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YMMV / Star Trek: The Next Generation S1 E2 "The Naked Now"

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  • Best Known for the Fanservice: There's a reason Tasha Yar's revealing, midriff-baring outfit is mentioned so many times on the recap page.
  • Bizarro Episode: Although it fully appears as though this is a Let Us Never Speak of This Again episode, the fact that Data and Tasha Yar were "intimate" together and implied to have had sex is mentioned in later episodes, notably in "The Measure Of A Man" where it is used to help establish Data's sentience. It even gets a Call-Back much, much later in Star Trek: First Contact with Data telling the Borg Queen that he is "fully functional" in the sex department, and when she asks whether he's had sex, he gives a precise answer dating back to this episode (meaning he hadn't gone all the way with Lt. Jenna D'sora in the season 4 episode "In Theory").
  • Broken Base: A common complaint about this episode is that it took place much too early in the show to work right by trying to feature characters out of character in only the second story, before the series even had a real, honest-to-God chance to establish everyone's character, causing this to feel like a premature Bizarro Episode, and makes all the out-of-character moments feel very creepy and unfounded. It's also a pretty blatant rehash of a TOS episode, which is not a good way to get a new show established. That, and it shills the hell out of Wesley and establishes him as an obnoxious and meddlesome know-it-all who shoehorns himself into everything — at one point, some of the crew actually starts worshipping him with applause. Others will campaign that if this episode is watched about 10 to 15 episodes later during Season 1 than intended, it works a lot better. There's no getting around the blatant Wesley worship, though.
  • Creator's Pet: This episode is the start of Wesley earning this particular reputation. Even while intoxicated and supposedly Out of Character, he's still the one who comes up with the idea to get Data to reconfigure the command chips at Super-Speed, and then he transfers his concept of a reflector beam to the ship in mere seconds and saving the Enterprise by pushing it away from the Tsiolkovsky, giving Data the time he needs to complete the job. Wesley used a fraudulent voice command (which in itself is... weird) and took control of the entire ship, and there are no repercussions for that, because everyone is going cuckoo and ultimately forgiven for their antics while loopy. In fact, Wesley's a hero (a Designated Hero, but a hero nonetheless)! This acidic portrayal dominated much of his early time on the series and many viewers soon grew to despise it entirely (not to mention Wil Wheaton himself).
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Les Yay: Little bit of this between Tasha and Troi, when Tasha's trying on Troi's clothes.
  • Special Effect Failure:
    • In the original version of the episode, the starfield in the background stayed static as the Enterprise pushed itself away from the Tsiolkovsky, making it instead look like the Enterprise was trying to slow down the neutronium fragment by pushing the Tsiolkovsky into it — which, for perspective, would be like trying to stop an oncoming high-speed freight train by throwing a pebble at it. A clearly dubbed-on line from Wil Wheaton tries to make clear what's supposed to be happening, indicating that the producers were aware of the issue. The HD remaster properly animates the starfield, making it clear that the Enterprise is pushing itself away from the Tsiolkovsky.
    • Picard nearly gets clipped by the "automatic" doors in Sick Bay near the end of the episode when the stagehands close them too soon. Patrick Stewart visibly jumps out of the way to avoid them.
  • Tough Act to Follow: "The Naked Time" was a wacky episode, but had Character Focus and beats for Kirk and Spock that would follow them the rest of their lives (Spock's struggle with emotions, Kirk's identity being tied to his Captain role). This one has... rape gangs as a backstory.

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