A contagion strips away the crew's inhibitions, and Data and Tasha Yar grow close.
The Enterprise finds the science vessel Tsiolkovsky adrift, its crew dead in strange and disturbing circumstances. An infection carried back aboard begins to spread, lowering inhibitions and making crew members behave as if intoxicated. As order breaks down, with the ship drifting toward destruction because of a collapsing star nearby, Wesley Crusher ends up taking over engineering while Dr. Crusher races to find a cure.
The story deliberately echoes the original series episode The Naked Time, and it is often cited as an early look at Data's curiosity about human feelings. It also gives Tasha Yar a notable character moment. Critics tend to rank it among the weaker first-season outings, but it established the new crew as people who can be silly and vulnerable.