Star Trek: The Naked Time (1966)
Season 1, Episode 4
8/10
She's neither fair nor a maiden
7 October 2020
The Enterprise crew become infected with a virus that suppresses inhibitions.

The Naked Time is an entertaining if somewhat mistimed episode of the original series. Some interesting concepts are explored and it has a good mix of comedy and drama.

It's both plot and character driven, with the focus mainly on characters behaving without inhibitions. There is a large chunk of it dedicated to some more humorous moments involving Sulu and O'Reilly (particularly O'Reilly) which dominate things a little too much. When the focus is on Kirk and Spock, things get very interesting and it provides some excellent insight into their characters.

That being said my two favourite moments belong to Lt. Uhura. Firstly when she almost loses it with Kirk during a stressful situation and then her response to a virus-ridden, swashbuckling Mr Sulu as he attempts to show her a bit of chivalry.

The suspense involved with Mr Scott's scenes and the ship's restart of the warp engines is really good. In fact, the implications of what happens at the end is a pretty significant part of the show and franchise. Some reviewers have mentioned the episode should really have been a later entry to be a Part One for 'Tomorrow Is Yesterday' (as was the original intention according to wikipedia). It's hard to disagree with that as it would also have made more sense to establish the characters a bit more before showing us them behaving this way.
5 out of 5 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed