Amnesia of the Future: The Naked Now

11th November, 2009 3 Comments

Hmm, I’m not sure where to begin with the second episode other than to say that this episode is rather perplexing and that 1987 was a lot more progressive than I had realized–the second episode jumps pretty quickly to a ship of dead people in their birthday suits.  I’ve heard a bit about how Captain Kirk was a bit of a space-whore getting it on with every alien chick in a few gazillion light-years radius and quite possibly Captain Picard is going to be just as randy based on the fact that he’s talking to a phone sex operator.

As the away crew beams over to check out the party boat and finds evidence of a frat party, I think that we’re getting involved in some sort of Circe’s Island memory wipe.  That might have been a more interesting plot line by the way.  Anyhoo.  No raver thunkthunkthunk music is going on despite the earlier background noise as the two ships communicated and as more naked and nakeder bodies are revealed, there’s no bow-chica-bow-bow porn music either.  Reagan is contemplating whether or not she was an obtuse child for not picking up on the orgy that had clearly been going on or if she had just never seen this particular episode.

Technical question tangent:  when Riker and Data discover that a hatch has been blown open, a) why are they not sucked out themselves…you know, all that jazz about space loathing itself for being an Electrolux?,  b) wouldn’t an open door to space mean no air?  Shouldn’t they have hallucinated and then suffocated in a span of two minutes?,* and c) if all the people who are now dead are frozen from the open door, why is no one on the away team even shivering?

The drunken behavior that infects the crew of the Enterprise is just weird.  Like creepy weird.  Most of the background characters are just hanging on one another as if they’re on some bad E trip, the assistant engineer is acting like a five-year-old attempting to master Jenga and Wesley Crusher is speaking way too coherently for a drunken fourteen-year-old. In fact, he doesn’t seem much different from the his previous episode overly-exuberant puppynerd self.  Shouldn’t a normal drunk teenager be slurring and trying to get laid? 

Dear Wesley, I hope you enjoy being a virgin for the rest of your life.  You might want to start stocking up on pocket protectors now.

Other things that bother me:  Why does everyone else start feeling the effects of the infection so quickly except Riker?  Does he have some sort of crazy advanced immune system?  Captain Picard is ready for a quickie on the bridge almost instantly while Riker manages to get through a goodly amount of time playing electrician. 

I guess what’s really confusing is that I know very little about these characters.  Riker is obviously a decent fellow for not taking advantage of Troi when she throws herself at him, but what about the Tasha storyline?  I thought she was a lesbian and now she’s throwing herself at the first android that comes along?  Why is she so desperate–self-esteem issues?  How come Geordi–who should be the drunkest seeing as he was the first to be infected–manages such self control to be able to calmly return and then stay in the sickbay while everyone else is partying like it’s 1999?

Again, I have two favorite moments for this episode, although neither as profound as my favorite moments in Encounter at Farpoint.

Moment 1:  Picard’s little skip as he enters sickbay.  Beautiful and subtle bit of acting. 

Moment 2:  The Data/Tasha seduction scene is pretty memorable, but it’s when he returns to the bridge that really gets me.  Between this and the aforementioned Picard moment, it would seem strong physical acting really stands out in this episode for me.  Based on this scene alone, Data is well on his way to becoming my favorite character.  I have such an android crush.

Memories of the Future:  Chapter 3

I’m so smart!  Wil Wheaton also feels that this episode came too soon.  I definitely think that moving it back to a later spot in the season would have been a wise move and an opportunity to play with the repressed desires of the characters that would be bound to come out when intoxicated.

Wil Wheaton continues to take the obnoxiousness of Wesley in stride and with good humor.  I think I get why so many fans of the series were not fans of young Crusher.  But the use of a brainiac computer whiz-kid isn’t exactly a new plot device, even Jurassic Park had one.  When I was watching SeaQuest DSV, you had Lucas Wolenczak as the smart kid, but you see the differences in that the time-frame of the show was three decades after computers had moved from being clunky machines in the workplace to less clunky home units affording people of all ages to become self-taught experts.  By the time Star Trek takes place, 400 years into the future, everyone should have been growing up in a culture with regular access to far superior technology from birth.  Lucas was building a piece of equipment to give a dolphin a larger English vocabulary–not saving the ship.  You assume that on Star Trek the adults SHOULD be smarter than the teenager in this area based solely on the amount of experience that comes with age and the fact that someone put them in charge of an enormous space ship/city.  Then again, government nepotism and bribery will probably still be an issue far into the future.

To give Wesley some credit, as cars, planes, and later, rockets, computers, etc. were built, there have always been kids so obsessed and inquisitive that they set out to learn everything there is about them and become experts in their own right.  But to run a ship like the Enterprise, you expect your Chief Engineer to be able to circumvent even the smart kid’s science project to take back control of the engine room a lot faster than happened in The Naked Now.

What makes this chapter of Memories of the Future stand out for me is the inclusion of REAL SCIENCE! to explain what was going on/being said on the show.  The brief paragraphs on the physical properties of a star and what would happen during the collapse of one is written in an entirely understandable fashion for the lay person.  (By the way, if you’re into the star thing and haven’t done so yet, you might want to check out this article on the possibility of a third type of super nova that’s recently been discovered and could affect our knowledge of cosmic distance.)

*Look, I have fancy science facts too: 

Various minor problems (sunburn, possibly “the bends,” certainly some [mild, reversible, painless] swelling of skin and underlying tissue) start after ten seconds or so.  At some point you lose consciousness from lack of oxygen.  Injuries accumulate.  After perhaps one or two minutes, you’re dying. The limits are not really known.

Welcome to Stacked! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the StackedBlog RSS feed. Thanks for visiting and come back soon!

Related posts:

1. Amnesia of the Future: Lonely Among Us Oh conflicted reaction to this episode!  Part of me is...
2. Amnesia of the Future: Where No One Has Gone Before Oh my god.  The previous three episodes were insanely cheesy...
3. Amnesia of the Future: Hide and Q My two first impressions of Hide and Q were as...
4. Amnesia of the Future: The Battle I just spent two hours thinking I had no point,...
5. Amnesia of the Future: Encounter at Farpoint NOTE:  Here be spoilers.  About the show and book.  I’m...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.