Star Trek: Discovery Casts Rainn Wilson as Intergalactic Con-Man Harry Mudd
Star Trek: Discovery – the prequel series to the original Star Trek series – has just announced a tangible link to the 60’s series with the casting of Rainn Wilson as intergalactic con-man, Harry Mudd.
The show seems to be writing the wrongs of the other Star Trek prequel series, Enterprise, by making explicit links to the shows past; we’ve already heard rumblings of the Federation-Klingon War (which audiences have never seen), the casting of James Frain as Spock's father, Sarek; and, now, the US version of The Office's Rainn Wilson as intergalactic conman, Harry Mudd.
As Empire reports, the character of Harry Mudd was created by Gene Roddenberry and writer Stephen Kandell for the first season Star Trek episode "Mudd's Women." Says Kandell, "I thought Harry was a marvelous character of the highly human quality set against the alien in time or alien in space paradigm. That's what made it amusing, and it's also hard to do because you had stern-jawed Kirk who would meet an eight-foot intelligent reptile and deal with him as any astronaut would. Then the reptile would meet Harry Mudd, whose first impulse would be to run and hide, and second impulse would be to sell it scale enhancer."
Here’s hoping that the new series will invent a just as interesting foil for Wilson’s Mudd, and keep that sense of fun for the burgeoning Federation’s adventures when Star Trek: Discovery makes its bow later this year via CBS and Netflix.
