Following an auspicious and fairly compelling pilot to the series, this episode fell a little flat with its rework of a chapter from the original series titled "The Naked Time". It even had Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) referencing James T. Kirk from that earlier story in the second tribute to that earlier series in as many episodes. The pilot of course had a hundred thirty-seven-year-old Dr. McCoy show up as a visiting admiral aboard the Enterprise-D. This one almost played for a certain amount of silliness when the Captain himself got infected with an intoxicating stimulant, doing that little hop skip as he entered Dr. Crusher's (Gates McFadden) quarters while she was trying to come up with an antidote. I thought it was too early in the series for her son Wesley to make the save with his repulser ray against the star mass hurtling toward the ship. I also couldn't make sense of Commander Data (Brent Spiner) being affected by the odd, invisible contaminant aboard ship; how does that work against an android? What I did think was pretty cool though, was when Picard first commented on the infection on board by stating "Fascinating". Whether it was intentional or not, it immediately brought to mind Science Officer Spock from the late Sixties "Star Trek".
Review of The Naked Now
