Silly Trekker! Star Trek: The Naked Time
The Enterprise orbits an icy world to collect a science party. Quick-witted Spock and slow-witted crewman Joey beam down in infection-control suits made from bubble wrap, only to find the bodies of the party, not huddled together or injured by attack, but frozen in unusual positions such as fully-clothed in the shower or doing the Macarena.
Joey’s nose itches, and he decides to do something about it. Apparently oblivious to the purpose of his infection-control suit, he removes a glove and scratches his nose (revealing that his suit wasn’t air tight in the first place). Once his hand is exposed, gravity-defying blood lands on him, infecting him with the same disease that had killed the science party.
Joey returns to the Enterprise for a snack, and begins ranting and pointing a butter knife at Sulu. He’s going to give him the buttering of a lifetime! Or he would, if he wasn’t stabbing himself and infecting those around him. He dies at the hands of Dr McCoy and Nurse Chapel.
Ah, Nurse Chapel. This is her first appearance, and it’s nice that in her first story she gets to quote McCoy’s “He’s Dead” line to him. Did she always have grey hair? Is it just really light blonde? Either way, Nurse Chapel looks great and the blue uniform looks amazing on her.
We learn that the frozen planet is shrinking. That’s right. It’s shrinking. Y’know that way that planets shrink? That’s what it’s doing.
Shrinking.
More and more crew members become infected by the virus. It appears that the virus is amplifying the desires of the sufferer. Apparently Sulu is into topless fencing, O’Reilly (you don’t know him) decides to take control of Engineering, locking Scotty and the crew out, Nurse Chapel reveals her secret love for Spock, and as for Spock himself, well, he goes proper mental, breaking down in tears because he never told his mother he loved her. Jeez.
Because the planet is shrinking and because they are locked out of Engineering, there’s a problem. It’s a biggie. The ship is gradually getting closer and closer to the planet and they can’t access the engines to fly away. Worse still, there are fewer and fewer crew members left with all their faculties to do anything about it. In the nick of time, McCoy develops a cure for the infection.
When the crew eventually get back into Engineering, Scottie has to perform the impossible to get the ship up and running again and utters the now famous line, “I canna’ change the laws of physics”. It’s a treat. What isn’t a treat is the techno-babble solution to their problem. Something to do with mixing matter and anti-matter to risk a full power start. Now why didn’t I think of that? That’s right, because it’s a series of meaningless words unrelated to the plot, that’s why. Unsurprisingly it does the trick and the ship is saved.
This is a fun episode of Star Trek. The girls get a few nice scenes. I always love it when a crew member has to sit in somebody else’s seat, and in this episode Uhura, Rand and Spock all take turns in the front seats. There are also some nice scenes suggesting there could be more to Kirk and Rand’s relationship. This is an episode packed with great scenes, lines and actions.
Oh yeah, and they invent time travel.
Cast:
William Shatner as James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Spock
DeForest Kelley as Leonard H. McCoy
James Doohan as Montgomery Scott
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
George Takei as Hikaru Sulu
Guest Cast:
Bruce Hyde as Lt. Kevin Riley
Stewart Moss as Joe Tormolen
John Bellah as Dr. Harrison
Majel Barrett as Christine Chapel
Creative Staff:
Director: Marc Daniels
Written By: John D. F. Black
