That really was as far as they could go at the time, and the inter-racial kiss got them pulled from broadcast in a number of the more bigoted states at the time.
In the 1960’s, the statement that “racism is stupid and toxic” was still news to a lot of people, without even progressing to a deeper understanding of oppressor and oppressed. White people swam in their unearned privilege the way a fish swims in water, completely unaware of the medium surrounding them. They weren’t going to ever frame it in today’s context and terms because those terms and context didn’t even exist back then in a form that could have possibly reached the small screen.
And, as already pointed out, there was a reference to ruler and ruled in that episode. It went by pretty fast, and in some re-runs it might have even been cut to allow more time for commercials.
Well, Riker was a sanctimonious twit with his opinions of the three.
RIKER: Well, from what I’ve seen of our guests, there’s not much to redeem them. It makes one wonder how our species survived the twenty-first century.
What a fuck head. Of the three, only Sonny was the typical self-destructive artist. Ralph was actually smart. He invested in cryogenics, and…it worked! Here he is in the 24th century, with his health restored. Seems to me he done good!
And Clare? She was a housewife, a normal person who had a sudden embolism, died, and was frozen without her knowledge. She had no idea. But somehow, that makes her less than useless in Riker’s mind.
Say space horndog, why don’t you go away and turn down another command slot, mmmkay?
Probably, sorta? I mean in its 79 episode run there must be one in there.
I know Spock got slapped more than once. By men and women. Kirk knocked out Shahna. Spock did some two-handed fist slaps against the Salt Monster in its female form. I feel like one of Khans men slapped Uhura. McCoy slapped a pregnant woman. Kirk slapped Elaan of Troyius after she splapped him.
OK, not entire episodes, but lines that aged poorly in TOS:
Rand: I always wanted you to look at my legs
Uhura: I’m scared
Mitchell: A walking freezer unit
Nomad: (about Uhura) That unit is defective. Its thinking is chaotic. Absorbing it unsettled me. A mass of conflicting impulses.
Now, I like Mudd’s Women, despite the misogyny. If you look at it as Wagon Train to the Stars, it’s sort of Three Brides for Three Bros. Just another frontier western story. The situation is definitely sexist by modern standards, and also by 1966 standards. But it isn’t unprecedented in history.
I like the music most. it really sounds “sixtyish”.
But it really seems like a lot got left on the cutting room floor, or just excised from the script before filming began. Why does Eve think she’s in love with Kirk, and even more, why does she think he’s in love with her? There’s nothing there to support it. Unlike any other episode, Kirk isn’t googoo eyed over her. Sure, he acknowledges her attractiveness, but it doesn’t go beyond that. She’s no Elaan of Troyius.
I don’t remember any of that from Mudds Women! I remember her saying she cant go through with something…maybe she said something about liking Kirk? I don’t feel like going through another transcript like i did with Let This Be Your Last Battlefield.
KIRK: Well, come on, you’re the doctor. What is it? Is it that we’re tired, and they’re beautiful? They are incredibly beautiful.
MCCOY: Are they, Jim? Are they actually more lovely, pound for pound, measurement for measurement, than any other women you’ve known? Or is it that they just, well, act beautiful. No. Strike that, strike that.
KIRK: What are they?
MCCOY: You mean are they alien illusions? That sort of thing?
KIRK: I asked you first.
MCCOY: No, an alien smart enough to pull this could also keep my medical scanner from going beep!
KIRK: I don’t follow you.
MCCOY: I don’t either.
Ok i did…and couldn’t find the relevant dialogue but I wanted to post this gold. I love Mudd’s Women for being so very early TOS when it was a bit more military, when they had engineering disasters like here and The Naked Time. And when Shatner was wonderfully nuanced and casual with his acting (for the most part.)
It’s not a lot of dialog, but combined with the look she gives him, it sure seems she think Kirk actually want her. It was clear from the dialog you referenced (not going through with it), she’s faking her interest.
CHILDRESS: Eve will stay, today at least. We, er, we want to talk.
KIRK: Eve?
EVE: You’ve got someone up there called the Enterprise.
KIRK: Two of us, Mister Spock.
That pretty much sums up the real world too. Women, and to a lesser degree men, who have learned how to act beautiful, really do appear more beautiful.
Though the comment about measurements rings pretty antiquely tin-eared these days.
I was always annoyed a little by the mini-skirt uniforms. But the women on the Enterprise dressed in panty-length skirts were overwhelmingly young-ish, thin-ish, and comely. The occasional older women (like Spock’s mother) who had roles on the show as scientists, ambassadors or aliens were swathed in tinfoil or velour schmattas.
As far as the miniskirts go, I read this over on TV Tropes, I’m not sure where that claim comes from.
Also, the miniskirts weren’t mandatory: some of the female background crew are shown wearing pants. The skirt uniform was an option, a distinction which can be lost on modern audiences.
It works better in early TNG with the scant uniform that you can occasionally see men wearing, too. That makes it clear it’s an allowable variation for anyone.
“Mudd’s Women” definitely had its issues (and why didn’t McCoy notice that the woman seductively lounging around Sickbay was manually turning the bed’s biosensor off and on?), but it did include one of my favorite bits of dialogue in the early series:
Mudd (still pretending to be Leo Walsh): “You’re a hard man, Captain.”
Kirk: “And you’re a liar, Mr. Walsh. I think we understand each other.”
