The Original Series 1×04: “The Naked Time” Sage Elliott, 5 February 202527 February 2025 In the fourth episode of Star Trek The Original Series, “The Naked Time,” an infection that lowers people’s inhibitions invades the Enterprise. This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information. Table of Contents Toggle Plot of “The Naked Time”My thoughtsWant to watch this episode? Plot of “The Naked Time” “The Naked Time” begins with the Enterprise arriving at Psi 2000. Psi 2000 is a dying planet and the Enterprise is there to document the planet’s breakup and to retrieve the group on the planet. Upon beaming down to the planet, however, Spock and his companion find the life support system disabled and the team frozen to death. Tormolen, Spock’s companion, makes the mistake of rubbing his face with his bare hands before returning to the Enterprise. Upon their return, Tormolen begins acting irrationally and ultimately stabs himself with a knife. Despite his wounds not being life threatening, Tormolen dies in the sick bay, befuddling McCoy. When other members of the crew begin acting strangely, it becomes clear that an infection is being passed around the crew through perspiration. Riley, who was with Tormolen when he stabbed himself, contracts the infection and takes over the engine room while serenading the crew with his rendition of “Kathleen.” RIley’s actions are made even more serious by the fact that Psi 2000 is about to break up and the crew of the Enterprise would rather not be anywhere nearby when that happens. With the engines disabled and everyone but Riley locked out of the engine room, the crew races to a)break into the engine room and b)find an antidote and give it to the infected crew. Are they able to pull it off? Of course they are. And then the Enterprise goes back in time by 71 hours. I suspect time travel may come up again in other Star Trek episodes. It certainly appears as though they left open that possibility. Star Trek TOS The Naked Time title screen"No dance tonight."Sulu: I'll protect you, fair maiden. Uhura: Sorry, neither."Now, attention, cooks, this is your captain speaking. I'd like double portions of ice cream for the entire crew.""All decks, alert system B-2. Repeat: go to Alert condition Baker 2. Seal off all main sections. Stand by.""I am in control of my emotions! Control of my emo -" My thoughts So I don’t know what I thought about “The Naked Time.” I guess I didn’t really have any strong opinions. ::shrugs:: I guess I felt pretty meh about this episode. The one thing that did cross my mind while watching was that it seems that people die on Star Trek with at least some regularity. But I guess that comes with the territory when it comes to space travel. Anyway. What did you think about “The Naked Time?” This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information. Want to watch this episode? Stream it on Paramount+ | Buy it from Amazon Updated: Feb 27, 2025 @ 1:47 am Go to top TOS episodereview