"I, Mudd" rules as the better of two live-action episodes featuring the only non-crew character to make multiple appearances in TOS. Thankfully writer Stephen Kandel lets loose with Mudd the First at his finest, reigning over two hundred thousand androids that develop the unnerving desire to control humans (and humanoid life). Starshipjacked to planet Mudd and in a lot of trouble, the Enterprise crew retaliates with humanity's greatest weapon, their own illogical nature, wonderfully accented by Samuel Matlovsky's score studded with stark string twitches and delirious disharmonic riffs. Though the androids take Kirk and company on a little trip, they're no match for the "trip through Wonderland" they get in return.

The charming Roger C. Carmel as Harcourt Fenton Mudd is utterly devoid of any sense of purpose save himself. This incorrigible reprobate, this "borgas frat," this fugitive from Denebian justice ("the key word in your entire peroration was d-d-death"), this first-class example of a human failure does however delight and confound as conniver-in-charge. Then there's "Stella, dear," with Kay Elliot's convincing portrayal of the continual, eternal, confounded nagging that drove Harry deeper into space (that gets downright scary when "Shut up!" stops working outside her shrine).

The Andrece twins also impress as "the Alices," even more so the subtly strange Norman of Richard Tatro (in this, his final performance). Clearly they can come and go as they please, armed with their mental and physical skills, for without effort Norman gets aboard as a Lieutenant if only for three days. But for androids that live half a million years they sure fool easily. Wouldn't the simpler observation (for Norman at least) be that humans lie and therefore discredit their statements?

Rarely do so many of the regular cast get unfettered opportunity for absurdity, from the Captivity Celebration Dance of Uhura and Chekov to Scotty's death from too much happiness ("but now he's happier, he's dead"). Any captain would do but Shatner (and Carmel) stoke scene after delightful scene. And the "pointy-eared thinking machine" joins in with a "I love you, but hate you" knockout to the Alices (and delicious early snark about McCoy's "beads and rattles"). The moral of the story is that things not be taken too seriously, since over-devotion to any sense of purpose fails when confronted with the absurdities life can deliver. The Vulcan realizes human nature, its logic strewn at times with gaping holes like tweeting birds or wreaths of bad-smelling flowers, still often proves superior than "I am not programmed to respond in that area."