Dear Harry Mudd,

Your magical elixir has finally come to fruition.

I was five or six, sitting cross-legged in front of my parents’ TV when you first soared into my world upon the Star Trek Enterprise. You beamed onto the screen as a rerun of Mudd's Women (S1, E6) launched. With that dastardly mustache and dangling earring, you were a live-action Foghorn Leghorn, but this was no cartoon; it was my dad's favorite show.

Despite all those credentials, Harry, you were the boring part.

My eyes didn't widen in awe until your "cargo" materialized in the transporters: three enchanting women clad in sparkling jewel-toned frocks.

That gleaming hair, those alluring cat-eyes … I stared at the provocative cutouts in the gowns and asymmetrical hems, nearly as bewitched as the men of the Star Trek crew. You were just a creepy old guy, but those three? They were everything I ever wanted to be.

The not-so-politically-correct plot wouldn't pass muster in today's world. You were a space-age fraudster, doping the women with the illicit Venus Drug. The glowing capsules made them “beautiful” to an unearthly degree—but only for a short time. Your plan was to sell them off to rich and lonely miners for a mountain of treasure, then scram before the “Venus” effect faded and they returned to their natural states, deemed ugly and homely during the course of the episode.

Shall we revisit a few other key quotes?

"Are they actually more lovely, pound for pound, measurement for measurement, than any other women you've known?" poses a deadly serious McCoy to Kirk.

"Go on, Eve, take it," you say to one of your beauties as the drug wears off and you urge her to swallow another capsule. "It's not a cheat, it's a miracle for some man who can appreciate it, and who needs it."

And lastly, my favorite: "We'd like to have a look at them first," says one of the sinister miners before finalizing the terms of your transaction.

Is that enough to jog your memory? It's certainly enough for me.

You will please, sir, spare me the lecture about the inevitable “moral of the story,” with Eve's “true beauty” blooming when she takes a placebo near the show’s conclusion and “chooses” to stay with the rough miner ("I've not laid a hand on you"), even after our hero Kirk offers to whisk her away from it all.

But that was fiftysome years ago and since then, we've come a long way, baby.

1970 magazine ad, public domain.

Problem is, that “long way” has been riddled with u-turns, and this latest one is a real doozy.

Oh-oh-oh-Ozempic!

Behold a drug for the ages. One injection a week and those unsightly pounds just melt away. And you will love this part, Harry: the price tag clocks in at about $1,000 a month. Imagine lining your pockets with that payoff, and without ever having to get near the likes of those stinky miners.

These days, instead of your lustrous Eve and Maggie and Ruth, we have Oprah and Elon extolling the virtues of Ozempic as well as the ones that make us go hmmm (I'm looking at you Kelly and Lizzo) and others like Amy who are sounding the alarm after a not-so-great go with the drug. It made her so sick she couldn’t even play ball with her kid.

So there may indeed be a judgement day waiting to dawn inside the mania. Until we know for sure, Harry, something about today’s beauty-in-a-bottle doesn't feel quite right—at all. Mainly because it wears off much like your Venus capsules.

Dr. Andrew Kraftson, a clinical associate professor in the division of metabolism, endocrinology and diabetes at Michigan Medicine, said that he was “overwhelmed” by messages from obesity and diabetes patients who wondered where their next dose was and how they would cope without the medication.

“When people cannot get it,” Dr. Kraftson said, “it’s a big SOS.”

You can read the entire NYT article for yourself. It’s replete with the predictable details about side effects while a person is on the drug and weight gain as soon as they stop it.

Silly me. I thought we were starting to make some headway when it comes to our bodies and perception, but not anymore. Maybe body positivity was always a lie. As soon as this new weight loss miracle surfaced, everyone flocked to find it—providing their wallets were fat enough to afford it.

So while the campy Star Trek plot that delivered you unto the world in 1966 is completely unacceptable here in 2024, the story hasn’t really changed, has it, Harry?

Goody gumdrops for you.

May you and Big Pharma enjoy this feeding frenzy. Pay no attention to the biggest losers, that contingent of teens who thought acceptance was just around the corner. They’ll be once again relegated to the plus size department in the back of the store as their wealthier counterparts (with doctors who are willing to play) snap up the snazzy size five jeans up front in the Juniors Department.

And all the while, impossibly thin mannequins will gaze on approvingly.

Beauty is only skin deep, Harry, at least until it rips out your heart and crushes your soul.

I may only be 5’ tall, but I’ve been battling the likes of you for more than four decades, so make no mistake: If you were standing in front of me right now, I’d kick you so hard in the balls, they’d land in the back of your throat.

Then again, maybe I just did.

Love, Erin

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