Let's Get Physical
| Star Traks: Boldly Gone | |
| Episode name | Let's Get Physical |
|---|---|
| Season | 1 |
| Episode number | 3 |
| Writer(s) | Alan Decker, Anthony Butler |
| Year | 2500 |
| Stardate | 175024 |
| Chronology | |
| Previous in series | One Track Mind [BG] |
| Next in series | The Ears Have It [BG] |
| Previous in timeline | One Track Mind [BG] |
| Next in timeline | The Ears Have It [BG] |
It's physical time, but Tovar is not going without a fight. Witness the ultra-suspenseful game of cat and mouse that results when Tovar tries to avoid the probing hands of Dr. Fred Nooney. Prepare to turn your head and cough in "Let's Get Physical."
Summary
When it is Tovar's turn to get a physical from Dr. Nooney, Tovar opts instead to run away, escaping from the bridge into the ship's jefferies tube network. In the tubes, he finds an area filled with random bits of technology that have been collected by Lieutenant Polnuc, who is not pleased by Tovar's intrusion. Not wanting to stay in one place too long and risk discovery by Nooney, Tovar continues on, finally leaving the jefferies tubes and going to the ship's holomess, where he finds Commander Prosak. After a brief conversation with her, Tovar goes to Science Lab Four looking to hide behind Cabral. The sphere's flirty banter with Dr. Natalia Kasyov is quickly too much for him, so Tovar flees the lab.
Nooney, meanwhile, is completely unaware of Tovar's growing panic, and is instead focused on the idea of an all-nude starship. He goes to the bridge and asks Captain Reginald Bain to make the recommendation to Starfleet. After that, since Tovar hasn't shown up for his physical, Nooney heads to the ship's arboretum.
Tovar decides that the arboretum is the perfect place to hide and is shocked when he runs straight into Nooney. Believing that he has been completely outsmarted by the physician, Tovar goes with Nooney back to sickbay for his physical.
With Tovar complete, Nooney goes to the bridge to get Bain for his physical, but the captain gives him the slip.
Featuring
- Captain Reginald Bain
- Commander Prosak
- Lieutenant Commander Tovar
- Lieutenant Shelly Marsden
- Dr. Natalia Kasyov
- Dr. Fred Nooney
- Ensign Hector Arroyo
- Cabral
Author's Comments
I’m rereading these stories almost 25 years after we wrote them, and I honestly can’t remember our thought process on this one. My guess is that we wanted to something to show more of life on board the Anomaly while also focusing on Tovar. I have to admit being surprised that we came right out and said that he had an interloping lifeforce inside him in this story. I’m still really happy with the idea and where we went with it, but if we had it to do again, I think we would have just built up that Tovar had a lot of conflict in his past lives before revealing the interloper later on.
I have to admit I was concerned about how Dr. Nooney was going to come across after all of this time. I rewatched Scrubs a little while ago, which started the year after we started Boldly, and I quickly realized that pretty much everyone in that hospital would be fired for sexual harassment today. Back to Nooney, we didn’t want any of his actions to be sexual. He’s got an almost-childlike innocence and absolutely no shame or self-consciousness when it comes to nudity. The rest of the crew may wish that wasn’t the case, but he’s not doing anything for sexual reasons. If we were starting the series today, I don’t know how we’d handle Nooney. I can’t imagine that we’d have him behaving quite the same way.