Shut Up Wesley Week: The Naked Now

Welcome readers to Day 1 of Shut Up Wesley Week. As promised there will be disgruntlement aimed at the adolescent trekker of the stars. I felt it proper to hit up the third episode of first season fresh from the adventures at Farpoint station and the enigmatic Q we continue on our journeys. This is The Naked Now.

Wes, that is an unlicensed nuclear accelerator.  Be careful.

Off to rendezvous with a science vessel recording a super giant about to collapse in a matter of hours. However the seemingly drunken and nearly pornographic messages sent from the S.S. Tsiolkovsky has the Enterprise a bit baffled. Only after hearing what sounded like an emergency bulkhead removed and blowing folks into space the crew thinks something is amiss. With the ship in tractor beam the away team heads to the science vessel to investigate. Then Lt. La Forge (LeVar Burton of Roots, The Midnight Hour, The Supernaturals, Reading Rainbow, Captain Planet and the Planeteers and Transformers: Rescue Bots) encounters a frozen body that carried some virulent disease that seems to inhibit the capacity for rational thought and dulls morals... i.e. too much liquor. Unknowingly carrying this virus, he meets with Wesley (Wil Wheaton of The Last Starfighter, Stand by Me, Toy Soldiers, Deep Core, Python, Neverland, Eureka and The Legion of Superheroes) showing off a homemade tractor beam and an audio recorder with the Captain's voice that La Forge infects the precocious lad as well.

I see a bald spot, Data. Report to mechanical for a touch up.

Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden of The Hunt for Red October, Star Trek: Generations, Marker, Mad About You and Franklin& Bash)cannot explain why the decontamination system didn't isolate and eradicate this virus, nor can she account for what it is but only its symptoms are similar to an incident of a viral outbreak on the Enterprise under Kirk's command (Would have shot the little Irishman that wouldn't stop singing. Hell, I wanted to blast him out an airlock.) and hopes that could produce a cure.

With Lt. Yar (Denise Crosby of Arizona Heat, Skin Deep, The Flash, Key West, Red Shoe Diaries, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and The Walking Dead) also infected by the virus she finds comfort... in the android Lt. Data's (Brent Spiner of Night Court, Corrina Corrina, Gargoyles, Independence Day, Star Trek: Enterprise, Fresh Hell and Warehouse 13) arms and his... fully functional techniques. With the ship having technical errors left and right it is only a matter of time before the Supergiant goes off and with the lack of a capable crew leaves the Enterprise vulnerable to be turned into the contents of tinned potato salad. Wesley heads to Engineering to stir up trouble and cause some hijinks.

Can the crew and ship be saved? Will the virus ravage them all? Will little Timmy be transported from the well that Lassie left him to die in?

And now some trivia! Oh get over it, this always happens.

Gene Roddenberry had hope recycling the scripts from the original Star Trek with a bigger effect budget would boost some ratings but the fans were not overtly thrilled with the remake of The Naked Time that he scrapped that plan to make episodes too closely similar to the originals.

This is the first time Captain Kirk is referenced by name in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Wesley's re-imagined repulser (or Repulsor) beam seems almost borrowed from Sulu re-modulation of the ship's tractor beam during Who Mourns for Adonais but again this was a 14 year-old that created it so don't get it twisted, trekkers. Sheesh, some people.   

KNEEL BEFORE YOUR NEW MASTER!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!