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The Naked Time

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"The Naked Time" is an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series first broadcast September 29, 1966, and repeated on April 27, 1967. It is a first season episode #4, production #7, and was written by John D. F. Black and directed by Marc Daniels. It has a sequel in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the episode "The Naked Now".

Overview: A strange affliction infects the crew of the Enterprise, destroying their inhibitions.

Plot

On stardate 1704.2, the starship USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, beams a landing team down to a research station on the planet Psi 2000, a world in the midst of breaking up. The team finds all six of the scientists manning the station dead. The circumstances of their deaths are not apparent; however, the life support systems had been found shut down and all control systems frozen solid.

One of the Enterprise crewmen, Joe Tormolen, carelessly removes his gloves and is contaminated by a strange red liquid. When Tormolen and Mr. Spock return to the ship they are given a clean bill of health by Dr. McCoy. Later however, Tormolen notices a strange itch and begins to act irrationally. He threatens Lt. Sulu with a knife, then attempts to turn it on himself. Tormolen is stopped and escorted to the sickbay where he later dies apparently from the superficial wounds he caused himself during the incident. Dr. McCoy is left bewildered, especially since Tormolen's wounds were not that serious - Tormolen seems to have simply lost the will to live.

Soon Tormolen's bizarre affliction begins to affect other crew members and quickly spreads through the ship. They each begin to display both comical and horrific exaggerations of character. McCoy finds nothing like it in Starfleet records.

As the affliction spreads, Mr. Sulu abandons his post on the bridge and runs around the ship shirtless, brandishing a sword, and challenging everyone to a duel. Ship's navigator Lt. Kevin Riley then declares himself the new Captain of the Enterprise and rushes down to Engineering where he takes over control of the ship. He requests "double portions of ice cream" for everyone, then begins flipping random switches, fouling up ship systems and warbling "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen" repeatedly (at one point an exasperated Kirk mutters "Please, not again") over the PA system. The Enterprise starts to drift out of control and slowly falls out of orbit, pulled down by the erratic gravity of Psi 2000.

Nurse Chapel confesses her deepest desires for Mr. Spock, though Spock rejects her. Spock himself shows troubled emotions and begins weeping uncontrollably because he can't tell his mother he loves her. Even Captain Kirk is affected, first becoming overly romantic toward the ship, then exhibiting paranoia, breaking down for fear that he is losing his ability to command.

McCoy manages to avoid the affliction and finds that somehow on Psi 2000, water has changed to a complex chain of molecules and once in the bloodstream, it acts like alcohol, depressing the centers of judgment and self-control.

Eventually Riley is stopped and control of Engineering is regained. However, Riley has turned the engines off and Scotty tells Kirk that he is going to need more time to restart them than they have left. When Kirk challenges this, Scotty delivers the famous line: "I canna' change the laws of physics."

To avoid crashing into the planet, they are forced to risk a full power start, mixing the matter and anti-matter cold. To prevent the engines exploding, they will need to balance them into a 'controlled implosion', but this has never been done before. Spock explains there is an intermix formula based on the theoretical relationship between time and anti-matter, but it also has never been tested.

Although the start is successful, it sends the Enterprise into a time-warp and 71 hours backwards in time. As they recover on the bridge, Mr. Spock says that they have three days to live over again, to which Captain Kirk replies hopefully, "Not those last three days." Spock also points out that since the formula worked, they can go back in time to any planet, any era.

40th Anniversary remastering

This episode was remastered in 2006 and aired September 30, 2006 as part of the 40th anniversary remastering of the Original Series. It was preceded a week earlier by "The Devil in the Dark" and followed a week later by "The City on the Edge of Forever". Besides upgrading sound and image, the remastering also alters elements of the original episode. Besides the all-CGI animation of the USS Enterprise that is standard among the revisions, specific changes to this episode include:

  • The planet Psi 2000 has been updated appearing more realistic.
  • The matte painting of surface now includes the research station structure.
  • When Scotty uses a phaser to burn through the bulkhead, the phaser beam has been properly added.
  • When the Enterprise begins to fall into the planet's atmosphere, a fiery glow appears on the view screen from the reentry.
  • The older style mechanical digital readout has been replaced.
  • The time travel effects have been enhanced.

Episode history

  • This was originally intended to be a two-part episode, with part one ending with a cliffhanger (with the Enterprise going back in time). The ending was revised so that the episode would become a stand-alone episode. What would have been part two eventually became another stand-alone episode, "Tomorrow is Yesterday". [1]
  • George Takei has repeatedly mentioned in interviews that this is his favorite episode, and spends a chapter on it in his autobiography.[2]

Reception

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a 'A' rating, describing the episode as "a lot of fun to watch". Handlen especially noted the scene where Spock's emotions surface.[3]

Sequel

The events of this episode are repeated in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Naked Now". Riker even references something similar happening to a previous Enterprise crew.

References

  1. ^ http://www.fastcopyinc.com/orionpress/articles/nakedtime.htm
  2. ^ http://www.peteranthonyholder.com/cjad07.htm
  3. ^ Handlen, Zack (16 January 2009). ""The Man Trap"/"Charlie X"/"The Naked Time"". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 10 June 2009.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Naked Time.
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