Season 1 Episode 5 ('The Naked Time')

Reading this episode's title was a forehead-slapping "You've got to be KIDDING me," sort of moment, but it turned out that this episode was the game-changer I was waiting for. In that we didn't get a sex n' psychics plot, this time around. In point of fact, it's like it was written just for me: we got some sort of molecular change in water that made everyone on the Enterprise drunk.

And that's basically the plot; there's a 'We must save the Enterprise, it is in danger,' MacGuffin but the root of everything going on is that everyone's acting batshit crazy, and - amazingly - rather than going with the 'I want to get laid' thing that has driven the preceding four episodes, they went with romance, in the couple of instances where the drunkenness caused some feelings to be felt. Captain Kirk's transformation to infected was very abrupt, but also touching - the only love he's allowed is for his ship, and it's a hard life being captain, etc., so cliche, but also poignant.

Sulu, shirtless, attacking men with a rapier/foil was hilariously awesome.

It was nice that in this episode, the bad guy was not a deranged psychic stand-in for the Communist hordes but instead a non-sentient natural sort of thing that - while not really making any sense, I suspect, as far as actual hard science goes - didn't involve a fascist response in the face of superior powers.

'The Naked Time' was probably weaker than its predecessors, but it was also more satisfyingly similar to the concept of Star Trek that I have in my head. Also of note, they travel in time and make vague references to being able to go to any planet, at any time, now that they've proven the validity of the theory behind it. I wonder if that was the method they used for the 'Save the Whales' movie or the one where they go back to visit the inventor of the warp drive?

Random statistics: 3 cans of Natural Light because my stomach is getting sick of the rotgut vodka, 1 starship full of drunks, 2 regular characters swooning endearingly, and an uncountable number of sweaty palms.