The Naked Now (S1 ep 3)

Something about this episode struck me as familiar when I watched it the first time. We'd moved into a new house that we'd built earlier that summer. It was big deal for me. I was in high school, 10th grade, I think, and I'd spent the previous couple of years helping out building this place. It was a the first house we'd ever owned. My previous years were mostly hopping around from place to place - military housing, apartments, staying with extended family, a trailer for several years.... this was the only house I'd ever lived in that was mine.

Well, as a 10th grader, it wasn't really mine. But it sure felt that way. My mother and step-father both worked the graveyard shift and I would spend my nights at home alone. The place was out in the country and very close to an actual graveyard. Basically, I was a kid that wanted to pretend he was all big and brave and grown up, but I read comic books and watched my new favorite show Star Trek, and cowered in fear of all the awful things that could happen to me all alone in this new house.

I mentioned previously that I'd watched the entire run of The Original Series the summer prior to TNG's premier. So when this episode aired I was really pretty sure I'd seen this before. Turns out, I was right. The second episode (look, this could get confusing, but Encounter at Farpoint was a two-parter. So it's labeled as the first AND second episodes of the show, so week two is actually airing the third episode. Whatever. It's pretty standard of a practice. So even if this is technically considered the third episode, in my mind, it's number two) was a callback to the TOS episode, The Naked Now.

That's really all I remember about back then. Well, that and that Tasha bangs Data. Upon my epic quest to rewatch I was looking forward to the banging.

Turns out, there was 40 some-odd minutes of other stuff that happened too. My short recap goes something like this:

Space drunkenness strikes when an atom of carbon bonds to water (what?!) and it spreads by contact with already infected people (um, what?!). So when the deceased crew of a derelict  Federation vessel contaminates the Enterprise, it's time for a party.

Meanwhile, Wesley, who was fine in the previous episode, finally shows that he really is batshit insane when he sheepishly reveals that he role plays with a perfect facsimile of Picard's voice praising Wesley for being so great. Seriously, that is messed up.

Slowly the infection spreads throughout the ship and Wesley locks himself in engineering where Picard commands Chief Engineer MacDougal (who?) to fix that mess. All sorts of bad things happen.

In the end, Crusher comes up with a cure after Riker, Data, and Picard, discover the exact same thing happened on the Kirk era Enterprise (yes, yes it did) so they sorta copied Bones' cure and everything was fine. Also, a star exploded.

Oh, and Data and Tasha do smash (that's new slang for having sex, just learned it from my kid. Sigh), but it was very weird.

So, here are some thoughts:

• Seriously, Wesley went from being fine to being an awful character in one episode. Not a big fan of the shirt either.
• Troi was better - way less crying.
• Tasha Yar, um, so far, she's been mishandled as a character. And again with the rape gangs. Look, I'm not sure how it is in the 24th century, but in the 21st, smashing (ugh, I hate that term, I'll never use it again) a clearly drunk girl is at least worthy of mentioning as being unethical, and in some circles, considered rape. Data, who did get space-drunk after his play time with Tasha, was in his right mind when he decided to pleasure her. I don't know, the whole thing made me feel funny, and not in a sexy way.

  

  See? Superman hair

• Also, not a friend of sexy Tasha's hair. It would have looked fine on Superman though.
• Speaking of Data, his 'positronic' brain can get space-drunk too. Huh.
• So a drunken Wesley is capable of taking over the ship? Imagine what a sober bad guy can do.
• That exploding star. What the crap? I have no idea about that giant blob of star matter hurtling at the enterprise. Somebody explain that to me, because it sounds stupid.

In all, I hated this episode. It was bad bad bad. I would not recommend it to a friend, and cannot believe that I ever got past it to watch another one. Or anyone did. I have high hopes that Code of Honor will turn things around.

Rating?

1 out of 5