Just when I wonder what new bland tale Voyager is going to present to me today, Brad Dourif shows up. I knew he appeared somewhere along the way but I couldn't remember where. He's quite possibly in my top 5 actors of all time, the man is amazing and one of the most talented actors ever. Unfortunately, he's always been typecast in the role of psychos and killers*, often in low budget horror films.
It's a little disappointing that the character of Lon Suder isn't a huge departure from that, but as the episode goes on he certainly goes through a change. In fact, he's not really in the episode enough for my liking, but Dourif is a master at giving nuanced and subtle performances that manage to project a huge amount of emotion, and it's no surprise that he acts circles around the rest of the cast... except for Tim Russ as Tuvok.
This really is Tuvok's episode, and what Tim Russ does here is quite fantastic. The writing is just elegant enough to sell the moral themes without bashing us over the head with them, and it's an interesting exploration of the motives behind violence that quite purposefully (I think) doesn't give us a final answer.
*having just watched through all the Child's Play/Chucky films, it was quite easy to imagine some of his dialogue in this episode fitting right with them. Anyway, if you want to see some of Brad Dourif's work then I was always won over by his roles in Deadwood, the ridiculous/fun techno horror film Death Machine (superior UK cut, if you can get it), an early episode of The X-Files, his breakout role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and of course as Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
[7.3/10] “The Naked Now” is the third episode of The Next Generation, and yet, it’s the sort of episode that works much better if you, for instance, plop it somewhere in the middle of the season, or even the series. The power, and dare I say, fun of the episode stems from seeing the normally professional, determined, even stoic crew of the Enterprise devolve into goofy intoxicated fools. But if you barely know who these characters are yet, as anyone just starting the show would, then the contrast between the usual demeanor and the drunken revelry doesn’t quite register the same way.
You need the whimsy of that revelry to work because it’s really the only thing “The Naked NOw” has going for it. Sure, there’s the threat of the alien virus that makes people act without their full faculties, but even if you don’t know how this is going to play out from watching the precursor episode from The Original Series, Riker and Data discover the cure fifteen minutes into the episode, and so there’s little dramatic tension to the hour. You’re either enjoying the break from seriousness and how the crew gets downright silly, or you’re just waiting for Dr. Crusher to figure out how to regoogle the energymotron or what have you in time to develop the antidote.
It’s worth noting that “The Naked Now” is, to my knowledge, the only episode of The Next Generation that is a direct sequel (or something close to that) to an episode of The Original Series. There’s not much gained from that connection. Sure, it’s kind of neat that Riker remembers his history well enough to piece what’s happening together, or that we get to witness someone showering in their clothes rather than just hearing about it second hand, but it doesn’t add much to the proceedings beyond being a sop to the diehard fans.
Still, it’s understandable why the writers chose to recycle this plot in the new series. The drunk-making virus allows you to have your main cast break or reveal character to amusing effect, and the collapsing star nearby creates an easy (if not terribly convincing) threat that (at least nominally) creates extra stakes and urgency in finding a cure.
It’s the latter part that weakens the episode. “The Naked Now” features the first, but sadly not the last instance where the day is improbably saved by Wesley the wunderkind. I can at least appreciate the legwork shown by the writers by introducing Wes’s makeshift personal tractor beam/repulsor beam in the first act, thereby setting him up to do the same with the ship’s version of the same in the last act. But it’s clear from the getgo that TNG finds “Wesley Crusher, boy genius” far more compelling a figure than its audience does.
Nevertheless, even if the destination is obvious and the way the show chooses to get there is worth an eye-roll or two, the ride is a fun one. It’s all too rare that Star Trek goes for straight up comedy, but what we get here is great.
Count me among those who loves the vaudevillian flair of intoxicated Data. It’s really a shame that Brent Spiner didn’t get more opportunities to play the outsized, clownish foil he inhabits here. (Lore offers some bit of salve to that regret though.) The look on his face when Tasha beckons him to the bedroom, the “If you prick me, do I not leak?” line delivery, the pratfall he takes afterward, are all just comic gold. While it’s used for comedy rather than pathos, “The Naked Now” wrings all it can from the contrast of the usually humorless Data having his head scrambled.
While it’s a little exploitative, Tasha’s encounter with Data is a pretty unique and interesting tack here too. Let’s be frank, I doubt her part of the episode was intended as anything but titillation, and the male gaze-y shot of her walking down the hallway, or the barely-there dress she wears that confirmed for me that costume designer William Theiss was back on the payroll long before I saw his name in the opening credits, are pretty embarrassing and shameless by modern standards. That doesn’t even take into account the uncomfortable at best way in which Tasha invokes her childhood escapes from “rape gangs” before seeking physical affection from Data.
Maybe I’m just giving the interaction more weight given what the show does with it down the line. But I do think that, beneath all the problematic elements of how Tasha is used here (which presages Michelle Pfeifer’s turn as Catwoman in Batman Returns), the core of the story is worthwhile. It’s the story of a damaged person in a weakened state seeking comfort and a complete naif, incapable of malice and not fully understanding what’s happening, acceding to her wishes. It may not be what the show intended, but there’s complex emotional and social material to unpack there for days.
Less dramatic (and borderline distasteful) but more endearing are the interactions between Captain Picard and Dr. Crusher. I’ll cop to being a Picard/Crusher shipper, so I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find some glee in the two of them barely able to contain themselves around one another.
But that’s also where the comedy lies here. Watching these two committed professionals do everything they can to maintain their composure, while inevitably giving in, just a little bit, to their unprofessional urges, is amusing as all get out. Everything from Picard’s feeble wave, or Crusher saying she has a “personal matter” to discuss with him, only to correct him that it’s “an urgent” matter, finds the humor in this pair of centered people losing their emotional balance.
That’s the sort of thing that makes “The Naked Now” enjoyable. It’s not the most tightly-written or momentum-filled episode there ever was. It makes little sense that Riker seems mostly unaffected by the infection; the belabored romantic tension between him and Troi is again overblown; and Data replacing the isolinear chips as a game feels contrived. But if you can enjoy Wesley Crusher channeling Ensign Riley and announcing mandatory extra dessert over the PA, or Data not understanding dirty limericks, or Worf growling that he doesn’t get Earth humor either, than the third episode of the series can still be plenty of fun.
