TOS 5: The Naked Time

Original air date: 09/29/1966
Star Date: 1704.2

Summary: While investigating some mysterious deaths on a planet called Psi 2000, a careless crewman named Tormolen gets infected with something and brings it aboard the Enterprise.  The illness gradually spreads, ultimately affecting Sulu, Spock and Kirk in addition to a number of non-regulars.  The symptoms of the illness are to make the affected individual intoxicated, which usually results in playful, childlike behavior, but can also cause suicidal tendencies (in Toromolen), romantic feelings (Nurse Christine Chapel), sadness (Spock) and loneliness (Kirk).  In general, the rampant intoxication also makes this the most fun episode in the series to date.

Strangely enough, despite of the title and the fact that many crew members are getting drunk, no one actually gets naked (that we know of).

Ordinarily, this would all be just fun and a headache for Bones until he can find a cure, but one rascally crewman manages to lock himself in the engine room and shut off the engines, making it impossible for the Enterprise to pull up when they get caught by the planet's gravitational pull.  Thus we have a race against time as Kirk and Scotty work to regain control of the ship while the crew gradually descends into chaos.  In the end they are successful, of course, though it takes the combined efforts of Scotty and Spock to pull off a 'one in 10000' feat of engineering to get the engines restarted --- a maneuver which, done incorrectly, could cause the ship to explode.  As an added bonus, they discover that this engineering trick also causes the ship to travel backward in time, thus inventing time travel.

Not a whole lot to say about this one.  This is the first episode where the plot doesn't revolve around someone having super powers, which is refreshing.  And I'm sure this is just the first in a series of examples of Scotty pulling off engineering feats which, in the hands of a lesser man, would doom the Enterprise and all on board to fiery death.

Some minor nagging questions:

• It appears that Tormolen is initially infected when he takes off his protective glove on Psi 2000 and a red liquid jumps horizontally onto his hand.  How does it do that, and what is the liquid?  It seems we're supposed to think it's blood, but blood would be frozen like everything else.
• It seems to take some time --- a half-hour or more, anyway --- for Tormolen to start showing symptoms of infection.  Compare that to Spock and Kirk toward the end of the show, who start having symptoms more or less immediately.
• When Tormolen freaks out and starts brandishing a knife, it's quite easy to see that it's a butter knife with a blunt tip.  Hard to imagine he could do much damage with that, although we're supposed to believe he does manage to stab himself.
• It's still not clear why Tormolen died.  McCoy insists he should have been able to save him.  All we know is that he did a small amount of damage to his intestines with the butter knife, and he's infected with an illness which causes intoxication.  Doesn't seem like that should be fatal.
• And while Sulu and Riley are trying to subdue Tormolen, why three other crew members just looking on, instead of, I don't know, calling Security or something?
• At the end of the episode, everyone on the ship is cured, and they've traveled back in time three days, which means Psi 2000's implosion hasn't begun yet.  Early in the episode, Kirk makes it clear that observing the implosion is very important; but at the end, he orders Sulu to chart a course to their next destination.  Why doesn't he return to Psi 2000 to observe the implosion properly, without all the extra madness brought on by the infection?

Other observations:

We learn that Vulcans have emotions just like humans, but that their societal conventions demand that they control them.  When Spock is infected, he loses control of his emotions and starts crying uncontrollably about the fact that he never told his mother he loved her.  This is also the episode where we learn that Spock's mother was human.

When Kirk is infected, we learn that he is romantically attracted to Yeoman Janice Rand.  He's also frustrated that, as Captain, it's inappropriate for him to act on this attraction.

When Spock is crying about his mother, he's all alone in 'Briefing Room 2'.  How does Kirk manage to find him?

Spock seems to recover from the illness without the need for Dr. McCoy's serum.

This is the first episode where we see the use of the Vulcan 'nerve pinch', as Spock uses it to subdue a sword-wielding Sulu on the bridge.  Afterwards, Spock orders someone to "Take D'Artangan to sick bay," showing that although he may not display emotion, at least he has a sense of humor.

Similarly, there's some amusing banter when McCoy examines Spock and remarks on how different Vulcan vital signs are from human ones, to which Spock replies: "As for my anatomy being different from yours, I am delighted."

And even more on the subject of Spock: I don't see any evidence of a limp any more, so whatever was going on with Nimoy during The Cage must have been temporary.

Shortly before Tormolen goes mad, we see the first example of the Enterprise generating food for the crew seemingly out of nowhere.

I was impressed by the images of Psi 2000 as the Enterprise slowly drops lower and lower toward the surface.

Finally, this episode sees the return of Majel Barrett, the first lady of Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry's wife of 22 years, in the role of Nurse Chapel.  She also had the role of Number One in the original pilot (The Cage), and apparently has been involved in some capacity in just about every Star Trek incarnation since.

The Moral of the Story: Keep your protective gloves on when investigating mysterious deaths.