The Naked Time
While observing a planet on the verge of collapsing, the crew of the Enterprise is infected with a deadly virus.
This is an classic episode that is commonly known as the one where Sulu runs around the ship with a sword. When appearing at a Star Trek convention in Macon for the 25th anniversary, I got a card of him from that episode autographed and George Takei said that it was the most fun he had filming the show. I thought that was cool at the time, but know that I realize that it was one of the early episodes, and how bad things were between the actors behind the scenes it seems kind of depressing to me.
Anyway, the episode starts with Spock and less important officer named Tormolen beam down to a planet in hazmat suits to see what happened to some scientists. They discover that they are all dead, and super genius Tormolen takes off his glove, touches a bunch of stuff, then reaches into his mask and touches his face. This causes the virus to be brought back and spread throughout the Enterprise.
What could be a simple story about fighting a virus becomes interesting due to how it affects the crew. Aside from Sulu's fun swashbuckling antics, and Riley's annoying singing, there's some great scenes with Spock dealing with the virus effecting how he deals with his emotions.
They also have to deal with a ticking clock due to Riley, suffering from the virus, taking control of the ship and cutting off the engines. This causes the ship to begin to be pulled toward the planet, unless Kirk can break into Engineering and stop Riley. Kirk is also very annoyed with Riley, who is now calling himself captain and singing over the intercom system.
I'd call this the first great episodes. It's rightfully earned its place as a classic.
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