Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Harry Mudd
5. He Almost Appeared In DS9
When they were developing the episode One Little Ship, DS9's executive producer Ira Steven Behr pondered that it would have been better with a Harry Mudd-style character. He felt that a comic character like Mudd would have tied the two elements of the episode together. In it, Dax, Bashir and O'Brien are shrunk to microscopic size after encountering an anomaly.
It's a comic idea, but slightly jars against the darker backdrop of the Dominion War and their mission to rescue the Defiant from Jem'Hadar hijackers while flying a tiny Runabout around the place. While Behr spoke of including a Harry Mudd-style character in place of the Jem'Hadar, writer and script editor Hans Beimler actually came up with a way for Mud to feature in One Little Ship.
The end of Beimler's version would have seen Mudd shrink to microscopic size after his escape goes badly wrong and he's exposed to the same anomaly as Dax, Bashir, and O'Brien. The only thing that's unclear is how Mudd would have fought off the ravages of almost a century between his TOS and DS9 appearances.
Anti-ageing serum? Android replica? Moisturising Mudd pack?