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Episode
098
The Naked Now
The new crew of the new Enterprise goes on a really old mission. Did you see “The Naked Time?” Luckily so did Commander Riker. Kind of. That helps him, his captain, and his crew make their way through. Find out how as we put The Naked Now into the Mission Log.
Ken and John, I think you are off when you say that this episode is just a remake of an old one and not an homage. The differences are what make it interesting. For example, that it is a 14 year old boy (is that right?) who takes the Riley role and that it is Data who has to put the computer back together superfast instead of Scotty’s famous line — “He’s turned the engines off, Captain.” Which results in their being hurled into a timewarp when they “cold start” the antimater reactor (or whatever it is they do that breaks the laws of physics). That change makes this episode “The Naked Now” less interesting. They don’t discover anything new, except perhaps that it should not be so easy to take out all the isolinear chips from the computer (I’m thinking of what Dave in 2001 had to go through to turn off HAL’s higher brain functions….) Also, this episode emphasized the loss of sexual inhibitions a lot more than “The Naked Time.” That also made it less interesting. The “fully functional” android is a can of worms, but one that TOS wanted to deal with in “I, Mudd” and “What are little Girls made of?” Andrea, we want to believe is “fully functional” although Dr. Corby doesn’t give any indication that he did anything sexual with her because, as it turns out, he’s an emotionless android too…. When Data answers Tasha’s query about his functionality, I could not help being reminded of C3PO saying he was programmed to be fluent in over 1000 languages. Actually, Data’s functionality might be a standard part of Starfleet diplomacy protocol (if we consider how Kirk operated). Mostly this episode was used as a reveal of hidden desires between characters that would be developed later. Too bad they didn’t have Tasha give birth to a baby half-android later…
And we’re off, wading into the first season like a sleepy bear through a leech-infested swamp… You guys have already eloquently covered the bad points of this story, but I’ll add another: what are the chances of a piece of stellar matter exploding off a sun heading straight towards two starships sitting nearby? Not just nearby, but straight at them! Seriously, there’s a better chance of a golfer in Aberdeen hitting a ball that strikes the top of the Taj Mahal…
Home Video trivia: This Enterprise graphic was updated for the Blu-ray release over the slide that was used in the Original broadcast version. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b3cf37ff8fc714fe0d24e19887fb18a20360f85a09a7e9b894729e098778bf80.jpg
I thought Tasha said she grew up in a colony. The prime directive wouldn’t apply to an earth colony, would it? I have no shame in admitting that even after all of this time, I don’t exactly understand the prime directive.
It wasn’t great but I don’t loathe this episode. I’m really just enjoying getting to know the new characters and this new time (well, new in this rewatch project).