50th Anniversary TOS Episode Discussion Marathon

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

* Silly Mudd trying to claim he didn't know the Enterprise is a starship. Cue rants about energy output profiles, ID transponders, warp field signatures, etc. here.

I'm sure he knew it was a proper starship, but given his ineptitude in blowing his ship up, I think anything other than reading the transponder output would be beyond him.

* Just three miners? Obviously they can't even have offscreen workers because they'd fight over the women and use up screentime. There are ways to work around this. The three are at a remote outpost and the married guys are elsewhere, the others are too old or young to be desirable, the others are criminals or aliens that would be considered undesirable, etc.

Well, you can claim that the operation is sufficiently automated that just three people are needed on-planet to keep it running. I find it more concerning that, despite lithium mining supposedly being lucrative (granted, Mudd said that to the women), the buildings were so bare of anything decorative. You'd think the women would have beamed down, looked around, seen nary a vase or Van Gogh, and gotten suspicious.

* I do wish that the true nature of the Venus Drug was more consistent. Just a gelatin placebo? Well then you can't have onscreen transformation like that.

That last transformation, where even Eve's clothes changed, was ridiculous.

* I'm still confused about why the women would want to live in this place of complete isolation, constant storms, and constant hard labor. There weren't any transports going in the direction of Earth available?

Yeah, this is a serious plot hole, combined with the apparent lack of luxury. The women have access to a proper starship now, they can get passage to wherever they like. Nowadays, at least one would probably have decided to forego marriage in favor of a career. Or at least they could have shown actual connections developing between the other two miners and women . . . but I guess Eve was the designated guest star character so she got the airtime.

I have nothing to add about the fiver, it's good.