The Classic Star Trek Episodes That Inspired Strange New Worlds Episode 3

The third episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" — entitled "Ghosts of Illyria," written by Akela Cooper and Bill Wolkoff — involves a mysterious contagious disease that infiltrates the Enterprise after an away team visits a seemingly abandoned planet called Illyria. Those infected find themselves, like moths, drawn toward and mesmerized by bright lights, likely due to a sudden lack of vitamin D. The only person who appears to be immune is Cmdr. Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), who manages to solve the problem nearly singlehandedly while Capt. Pike (Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck) remain on the planet's surface facing a crisis of their own. 

Contagion/disease episodes are common and expected from "Star Trek." Given that each of the shows takes place largely in space (occasional away missions and most of "Star Trek: Picard" notwithstanding), every "Star Trek" cast must necessarily be confined to an enclosed starship or space station. With little chance to isolate, such places become Petri dishes. This reflects real-life instances of naval vessels becoming infected while at sea. Indeed, as anyone who has worked in a sealed office with recirculated air knows all too well, viruses can spread remarkably easily when no one is going outside.

Additionally, "Strange New Worlds" is following a tradition that goes back to the early days of the original series; the very first contagion episode of "Star Trek" came only four episodes into its first season. Or seven episodes in, if you're one of those sticklers who prefers to watch "Star Trek" in production order instead of broadcast order. Note: The author is of the latter camp.

"The Naked Now" (first aired October 8, 1987), was essentially a sequel to "The Naked Time." It was the second episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," wherein the crew of the Enterprise-D was infected with the same virus as in "Time." Given that "Next Generation" was, in its first season, still declaring itself an autonomous entity — free from the characters and conceits of the 1966 TV series and the successful movies from the 1980s — "Now" was able to show how a new crew would react to a similar situation previously seen by Trekkies. So Capt. Picard (Patrick Stewart) struggled to retain his composure, engineers playfully removed vital isolinear chips from the central computer, and it would be up to the drunken teenage character Wesley (Wil Wheaton) to save the day. 

Standing frustratingly contrary to the above-stated thesis, Data (Brent Spiner) is not immune to the disease, and also gets drunk, leading to an ill-advised tryst with the ship's security chief Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby). 

The appeal of episodes like "The Naked Now" is watching how a disease forced an otherwise staid and professional crew to behave out of character. It may have been unwise to have an "out-of-character" episode nearly right out of the gate, but "Now" was a fun watch regardless and established how disease would be handled nearly a century hence from Kirk. 

In one of the scarier — and more fun — episodes of "Next Generation" — "Genesis," first aired on March 21, 1994 — Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) gives the nervous Lt. Barclay (Dwight Schultz) an injection to take care of a minor genetic "drift" she found in his system. This will unwittingly trigger a deeply-coded quirk in humanoid DNA that will rewrite them into species from their distant evolutionary past. Barclay will de-evolve into a spider. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) will become a Neanderthal. Troi (Marina Sirtis) will become an amphibian. Worf (Michael Dorn) will become some sort of aggressive, shell-encased Klingon gorilla/crab monster. Data, immune, will ultimately find the cure. 

An amusing detail: Data and Picard were off of the Enterprise when the virus initially strikes, and Picard isn't infected until the pair beam back aboard. Data, able to discern what is happening, informs Picard that he is turning into a pygmy marmoset. Picard's look of embarrassment is priceless. 

"Star Trek: Voyager" dealt with on-ship viruses a lot, so here is only a brief rundown of each: 

In the episode "Resolutions," Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and Chakotay (Robert Beltran) contract a life-threatening virus and have to consider building a life for themselves off the ship. "Macrocosm" saw the ship itself spreading a virus to the crew (the computers have a biological element on the Voyager) and the appearance of large insect monsters; it turns out the Doctor (Robert Picardo) accidentally beamed the virus aboard after helping a diseased remote colony. In "Favorite Son," Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) gets a disease that mutates his DNA. The episode "Scientific Method" surely counts, as the Voyager crew is infected by hidden aliens who are studying the effects of various diseases. Not so much a conventional spread, but an episode wherein an entire ship is sick. And of course, "The Disease," wherein Kim had an affair with an alien engineer and contracts, more or less, an alien STI. 

And, to mention it briefly, "Star Trek: Enterprise" did have one episode wherein a virus swept through the ship, in the fourth season episode "Observer Effect." 

So, as the reader can see, "Ghosts of Illyria" has a good deal of precedent, and presents a common crisis in "Star Trek" with skill and traditional aplomb. The familiarity of "Strange New Worlds" is proving to be a strength rather than a gimmick, and a well-worn "Star Trek" story will be welcome in its annals.