Star Trek: The Original Series 1.04

The Naked Time

Mr. Spock and Lt JG Tomolen beam down to Psi 2000 to investigate what happened to the team that was stationed there. Everyone is dead. Tormolen gets infected with something that causes him to act irrationally. His condition is unknowingly transmitted to others. Mr. Sulu is among the first to be infected when he confronts Tormolen about his behavior.

Riley, another infected crew member, locks himself in engineering, shuts down the engines, and interferes with Kirk's ability to control the Enterprise. Spock and then Kirk also get infected but by then Dr. McCoy has come up with a cure.

The Enterprise is in danger of burning up in the atmosphere of Psi 2000. The situation looks hopeless (even after Mr. Scott has broken into engineering and Riley has been subdued) because they don't have enough time to get the engines properly back online. Their only option is to try a risky maneuver to jump start the engines. 

The engines start up again but the ship starts to travel so quickly that the Enterprise travels backward in time. The Enterprise is three days in the past by the time that the Enterprise has resumed normal speed.

Thoughts

I don't really understand the title of this episode.

There are at least a couple firsts in this episode: the first appearance of Nurse Chapel and the first appearance of the Vulcan nerve pinch.

This is the first of two episodes in which Lieutenant Riley appeared. The other one is also from the first season. The actor who played Tomolen appeared in one more episode of Star Trek but he played a different character in that episode. 

This episode felt a little strange. At first it seemed to be about one thing and then another. The explanations for what the crew of Enterprise did to set things right seemed like nonsense to me.

This episode could have been better but at the very least it felt more like the Star Trek that I recall watching when I was much younger. It lacked the follow through that I would like to have seen. I think they spent too much time setting the stage and not enough resolving the problem.