By Chris Snellgrove | Updated
For a franchise known for its persistent messages, Star Trek has always been known for something else: sex appeal. The first episode of the pilot featured a slave girl from Orion in camouflage clothing; later spinoffs would shamelessly put attractive female characters in flashy outfits, from Deanna Troi’s skant to Seven of Nine’s skintight catsuit. Finally, Business all that came before a sexy Vulcan in a tight suit again a plot development in which the characters often take off their skivvies and slather each other with gel.
While the classic Trek was famous for its female obsession, the franchise has historically been geared toward men. That’s why the examples above feature sexy ladies who wear as little as possible. However, The Original Series threw the ladies some serious eye candy in “Naked Time,” an episode where George Takei’s Sulu ditches his shirt and shows off his buff bod. What many fans don’t realize is how this scene started: when the director wanted Takei to take off his clothes to make sure he would look good stripping off on screen!
Back to the Phone
“The Naked Time” is one of those Star Trek episodes that really shouldn’t work. The plot involves the crew of the Enterprise being infected with a strange space virus that causes everyone to act intoxicated. Although this is meant to be a dangerous situation (left unchecked, it will get the entire crew killed), the episode is full of absurd situations that are hard to take seriously, including a wonderfully surreal, wonderfully drunken Irish ballad.
Undoubtedly, i the majority A memorable moment from the episode involves George Takei’s Sulu. He mysteriously takes off his shirt and runs with a sword like a missing member of the Three Musketeers. Because Takei was in such good shape, fans spent decades deconstructing his antics. Those unfortunate incidents were later referred to Star Trek (2009), which confirmed that even Kelvinverse Sulu is a fencing expert.
Interestingly, Takei was not originally drafted to run the Enterprise naked. Instead, the Sulu was simply written as someone wandering around on a ship with a sword, fully clothed. Author John DT Black was divided on whether it should be a samurai sword (reflecting Sulu’s Japanese heritage) or a fencing blade. He left the decision to Takei, and the actor chose the fencing blade as a way to show that in the future, no preference will be restricted by their race. Takei ended up really getting into the role: he practiced it a lot on set, resulting in an almost hysterical performance on screen.
Oh my!
So, why did he finally take off his clothes? This was a commanding decision on the part of director Marc Daniels. He thought (rightly so, as it turned out) that Sulu’s large fencing position would have more impact if the actor was shirtless, but he didn’t know if the actor had the body to pull it off.
So, he visited Takei’s carriage and asked the man to take off his shirt. Daniels liked what he saw and quickly stated that the fence would not be shirtless. As for Takei, he was a little nervous about the scene, so he did what most of us would do in his position: he spent three days before shooting making as many pupups as humanly possible.
Putting Star Trek On The Map
Luckily, all that hard work paid off, and Takei looked really good as he strutted up and down the screen. This was a historic moment for a Star Trek episode that was nominated for a Hugo and named by Gene Roddenberry as one of his favorites. Later, “Naked Time” was honored in The Next Generation the episode “The Naked Now,” where Captain Picard’s crew encounters the same space virus (oh, and Data got lucky).
This The Original Series The episode even put the show on the map, with Leonard Nimoy estimating that his fan mail went from a few letters a week to several thousand after it aired. As an episode that has delighted viewers for 60 years, “The Naked Time” has helped define decades of Star Trek history. However, that would not have happened if the director had not entered George Takei’s trailer and asked him to strip!
