Monday 1 September 2008

Star Trek: TNG 1.3 - The Naked Now

Review 87 - Episode 83

The One where they all act drunk.

This episode is slightly notorious for being so daft and goofy in places, which it certainly is, but it has a charm and a decent story at it's core.

The Enterprise encounters a ship with a slightly more evolved Virus of the one Kirk and crew faced in The Naked Time. There's a lovely nod to TOS as Data looks up the info with a diagram of the Enterprise (A?) flashing up and Riker and Picard talk about the old mission.

What follows is the crew gradually getting infected and acting in drunk and horny ways. Poor Geordi is the fall guy who contracts it and is miserable about being blind. Even in these early days, the writers don't want to sexualise him in anyway. Tasha and Data have notable scenes as they do the do (who'd have thought these two would be the first crew to shag each other?)

Picard and Beverley is really goofy and played totally for laughs, which is sometimes cringy as well. Wes is really annoying and his weird invention of recording Picards voice is stupid and creepy, not to mention illegal I assume. He than has the cheek to save the day as the end while everyone else looks stupid.

Riker and Troi is a scene you would expect but never happens. Troi's barely in the episode to be honest. And though Riker is infected you wouldn't know it. Only Worf is unaffected and has some great deadpan one liners.

The end scene of Data putting the chips back in place and blowing up the science vessel gives the episode a decent ending, but this sort of TOS story has come far too soon as the actors don't know their characters yet, so having them behave drunk is a bit daft.

Better than I remember though.

3/5
Overall Star Trek Franchise Rating so far: 252/440

  • Wil Wheaton's review of "The Naked Now"
  • No comments: