January 31, 2024 • 30 mins
This week, Ethan and Anthony discuss the classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode, "The Naked Time". They discuss how the plot allowed for additional character development of some of the main cast and explore the episode's commentary on societal collapse and the culture of the 1960s. They also speculate that this episode was likely the inspiration for other episodes in the Star Trek cannon, including episodes of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Strange New Worlds. Tune in for another thought-provoking discussion!
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Episode Transcript
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Ethan (00:18):
Welcome everybody to another episode of Father and
Son's Guide to the Galaxy.
I'm your host,
Anthony (00:23):
Ethan.
And I'm your co host, Anthony.
And
Ethan (00:26):
today, we will be going over episode 4 of Star Trek, the
original series, which is calledThe Naked Time.
Anthony (00:32):
Yeah, The Naked Time.
This is a classic Star Trekepisode, and in fact was the
inspiration for an episode ofThe Next Generation called The
Naked Now, which we're not goingto talk about today, but That
episode wasn't one of the bestTNG episodes, but the Naked Time
is a pretty good episode of StarTrek the original series.
(00:54):
And what we decided we're goingto do going forward as we talk
about these episodes is we'regoing to spend less time talking
about the plot during the showso that we can focus on the more
interesting aspects of theepisode.
And so we're just going to givea brief summary of what happened
in the Naked Time, and thenwe'll dig in and get into the
(01:17):
meat of it.
So At the beginning of theepisode, the crew of the
Enterprise arrives at thisplanet called Psi Alpha 2000.
And Psi Alpha 2000 is like thisfrozen wasteland and the
planet's about to be rippedapart.
It's about to be totallydestroyed.
And so the Enterprise's missionis to first go see if there are
(01:40):
any survivors on the planet andget them to the Enterprise and
get them home.
And then to gather data on theplanet as it breaks up and no
longer exists.
And what ends up happening is,while they're down on the planet
one of the crewmen gets infectedwith a virus.
(02:02):
And apparently, this virus hadinfected The other people who
lived on Cy Alpha 2000 and allof these people had died, so
there were no survivors on theplanet.
And so they beam back up to theEnterprise and this crewman has
this virus and this virusspreads throughout the ship.
And what the virus does is itmakes it so that the person who
(02:26):
has it can't really controltheir emotions and can't
exercise self restraint.
Basically, it sheds all of aperson's inhibitions, and it
causes the person to startacting erratically and doing
some weird stuff.
And so we see this virus spread.
(02:46):
And what's really interestingabout it is, as it spreads to
the main characters of the show,like Captain Kirk, and Spock,
and Sulu, we get insights intotheir personality that we
otherwise wouldn't have gottenwithout this episode.
Because the episode reallyexplores their subconscious.
(03:07):
Mind.
And so, we learn more about thecharacters, which is really
interesting, but there's alsosome larger themes associated
with the episode.
Would you say that's a prettygood summary of what happened in
the episode?
Ethan (03:19):
Yeah, yeah.
I think you pretty much got itdown.
When you were kind of justrehashing it, I was kind of just
thinking about the episode as wewatched it and what kind of came
to my mind is they all kind ofjust let their intrusive
thoughts win.
Anthony (03:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's exactly right.
What, what was your overallimpression of the episode?
Ethan (03:42):
I mean it was a really interesting episode for sure.
There was some amazing costumingwith those ice suits that kind
of just had a little Openingthat the one guy kind of just
put his hand in and itched hisnose.
Anthony (03:57):
Right.
Yeah, at the beginning of theepisode Spock and this other guy
who beamed down to the planetwere wearing like this.
It was like a hazmat suit,right?
But it was It was red and it hadlike sparkles on it.
It looked like a blanket.
Yeah, it almost looked like ablanket and the way that the the
one crew member contracted thevirus was he took his glove off
(04:20):
and it got on his hand and thenfrom there You know, once they
got back to the ship, it spread.
But yeah, I agree.
The costuming was something tobehold in this episode for sure.
The scene
Ethan (04:31):
where he got infected was also, I thought, really funny
because it was just like alittle like droplet of blood
from another body and it kind ofjust like flew into his hand.
Yeah, yeah.
Anthony (04:42):
So, what character did you think was the most
interesting that got the virusin terms of how they acted once
they started, you know, sheddingtheir inhibitions and being,
acting out their subconscious?
So for
Ethan (04:58):
me, it was two.
It's in between Sulu and Mr.
Spock.
Because Sulu just startedignoring all his
responsibilities and decided togo for a workout in the gym.
But previously in the episode hementioned sword fighting or like
fencing, stuff like that.
And then you see him runningacross the halls chasing people
(05:20):
with a sword.
And usually, like, fencingswords have that little, like,
tip on there, like, the little,like, ball tip, you kind of know
what I'm talking about.
But his sword did not have that,so he was chasing around crewmen
with a sharp
Anthony (05:33):
sword.
Yeah, a fencing foil is whatit's called.
And he had his shirt off, right?
So he's running around the shipwith no shirt on, and this
fencing foil, and pretending tofence, and like, I don't think
he was intending to actuallyhurt anybody with it.
But he was trying to scarepeople, right, as he, as he
(05:54):
poked the, the foil at them.
It, that, I agree, that Sulu'scharacter development there was
really interesting.
So what, what do we learn aboutSulu from the episode and, and
from his experience with thisvirus?
Well,
Ethan (06:09):
first we learn that he is incredibly ripped.
Yeah, he
Anthony (06:12):
was, he was in good
Ethan (06:13):
shape, right?
I mean, he did say he wanted togo down to the gym, so you can
assume he does that a lot andit's pretty muscular.
But you also kind of see hismore adventurous side in, I
don't know.
He just seems like a fun guy,generally.
Yeah.
But when you take away some selfcontrol that's not so fun.
Anthony (06:34):
Right, right.
Yeah, he has a sense ofadventure, and he's basically a
swashbuckler at heart, right?
That's kind of what we learnedabout his character.
So I thought that was reallyinteresting.
Now, you mentioned Spock.
Tell me what you liked aboutSpock's character.
Ethan (06:54):
It was extremely, like, dramatic and funny.
He kind of just let out all hishuman side and started crying to
himself on a table and you kindof see him like trying to grasp
for self control, but then hejust starts absolutely bawling,
(07:15):
which is just so out ofcharacter and So funny at the
same time.
Anthony (07:22):
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was pretty hilarious to see.
And he talks about, when he'shaving this breakdown, he talks
about how much he loves hismother, his earth mother.
Who he never, you know, he neversaid that he loved her, or told
her that he loved her.
And he feels bad about that, andhe's just having this emotional
(07:43):
breakdown.
And so I think what we learnabout Spock is that he's very
human at heart, right?
His logical side is the Spockthat's You know, self restrained
and wants to execute a missionand follow orders and help the
(08:07):
crew of the Enterprise.
But deep down inside, he's afairly emotional guy.
There's quite a bit of depth toSpock as a
Ethan (08:15):
character.
Yeah, this also kind of remindedme of the episode of Star Trek
Strange New Worlds where theyhad Spock become a human and
kind of was dealing with allsorts of new kinds of emotions
that he'd never experienced andYeah, I kind of like how they
(08:38):
explore his human sides from theearliest forms of Star Trek to
the modern Star Trek that we see
Anthony (08:44):
today.
Yeah, I almost wondered if thatStrange New Worlds episode was
inspired in part by thisepisode, The Naked Time.
It's a different plot, and inStrange New Worlds, he somehow
loses his DNA, his Vulcan DNA
Ethan (09:00):
shuttlecraft accident, and there was kind of like this
Wormholes type place that theshuttle crashed into, and the
aliens in there fixed him.
And, cause they saw the VulcanDNA as like, kind of
Unimportant, because he was inthe shuttle with Nurse Chapel,
(09:21):
so they saw mainly human DNA.
Right, right,
Anthony (09:23):
yeah, that's right.
So it's a different scenario,different plot device that ends
up revealing Spock's emotionalside.
But I'm certain that the writersof Strange New Worlds had to
have been inspired by thisoriginal series episode, so.
Yeah, definitely.
Speaking of Nurse Chapel, shealso gets infected by this
virus.
And her character is interestingtoo because she begins
(09:49):
expressing her love for Spock tohis face.
Telling him how she feels abouthim and that she's had all these
built up emotions towards himand she's in love with him.
That was pretty interesting tosee too.
Ethan (10:03):
Yeah, you also see Spock's reaction before he
starts, like, acting as he waswhen he was infected.
You could tell that he wasn'tunder the influence of the virus
yet, but he was kind of startingto feel emotional.
And then when he walked out, theeffects of the virus, like,
(10:25):
escalated his reaction.
Right.
To the breakdown you saw in theconference room.
Anthony (10:30):
Yeah, and I think Nurse Chapel is actually the one that
transferred the virus to him,right?
Yeah.
She, she like physically touchedhim when she was pouring out her
emotion and feelings towardsSpock, and then he got infected
and then he manifested thesubconscious stuff in a
different way, but reallyinteresting and I wondered if
(10:52):
This episode was also aninspiration for the Nurse Chapel
Spock storyline in Strange NewWorlds, where they're, you know,
essentially in a relationshipand falling for each other.
Ethan (11:06):
Yeah, I could definitely see that as being one of the
factors that inspired that wholestoryline.
In Strange New Worlds.
Anthony (11:16):
Yeah, so Strange New Worlds is great because it
explores some of this backstorybefore the original series.
And so it just further adds tothe character development of
these classic Star Trekcharacters.
What about Captain Kirk?
So Captain Kirk gets infectedwith the virus and his reaction
(11:37):
is pretty interesting.
And this is towards the end ofthe episode, he's infected
relatively late, but he comesacross as very passionate and he
starts expressing his feelingsabout Rand and says something to
the effect of, you know, hewishes he could be with her, but
(11:59):
because he's the captain, he'snot allowed to.
And then he also starts talkingabout his feelings for the
Enterprise and the weight of hisoffice as captain for, of the
ship.
And, it just gives someinteresting insight into who
(12:20):
Captain Kirk is.
He's a man of great passion heloves this ship, but he also, I
think at some point, makes acomment about the ship that He
keeps giving and giving and theEnterprise keeps taking and
taking or something like that.
So as much as he loves the ship,he also feels this enormous
(12:40):
weight of responsibility that hehas as captain and you know, the
protector of his crew.
Ethan (12:47):
Yes, this was kind of a conversation between Captain
Kirk and Spock.
I believe, and am I right aboutthat?
Yeah.
And I found this really funnybecause they were like minutes
towards being pulled in by theplanet and the ship exploding
and they're having thisconversation about their
(13:09):
emotions and their feelings andit's, it's one of those things
that happens a lot in TV wheretime lasts as long as they want
it to in a sense of urgency.
Right.
Anthony (13:22):
Yeah, it, it, they said they had only so many minutes
left, but it ended up being alot more than
that.
Ethan (13:29):
It was like, they said they had 15 minutes left, but it
lasted the whole rest of theepisode.
Anthony (13:33):
Right, right.
Yeah, so, so anyway, we get someinteresting insight into these
characters and learn more aboutthem, and that makes us, want to
see more of, of them in futureepisodes.
And then there's someinteresting themes in this
episode.
One of the things that I wantedto get your take on was at, at
(13:53):
the beginning of the episode,after they get back to the ship,
Spock makes this comment, thatthe data that they're gathering
about this planet, Psi Alpha2000, that's about to break up
and be destroyed, suggests thatthey may be seeing Earth's
future because Earth wasremarkably similar to Psi Alpha
(14:16):
2000.
And so Spock's suggesting thatthis may be what will eventually
happen to Earth.
What did you think of that?
What did you take away from thatcomment?
Ethan (14:27):
So, I, I, if I remember correctly, the planet kind of
turned into that ice planet whenthe sun of that solar system
burned out.
And so that kind of reminded meof like I believe you've told me
this before that back in yourtime, maybe a little earlier
that people thought that likeglobal cooling was an issue.
(14:50):
Right.
And so I'm wondering if that.
They kind of took that issue andsort of escalated it to the
extreme form of the planetbasically turning into just a
frozen ice cap.
Anthony (15:08):
Yeah, that's interesting.
I hadn't thought of that.
I guess it's possible.
The global cooling phenomenonwas briefly during the 1970s, I
believe, but there may have atthis point in the late 60s,
there may have been talk aboutit.
I'm not entirely sure.
So yeah, that, that's possible.
I wonder if it's more of ametaphor for the breakdown of
(15:34):
society you know, what, cause,cause what happens on Psi Alpha
2000 is you know,environmentally the conditions
are bad, but this virus infectspeople and they start acting out
their inhibitions and you know,it just Results in chaos.
And so, and then everybody endsup dying.
(15:56):
And so I wonder if Spock'sreference or comparison to Earth
is to, maybe to make us thinklike, okay, what's Earth's
destiny?
What's our society's destiny ifwe don't reign in, you know,
our, subconscious and we don'texercise some self restraint.
Ethan (16:17):
Yeah, Spock was just kind of saying look what happens when
people let our intrusivethoughts win We all die.
Anthony (16:27):
Yeah, yeah, but he's making an analogy with the
breakup of the planet.
Yeah.
Another thing that I thought wasinteresting was there was one
character, I don't think he evenhad a name, but he got infected
with the virus.
And he starts painting, right?
He has a paintbrush, and hestarts painting on the walls,
(16:48):
and down one corridor, he wroteor painted, Love Mankind.
Do you, do you remember thatscene?
Yeah.
What did you think of that?
What, what do you think that wasall about?
I,
Ethan (17:03):
my mind immediately went to, like, hippies and their
Like, rainbow vans, and peacesigns, and, yeah.
Anthony (17:12):
I don't know.
Yeah, I think it's a reflectionof the culture of the 1960s.
I don't know, what I, what Iwasn't sure about after watching
this episode, it clearly, it wasreferencing the culture of the
1960s in the United States.
But what I wasn't sure of iswhether or not it's an
(17:33):
indictment of the culture ornot.
It seems that maybe it isbecause what it shows is It's,
you know, these people who arebreaking down these social norms
and barriers, which, which was alot of what was happening in the
1960s with the, the hippiemovement and peace, love, dope,
(17:55):
and all of that.
In the episode, of course, itends up creating chaos and the
ship almost ends up notsurviving, right, getting,
getting blown up because one ofthe guys that was infected with
the virus kind of takes over theship.
And so I wonder if that's kindof a commentary on what happens
(18:16):
if we let that kind of stuff gotoo far.
Right?
If, if we don't have societalnorms and we don't have a
culture of restraint you know,what does that do to society in,
in the long term and the socialorder, so to speak?
(18:38):
At the same time, You could alsoargue that there are some good
things that came out of thatcultural movement.
Certainly we saw an advancementin things like civil rights
during the 1960s.
And so, like any good work offiction I think it leaves you
with more questions thananswers.
(19:00):
But that was kind of mytakeaway, is that this episode
maybe wasn't very sympathetic tothe hippie movement of the
1960s.
Ethan (19:13):
Yeah, I guess, I guess, I can see where you're coming from
in that
Anthony (19:16):
one.
Yeah, but to contrast that LoveMankind phrase that was painted
on the wall we, there's a scenewhere Kirk is going back to the
bridge, and so he gets into theturbo lift, and he notices It's
another phrase painted on thewall of the turbo lift, which is
sinner repent.
And so that, that was kind oflike a, an apocalyptic phrase,
(19:42):
you know, about the, the end ofthe world.
And, and that was, I thinksomething that was in the
zeitgeist of the time, you know,this concern about the, the end
of the world.
What, what was gonna happen tohumanity, and so, I, I thought
that was interesting as well.
What, did you have any thoughtson that phrase, the, the sinner
(20:03):
repent?
Ethan (20:05):
What I was trying to figure out with that phrase is
like, I really couldn't tellwhat the audience of that
message was supposed to be.
Like, who was that supposed tobe painted for, and repent of
what?
Anthony (20:23):
Yeah, yeah.
I, I don't know.
I think, I think it could mean alot of different things, and the
scene was with Captain Kirk, andhe's the one that sees that on
the wall, so maybe it's directedtowards him that he feels like
he's, You know, things are, areout of control.
(20:45):
I'm not really sure.
It it was interesting though andit certainly made me think a
little more deeply about thethemes of the episode because I
think ultimately what theepisode is about is what happens
when society breaks down, right?
And we've seen, we've seenexamples of that in recent
(21:06):
years, right?
Rioting and you know, chaos andjust Just crazy stuff that has
gone on in, in the United Statesspecifically, but also in other
parts of the world.
And so sometimes it does feellike society's on the verge of a
total collapse.
(21:27):
And so this episode kind ofexplores, like, what, what What
does that look like, you know,if people stop caring about the
social order and just dowhatever they want and you know,
and, and maybe there's these twoextremes, right?
There's the, the extreme of thehippie side, the, the just, you
(21:49):
know, love, man, that's all weneed.
And then this extreme of, youknow, repent, it's the end of
the world.
And those two extremes come inconflict with each other.
And it creates problems forsociety.
Ethan (22:03):
Yeah, that's That's a way of looking at it.
I, I don't know, I'm stilltrying to, like, piece it all
together, so I'm not really surehow all of it fits with, like,
the movements of the time andthings.
But I, I do It definitely makessense, the breakdown of societal
(22:25):
norms and just how that destroysorder and things like that.
One thing though we haven'treally gone over was the guy who
first came down with the virusand how it affected him.
Because he had a veryinteresting perspective about
(22:46):
Starfleet and what they're doingin space.
That's true.
Anthony (22:50):
Yeah, glad you brought that up.
Yeah,
Ethan (22:52):
so what happened, if you recall, is he basically started
going on this whole rant abouthow they don't belong in space
and that like they shouldn't bethere and it's just it's bad
that they're out there andhumans should stay
Anthony (23:11):
on earth.
Yeah, he's, he's saying theyhave no right to be there and,
and Almost suggests that it'sirresponsible of them to be out
exploring space.
So his subconscious has theseconcerns about everything that
Starfleet is doing, right?
Including himself as a member ofStarfleet.
(23:33):
And then that causes him to gointo like this depression,
right?
And he ends up trying to killhimself, and he's not
successful.
at that at first.
But he ends up getting, he grabsa knife, they're in the mess
hall, and he grabs a knife, andhe's about to stab himself, and
Su Lu and another character areable to stop him, but while,
(23:56):
while doing so, he ends upfalling to the ground, and the
knife stabs him.
But it wasn't a fatal wound.
We find out when he's later insickbay.
And Dr.
McCoy is operating on him.
And All the sudden, he startsdying on the table, and McCoy is
really confused about this,like, why is this guy dying, he
(24:16):
shouldn't be dying, there's, youknow, he had this wound, but
it's not, wasn't that severe ofa wound, I should be able to,
fix this and save his life, andas it turns out, he basically
chose to die, he was sodepressed that he didn't have
the will to live anymore, andthat's why he died, on the
table, right, and so that's howthis virus infected him so that
(24:39):
was really interesting.
Yeah, the way
Ethan (24:41):
he died kind of just reminded me of the movie Revenge
of the Sith, where Padme wasjust sad he died.
And then you've got AnakinSkywalker, who has just been
burned in lava, lost all hislimbs, put in a robot suit, he's
still living.
Anthony (24:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was kind of similar, for sure.
Yeah, so, any other were thereany other characters?
I guess the other characterthat's worth talking about is
the Riley character.
So he gets infected with thevirus and all of a sudden he
thinks he's an Irish king.
(25:19):
And he starts singing and doingweird stuff.
And then he's the one thateventually Takes over the engine
room and takes over theEnterprise and and basically the
Enterprise is getting sucked inTo this vortex that's created
from the the planet breaking upWell it
Ethan (25:39):
wasn't a vortex it was the planets gravity intensifying
because the planet was kind ofcrushing in on itself And what
they needed it was they neededhelm control so they could
Manage that But this charactertook over the the whole ship
from engineering, right?
(26:00):
which was also this this part ofthe story was Taken from like
the next generation borrowedthis part of the story for a
different character I believe itwas Wesley crusher in the in the
yeah naked now who also tookover the ship from engineering,
right?
(26:21):
Yeah, so, basically, thischaracter now seems to believe
he is in charge of the ship, butalso has no clue that the ship
is spiraling down into its owndoom.
Right,
Anthony (26:35):
right, he's oblivious to what's actually happening.
Which is another you know,another commentary on the whole
theme, right, that as societycontinues to break down, there
are those who are not payingattention to what's happening,
right?
And and don't care.
(26:55):
So, yeah that was an interestingone as well.
So at the end of the episodethey end up being able to solve
the problem of getting suckedinto this This gravity pool that
you explained, and the, thesolution to the problem is this
engine implosion, I think theycalled it, right?
(27:18):
And and so, Spock and Kirk kindof snap out of the the, the
virus stuff and, and Spock inparticular is able to go save
the day and make this engineimplosion happen.
And the result of that is thatthey went back in time three
days.
And that's how they ended upsurviving.
(27:42):
So they, they went back in timeand then they.
Of course, don't go to Psi Alpha2000 again, because now they
know what's going to happen.
But one thing that I thought wasinteresting was at the end of
the episode, they realizethey've gone back three days in
time, Spock says to Kirk, wehave three days to live over
(28:05):
again.
And Kirk responds, but not thoselast three days.
So you know, that's kind ofinteresting.
You know, what if you, what ifyou had a do over you know, if
you could go back and fix amistake that you made that was
potentially catastrophic ordestructive in some way?
Yeah.
You know, what would that, whatwould that be like?
(28:26):
And Spock also notes that theynow, know how to go back to any
era in time.
Right?
They now have the, the abilityto do that.
And Kirk says, you know, maybesomeday we'll, we'll do that.
But this was interesting becauseit introduces time travel to the
Star Trek story.
This is the first mention of, oftime travel.
(28:49):
And there'll be you know, futureepisodes.
I think there's at least acouple of original series
episodes that deal with timetravel.
And then of course, in the latershows, TNG and Deep Space Nine
and Voyager, there's, you know,Lots of time travel episodes.
Yeah, there's
Ethan (29:05):
soon enough episodes that Starfleet has a whole section
devoted to time travel issues.
And that was probably what therewas an episode about it in Deep
Space Nine.
One of the workers said, like,that's one of the reasons we
dislike Captain Kirk is becausehe's time traveled so much and
he piles up so much paperwork.
(29:26):
Right.
Anthony (29:28):
Yeah.
So, all in all I gave this a, a,a letter grade of an a.
I really liked this episode.
I thought it was thoughtprovoking.
I thought the characters wereinteresting.
The character development wasfascinating as you got to kind
of dive into the subconsciousof, of some of these characters
that we love so much.
(29:49):
So I, I gave it an a What aboutyou?
Yeah, I
Ethan (29:51):
would also give it an, a very entertaining story.
Lots of funny parts to it.
Yeah, I just really liked
Anthony (30:00):
it.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely my favorite ofthe four episodes that we've
reviewed so far All right.
Well, thanks everybody forjoining us again for this
episode.
We look forward to continuingthe discussion next week.
In the meantime we hope you havea good week ahead and we'll talk
(30:20):
to you soon.
See ya.
Welcome everybody to another episode of Father and
Son's Guide to the Galaxy.
I'm your host,
Anthony (00:23):
Ethan.
And I'm your co host, Anthony.
And
Ethan (00:26):
today, we will be going over episode 4 of Star Trek, the
original series, which is calledThe Naked Time.
Anthony (00:32):
Yeah, The Naked Time.
This is a classic Star Trekepisode, and in fact was the
inspiration for an episode ofThe Next Generation called The
Naked Now, which we're not goingto talk about today, but That
episode wasn't one of the bestTNG episodes, but the Naked Time
is a pretty good episode of StarTrek the original series.
(00:54):
And what we decided we're goingto do going forward as we talk
about these episodes is we'regoing to spend less time talking
about the plot during the showso that we can focus on the more
interesting aspects of theepisode.
And so we're just going to givea brief summary of what happened
in the Naked Time, and thenwe'll dig in and get into the
(01:17):
meat of it.
So At the beginning of theepisode, the crew of the
Enterprise arrives at thisplanet called Psi Alpha 2000.
And Psi Alpha 2000 is like thisfrozen wasteland and the
planet's about to be rippedapart.
It's about to be totallydestroyed.
And so the Enterprise's missionis to first go see if there are
(01:40):
any survivors on the planet andget them to the Enterprise and
get them home.
And then to gather data on theplanet as it breaks up and no
longer exists.
And what ends up happening is,while they're down on the planet
one of the crewmen gets infectedwith a virus.
(02:02):
And apparently, this virus hadinfected The other people who
lived on Cy Alpha 2000 and allof these people had died, so
there were no survivors on theplanet.
And so they beam back up to theEnterprise and this crewman has
this virus and this virusspreads throughout the ship.
And what the virus does is itmakes it so that the person who
(02:26):
has it can't really controltheir emotions and can't
exercise self restraint.
Basically, it sheds all of aperson's inhibitions, and it
causes the person to startacting erratically and doing
some weird stuff.
And so we see this virus spread.
(02:46):
And what's really interestingabout it is, as it spreads to
the main characters of the show,like Captain Kirk, and Spock,
and Sulu, we get insights intotheir personality that we
otherwise wouldn't have gottenwithout this episode.
Because the episode reallyexplores their subconscious.
(03:07):
Mind.
And so, we learn more about thecharacters, which is really
interesting, but there's alsosome larger themes associated
with the episode.
Would you say that's a prettygood summary of what happened in
the episode?
Ethan (03:19):
Yeah, yeah.
I think you pretty much got itdown.
When you were kind of justrehashing it, I was kind of just
thinking about the episode as wewatched it and what kind of came
to my mind is they all kind ofjust let their intrusive
thoughts win.
Anthony (03:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's exactly right.
What, what was your overallimpression of the episode?
Ethan (03:42):
I mean it was a really interesting episode for sure.
There was some amazing costumingwith those ice suits that kind
of just had a little Openingthat the one guy kind of just
put his hand in and itched hisnose.
Anthony (03:57):
Right.
Yeah, at the beginning of theepisode Spock and this other guy
who beamed down to the planetwere wearing like this.
It was like a hazmat suit,right?
But it was It was red and it hadlike sparkles on it.
It looked like a blanket.
Yeah, it almost looked like ablanket and the way that the the
one crew member contracted thevirus was he took his glove off
(04:20):
and it got on his hand and thenfrom there You know, once they
got back to the ship, it spread.
But yeah, I agree.
The costuming was something tobehold in this episode for sure.
The scene
Ethan (04:31):
where he got infected was also, I thought, really funny
because it was just like alittle like droplet of blood
from another body and it kind ofjust like flew into his hand.
Yeah, yeah.
Anthony (04:42):
So, what character did you think was the most
interesting that got the virusin terms of how they acted once
they started, you know, sheddingtheir inhibitions and being,
acting out their subconscious?
So for
Ethan (04:58):
me, it was two.
It's in between Sulu and Mr.
Spock.
Because Sulu just startedignoring all his
responsibilities and decided togo for a workout in the gym.
But previously in the episode hementioned sword fighting or like
fencing, stuff like that.
And then you see him runningacross the halls chasing people
(05:20):
with a sword.
And usually, like, fencingswords have that little, like,
tip on there, like, the little,like, ball tip, you kind of know
what I'm talking about.
But his sword did not have that,so he was chasing around crewmen
with a sharp
Anthony (05:33):
sword.
Yeah, a fencing foil is whatit's called.
And he had his shirt off, right?
So he's running around the shipwith no shirt on, and this
fencing foil, and pretending tofence, and like, I don't think
he was intending to actuallyhurt anybody with it.
But he was trying to scarepeople, right, as he, as he
(05:54):
poked the, the foil at them.
It, that, I agree, that Sulu'scharacter development there was
really interesting.
So what, what do we learn aboutSulu from the episode and, and
from his experience with thisvirus?
Well,
Ethan (06:09):
first we learn that he is incredibly ripped.
Yeah, he
Anthony (06:12):
was, he was in good
Ethan (06:13):
shape, right?
I mean, he did say he wanted togo down to the gym, so you can
assume he does that a lot andit's pretty muscular.
But you also kind of see hismore adventurous side in, I
don't know.
He just seems like a fun guy,generally.
Yeah.
But when you take away some selfcontrol that's not so fun.
Anthony (06:34):
Right, right.
Yeah, he has a sense ofadventure, and he's basically a
swashbuckler at heart, right?
That's kind of what we learnedabout his character.
So I thought that was reallyinteresting.
Now, you mentioned Spock.
Tell me what you liked aboutSpock's character.
Ethan (06:54):
It was extremely, like, dramatic and funny.
He kind of just let out all hishuman side and started crying to
himself on a table and you kindof see him like trying to grasp
for self control, but then hejust starts absolutely bawling,
(07:15):
which is just so out ofcharacter and So funny at the
same time.
Anthony (07:22):
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was pretty hilarious to see.
And he talks about, when he'shaving this breakdown, he talks
about how much he loves hismother, his earth mother.
Who he never, you know, he neversaid that he loved her, or told
her that he loved her.
And he feels bad about that, andhe's just having this emotional
(07:43):
breakdown.
And so I think what we learnabout Spock is that he's very
human at heart, right?
His logical side is the Spockthat's You know, self restrained
and wants to execute a missionand follow orders and help the
(08:07):
crew of the Enterprise.
But deep down inside, he's afairly emotional guy.
There's quite a bit of depth toSpock as a
Ethan (08:15):
character.
Yeah, this also kind of remindedme of the episode of Star Trek
Strange New Worlds where theyhad Spock become a human and
kind of was dealing with allsorts of new kinds of emotions
that he'd never experienced andYeah, I kind of like how they
(08:38):
explore his human sides from theearliest forms of Star Trek to
the modern Star Trek that we see
Anthony (08:44):
today.
Yeah, I almost wondered if thatStrange New Worlds episode was
inspired in part by thisepisode, The Naked Time.
It's a different plot, and inStrange New Worlds, he somehow
loses his DNA, his Vulcan DNA
Ethan (09:00):
shuttlecraft accident, and there was kind of like this
Wormholes type place that theshuttle crashed into, and the
aliens in there fixed him.
And, cause they saw the VulcanDNA as like, kind of
Unimportant, because he was inthe shuttle with Nurse Chapel,
(09:21):
so they saw mainly human DNA.
Right, right,
Anthony (09:23):
yeah, that's right.
So it's a different scenario,different plot device that ends
up revealing Spock's emotionalside.
But I'm certain that the writersof Strange New Worlds had to
have been inspired by thisoriginal series episode, so.
Yeah, definitely.
Speaking of Nurse Chapel, shealso gets infected by this
virus.
And her character is interestingtoo because she begins
(09:49):
expressing her love for Spock tohis face.
Telling him how she feels abouthim and that she's had all these
built up emotions towards himand she's in love with him.
That was pretty interesting tosee too.
Ethan (10:03):
Yeah, you also see Spock's reaction before he
starts, like, acting as he waswhen he was infected.
You could tell that he wasn'tunder the influence of the virus
yet, but he was kind of startingto feel emotional.
And then when he walked out, theeffects of the virus, like,
(10:25):
escalated his reaction.
Right.
To the breakdown you saw in theconference room.
Anthony (10:30):
Yeah, and I think Nurse Chapel is actually the one that
transferred the virus to him,right?
Yeah.
She, she like physically touchedhim when she was pouring out her
emotion and feelings towardsSpock, and then he got infected
and then he manifested thesubconscious stuff in a
different way, but reallyinteresting and I wondered if
(10:52):
This episode was also aninspiration for the Nurse Chapel
Spock storyline in Strange NewWorlds, where they're, you know,
essentially in a relationshipand falling for each other.
Ethan (11:06):
Yeah, I could definitely see that as being one of the
factors that inspired that wholestoryline.
In Strange New Worlds.
Anthony (11:16):
Yeah, so Strange New Worlds is great because it
explores some of this backstorybefore the original series.
And so it just further adds tothe character development of
these classic Star Trekcharacters.
What about Captain Kirk?
So Captain Kirk gets infectedwith the virus and his reaction
(11:37):
is pretty interesting.
And this is towards the end ofthe episode, he's infected
relatively late, but he comesacross as very passionate and he
starts expressing his feelingsabout Rand and says something to
the effect of, you know, hewishes he could be with her, but
(11:59):
because he's the captain, he'snot allowed to.
And then he also starts talkingabout his feelings for the
Enterprise and the weight of hisoffice as captain for, of the
ship.
And, it just gives someinteresting insight into who
(12:20):
Captain Kirk is.
He's a man of great passion heloves this ship, but he also, I
think at some point, makes acomment about the ship that He
keeps giving and giving and theEnterprise keeps taking and
taking or something like that.
So as much as he loves the ship,he also feels this enormous
(12:40):
weight of responsibility that hehas as captain and you know, the
protector of his crew.
Ethan (12:47):
Yes, this was kind of a conversation between Captain
Kirk and Spock.
I believe, and am I right aboutthat?
Yeah.
And I found this really funnybecause they were like minutes
towards being pulled in by theplanet and the ship exploding
and they're having thisconversation about their
(13:09):
emotions and their feelings andit's, it's one of those things
that happens a lot in TV wheretime lasts as long as they want
it to in a sense of urgency.
Right.
Anthony (13:22):
Yeah, it, it, they said they had only so many minutes
left, but it ended up being alot more than
that.
Ethan (13:29):
It was like, they said they had 15 minutes left, but it
lasted the whole rest of theepisode.
Anthony (13:33):
Right, right.
Yeah, so, so anyway, we get someinteresting insight into these
characters and learn more aboutthem, and that makes us, want to
see more of, of them in futureepisodes.
And then there's someinteresting themes in this
episode.
One of the things that I wantedto get your take on was at, at
(13:53):
the beginning of the episode,after they get back to the ship,
Spock makes this comment, thatthe data that they're gathering
about this planet, Psi Alpha2000, that's about to break up
and be destroyed, suggests thatthey may be seeing Earth's
future because Earth wasremarkably similar to Psi Alpha
(14:16):
2000.
And so Spock's suggesting thatthis may be what will eventually
happen to Earth.
What did you think of that?
What did you take away from thatcomment?
Ethan (14:27):
So, I, I, if I remember correctly, the planet kind of
turned into that ice planet whenthe sun of that solar system
burned out.
And so that kind of reminded meof like I believe you've told me
this before that back in yourtime, maybe a little earlier
that people thought that likeglobal cooling was an issue.
(14:50):
Right.
And so I'm wondering if that.
They kind of took that issue andsort of escalated it to the
extreme form of the planetbasically turning into just a
frozen ice cap.
Anthony (15:08):
Yeah, that's interesting.
I hadn't thought of that.
I guess it's possible.
The global cooling phenomenonwas briefly during the 1970s, I
believe, but there may have atthis point in the late 60s,
there may have been talk aboutit.
I'm not entirely sure.
So yeah, that, that's possible.
I wonder if it's more of ametaphor for the breakdown of
(15:34):
society you know, what, cause,cause what happens on Psi Alpha
2000 is you know,environmentally the conditions
are bad, but this virus infectspeople and they start acting out
their inhibitions and you know,it just Results in chaos.
And so, and then everybody endsup dying.
(15:56):
And so I wonder if Spock'sreference or comparison to Earth
is to, maybe to make us thinklike, okay, what's Earth's
destiny?
What's our society's destiny ifwe don't reign in, you know,
our, subconscious and we don'texercise some self restraint.
Ethan (16:17):
Yeah, Spock was just kind of saying look what happens when
people let our intrusivethoughts win We all die.
Anthony (16:27):
Yeah, yeah, but he's making an analogy with the
breakup of the planet.
Yeah.
Another thing that I thought wasinteresting was there was one
character, I don't think he evenhad a name, but he got infected
with the virus.
And he starts painting, right?
He has a paintbrush, and hestarts painting on the walls,
(16:48):
and down one corridor, he wroteor painted, Love Mankind.
Do you, do you remember thatscene?
Yeah.
What did you think of that?
What, what do you think that wasall about?
I,
Ethan (17:03):
my mind immediately went to, like, hippies and their
Like, rainbow vans, and peacesigns, and, yeah.
Anthony (17:12):
I don't know.
Yeah, I think it's a reflectionof the culture of the 1960s.
I don't know, what I, what Iwasn't sure about after watching
this episode, it clearly, it wasreferencing the culture of the
1960s in the United States.
But what I wasn't sure of iswhether or not it's an
(17:33):
indictment of the culture ornot.
It seems that maybe it isbecause what it shows is It's,
you know, these people who arebreaking down these social norms
and barriers, which, which was alot of what was happening in the
1960s with the, the hippiemovement and peace, love, dope,
(17:55):
and all of that.
In the episode, of course, itends up creating chaos and the
ship almost ends up notsurviving, right, getting,
getting blown up because one ofthe guys that was infected with
the virus kind of takes over theship.
And so I wonder if that's kindof a commentary on what happens
(18:16):
if we let that kind of stuff gotoo far.
Right?
If, if we don't have societalnorms and we don't have a
culture of restraint you know,what does that do to society in,
in the long term and the socialorder, so to speak?
(18:38):
At the same time, You could alsoargue that there are some good
things that came out of thatcultural movement.
Certainly we saw an advancementin things like civil rights
during the 1960s.
And so, like any good work offiction I think it leaves you
with more questions thananswers.
(19:00):
But that was kind of mytakeaway, is that this episode
maybe wasn't very sympathetic tothe hippie movement of the
1960s.
Ethan (19:13):
Yeah, I guess, I guess, I can see where you're coming from
in that
Anthony (19:16):
one.
Yeah, but to contrast that LoveMankind phrase that was painted
on the wall we, there's a scenewhere Kirk is going back to the
bridge, and so he gets into theturbo lift, and he notices It's
another phrase painted on thewall of the turbo lift, which is
sinner repent.
And so that, that was kind oflike a, an apocalyptic phrase,
(19:42):
you know, about the, the end ofthe world.
And, and that was, I thinksomething that was in the
zeitgeist of the time, you know,this concern about the, the end
of the world.
What, what was gonna happen tohumanity, and so, I, I thought
that was interesting as well.
What, did you have any thoughtson that phrase, the, the sinner
(20:03):
repent?
Ethan (20:05):
What I was trying to figure out with that phrase is
like, I really couldn't tellwhat the audience of that
message was supposed to be.
Like, who was that supposed tobe painted for, and repent of
what?
Anthony (20:23):
Yeah, yeah.
I, I don't know.
I think, I think it could mean alot of different things, and the
scene was with Captain Kirk, andhe's the one that sees that on
the wall, so maybe it's directedtowards him that he feels like
he's, You know, things are, areout of control.
(20:45):
I'm not really sure.
It it was interesting though andit certainly made me think a
little more deeply about thethemes of the episode because I
think ultimately what theepisode is about is what happens
when society breaks down, right?
And we've seen, we've seenexamples of that in recent
(21:06):
years, right?
Rioting and you know, chaos andjust Just crazy stuff that has
gone on in, in the United Statesspecifically, but also in other
parts of the world.
And so sometimes it does feellike society's on the verge of a
total collapse.
(21:27):
And so this episode kind ofexplores, like, what, what What
does that look like, you know,if people stop caring about the
social order and just dowhatever they want and you know,
and, and maybe there's these twoextremes, right?
There's the, the extreme of thehippie side, the, the just, you
(21:49):
know, love, man, that's all weneed.
And then this extreme of, youknow, repent, it's the end of
the world.
And those two extremes come inconflict with each other.
And it creates problems forsociety.
Ethan (22:03):
Yeah, that's That's a way of looking at it.
I, I don't know, I'm stilltrying to, like, piece it all
together, so I'm not really surehow all of it fits with, like,
the movements of the time andthings.
But I, I do It definitely makessense, the breakdown of societal
(22:25):
norms and just how that destroysorder and things like that.
One thing though we haven'treally gone over was the guy who
first came down with the virusand how it affected him.
Because he had a veryinteresting perspective about
(22:46):
Starfleet and what they're doingin space.
That's true.
Anthony (22:50):
Yeah, glad you brought that up.
Yeah,
Ethan (22:52):
so what happened, if you recall, is he basically started
going on this whole rant abouthow they don't belong in space
and that like they shouldn't bethere and it's just it's bad
that they're out there andhumans should stay
Anthony (23:11):
on earth.
Yeah, he's, he's saying theyhave no right to be there and,
and Almost suggests that it'sirresponsible of them to be out
exploring space.
So his subconscious has theseconcerns about everything that
Starfleet is doing, right?
Including himself as a member ofStarfleet.
(23:33):
And then that causes him to gointo like this depression,
right?
And he ends up trying to killhimself, and he's not
successful.
at that at first.
But he ends up getting, he grabsa knife, they're in the mess
hall, and he grabs a knife, andhe's about to stab himself, and
Su Lu and another character areable to stop him, but while,
(23:56):
while doing so, he ends upfalling to the ground, and the
knife stabs him.
But it wasn't a fatal wound.
We find out when he's later insickbay.
And Dr.
McCoy is operating on him.
And All the sudden, he startsdying on the table, and McCoy is
really confused about this,like, why is this guy dying, he
(24:16):
shouldn't be dying, there's, youknow, he had this wound, but
it's not, wasn't that severe ofa wound, I should be able to,
fix this and save his life, andas it turns out, he basically
chose to die, he was sodepressed that he didn't have
the will to live anymore, andthat's why he died, on the
table, right, and so that's howthis virus infected him so that
(24:39):
was really interesting.
Yeah, the way
Ethan (24:41):
he died kind of just reminded me of the movie Revenge
of the Sith, where Padme wasjust sad he died.
And then you've got AnakinSkywalker, who has just been
burned in lava, lost all hislimbs, put in a robot suit, he's
still living.
Anthony (24:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was kind of similar, for sure.
Yeah, so, any other were thereany other characters?
I guess the other characterthat's worth talking about is
the Riley character.
So he gets infected with thevirus and all of a sudden he
thinks he's an Irish king.
(25:19):
And he starts singing and doingweird stuff.
And then he's the one thateventually Takes over the engine
room and takes over theEnterprise and and basically the
Enterprise is getting sucked inTo this vortex that's created
from the the planet breaking upWell it
Ethan (25:39):
wasn't a vortex it was the planets gravity intensifying
because the planet was kind ofcrushing in on itself And what
they needed it was they neededhelm control so they could
Manage that But this charactertook over the the whole ship
from engineering, right?
(26:00):
which was also this this part ofthe story was Taken from like
the next generation borrowedthis part of the story for a
different character I believe itwas Wesley crusher in the in the
yeah naked now who also tookover the ship from engineering,
right?
(26:21):
Yeah, so, basically, thischaracter now seems to believe
he is in charge of the ship, butalso has no clue that the ship
is spiraling down into its owndoom.
Right,
Anthony (26:35):
right, he's oblivious to what's actually happening.
Which is another you know,another commentary on the whole
theme, right, that as societycontinues to break down, there
are those who are not payingattention to what's happening,
right?
And and don't care.
(26:55):
So, yeah that was an interestingone as well.
So at the end of the episodethey end up being able to solve
the problem of getting suckedinto this This gravity pool that
you explained, and the, thesolution to the problem is this
engine implosion, I think theycalled it, right?
(27:18):
And and so, Spock and Kirk kindof snap out of the the, the
virus stuff and, and Spock inparticular is able to go save
the day and make this engineimplosion happen.
And the result of that is thatthey went back in time three
days.
And that's how they ended upsurviving.
(27:42):
So they, they went back in timeand then they.
Of course, don't go to Psi Alpha2000 again, because now they
know what's going to happen.
But one thing that I thought wasinteresting was at the end of
the episode, they realizethey've gone back three days in
time, Spock says to Kirk, wehave three days to live over
(28:05):
again.
And Kirk responds, but not thoselast three days.
So you know, that's kind ofinteresting.
You know, what if you, what ifyou had a do over you know, if
you could go back and fix amistake that you made that was
potentially catastrophic ordestructive in some way?
Yeah.
You know, what would that, whatwould that be like?
(28:26):
And Spock also notes that theynow, know how to go back to any
era in time.
Right?
They now have the, the abilityto do that.
And Kirk says, you know, maybesomeday we'll, we'll do that.
But this was interesting becauseit introduces time travel to the
Star Trek story.
This is the first mention of, oftime travel.
(28:49):
And there'll be you know, futureepisodes.
I think there's at least acouple of original series
episodes that deal with timetravel.
And then of course, in the latershows, TNG and Deep Space Nine
and Voyager, there's, you know,Lots of time travel episodes.
Yeah, there's
Ethan (29:05):
soon enough episodes that Starfleet has a whole section
devoted to time travel issues.
And that was probably what therewas an episode about it in Deep
Space Nine.
One of the workers said, like,that's one of the reasons we
dislike Captain Kirk is becausehe's time traveled so much and
he piles up so much paperwork.
(29:26):
Right.
Anthony (29:28):
Yeah.
So, all in all I gave this a, a,a letter grade of an a.
I really liked this episode.
I thought it was thoughtprovoking.
I thought the characters wereinteresting.
The character development wasfascinating as you got to kind
of dive into the subconsciousof, of some of these characters
that we love so much.
(29:49):
So I, I gave it an a What aboutyou?
Yeah, I
Ethan (29:51):
would also give it an, a very entertaining story.
Lots of funny parts to it.
Yeah, I just really liked
Anthony (30:00):
it.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely my favorite ofthe four episodes that we've
reviewed so far All right.
Well, thanks everybody forjoining us again for this
episode.
We look forward to continuingthe discussion next week.
In the meantime we hope you havea good week ahead and we'll talk
(30:20):
to you soon.
See ya.
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