd's Women in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mudd's Women is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1966 American television episodes, Fiction set around Rigel, Star Trek, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mudd's Women outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mudd's Women in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mudd's Women means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mudd's Women out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mudd's Women in simple terms?

Why does Mudd's Women matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mudd's Women?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mudd's Women.