TNG Flashback: The Naked Now

"The Naked Now" is, as the otherwise nonsensical title suggests, a take on a classic episode of the original series called "The Naked Time." An infection spreads throughout the crew that makes everyone behave as though strongly intoxicated. (Frankly, it's more like a drug trip, but try getting that reference on television in the 1980s.) The disabled Enterprise is then threatened by debris from an exploding star, and will be destroyed if a cure can't be found to restore the crew's normal judgment.

It's frankly baffling and bizarre to me that this was the second episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That's not to say it wasn't entertaining. But if you were setting out to do a modern spinoff of a beloved classic cult show, why oh why would you have your first regular episode copy the plot of one of the more beloved episodes of the original? What if the audience concludes that every episode is just going to be a copy of an old one, but without the classic characters they know and love? And how meaningful can it be to show the characters "behaving out of character" when there really hasn't been any time yet to establish what "behaving in character" is like for them?

But perhaps weirder than all that is the fact that the episode mostly works. In fact, it's one of the better ones of the first season. The dialogue is a bit goofy at times (I mean among the characters who aren't supposed to be "drunk"), but the plot unfolds well, and the suspense beats generally work.

What really makes it all come together are the performances by the cast. Everyone seems to bring their A game here. LeVar Burton is strong in Geordi's moments of woeful self-pity. Gates McFadden is great in showing Crusher's fierce determination. Wil Wheaton is convincing as a young teenager experiencing his first high. And of course, Brent Spiner kills as the intoxicated Data.

But about that. How in the world does Data get infected? Even Picard doesn't believe it, challenging the android that such a thing should be impossible. Clearly this was a case of logic be damned; Spock's reaction to the infection was the best element of the original series episode on which this is based, so dammit they were going to have Data -- the "new Spock" -- do the same thing. And honestly, the writers probably weren't wrong here. The joke about Data being "fully functional" was a gift that kept giving to fans that met Brent Spiner or Denise Crosby at Star Trek conventions for years (decades!) to come, and even set up for more dramatic moments involving the relationship in future episodes.

This was the first episode scored by Ron Jones, who would last for nearly half the series before essentially getting fired by producer Rick Berman for writing music that was too interesting. His score here is fantastic, incorporating the Star Trek themes of other composers, the bombastic sensibilities of the original series music, and plenty of his own flair.

Some other random observations about the episode:

• The transporter has a "decontamination" setting meant to prevent disease from spreading. But as any disease-based plot would then need to address why the disease-of-the-week wasn't caught by the transporter, I think they never mentioned this again.


• Speaking of disease, Dr. Crusher goes for a shockingly long time without touching anybody and contracting the infection herself. Physical contact just isn't a part of 24th century medicine.


• The writers of the 1980s had no way to conceive of something like Google. Data spends hours searching for the logs of the original Enterprise's encounter with this similar situation.


• The other ship in this episode, the Tsiolkovsky, spent eight months doing research at one collapsing star. That's quite the reject assignment.


• I don't think people reacted negatively to Wesley being so smart, such a prodigy. But the fact that he commandeers the ship so easily in this episode (at a time when most of the crew isn't even infected yet) makes everyone else look dumb more than it makes Wesley look smart. And I think that's what primed the pump for "shut up, Wesley!" to catch on like wildfire a few episodes later.


• Man, it takes a long time for the engineer to basically just unplug the power feeding Wesley's force field. Off switches are complicated in the future. And on a related note, there's a giant window right there. Did no one think to just cut through it?


• Does this episode give us insight into how well each of the characters can hold their liquor? If so, Picard is truly a cheap date. Riker, by contrast, must have partied so hard in his youth that he needs half a keg to get drunk.


• The moral of the story seems to be: it doesn't matter if you're responsible for putting the entire ship in danger; if you get it back out again, you're a hero.

It's far from the most logical episode, but it really is one of the more fun ones, certainly of the first season. I grade "The Naked Now" a B. Nevertheless, I'm glad The Next Generation chose to avoid any further direct, self-referencing takeoffs of classic episodes after this.