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Star Trek: Why Eye Shadow Was So Prevalent In the Original Series

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The longevity of Star Trek  allows fans to look into the way TV shows were made in the past. Countless changes in the medium -- both culturally and technologically -- render formerly indispensable techniques obsolete. And the franchise's 50-year history provides a unique opportunity to observe those differences, often in ways the producers never intended.

For instance, eagle-eyed fans have noticed the propensity of eye shadow in the Original Series -- a touch that’s not visible in subsequent Star Trek series. It was simply a reality of  producing TV shows at the time and normally wouldn’t merit mentioning. However, the show itself has outlasted the televisions it was designed to be screened on, and the make-up on the cast simply can’t hide from advancements in technology.

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Television was often broadcast live in the early days, and it drew from theatrical actors who could handle the rigors of a live performance. That included things like blocking a scene, which entailed a great deal of movement from the actors, mostly because television cameras were large and couldn’t move easily or quickly. Star Trek has always relied on theatrically trained actors for its cast -- William Shatner was a notable Shakespearean actor, as were Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks -- which made stage practices natural, including make-up.

Among its aesthetic purposes, eye shadow can help the performer’s eyes stand out, a key feature onstage when one is attempting to project to a large audience. Star Trek wasn’t on stage, but many of the technological limitations of television at the time still made those methods desirable. TV screens were much smaller in the 1960s than they are today, and screen resolution was much lower. Furthermore, the show aired when TV was making a huge transition from black and white to color. That meant a lot of Star Trek viewers still watched the show in black-and-white. Eye shadow helped the actors stand out, the same way they would to viewers in the cheap seats during a live performance.

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Naturally, no one making the show had any idea what kind of advancements would take place in home entertainment, or that Star Trek would last long enough to be shown on them. The advent of high definition and big-screen TVs made old-fashioned stage tricks like heavy eye shadow unnecessary. An actors’ make-up could appear more natural without drawing attention to itself as much, while more maneuverable cameras meant that close-ups and similar effects could be used much more readily, necessitating more natural make-up.

Star Trek itself took time to adjust to these changes, which helped conceal such techniques for many years. The Original Series wasn’t remastered into 1080 HD until 2006, and release plans were delayed further by the decline of HD DVD and the rise of Blu-ray. Only then did the use of heavy make-up become more apparent, piquing fans’ interest. It’s far from the only bit of theatricality exposed by the enhanced detail,  but the routine use of eye shadow on the show makes it stand out among the rest.

It’s an incidental detail, but a historic one --  a sign of where television came from and the ways it got around the technological limitations of the time. As strange as it may seem, a little pronounced eye shadow is a sign of the show’s durability and just how much the medium has changed since Star Trek first aired. Its value as a link to that era is inestimable, even if the side effects look odd to contemporary eyes.

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• CBR Exclusives

Meet Bruce Horak, Star Trek's first blind actor, playing Hemmer on Strange New Worlds

The calgary-born actor will appear as hemmer on star trek: strange new worlds.

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When new Star Trek cast member Bruce Horak was in grade three, the Quest Theatre company came to his school in Calgary touring a show called "Zeke and the Indoor Plants." At the end, the students were given pencils. The experience would be life-changing for Horak. That day he went home, pencil in hand, and told his mom: "I want to write stories like that. I want to write stories about kids like me." 

Horak has worked in theatre for over 25 years now. This year, the Calgary-born actor is playing Hemmer on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , as the first legally blind actor in the franchise's history. 

• Blind visual artist paints audience while exploring mystery of Tom Thomson's death

When he was 18 months old, Horak was diagnosed with Bilateral Retinoblastoma, a cancer of the eye. The treatment of his condition left him legally blind.

"My right eye was removed completely," Horak says. "And my left eye — there were three tumours on it. So that was blasted with radiation and left me with about 9% vision."

Years after his first introduction to acting, Horak ran into Duval Lang, one of the co-founders of Quest Theatre, at Mount Royal College. The pair hit it off and Horak began to tour with the company. Since then, he's acted in and created numerous theatre productions, including an award-winning turn in Evil Dead: the Musical and his original one-man show, Assassinating Thomson , in which he creates a painting live on stage.

Even as he took to the stage, however, Horak says he faced lingering self-doubt stemming from his disability.

"I was very self-conscious about being considered visually impaired and/or blind, and that was somehow going to exclude me in some way."

Despite these initial doubts, though, Horak says he persisted through theatre with the support of mentors and a willingness to challenge himself. Now he is heading to a new frontier in his acting career, with a role in the latest series in the long-running Star Trek franchise, Strange New Worlds .

But for Horak, this role is particularly poignant, as he makes history as the franchise's first legally blind actor.

"They put out a call," Horak says. "They were looking specifically for blind and visually impaired performers. When my agent sent that to me, I thought 'okay, that checks off the box.' And then when it was Star Trek , I was like, 'okay, that's a no-brainer, go for it.'"

Strange New Worlds is his first main TV role, following a guest spot on Warehouse 13 and some independent film work. Partly, Horak says he stuck to the stage due to feeling self-conscious about his physical appearance.

"When I was in college at Mount Royal, I took a film and television class," he says. "We'd learn scenes and then we'd film them and then we'd watch them back, and I got really self-conscious about the way I looked on camera. The safe place for me was doing theatre, because the audience was so far away."

Visual disabilities have been a part of the Star Trek universe in the past, perhaps most famously with the character of engineer Geordi LaForge in Star Trek: The Next Generation . 

Like Geordi LaForge, Horak's character of Hemmer in Strange New Worlds is also a blind engineer, but in this case, the character has other natural senses to see and interact with the world. Hemmer is a member of the fictional Aenar race, a subspecies of the Andorians, one of the founding races of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets. All Aenar have telepathic abilities and are naturally blind.

They also have antennae, pale white-blue skin and white hair, which required Horak to sit still for a three-hour makeup application before heading to set. But while the process was long, the actor says it actually allowed him to overcome anxiety about his appearance on film.

"They've got an explanation for my strange-looking eyes in Strange New Worlds ," he says. "When I saw what they had created, and how the digital effects team had gone in, frame by frame and they had altered the eyes … they've given me the eyes that I could only dream of."

Strange New Worlds ' first season is now running until July 7 and is available for streaming in the US on Paramount+ and in Canada on Crave. The series has already been renewed for a second season, though it's not yet been confirmed if Horak will be involved. 

In the meantime, he says he is continuing to pursue stage projects, as well as visual art. But for Horak, playing the role of Hemmer has been a unique thrill.

"It means so much to me that I've been given this opportunity," he says. "When I watched episode one, and there was my name right beside the glowing engine … I cried. 

"It's a 55-plus-year legacy that Roddenberry began, and we're the children, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren now who are learning about this wonderful vision of unity and inclusivity and progress, and all of that encompassed in a single, one-hour show."

Season one of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ' running until July 7 and is available for streaming in Canada on Crave.

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Blink of an Eye (episode)

• View history

Over time and generations, a world tries to uncover the mystery of a strange object in the sky.

• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 1.6 Act Five
• 2 Memorable quotes
• 3.1 Continuity and trivia
• 3.2 Video and DVD releases
• 4.1 Starring
• 4.2 Also starring
• 4.3 Guest star
• 4.4 Co-stars
• 4.5 Uncredited co-stars
• 4.6 Stand-ins
• 4.7 References
• 4.8 External links

Summary [ ]

The new star

The USS Voyager approaches a planet rotating 58 times per minute and, while investigating, the ship enters a gravimetric gradient pulling it into a geosynchronous orbit in which the crew becomes trapped. On the planet, a native is then seen preparing an altar. Just then, an earthquake occurs, and the native sees a new star in the sky, which is Voyager .

Act One [ ]

The civilization, who had been worshiping a deity called Tahal , is confused at the situation. Another of the natives comes to interpret that there is a new deity wishing to be worshiped, orders a new altar to be made for it, and promises allegiance to the new one, calling it Ground Shaker .

The tachyon core of the planet has created a differential in space - time , meaning that time passes much more quickly on the planet than in the rest of space. Within "moments" of Voyager 's arrival and entrapment many years have passed on the surface. The initial entry into orbit coincides with an earthquake interpreted by the inhabitants as an act of a new deity, the Voyager ship appearing as a new bright star in the sky. Chakotay asks B'Elanna Torres to reconfigure a class 5 probe to take pictures every ten milliseconds, and to take surveys of the planet to help try to get Voyager out of orbit. Chakotay goes on to say that this could be the best anthropological find ever; it is one thing to dig and find the history, but to watch the civilization develop before your eyes is another thing entirely. After Torres tells Chakotay that it could take a few hours to reconfigure the probe, he says that they might miss the rise and fall of a civilization. Torres reassures him that they'll just have to watch the next one.

Star of the day

As time passes, the planet's inhabitants quickly change to a pre-medieval level of technology . An old teacher climbs a hill to one of his former students who is now a protector . He believes the star is from another civilization like theirs, and the Ground Shaker their protector, like himself. He intends to send a letter via hot air balloon, and has the teacher write a note for him, asking him to stop shaking the ground.

Act Two [ ]

Torres and Chakotay are fascinated as they observe scans from the probe indicating that the civilization has entered an industrial age, creating roads and more fortified buildings than normal for a civilization in that stage. Furthermore, they can tell the frequency of the earthquakes. The probe, however, soon decays and disintegrates in the atmosphere, as it's operating in the space-time of the planet, equivalent to over 200 years. Chakotay surmises that the civilization is advanced enough that it should be observing Voyager .

On the planet, an astronomical observatory exists. A scientist there is able to observe Voyager through its telescope and is trying to contact it through radio transmissions, however, it is not responding, to both him and his tired assistant's dismay. They are trying one last time before calling it a day when the assistant suggests a personal message in addition to mathematical sequences and constants.

In astrometrics , Seven of Nine detects the transmission and Chakotay recognizes they need to slow down the frequency to interpret it. In the message, the astronomer explains the culture and mythology of the planet's people. In a senior staff briefing, the crew listens to the message. For centuries the society lives with the constant ground-shaking effect brought about by Voyager and its effects on the natural poles and rotation of the planet. Cautious about first contact with a pre-warp society and aware of the accelerated aging causing by the time differential, Captain Janeway employs The Doctor to beam to the planet on an undercover mission to gather data in an effort to find a way for Voyager to escape orbit. As Janeway and Torres prepare to beam him back, the signal is lost.

Act Three [ ]

Voyager 's attempt to break orbit fails

By the time The Doctor is successfully located and beamed back on board, three years have passed on the planet. Overjoyed to see them, he explains that Voyager has been a catalyst for invention and that a space race is in progress to make contact. Voyager is also used as a catalyst for religion, music, art, and even children's toys. He tells the captain that his roommate , with whom he shared an apartment, even composed an aria about Voyager . He said the apartment was destroyed by a rival state's cannon shells when they started a war with the one he was in. The Doctor goes on to explain that the war was finished in "a matter of weeks" when a new treaty was signed.

The planet's space race reaches its climax

He also informs Janeway that he has committed to memory the last three hundred years of meteorological records and some seismic analysis from the planet. Using The Doctor's data, the crew attempts an escape, but after only fifty meters of ascent, seismic activity increases and the exercise is aborted. In the meantime, a space capsule from the planet's surface reaches Voyager and its two-person crew find the crew in what appears to be some form of stasis ; the time differential causes them to observe only microseconds passing on board the ship while they experience several minutes. When they reach the bridge , they witness Neelix in the middle of pouring Janeway some coffee and realize it is not stasis they are witnessing, but a time differential. Right after, they enter Voyager 's time-frame and collapse, to the surprise of the bridge crew . Janeway immediately calls for medical emergency.

Act Four [ ]

In sickbay , The Doctor was able to save the pilot, Gotana-Retz , while the commander, Terrina , does not survive the transition. The Doctor notes that, given his extensive knowledge of local physiology, he is as good as Retz' family doctor. Retz is revived in sickbay in the company of Janeway and The Doctor. After hearing the news of his fallen comrade, he informs Janeway that he is beginning to understand the time differential between his world and Voyager. Janeway explains the difference in time to Retz in greater detail, to which he asks, " So you really haven't been watching us for centuries? " Captain Janeway replies " Actually, we just got here. And we're hoping you can help us find a way to leave. "

Later, Gotana-Retz meets with Janeway in her ready room . Retz realizes that everyone he knew when he left his planet is long dead. He tells the Captain that although he is an accomplished pilot, he lacks the courage of his associates and they made a mistake choosing him. Janeway disagrees, telling Retz that for someone whose life has been turned upside down, he is handling it well. Retz reminisces and tells Janeway that when he was a child lying in his crib, his first memory was not of his mother 's face, but of the sky ship toy hanging above, and now he is the only one of his kind to know its true name: Voyager . It is obvious that he, much like the rest of his species, has always fantasized about what the sky ship is really like. Retz then wonders if Voyager will be the last thing he will ever see. The captain informs him that she has no intention of keeping him aboard against his will, but warns that the longer he stays, the harder it could become for him to return home.

A troubling development on the planet: antimatter tests

Retz takes a moment to think about this and begins to sing in nostalgic reflection, " Star of the night, star of the day, come to take my tears away. Make my life always bright. " As he trails off, he tells Janeway that it's a child's prayer to Voyager . The captain hopes that Retz is not too disappointed in discovering that Voyager is merely a starship. Retz replies, " How often does your very first dream come true? " And although every minute spent aboard means that months and even years pass on the surface, he agrees to help the crew interpret The Doctor's data and find a way to break orbit.

Voyager under attack

As Seven scans the surface she detects warp experimentation. Soon after, Voyager is being attacked by antimatter torpedoes and a tricobalt device .

Act Five [ ]

Voyager is towed out of orbit

The weapons are soon causing major damage to Voyager 's shields , so Janeway convinces Retz to go back to the planet to convince his people the ship is not a threat. He agrees, and returns to his planet with Voyager 's specifications, with Janeway hoping he can convince his planet's rulers to stop the attacks and help them leave orbit. Before the pilot leaves, The Doctor tells him that, when he was living on the planet, he had a son who was probably long dead by this point. He asks the pilot to contact the members of his son's family to tell them about him. The pilot asks how The Doctor could have a son, as he is a hologram, The Doctor just answers " it's a long story. "

Gotana-Retz returns to Voyager

" I feel like I'm saying goodbye to an old friend. "

After more attacks and a planet's year since the pilot returned, two ships appear next to Voyager and deploy a tractor beam to pull it clear. Using a temporal compensator invented on his planet, Gotana-Retz returns one last time to say goodbye before the sky ship leaves forever.

The Sky Ship flies away

Finally, Gotana-Retz, now an old man, sits on a hillside and gazes wistfully into the sky as the star that is Voyager winks out and vanishes. The hillside now overlooks a vast technological metropolis.

Memorable quotes [ ]

" How does this sound? 'The Weird Planet Where Time Moved Very Fast and So Did the People Who Lived There,' by Naomi Wildman… " " Your title is verbose. I suggest you try to condense it. " " The Weird Planet " " Better, but it lacks precision. 'The Weird Planet Displaced in Time' " " Perfect! "

" That's one planet that never showed up on the multiple choice exam. "

" If there's an intelligent species down there, we'll be able to track their development, not just for days or weeks, but for centuries. "

" We might miss the rise and fall of a civilization. " " So, we'll watch the next one. "

" What should I say? " " Oh…glad to meet you. Where are you from? Please stop shaking our planet. "

" What if they're big purple blobs of protoplasm? " " Then you'll be the best-looking blob on the planet. "

" Captain, isn't it time we returned fire? " " We've done enough damage to these people over the last thousand years. "

" You're the best pilot we have, that's why you're on this mission. This is no different than flying your favorite… " " Oh, it's different! " " I can't argue with that. "

" Jason? An unusual name. " " Yes. He was my… son. " " But you're a hologram. " " lt's a long story. "

" If you've ever wanted to report more than the weather, now is your chance. Tell them to clear Central Lake of all traffic: Orbital 1 is coming in for a landing. "

Background information [ ]

• Obi Ndefo previously played Drex , Martok 's son, in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season four premiere " The Way of the Warrior ".
• In the observatory on Kelemane's planet , the hole in which the large telescope is encased in is a reuse of the framework of the Cardassian circular airlock hatch from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . One of the hatches later reappears in VOY : " Tsunkatse ", on Penk's starship , and later in the seventh season episode " Friendship One ", in the Otrin's species cave settlement.
• The book Star Trek 101 (p. 177), by Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block , lists this episode as one of the "Ten Essential Episodes" from Star Trek: Voyager .
• This episode is notably similar to the novel Dragon's Egg , by Robert L. Forward. The novel also involves a Human space ship observing the extremely rapid evolution of a society on a star about which the ship orbits.
• This is the last episode of Star Trek directed by Gabrielle Beaumont.

Continuity and trivia [ ]

• One day on the planet is slightly more than one second long (1.03 seconds) in normal time, so three years on the planet would only be 18.9 minutes in normal time. This would mean that a hundred years on the planet would pass every 10.45 hours. Since Voyager seems to have been in orbit for centuries of planetary time it is likely that the episode takes place over a few days of time for the crew.
• This episode contains a scene in which a member of an alien species writes in English using a pen and ink. This is unusual considering most alien writing depicted in Star Trek is made up of alien-looking characters.
• Although Tuvok describes the planet as having a high rate of rotation "like a quasar ", this property more accurately describes a pulsar .
• Star Trek: The Original Series had an episode entitled " Wink of an Eye " where Scalosians , moving too fast to be seen or heard (other than a faint buzzing sound), board the USS Enterprise and abduct Captain James T. Kirk . However their accelerated life wasn't natural, it was caused by radiation sickness which led to the change of their biochemistry. Accelerated life was natural for Kelemane's species, caused by the nature of their homeworld.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment ): Volume 6.6, 14 August 2000
• As part of the VOY Season 6 DVD collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway

Also starring [ ]

• Robert Beltran as Chakotay
• Roxann Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
• Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
• Ethan Phillips as Neelix
• Robert Picardo as The Doctor
• Tim Russ as Tuvok
• Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine
• Garrett Wang as Harry Kim

Guest star [ ]

• Daniel Dae Kim as Gotana-Retz

Co-stars [ ]

• Obi Ndefo as Protector
• Daniel Zacapa as an Astronomer
• Olaf Pooley as a Cleric
• Jon Cellini as a Technician
• Kat Sawyer-Young as Astronaut
• Melik Malkasian as a Shaman
• Walter Hamilton McCready as a Tribal Alien
• Scarlett Pomers as Naomi Wildman

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• David Keith Anderson as Ashmore
• Michael Bailous as Voyager operations officer
• Richard Bishop as Voyager operations officer
• Christine Delgado as Susan Nicoletti
• Tarik Ergin as Ayala
• Tina Kotrich as Voyager operations officer
• Noriko Suzuki as Voyager operations officer
• Kelemane's balloonists
• Kelemane's weather coordinator (voice)
• Voyager operations officer

Stand-ins [ ]

• Brita Nowak – stand-in for Jeri Ryan

References [ ]

acceleration ; almanac ; altar ; ammonium ; amplitude modulation ; anthropology ; antimatter torpedo ; aria ; astronomy ; Astronomer's grandfather ; athlete ; Belief system ; cannon ; carbon monoxide ; career ; carrier wave ; Central Lake ; Central Protectorate ; class V planetary probe ; coastline ; concert hall ; confinement beam ; crib ; Darek ; decayed orbit ; disorientation ; docking port ; doppler component ; display buffer ; dwarf star ; elemental constant ; epidermal ; exile ; family doctor ; fire-fruit ; frequency ; god ; Gotana-Retz' mother ; gravimetric gradient ; " Ground Shaker "; hemisphere ; high orbit ; holomatrix ; hot air balloon ; internal combustion ; iron ; Jefferies tube ; Kelemane ; Kelemane's planet ; Kelemane's species ; Kelemane's species' sport ; kilometer ; Klingon ; lake ; Lakeside ; Launch Control/Tactical Command Center ; logic ; low orbit ; lyric ; Mareeza ; mathematical constant ; medical journal ; meter ; Milky Way Galaxy ; Mountain ; multiple-choice exam ; mythology ; numerical sequence ; observatory ; opera house ; orbit ; Orbital 1 ; palace ; pat on the back ; playoff ; pre-warp society ; Prime Directive ; prime number ; Protector ; protoplasm ; purple ; space capsule ; quasar ; radio transmission ; Red River ; religion ; rendezvous range ; roommate ; season ; season (sports); scanning range ; shell ; shooting star ; " Sky Ship "; Sky Ship Friends ; state ; Station 004 ; surface ; synchronous orbit ; Tabreez, Jason ; tachyon ; Tactical Air Command ; Tahal ; technology ; telescope ; temporal compensator ; temporal field ; time frame ; Torelius ; tricobalt device ; ultra-high frequency ; warp-capable civilization ; weather ; weather coordinator ; Weird Planet Displaced in Time, The

External links [ ]

• " Blink of an Eye " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Blink of an Eye " at Wikipedia
• " Blink of an Eye " at the Internet Movie Database
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)
• 2 Jamaharon

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How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Glow?

Discussion in ' Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series ' started by Ro_Laren , Dec 9, 2012 .

Ro_Laren Commodore Commodore

What "special effect" did they use to make the eyes of the actors playing Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's eyes "glow" in the episode Where No Man Has Gone Before ? I'm guess it is some post-production special-effect vs. the actor's wearing the worlds most painful contacts. FYI, it has been a zillion years since I watched this episode.  

lurok Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl Seconded. I've wondered about that as well  

Tosk Admiral Admiral

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl They used contact lenses.  

Kirk1980 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl Not just any contact lenses.... early 1960s ones. Very hot and uncomfortable. They were scleral lenses which allowed the effects department to get a thin sheet of foil between the layers of the lens. A pinhole was poked in them to allow the actors to see. This had the knockon effect that Lockwood had to tilt his head up in order to see properly, giving him that sorta arrogant look. He wasn't being dramatic, he just couldn't see otherwise! They were also HIGHLY uncomfortable. Heat built up behind them, driving Lockwood crazy. Kellerman, though, never showed discomfort. Then again, she didn't wear them as much, so who knows.  

sbk1234 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl Well, first they took this spaceship and tried to leave the galaxy...  

Dalen Quaice Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl They also used animation because the contacts didn't work in low light (since they were reflective) -- the scene where Gary is first struck by the barrier on the bridge and his eyes first turn is an example. When the act fades out, his eyes stay illuminated for a little longer before fading out.  

jayrath Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl More to the point, pairs of contact lenses with aluminum foil sandwiched between. Ow!  

Garrovick Commander Red Shirt

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl Dalen Quaice said: ↑ They also used animation because the contacts didn't work in low light (since they were reflective) -- the scene where Gary is first struck by the barrier on the bridge and his eyes first turn is an example. When the act fades out, his eyes stay illuminated for a little longer before fading out. Click to expand...

Sector 7 Vice Admiral Admiral

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl Kirk1980 said: ↑ Not just any contact lenses.... early 1960s ones. Very hot and uncomfortable. They were scleral lenses which allowed the effects department to get a thin sheet of foil between the layers of the lens. A pinhole was poked in them to allow the actors to see. This had the knockon effect that Lockwood had to tilt his head up in order to see properly, giving him that sorta arrogant look. He wasn't being dramatic, he just couldn't see otherwise! They were also HIGHLY uncomfortable. Heat built up behind them, driving Lockwood crazy. Kellerman, though, never showed discomfort. Then again, she didn't wear them as much, so who knows. Click to expand...

Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl Kellerman told a funny story about Lockwood screaming and cursing about the lenses.  

mos6507 Commodore Commodore

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl BTW, I hope you know the image posted is horizontally flipped Oh, and note that the division symbols on the insignia don't match what eventually became the norm in TOS.  

Bishop76 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl They're looking in a mirror in that scene  

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl Hah. Touche'. Good call. There's a famous shot in the TMP teaser where McCoy's flipped horizontally. These things happened now and then, and maybe I jumped the gun.  

Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl Usually a flopped shot is an intentional editorial choice to compensate for a problem with actor eyelines.  

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl No, seriously, they were looking in a mirror in that scene  

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl Bishop76 said: ↑ No, seriously, they were looking in a mirror in that scene Click to expand...

Gov Kodos Admiral Admiral

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl Maurice said: ↑ Usually a flopped shot is an intentional editorial choice to compensate for a problem with actor eyelines. Click to expand...

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl Some of us got that.  

Re: How Did They Make Gary Mitchell's & Dr. Elizabeth Dehner's Eyes Gl There was a flopped shot in the opening of The Enemy Within as the camera booms down the rocks. I think some bright tech fixed it on one of the remastered versions thinking he could do better than the original editors... but it was certainly there when it aired. It was intentional. There is another flipped shot on the Bridge when Kirk confronts the evil Kirk.  

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Star Trek: The Original Series Cast & Character Guide

Jodie whittaker learns the doctor's real name live on stage, meemaw actor's young sheldon cancelation criticism is proven right by new cbs data.

• Gary Lockwood played Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell in "Where No Man Has Gone Before," the second pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series.
• Mitchell's transformation from friend to enemy reflects the show's early dynamics.
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds may provide an opportunity for Mitchell's character to be explored further in the franchise.

Gary Lockwood starred as Lieutenant Gary Mitchell in the second pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series , "Where No Man Has Gone Before." Assigned as helmsman to the USS Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Mitchell's friendly and accessible countenance allowed for a good relationship with his fellow crew members and echoed Kirk's preference for a more casual command style and atmosphere as standard. Lockwood's prior casting in the television series The Lieutenant by the show's creator and producer Gene Roddenberry led directly to Lockwood's role as Gary Mitchell on Roddenberry's next project, Star Trek .

Star Trek 's successful second pilot , "Where No Man Has Gone Before," saw Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell slowly develop extraordinary powers when the Enterprise pierced an energy barrier at the galaxy's edge. The crossing inadvertently triggered Mitchell's unusually high ESP readings and transitioned him from popular crew member to cold, ruthless threat. As Kirk struggled between his loyalties to Mitchell and his crew, Gary's growing psionic powers led to murder, increasing disdain, and ultimately his undoing at the hands of Kirk and the similarly-affected Dr. Elizabeth Dehner (Sally Kellerman). Lockwood's performance as the unfortunate, friendly Starfleet helmsman offers a sympathetic insight into Kirk's first Star Trek foe .

The episode title, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," is also the final phrase in Star Trek' s opening voice-over sequence.

Star Trek: The Original Series features some of the most iconic characters in all of science fiction with the crew of the original USS Enterprise.

Who Was Gary Mitchell In Star Trek: TOS?

Star trek: the original series first aired between 1966-1969..

Besides his professional role on the early USS Enterprise , Lt. Commander Gary Mitchell also had a personal tie to the ship. Prefixing Kirk's later multi-decade close friendship with fellow Enterprise officer Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Gary Mitchell was Captain Kirk's best friend . Mitchell and Kirk first met in the 2250s, cementing a friendship following Mitchell's later admission to Starfleet Academy. In "Where No Man Has Gone Before," Mitchell comments that upperclassmen had warned him that " in Lieutenant Kirk's class you either think or sink ." The easy camaraderie and convincing performances by Lockwood and Shatner imbue the episode with care and affection, heightening the galling sense of loss at the episode's tragic end.

The easy camaraderie and convincing performances by Lockwood and Shatner imbue the episode with care and affection.

Born John Gary Yurosek, Gary Lockwood initially worked as a stunt cowboy in Hollywood before breaking into acting. Best known for his roles as Gary Mitchell in Star Trek and Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey , Lockwood enjoyed a successful career in film and television. Lockwood's roles saw him working alongside Hollywood greats such as Stanley Kubrick, Jane Fonda, Anthony Perkins, Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Basil Rathbone, and Elvis Presley, with television credits including The Lieutenant , Perry Mason , Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Simon & Simon, Charlie's Angels, TJ Hooker (with William Shatner), Starsky & Hutch, and Murder, She Wrote .

Besides Gary Lockwood, several other Star Trek: The Original Series regulars appeared in Gene Roddenberry's The Lieutenant - including Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Leonard Nimoy, and Majel Barrett.

Gary Mitchell Can Appear In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Star trek: strange new worlds began filming for season 3 in december 2023..

A direct spin-off of Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows the adventures of the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount). Star Trek: Strange New Worlds explores the years before Captain Kirk's command in Star Trek: The Original Series . Strange New Worlds season 3 is currently in production, with the prequel having already slowly introduced several (younger) TOS characters, including Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck), Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), Lt. Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (Martin Quinn), and Lieutenant James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley),

Strange New Worlds season 3 could introduce the younger Gary Mitchell and further develop his friendship with Kirk.

Gary Mitchell's story ended abruptly in Star Trek' s second pilot, with the character exiting the show buried under a giant rock on Delta Vega. However, Paul Wesley's Lieutenant Kirk serving as First Officer of the USS Farragut, Strange New Worlds season 3 could introduce the younger Gary Mitchell and further develop his friendship with Kirk. Strange New Worlds may even depict away missions where, on Dimorus, for instance, Gary took a poisonous dart intended for Kirk . Gary Mitchell's potential return could allow for added depth to his character, making him more well-rounded and his Star Trek fate more tragic.

Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are available for streaming on Paramount+.

Star Trek: The Original Series

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Star Trek: Voyager

“Blink of an Eye”

Air date: 1/19/2000 Teleplay by Joe Menosky Story by Michael Taylor Directed by Gabrielle Beaumont

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

"If there's an intelligent species down there, we'll be able to track their development, not just for days or weeks, but for centuries." "And watch them discover new and better ways of beating each other over the head." "They won't necessarily follow the Klingon model." "As opposed to the human model?" — Chakotay and Torres

Review Text

Nutshell: A good reapplication of a good premise that was misapplied in its original use.

"Blink of an Eye" is a compelling hour of Voyager , and it might've seemed like a truly original sci-fi concept if it weren't for the fact the basic premise was made into an episode of original Trek more than 31 years ago. Is this new episode an homage, an updated retelling, or a blatant plundering of already-used ideas?

I'm inclined to use the phrase "updated retelling." One gets the sense that this story might've been intended to seem fresh to new- Trek fans who were not familiar with the original premise; at the same time, the fact that the title has barely been changed (the TOS episode was called " Wink of an Eye ") is a hint that maybe the writers were consciously, if quietly, acknowledging their source material.

Still, with a premise built on such an interesting hook, it almost seems like the original script's writers, Arthur Heinemann and Gene Coon, deserved to be inserted into this week's credits.

"Blink of an Eye" is not a rehash, mind you. "Blink" is, in fact, miles ahead of "Wink," which had that great starting premise but didn't do much with it, and required viewers to overlook crucial flaws in logic in order for the story to work.

"Blink" takes the idea of time differential to a much more interesting level by inserting Voyager into the very mythos of the strange new world in question. This is easily the best, most ambitious sci-fi premise seen on Voyager this season.

We've got a planet that exists in accelerated time, where nearly an entire day goes by in the time the Voyager crew experiences one second. Voyager gets stuck in orbit in some sort of technobabble eddy, and while they're stuck they observe the society below developing from primitive to industrial to digital. And what's perhaps most interesting about this idea is that the planet's inhabitants all the while are observing Voyager , which looks like the brightest, biggest star in the sky. It's a wondrous new take on a concept that was nowhere within the thought range of the original "Wink." Anyone who is calling "Blink" simply a rehash is missing the point.

The most interesting aspect of "Blink" is what grows from the implications of everyone gazing into the sky, seeing Voyager , and wondering what that super-bright star in the sky means. The story supplies us several time periods on the planet where a dialog opens between two people looking at the sky. They wonder what it is, who put it there, and why it causes frequent earthquakes. As the time periods change, the nature of the belief regarding this mysterious "star" changes. At first it's worshiped and feared; later those values of worship are challenged and primitive contact is attempted (by sealed letter and hot-air balloon, no less); and still later we have astronomers staring at it through telescopes, sending it radio signals, and wondering who put the "Sky Ship" in orbit and why it's not going anywhere.

Strangely, I don't have a whole lot to say about some of the societal perspectives, because the most interesting ideas to ponder are implicit. In fact, if there's a drawback to "Blink of an Eye," it's that some of the execution can't really live up to the potential of the concept. For such an interest-piquing idea, there are numerous scenes that, in and by themselves, strike me as oddly lackluster. As a whole, probably each scene is necessary to establish the unfolding canvas of centuries of time, but as individual drama scenes they don't really stand out to say something powerful.

Part of that, I think, lies on the guest cast, which isn't uniformly solid. Each time frame we see features two actors engaging in a dialog about the Sky Ship, and in each case one actor seems significantly weaker than the other. Also, the early scenes can't break free and become completely engrossing because the dialog comes across as a bit stilted. Particularly in the first two ancient time periods, the people talk with a wooden properness that strikes me as over-scripted and artificial.

Back aboard Voyager , we have some neat ideas, like the idea of beaming Doc down to the planet to investigate a way of escaping orbit, and the idea that when he is unretrievable for several minutes because of a technical problem, he comes back to Voyager having been on the planet three years, where he had basically become a citizen.

And in the most immediate example of observing progress that's unfolding before one's eyes, Seven witnesses on the viewscreen in a few moments the testing of antimatter bombs over what is really a few months' time—and then realizes the devices have been promptly aimed at Voyager .

The best moments come in the latter stages of the show after two astronauts make the historic first attempt to reach the Sky Ship. Seeing through their eyes, we're able to experience the anticipation as they approach Voyager —a weird, alien, impossibly frozen object that has been a mystery for centuries. They board Voyager , which of course gives us the creepy visuals of two explorers walking through the decks of a ship full of frozen people. (Are the physics of such a situation plausible? Wouldn't people running around the ship at such high speeds cause some sort of increased friction or heat? What if one of these astronauts punched somebody? Would their hand go right through a Voyager crew member and break them in half? Is there some sort of law of conservation of energy or something to account for this? Okay, I'm being flippant; I honestly don't know or care. There's a reason I got a degree in English and not physics.)

Suddenly, the astronauts are pulled into Voyager 's rate of time. One of the astronauts dies from trauma, but the other, a man named Gotana-Retz (Daniel Dae Kim), survives, and becomes the emotional anchor for the story's closing stages. Gotana-Retz is represented by the better actor of the two astronaut characters, fortunately, and I liked that the story revealed the way Voyager impacted him as an individual who had always sought answers to the Sky Ship mystery—from childhood.

The show's most interesting explicitly discussed idea is that the mystery of the Sky Ship had prompted a societal acceleration of technology (sort of a "space race" like the race to the Moon). The idea that a people sought development to answer questions with such huge significance is a notion that tunes into our own wonders. There's also some musing over what might happen to society if the Sky Ship were to leave. Interesting, how the universal are-we-alone-in-the-universe question is filtered through this particular Voyager plot.

Of course, it's also an honest and telling point that, as Doc reveals, if some members of government had their way, newly discovered weapons would be quickly pointed and fired at the Sky Ship.

The ending works pretty well, though there seems to be a tad bit of chaos. It's nice that Voyager 's escape from the planet's grasp isn't arbitrarily handled with tech but instead by the decision to have Gotana-Retz return to the planet and tell his people what he has seen.

Despite the smart script, "Blink" doesn't really land in the realm of Trekkian masterpieces. Some of the more potent moments in the drama feel a bit underplayed (and Paul Baillargeon still refuses to score moments of action with any sort of energy). Where this episode reveals its cracks is in the ebb and flow of the plot along the way. There are distracting moments that don't quite seem to fit, like the walk-on of Naomi Wildman and especially Doc's brief mention of his "son" from when he was on the planet—which is downright confusing as presented, and seems tacked on since it makes one wonder where all the emotional attachment vanished to the instant he beamed back aboard Voyager .

But regardless, this episode is a winner. It has genuine sci-fi imagination of the type that sci-fi deserves. I've observed that there are two general types of sci-fi that Hollywood uses to establish their stories: the kind that tell human dramas about the nature of possibilities and imagination, and the type that exploit spaceships and fantasy technology merely for explosions and cheap thrills. "Blink of an Eye" represents the former.

Trailer commentary: It kills me the way all those extra stock-footage shots of explosions and people getting knocked off their feet were added to the promo for "Blink of an Eye," little of which happened in this episode. This preview, like many Voyager previews, obviously emanated straight from the People-Will-Watch-If-They-Think-Stuff-Will-Get-Blown-Up Dept.

Next week: According to the trailer, who knows? But somewhere in the next few weeks we'll get plenty of Borg, action, and Seven of Nine arena fighting. Yes, everyone, it's "Star Trek: LCD"!

Previous episode: Fair Haven Next episode: Virtuoso

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Comment Section

127 comments on this post.

This is one of my all-time favorite Voyager episodes. It gets a near-perfect 3.5 star rating in my book. I find it to be a very affecting episode and it's been known to bring tears to my eyes. You know, I think there was enough material here for a two-part episode...albeit, a pretty quiet and unconventional one. I would've loved to have seen some of the Doctor's life in this alien culture. Although, they may not have had a big enough budget to pull this off...so our imaginations do just fine. Plausibility quibble: Early in the episode, as one of the aliens is witting a letter to the Sky Ship, we have a good enough view of the letter to see that he's clearly writing it in English. Whatever. Who is in charge of these things?

I agree...this is a very-well done episode of Voyager. The way they pull the two sets of time frames together is practically seamless. I liked the writing, the backstory they invented, most of the acting, and the doctor's "kid", which is made cooler by the fact they don't explain it at all. Probably an adoption or something. I also tend to like "pointless" moments such as the Naomi walk-on, as long as they're kept short. Too often the entire episode focuses solely on the plot, and it's nice to get a short acknowledgement that there are other things going on with other characters. To me this episode is on par with "Living Witness", and maybe better.

The star rating at the top of this episode somehow got changed to 2.5, probably during the redesign. It's supposed to be 3 stars. I will fix this.

Andrew Nimmo

I basically agree with the views above. There's just one thing I have always wondered: given the accelerated rate of time and progress on the planet, why would they not be the most technologically advanced race in the galaxy within a short time after this episode occurred? - more advanced than the Borg, equal in fact to the Q Continuum, given the rate of their evolution? They appear to have overcome the time differential problems and are able to free Voyager, when its crew can't achieve it. Would have loved to have seen a few minutes of the Doctor interacting on his away mission.

Jakob M. Mokoru

I agree, wonderful episode!

I have to concur with he above; It's convenient that this civilization's development basically begins just about the time Voyager gets stuck. One week (or maybe even a day) later and the culture would probably have been a warp-ready civilization. Frankly, at the rate of time passage that the Doctor experiences, the missiles being fired at Voyager seemed very spread out (what's that, a few months or years between missiles? I think the loopholes in the technical plot prevent the episode from being 4 star, but it really is a great one. Daniel Dae Kim is a great actor (well known now for Lost, but relatively unknown at the time), and he turns in a great performance. I like the scene of him and Janeway in her ready room. As to your physics question, I recall an episode of the X-Files in which a bad guy of the week had the ability to run super fast. Mulder and Scully end up finding melted rubber (the soles of his shoes) on the floor somewhere where he had been.

Andrew, who knows, perhaps this race is the future Q. Once they become all-powerful they can exist at any point of time. Perhaps that's why they seem to take such an interest in the Federation and humans

Great episode, but logical holes all over it: the one is the english language on this midage-scene, the other is: why does the doctor need to be accelerated when beaming down and why is everything slow for the "aliens", when they enter voyager. time is the independent variable, not the dependent.

Ken Egervari

Great episode. There were a few holes in it... namely why the male astronaut didn't age after several minutes after the anti-matter charges stopped. That one is not the worst though. The most troubling aspect is that they develop transporter technology and ships and warp drive and tractor beams.... but we see no actual flights and ships in orbit every few seconds. Are we really to believe they develop all of this tech on the surface... and after hundreds of years... finally decide to use it all? That's just me complaining. I really loved the episode as a whole.

Things like Chakotay's enthusiasm at making a major anthropological discovery (although I seem to have forgotten the last time he was so into the subject...) and D.D. Kim's wonder at realizing his childhood dream are what sci-fi is all about. While I grant that the acting sucked in most of the "primitive" planet scenes, the ideas behind what was going on were pretty much brilliant. Basically, other than some of the acting and a few credibility issues (LOL physics) aside, I can't help but think of this ep as a 4-star winner. Stories like this are why I love sci-fi, and why I still re-watch my favorite Voyager episodes, a show which I think as a whole never came close to living up to its massive potential. When these writers found a good sci-fi premise, they proved they knew what they were doing, even if only for an hour.

Three things bugged me about this episode. The first was, as a couple of other people have noted, the fact that the old guy was writing in English. I can accept that everyone on Star Trek speaks English, even without universal translators, because their doing so is a necessary dramatic device. But they should have shown the old guy writing in something unrecognizable, or just not shown anything at all. The second was after the crew listens to the radio transmission; Paris says they have to respond to that man, and Torres says, "Don't forget the time differential -- that man has been dead for a long time." What's her basis for saying this? At this point in the story the Voyager crew doesn't know what the planet's inhabitants look like, whether they're even humanoid, certainly not what their lifespans are. And third, it's stated early on that a second on Voyager equals a day in Weird Planet time. Later, however, Seven notes an atomic explosion on the surface, then, barely two seconds later, says, "A second one, six weeks later." It seems to me that about 42 seconds would have to pass on Voyager in order for 42 days to pass on the planet. Nonetheless, I found this episode entertaining, and in the final analysis, that's all that counts.

A great episode; a really intriguing premise. I subscribe to what others have said about the holes but also add that they don't detract from the enjoyability of the show. A few things. Firstly, The Doc returning and hugging Janeway, and then effusing about his..."roomate," who gave him companionship he was craving. Hellooooo, he's a H-O-L-O-G-R-A-M!!! Then there is Paris's charging-like-a-bull insistence they had to make contact with the natives, despite excellent retorts from pretty much everyone else and despite the impracticability (time differential-wise) of doing so. Next, they start firing blahblahblah torpedoes at Voayer at three-second intervals, reducing the shields by two thirds within a few seconds. Then there's a discussion - OMG whaddowedo - DDK decides to go back, he's walked to his ship, The Doc starts waxing about his son (WTF?!?), etc. Anyway, several minutes at least pass by till he gets back to the surface. So, they decided to take a break of what, a century?, between the moment of nearly destroying Voyager and firing the next torpedo!?! Lastly, I find it implausible that a race would spend most of its waking moments preoccupied with Voyager and earthquakes. Japan has been living with tremors for much less time and its people hardly give it a second thought. As a race, there are many questions we don't know the answers to but we don't obsess about them. But anyway, an awesome episode!

This has always been one of my favourite Voyager episodes and I'd rate it as a 3.5 or 4 (at least in comparison to other Voyager epsiodes). I found it more interesting to watch than many of the other episodes rated with 4-starts (eg, I found Barge of the Dead almost unwatchable, and Living Witness, while good as an allegory, wasn't anywhere near as interesting on a science fiction level). I also notice that one of the problems people have with this episode is that it seems convenient Voyager arrived as a civilisation was beginning to develop. I don't think this is a problem as there may have been countless civilisations before this one. It's even noted in dialogue at the start of the episode: Chakotay: "We might just miss the rise and fall of a civilization". Torres: "So, we'll watch the next one".

@ Dan, But the end of this episode found this civilization creating technology to escape the time barrier. Then again, it was in order to rescue Voyager, so I suppose it was Voyager's presence that made this civilization finally the one that was able to escape the planet's restraints. Consequentially though, this rapidly accelarating civilization could now make its presence felt in the greater universe. So presumably, the rapid time would continue on the homeworld, and then ships could carry this technology through the barrier. Depending on the nature of the species, they could make a perfect universe or conquer it, either choice in short order.

Funny that I should come across this episode just after the unfortunate events in Japan. Makes you wonder how good Weird Planet's tsunami defenses must have been as well as the strong buildings.. Anyway, great episode. It does something new (okay it's based roughly off a TOS premise. Whatever. It'd hardly call it similar) and hits exactly what Trek is all about for me - not just the exploration of strange (Weird) new worlds but when things don't quite go to plan, also the impact on their civilisations. Imagine being responsible for an entire planet's beliefs and culture. It takes "The Picard" to a whole new level and is just as fascinating. Yes it has its glaring holes. Indeed one can assume that perhaps they are early Q as one possible workaround for some of those holes. Then again, perhaps Q represents the future of all cultures - if "working around" time and space like that is ultimately possible in the Trek universe as 'proven' by this episode then everyone is going to be doing it eventually and I suppose in the long run they'd basically become Q. My brain is melting. Don't try to understand time. Anyway, I have to say, it's almost as if this episode took what is often Voyager's weakness (just bumbling around messing with things then moving on) and turned it into a strength. This time, instead of going out of their way to write a story that can't work with Voyager's "stumble across something, interact, move on" style and ultimately end up frustrating, we have a story that says "here's what might happen when Voyager is doing that". It's hard to explain, but I like it.

Loved this ep. For some reason it reminds me of my favourite Futurama episode, "Godfellas", when Bender is floating through space and witnessing the rise and fall of miniature civilisations upon his body. Also quite similar to Farscape's "The Locket". I thought the premise was beautifully realised, and enjoyed seeing the way this civilisation progresses over the centuries while it's more or less business as usual aboard Voyager. It was handled really well, although the isolated (and quite lengthy) scenes on the planet featuring throwaway characters fell very flat for me...it's hard to invest in random characters that have no purpose in the story other than to depict the way a culture is developing. I also find that the Voyager writers are generally not good at creating compelling, three-dimensional guest characters and that trend continues here. But the alien-POV does work much better when Jin from Lost (always great to see a Lost actor) comes aboard Voyager. Nothing groundbreaking here, but it's effective. While there's not a great deal of emotional resonance to the episode, I still found it interesting, engaging and compelling. For all that it riffs on TOS's "Wink of an eye", it still manages to feel quite fresh and also manages to capture that quintessential Star Trek spirit.

The premise is very similar to a book by Robert Forward, entitled "Dragon's Egg." In this book, a lifeform has evolved on the surface of a NEUTRON STAR, and relativity causes them to experience time much as the inhabitants of this planet. They too see a spacecraft in the sky of Terran origin and start to worship it. Their entire society rises through all the same elements shown in this episode, culminating in a visit from the creatures to the earth ship. This episode is very clearly based heavily on that source material, or inspired by it. I did enjoy the episode a great deal, and think it's one of the best in the Voyager series. As for the book "Dragon's Egg," the Cheela characters were more interestingly written than the humans. The book was also very heavy sci-fi, and not very well known. Anyone reading Jammer's reviews would probably enjoy it, though.

I'm so glad someone else was thrown out of their disbelief-suspension when the medieval-type guy was writing in English. And with crappy handwriting, too! I found the guest star acting a little wooden, too. It was almost like they were purposely going for 1950s/60s sci-fi acting. Think Twilight Zone or Forbidden Planet. Lots of too-much-dialogue and too-simple-mindedness. I also got frustrated in the two-astronomers-and-an-earthquake scene. Why would they develop architecture so similar to humans if they developed over hundreds of years on a planet with radically more geologic instability? Wouldn't they have figured out all the best ways to avoid shaken building syndrome?! Overall, even with those niggling issues, I liked the idea of this episode very much. I do wish it'd had just a bit more emotion, though. The Doctor effected his return to the ship with almost no regret. (Yeah, yeah, he's a hologram. But if he was really that emotionless he wouldn't have bothered with whatever insane steps he must have taken to allow a hologram to have a son.) The astronaut got over his "everyone I've ever known is dead" before he'd even finished saying the sentence. Even Voyager's crew was more like "oh rats, we might be stuck" rather than "HOLY SCHNIKES WE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE BEFORE WE BECOME AS GODS TO THESE PEOPLE AND THEN GET SUCKED INTO THEIR TIMELINE!" Just a little tweaking and polishing could have made this very interesting episode of sci-fi into an emotional whale of a sci-fi tale.

That "system of roads" is Southern California :)

"You know, I think there was enough material here for a two-part episode...albeit, a pretty quiet and unconventional one." I was thinking the same thing. Doc's visit to the planet could have been an "Inner Light" ripoff.

I really like this episode, it's based on a great premise. An interesting comparison is the novel "Spin" by Robert Charles Wilson, based on a similar idea. I highly recommend it.

Just two things, which maybe were answered in the show, maybe not. I thought the speeded up development of the civilization was caused by Voyager getting stuck there, and once they left, so would the speeded up part would have stopped as well. But again, like I said, that may be contradicted by something in the show. And I got the feeling The Doctor's son was like a step-son: Perhaps his roommate was pregnant when she moved in with him and after birth, helped raise him. If someone hasn't written a book on Doc's three years there, they should! I'd buy it in a heartbeat! :)

Funny after all this time we comment on this episode. I too loved it - did a lot of mental calculations on time lapse per second to see if it made sense. It could have been a two parter. I actually like the previous comment that voyager sped up the evolution rate. Brings closure to the question of even more advancements than voyager itself in a short period of time. One of the best time episodes.

I absolutely adore this episode. From the opening shot of the Weird Planet spinning weirdly like a top, to the classic closing shot of the sci-fi cityscape that could easily have been the cover of an issue of an Incredible Tales-type 1950s magazine, it's a gripping hour of television. Yes, the early planet scenes could have been better, but it doesn't much matter. I give it a high 3.5 rating. My only quibble is with the Doc and Gotana-Retz. Both endured emotional traumas. Gotana had essentially lost everyone he's ever known. I know there's not much the writers could do with limited time, but it seems to me the gravitas of that realization could have been written better. The same goes with Doc and his son. As soon as his bear hug with the Captain was done don't you think he'd start feeling quite guilty for pretty much abandoning his family? I'm a father, and I know I would. But, like I said they're quibbles. The episode as a whole is too good for them to detract from it.

One of the best Voyager episodes overall and easily a season highlight- four stars, definitely. It's just such an interesting premise, executed well, with many sweet and intelligent moments. Loved it even more the second time around.

Cail Corishev

Great episode, despite the plot holes. Seems I'm not the only one who thought it had the feel of a 1950s sci-fi magazine story. The writers wanted Paris to be a devil's advocate, but he was right. The Prime Directive was beside the point; there was no longer any hope of not affecting the planet. They were literally shaking it, and the natives were contacting *them*. It's way too late to avoid contact at that point; the only question is what kind of contact you'll have. And as it turned out, refusing to reply pushed the natives into a space-race to get there and find out what the sky-ship was, and ultimately to attack it. Had they simply sent a message back saying, "Hi, nice to meet you. Yes, we are from another planet, and we're sorry about the earthquakes. We're trying to leave, can you help?" none of that would have happened. How much of the natives' and the planet's resources went into the space-race and weapons development, that could have been better used if Voyager hadn't been looming there as a silent threat? So much for non-interference.

Another episode I loved. The final scene, with Gotana-Retz looking skyward as the Sky Ship vanishes forever brought a lump to my throat.

I really enjoyed this episode, but like a lot of Voyager episodes it left me with the feeling that it could have been a lot more. The aliens were just too human to be believable. Not just in their appearance – the facial make-up was truly pathetic, even for Voyager – but the old man writing in English, and wearing what looked exactly like the outfit of a monk, was crazy. Why would a race thousands of light years away have exactly the same clothes we have on Earth? Then we have Voyager crew members making wild assumptions based entirely on human traits – ‘that man will be dead by now’. They have a Vulcan crewmate, so they know alien races age at different rates. How would they have any idea how long the aliens would live for? I loved the premise of the episode, but it’s this disappointing lack of imagination that held Voyager back so many times.

Despite it being 2013 now, I remembered watching something almost a decade ago and was drawn back to seeing this episode again just yesterday. I agree with the 'errors' people have pointed out in the comments, of course, but they all seem minor to me. There is only so much a producer can do appeal to as many people as possible. Like the fact that the old man wrote the note in English is obviously wrong, but it's something that did not punch me in the face as plot-breaking. I bet you could, and I know that people like you have, find such mistakes in just about every episode of every series and likely all of sci-fi in general. That's what you're good at. I do it too. But what makes this episode memorable is the concept. I was inspired by this episode, despite all the little things that were wrong, half of which I picked up on my own but did not care about. It filled me with such wonder that you could observe a civilization develop before your eyes, and still does. This is probably my favorite VOY episode. I can recall a scarce few episodes from any series that are nearly as interesting as this one. I itch to suggest alternatives that could have made it better... ... perhaps if the way Voyager escapes in the end is simply through the tech of people on the planet. They have stayed so long that their tech has surpassed Voyager's. Needless to say I think that this episode could have been developed into a 2-part, or even a whole movie. I love it to bits, because, I suppose, I love both history and progress and science. This episode merges them. ... it almost makes me sad that since Star Trek is dead, we'll likely never see anything as good as this again. The plot holes in the new Kirk-Offshot-Timeline-shoot-em-up-lens-flare-overdose-movie are glaring, obvious and make it suck.

It *is* the people of Weird Planet Displaced in Time who free Voyager in the end. They *have* built ships that can climb out of that orbital position, and with Voyager in tow. All I can figure is, the Displaced people must die if they go too far or stay out too long. Otherwise they would surely run the galaxy by season's end.

Jo Jo Meastro

Pure old school science fiction, full of colourful imagination and an infectious sense of wonder, is what first drew me to Star Trek many years ago and its why I'll always have a soft spot for episodes like this. If something makes you think, feel and be a part of the wonderful drama then IMO it doesn't matter about a few small technical plot hiccups along the way in this fictional tale. Another thing I love about this episode is its mythological feel, I love all kinds of mythology and ancient history that crackles with almost a magical irresistible charm. If anything I just wish this was a 2 parter. I also think it would have been very powerful and profound to have ended with Voyager witnessing the final chapter of the planet, something beautifully bittersweet and moving. But I guess that might have been too much and not to mention the budget that would have needed. I wont complain though, because I really liked what we got. 3 and a half for sure, pushing close to a 4.

so...i have been re-watching voyager from season 1. and i have been waiting for this episode!! it seems i am in agreement with most people. i was hoping everyone liked this episode as much as i did. It had such an intriguing concept. clearly there are holes that are going to happen. either some would be impossible to explain, or it would take multiple hours to explain to the audience. however, i must agree, i think it would have been fun to see the Doc's 3 years. it would ahve made a great "inner light" episode. I LOVED how he hugged Janeway when he came back. but i also liked how he figured something went wrong and he had to create a life for himself. I kept hoping DDK would tell Janeway something about the doc's lineage. the idea of the "baby Qs" reminds me of Groundhog day when Bill Murray supposes that God is not all knowing and powerful, but that he just has been around long enough to know everything. it would be like if this civilization continued forward and became Q. great episode. 4 stars!

If we're going to mention all previous iterations of this concept, I might as well bring up the most obvious one, which is the previous season's "Gravity". The main difference between the two is that in "Gravity" the concept was used to serve the story and characters at hand, whereas here it takes the center stage and the characters are not as important. Surprisingly, though, I think this episode is superior, if only slightly.

Latex Zebra

Don't ask too many questions and this is a great episode. 3.5 for me.

I just watched Blink of an eye again. I remember this episode well and it is one of my favorites. However I may have come across an enormous plothole and I chose to ignore it while I was watching the episode. It was stated Voyager was caught in a geosynchronous orbit around the planet. That means it stays over one place all the time. And yes, we see Voyager as a star fixed in the same place in the heavens seen from the planet. However if Voyager was locked in this orbit, then it would have to be spinning as fast as the planet itself. Obviously it didn't, so Voyager must have moved in the heavens. And that begs the question if one second in space is a day on the planet, how fast would the stars be spinning in the heavens of the planet. I wish I almost hadn't noticed this, because the magic of the episode has lessened somewhat. If I am wrong I hope someone can correct me :-)

There was easily 2-4 episodes worth of content to be explored while in orbit of this planet. In a way our experience as viewers correlated to a theme of the episode: time flies. I certainly had a sort of rushed sense as I watched and in its own way the episode had appeal on this meta level. Loved Jammer's question about phsyics. I imagine that Voyager and crew would have been pretty torn apart by two beings traveling through their corridors at 5,020,928,571,002,819 times the speed of sound. This could have been a hilarious series finale as the air starts on fire and the crew are torn apart by massive shockwaves. Cut to Starfleet Command's attempts to contact Voyager over a period of 30 years and eventually giving up for a second time. Roll credits.

Physics aside, English writing aliens, and wooden acting, I really enjoyed the idea and the music score. I even shed a tear for DDK's character as he sat to watch Voyager depart. How one ignorant choice by the curious crew inspired civilizations. I say ignorant because I am no scientist but when they read off the planet specs, I suspected it would have a ridiculous gravitational pull, yet our science officers did not...... I saw them getting stuck, why they didn't hazard that a possibility is Voyager. The alien was way too cavalier about her death. Writers making the doc more human than our Captain . Little things distract a bit. Last nit pick, we have so many resets the cast acting is becoming the audience and are way too nonchalant about their predicaments when stuck (The void). I get panicking doesn't help but they seem confident they'll be free in 42 mins. zzzzz... Still, one of my faves I watch many times. :-)

Agree wholeheartedly with the writer above that cited Robert L. Forward's "Dragon's Egg". It is a magnificent book. I've not reviewed the Voyager credits, but Forward really should have gotten some credit. The ending is a bit different than Dragon's Egg, necessarily. If they had retained it, the ep would have made for a superb Trekkian ending, and might have elevated this into 4 star status. I'd like to thank Jammer for this repository. After doing the full run of DS9 on Netflix, I started up Voyager to fill in some gaps in my viewing. But after a few episodes that were true dogs, I'm very happy this site was able to guide me around the lesser episodes.

Good episode, has flaws, but I can look beyond them for the sheer wonder this inspires. This is what Sci-Fi should do, inspire you to reach for the stars despite the limitation or challenges that hold you to the ground. As a nod and gesture of good will to classic Science fiction, I think Voyager made all the right choices here. 8.5/10

I agree with many comments. This episode has, at the same time, to be praised for great creativity and to be criticized for lack of it. It is amazingly fresh how the writers managed to give us a really new perspective on the time displacement, on the first contact, on the non-interference. Really really good. The plot and the argument were both fantastic. At the same time, however, we have to watch an alien species in the Delta Quadrant develop and look almost 100% like humans. And even write in English. Really guys? Are we that much ethnocentric that we can't imagine it differently? Were the producers and their crew that lazy? It just feels like lack of care and attention towards the episode. Sure, these are minor things we can look over. As Latex Zebra has accurately summarized a few comments above, "Don't ask too many questions and this is a great episode". Still, I think this episode epitomizes the problem of how much the plot and production should be considered when evaluating an episode. I mention that because many comments in many review of many other episodes always say that we *should* skip the holes for a better appreciation of what matters, of what Trek can best offer to us. Well, it depends. Is there a logical hole in how the physics are treated for the sake of the plot? Besides us making good fun of it, I do not care at all. However, is there a production hole that makes the aliens almost like humans, showing the whole ethnocentric or american-centric of us? Yes, I do care, precisely because this offends the whole philosophy of Trek. But don't get me wrong. I though that this episode was great, overall. With a nice, powerfully touching last scene that deserves to be retained in our minds and souls. It is just that it is, at the same time, the perfect installment for thinking on the balance between plot and distracting holes... (what means, btw, it is also a great episode in an odd way too!)

colincostello

An excellent episode. This is really what Star Trek should be about. To see a planet evolving like this is inspired SF. There was enough here for a 2 parter, not least to find out about the Doctors children.

This reminds me of the book Dragon's Egg by Robert Forward, about an alien civilization living in a neutron star, where they live and die far faster than humans do. If you like the ideas in this story check out this book. I noticed when this civilization was in it's renaissance stage, they had a model solar system. They shouldn't know anything about this, as they could never observe planets moving, it would be too slow for them.

@K'Elvis : Copernicus was definitely of Europe's Renaissance.

@Elliot: The point is that with time passing so quickly, they could have never observed the motion of the planets. It's a tiny nitpick, I admit.

Ah, that's a good point. Nice catch.

IMHO, this, Pathfinder and that episode where Chakotay and Kim go back to save Voyager are the best episodes of the series. I remember being blown away by these three stories 15 years ago, when I was 15 years old. They ignited my love for science fiction. Sad to say, the rest of Voyager is just meh. Mating amphibians, anyone?

Oh, and of course Year Of Hell is included in that list. Can't forget Year of Hell.

It's funny. I always find myself returning to this episode when looking for good Voyager episodes to watch to kill time. This is a strangely captivating story. As I've previously mentioned it requires a lot of suspension of belief and repeat viewings only challenge that. The thing is, I don't want to challenge it. I genuinely love this episode and niggles like the bombardment stopping long enough to get Gotana-Retz back to the planet or Doc's suddenly announced son don't detract from a truly original story. I wonder what tweaks could be made to round this off and make it all coherant. Then I remember my earlier comment and think... Why worry. Even without being a nailed on 4 star episode this rates as a Voyager classic in my opinion for being exactly what I want Star Trek to be. Fun, touching and entertaining. In my top 10 Voyager without doubt.

A top 10 Voyager episode for me. I can't wait to rewatch Voyager and review it :-)

An interesting episode. This is pretty much what I watch shows like Star Trek for. Despite a few holes in the logic already described in above comments, the general idea of it works and the way it's handled is good enough to keep you entertained for its duration.

Watched it again, just to see the guy write in English. I missed it, I must have blinked my eyes or something...

Agree with many of the positive comments here. Despite some of its "flaws" as Jammer pointed out, I would still have given this 3.5 stars. They took a fantastic sci-fi concept that TOS completely blew, and turned it into one of Season 6's best episodes. I only wish they had stretched out the scenes on the planet, the turmoil the "sky ship" may have been causing, and got better actors. So this probably should have been a 2-part episode, and in the hands of a great director and some better actors, could have been 4 stars and one of Voyager's best overall episodes... Anyway, I still loved it. Great stuff!

CaptainTightpants

How has no one mentioned the spacesuit vaginas? For real. You can't unsee them.

The musical score really gets to me in this. When the two astronauts board Voyager and they see the crew frozen in time. It's kind of chilling.

I confess to never seeing Wink of and Eye, nor for reading Dragon's Egg. This wouldn't be the first time Trek blatantly ripped someone else off, and if they did they really should have acknowledged it. But I can't judge it on that merit, so I will judge it on its own. It worked. Not perfectly; as others said it is hard for the scenes on the planet to do anything well simply because they need to pack in so much exposition to get us up to speed. But the glimpses we see, and the idea overall, work out. Namely because we get to see it from both sides. One thing Voyager has succeeded at with their method of storytelling is to actually show the impact that Voyager can have on a random civilization. This reminds me of Living Witness, in that it shows the possible wisdom of the Prime Directive (when its not being used to justify genocide, of course). This obviously wasn't Voyager's fault, but knowledge of god-like beings hovering over a planet and causing earthquakes fundamentally altered these people's civilization. And not in overly-dramatic, simple ways either. Perhaps it was a benefit, as it may have jump started a scientific revolution. Perhaps it was a negative, as the constant earthquakes and impression that it was caused by outsiders gave them a pessimistic view of the universe. Or maybe it gave an optimistic view. Or maybe both. One thing I liked was that we saw it influencing both the larger picture and the small - with children's toys and operas devoted to the skyship. Meanwhile, on Voyager, we saw the crew take everything seriously. Again, it's not their fault that they violated the Prime Directive. But they understood the consequences of their actions and tried to deal with it the best they could. More appropriately, they were humbled by their experiences, and it seemed to affect them as well (yes, I know, it doesn't last more than a week. But episodic sci-fi can be good too). Again, it went from the mundane (Naomi's report) to the profound (questioning if they should talk with these people, even if it does violate the PD). Chakotay was probably the best character, now that he dropped his temporary life-long love of paleontology to go back to his life-long love of anthropology. But I think everyone had their moments. And, as others have said, the ending focusing on the astronaut makes the episode. Let's face it, the impact that Voyager had on these people was the key to the episode, so if Voyager just technobabbled a solution in the end and left, it would have been a hollow experience. Instead, Voyager, which influenced and inspired these people for generations, was saved by them in the end. What a fitting end to their progress that they would end up saving their heroes. The astronaut looking up in the sky, knowing that the skyship is no longer there, was a touching ending as well. It's things like this that allow me to look past some of my annoyances, most notably the Doctor looking for companionship yet again, even leaving a son behind. Seriously, who programmed this into him? Also, for the most part, they did a good job on the timing issue. If the 1 second = 1 day aspect is true, then that means that means ~250 years per day (rounding and simplifying things, of course). If their progress was roughly equivalent to Trek's history of humanity, then I would say at most 3500 years passed on the surface. That's only 2 weeks in orbit, which I think is reasonable. Yes, it seemed a bit strange that the antimatter attacks were only coming in once every "day" or so, but oh well. Perhaps they were firing once and waiting to see if the skyship responded, rather than just an all out attempt to destroy it. I was also initially surprised that no other expeditions to the skyship occurred after the first one, but I suppose if it didn't come back that confirmed in everyone's mind that the skyship was hostile.

Diamond Dave

Having not seen the other references cited, I too found this a very fresh spin on the time travel concept and indeed a nod to a very classic sci-fi stance. It established a nicely lyrical atmosphere - the astronaut ascent was spectacular in that regard - and left some memorable impressions. Yes, there were a number of strange beats - the absolute WTF of the Doctor having a son high among them - but nevertheless this succeeds far more than it fails. 3 stars.

"Wink of an Eye" is much different. It's where those fly buzzy type sounds are all over the ship. The aliens are moving too fast to be seen. Eventually, Kirk gets a virus where he speeds up, too, and sees the aliens, but everyone else on the crew is near frozen. Both "Wink" and "Blink" are on Netflix. While TOS is the better series, "Blink" is a more provocative and thought-out episode. My favorite of the whole "Voyager" run.

One of my top 5 Voyager episodes 4 stars.

I can ignore all the physics issues but I am unable to get past the fact they left after being freed. Would it not be worth sticking around nearby for a few weeks or a month to see if they can help you get home? They would likely have some sort of safe transwarp type flight within a few centuries of their time and would no doubt figure out a way to communicate with Voyager despite the time shift. I would have stuck around for a bit. What do you really have to lose. Alternatively, the planet inhabitants really have no reason to go into space as anything they send would be outdated as it reached space and probably overtaken by a new generation of ships minutes later. Also, based on how quickly they procreate compared to the rest of the galaxy, they would own the delta quandrant in short order if desired.

Love this one. Completely different SCI-FI twist on time which was pretty cool. As Skeptical said, we get to "see the story" from both sides. I also agree the interaction with their astronaut(s) made this episode a classic. Loved how they helped Voyager get free at the end. Nothing bad to say about this one. Enjoyable every time. 4 stars from me.

I really enjoyed this episode. Voyager affects an entire culture's development from prehistory to space flight. Really interesting. I recognized the source material immediately, but I think it was a good update, not just a rip-off. Well done.

"Voyager gets stuck in orbit in some sort of technobabble eddy..." LOL It was probably gravimetrics. It's ALWAYS gravimetrics.

The Inner Light was the greatest television program ever written. This is like a poor man's substitute. Whereas TIL focused on the planet, this focused on the ship and therefore lost the emotional punch that Daniel Dae Kim tried to portray in the end. This one just reached to high in trying to portray the development of a civilization in an hour. Nice but...(***)

A great episode: 3.5 stars Even though there were some inconsistencies I think they did a great job with this one. Very ambitious idea and near impossible to do without mucking anything up. I did lol when the alien guy was with seven is astrometrics: "The seismic detectors were off by a factor of 3.8". 3.8 what? Percent? Degrees? Wingwangs? Seven knew exactly what he was talking about. Hilarious

Mikey, I'd assume such a usage means a multiplicative factor, or coefficient. "Off by a factor of 3.8" would be a big difference.

dave johnson

At their rate of time passage wouldn't they be the most advanced culture in the galaxy in about 5 more years? They would be tens of thousands of years ahead of everyone else. When I first saw this, I figured they might be the ones to get Voyager home. With their pace of advancement in a short period of normal time, they would make trans warp corridors look like walking on foot, and be all over the place and come to help Voyager.

Star Trek works best when it does at least one of three things: bases a story on a hard sci fi concept; presents a compelling moral dilemma; promotes a secular humanist message (especially when that message includes exposing mythic religion for the silly superstition it is). This episode does all three which for my money, puts among the top 5 episodes of the entire series. This one should not be missed.

Wonderful episodes, a rare gems in voyager! As Jammers and many pointed out, the premise is possibly based on "TOS-The Wink of an Eye", "VOY-Gravity" and "Dragons Egg" book. Regardless, it still have wonderful scene and stories that I'm willing to overlook that. The primitive culture scene while it's not standout and serve much on itself, made a great impact for later scene. Such the 'first transmit speech' to contact Voyager and of course the landing of the 2 astronot. Each of previous stage made the landing and main scene of the 2 astronot so much powerful and we can relate to them, knowing voyager has huge effect and impact to their culture. Sure, some of the guest stars could been better. For once. Paris is spot on in the meeting scene, discussing 'the transmit speech'. Tuvok is offshot and 'illogical' here, a bit of shame for Tuvok character to made silly statement. The Prime Directive still applies? You're kidding Tuvok? They already know Voyager there then attempting contact, Voyager literally affecting civilization for centuries by causing seismic! Resulting direct interference to their culture. Intentional or not, Voyager already done it, thus break and void the Prime Directive, the only question left is how to minimize further disruption and handle it as best possible way. It is also nice to see we're not just getting the next 'Hot Headed Unreasonable Alien' of the week as the stories progress. "Any being capable of building that skyship, could destroyed our world long ago". We got a reasonable development, they are actually trying to contact and ask the skyship "Our ancient mythology describe your arrival centuries ago coincide with seismic, we hope that was never your intention...". That is very inspiring approach. Attack to the voyager also only being done after they tried investigate on Voyager by sending 2 astronot. From their perspective, the astronot will be considered a lost and failed on their mission after unable to contact or coming back within time expected. With the mission seems failed and Voyager still causing seismic, it is understandable their taking a more cynic and hostile position. Gotana-Retz back to the planet some 50 years later, so roughly 5 hours of Voyager times, that is also seems reasonable time. The only think that has major plot hole i think is Gotana spending unnecessary time a little too long on Voyager, and the landing scene back to the planet. It's ridiculous not to try sent back Gotana as soon as possible in the first time after the proper info and understanding is achieved, or find a way to establish stable communication to the planet, while Voyager crew know they risk an attack and further hostility from the planet. Further, say it takes 10 minutes for the whole landing sequence starting from preparation to touching ground, that is around 1.5 years the planet time. With Voyager take pounding from anti-matter missile at 1 hit every week by the time Gotana prepared to land, that will translate to 70-80 more hit. Voyager shouldn't withstand that amoung of pounding with shield already close to fail. Why not just beam him down? Doctor already knew his physiology well and can provide inoculation to protect him. Some other minor hole : - Voyager in geosynchronous orbit. If this the case, that means Voyager is in the same timeframe as the planet in my understanding, Voyager shouldn't in geosync. - Voyager moving at the same rate relative to other stars, that wouldn't be the case if Voyager is in geosync. Rather... it should be in the same static position relative to the planet while all other stars moving much faster to the planet. - How is the astronot module can penetrate the shield as if it's non-existance, landed on voyager then proceed conviniently open the hatch to enter? - Doc having a child? This is major revelation in my book, why there's no further explanation or inquiry toward this? How this is possible? Janeway and the crew just barely acknowledge and seems just brushing it off then entirely forgotten? Why the writer bother doing this if it's not having effect to the episodes or the character in the long term? It only a distraction and waste of time if they dont plan to use it further. Without the flaw, this one will be perfect. It still a great episodes and a close to classic, quite close.. but not yet there on my book. 3.5 stars

Regarding the race could be the most powerful race and possibly The Q like race in the future. It's interesting comment. I think we will never know it, but it doesn't matter anyway, and probably best left as a mystery. Maybe they will, maybe not. Having such high rate rotation on the planet should bring some drawback aside from advantadge of high evolution. * It stand to reason their planet only able to sustain shortlived compared to the rest of galaxy, maybe only for couple of decades/centuries compared to eons/million years. * There's only so much resource can be taken from a single planet. Eventually to evolve to the next step, they have to expand to other planet/colony for resource at some point. They have to do this within the timeframe before the planet being not self-sustained. * The such huge time differential could also be a huge hindrance and may well limiting their option in a way of space travel.

Fascinating episode, watching effectively our own history, our superstitions and inventions and breakthroughs.

Lovely ending too. Very poignant. East three stars. I love time-augmented & time-travel episodes....

A thought I had in terms if time dilation and compression and so on, these comments start in 2007, for a show first observed on 2000, and more and more people are commenting as the years go on - 3 comments per year initially, and 13 last year. Every time someone comments, we're adding onto a log book of sorts, something that may be preserved for a long time, and each comment we read may have been posted yesterday, or a generation ago... imagine the technical and other differences in our own culture between the first comment and the last? For example right now, a loaf of bread is £1.00 to £1.70, the iPhone 7+ is the pinnacle of mobile phones along with the Galaxy S7 Edge (I think), typical broadband speed here in the UK is about 20Mbps, Trump is in power in the US and about to bring us to the brink of WW3 (not really, I hope), we're about to enter the era of the superbug because of our overuse of antibiotics, and climate change is starting to get VERY real due to the inability of some of our leaders to tackle it. I wonder how things compared in 2000, in 2007, will compare in 2050? Just thought that was pertinent to this episode.

3 stars feels about right. It's a good premise with mostly corny execution planet-side (the aliens never feel credible and their civilisation is depicted in the most generic and cliched of ways - they're not just extremely human but extremely American, and this isn't helped by the bad guest actors, though Dae Kim and the female astronaut are excellent), lots of technically preposterous moments, and a tiresome "Voyager in jeopardy" climax where the shields go down to whatever percent but we know there's no real danger. Counterbalancing this is the Trekkian sentiment and some poignant moments. Paul I love your comment.

Roger W Norris

Still one of my favorite episodes. They didn't just mention some sci-fi principle and ignore it. It became the premise of the whole show! Very good. A few comments. Why didn't their super speed affect anybody? As they show on the Flash TV show, different dimensions vibrate at different rates of speed. So the astronauts were in a different dimension from the crew. Could they have evolved to the level of the Organians? They may have to. I have grave doubts they can leave the planet without dying or at least rapidly aging. But the old Trek story should affect this one. Can't anyone reinvent Scalosian water? Or would that not be fast enough? And we should have seen the Doctor on the planet.

I liked this episode, but one of my many quibbles is; why would the ancient people on the planet think the new 'star' is a skyship? At least until they got the ability to scan it hundreds of years later. They would just think it's another light in the sky. Maybe brighter than the others, but a skyship? Also the doc having a baby? I assume it is a step-son as someone said earlier, but he just brushes it off as 'It's a long story' or some such thing, as if it was actually his child. I generally don't like voyager, thinking it is the weakest of the star trek series, but other than what I mentioned and some stuff others already mentioned it's a good story at least. Like 'don't ask too many questions and it's a great episode' lol. But then that can be said of most of the voyager episodes. Did like this one though.

One of the best episodes in all of Star Trek.

Startrekwatcher

3.5 stars. A definite Voyager highlight! Now there's the Joe Menosky I remember from TNG! This is why I watch Star Trek. This episode was solid from beginning to end with a fresh imaginative sci-fi idea. Every scene is engaging. Seeing a society evolve and grow within an hour was very intriguing.

Two stars. Again a very promising plot that was not exploited by the writers... Plus my criticism: Why aren't they the most advanced species after 5 minutes? Why has the doc a son? Why is this not elaborated in more detail? Why again did the doc not simply stay an observer... Why did he as a hologram feel the need for procreation? Why doesn't he ever mention his son again? Not even visiting him? Trying to tell him who his father is etc? Why do the aliens shoot at Voyager and have tricobald missiles... But don't even send another ship? Then... They have the best technology, send two ships with tractor beams that save Voyager... Ridiculous. Daniel D Kim sits as an oldan... And has never visited voayger again although this wouldn't have been a problem...

James Alexander

this was my favorite episode of the series when I was little. I thought it was so fascinating watching an entire civilisation develop.

John Harmon

Well...The Orville certainly ripped this episode off huh?

Entertaining episode. If it makes you think and ponder then it has succeeded as a drama. The fact that the alien characters were not developed and inspire no emotion is an effective way to say that no individual defines a race or species. We live and die but the human race goes on. We are not the center of humanity, just part of it. The ending is heartbreaking. Technology and progress cannot replace emotion and the quest for answers.

@Skeptical: "I was also initially surprised that no other expeditions to the skyship occurred after the first one, but I suppose if it didn't come back that confirmed in everyone's mind that the skyship was hostile." @N: "[...] a tiresome "Voyager in jeopardy" climax where the shields go down to whatever percent but we know there's no real danger." @Kai: "Why do the aliens shoot at Voyager and have tricobald missiles... But don't even send another ship? Then... They have the best technology, send two ships with tractor beams that save Voyager... Ridiculous." Yeah, that ending almost ruined the episode for me. I just don't find in plausible that the alien civilization would try to destroy Voyager after millenias of being obsessed about it. Oh well... @John Harmon: "Well...The Orville certainly ripped this episode off huh?" Yep :)

Everyone has missed the most glaring "plot hole" of all, one that unfortunately makes the entire story impossible I think, or at least very problematic. If the planet experiences a day in the time the outside universe, from low orbit and beyond, experiences one second, then the planet would be spinning at a whirling rate. Voyager would look down and see the planet spinning super fast, all the way around once per second, like a basketball rolling along the ground. But presumably the actual revolution of the planet around its star (for the year) is normal. This means the seasons would not appear accelerated from Voyager's point of view as they did near the beginning of the episode, and from the surface, seasons would actually be 900 years apart, taking 3600 years to fully orbit the star (if it's similar to earth). More importantly, how would light work? How would light from the star reach the planet's surface? There is only so much energy being output from the star, and it would be spread out 1/3600th its normal intensity. It would be basically night always, nothing could grow, the planet would be an iceball, no civilization, no story. Or perhaps the star is actually a large super-giant star, which we know can be at least 1500 times larger than our sun, but in that case Voyager would have noticed the unusually large bright star with a planet orbiting too closely, and the astronauts would be instantly cooked and fried with radiation and heat as soon as they got into orbit. It's best they ignored this issue, it would be too extreme to try to portray it. I actually have a bigger problem personally - the civilization would have DEFINITELY discovered the time lag issue with the normal space program development. It's impossible that the first launch of an orbital object would be an advanced manned mission to Voyager. There would be satellites (sputnik?) and other test flights. From the ground, a rocket would go up and up, then the rocket would suddenly freeze it's relative velocity, painted in the sky along with the sun, moon, stars, and Voyager, all relatively motionless to each other. Over the next several years the ground could observe the rocket relatively inching closer and closer to Voyager. Oh well, it's all a bit heady stuff, and way too hard sci-fi for Star Trek. I still liked the episode, and the fact that it made me even think of stuff like this is a plus in my book.

One of the best Star Trek episodes. Ever. I think it could make a great Star Trek (Tv) movie, an extended version with more time devoted to the planet's progress and Doc's visit.

I think this is one of the quintessential VOY episodes in many ways -- just a really interesting sci-fi premise that tries to discuss some aspect of human society. It's not perfect but it has some very good ideas, is enthralling and original -- certainly different from "Wink of an Eye" and a bit better too. The idea of Voyager becoming part of the mythos of a planet, influencing its development and the viewer being able to see how it affects a civilization from primitive times to medieval times to the space-faring age is such a cool idea. I liked the different cuts to life on the planet and seeing how they look at the sky ship and react to it. Granted the guest actors weren't anything special, but the ideas conveyed were important, as was painting the tapestry of Voyager's influence. As far as Doc's trip to the planet -- wasn't sure what that accomplished other than getting 7 some data. Not clear what she did with it. But I think this was more to add some levity to the episode. And Doc had a son?? It also reinforces (not that it was needed) how big the difference in times is. The ending wrapped up a bit quickly and conveniently. Things get good when the 2 astronauts dock and enter Voyager -- why 1 should die but the other lives might be a sticking point but 1 definitely had to survive. It didn't seem like he'd be able to get the anti-matter bombing stopped, but with some hand-waving and time passing- sure, why not? I take it the planet evolved to a more advanced stage than Voyager itself when it tractored the ship out of orbit and the astronaut was able to beam himself back to speak to Janeway 1 last time with some time compensator. High 3 stars for "Blink of an Eye" -- maybe one of the best ideas the series has ever come up with. There was a lot of ground to cover in this episode in terms of the impact the "sky ship" had on stirring progress in the planet's civilization. It's a nice final scene to see the old astronaut watching the stars as Voyager leaves orbit -- VOY as a series does these kinds of little touches well. Maybe this one could have been a 2-parter, but it clearly worked for a 1-hour episode.

Fun and interesting, my favorite type of date! Yes, I am almost a pathetic as Janeway is about to be in Fairhaven! Voyager episodes are often my dates. :) Loved the hug from Doc and just the way the whole Doc thing was handled, including how Chakotay found him. This isn't a movie production that takes months of filming and millions of dollars. Yes, there will be flaws and holes, but they were minor to me. Nothing was galling. Voyager is, more often than not, IMO, well done for what it is: a weekly series from the turn of the century. And here we are, almost as if no time has passed, discussing it. And that of course is our theme, how fast, and how slow, time passes, it's relativity, and what is important in our lives. Must go. Naomi has a report due. And I've got a toddler to pick up from preschool. She's growing up so fast!

Quinn Mallory

Just got finished watching this after not seeing it since it iriginally aired. I wondered how the two astronauts even managed to board Voyager considering it had its shields up? Plus, I presume it shouldn’t be as easy as “finding an airlock that fits an alien ship’s access port” or bypassing an alien door lock. I don’t know if anyone else mentioned it in earlier comments, and I’m too lazy to scroll through them, but does anyone remember a sci-fi book titled “Dragon’s Egg”? I forget who it’s by as it was a book I read in the 80s, but the premise seems to mirror it to the point where it might have heavily inspired this episode.

Sean Hagins

This is an episode I don't remember first time around. Now, I am making this comment while still in the middle of the episode (the astronaut is on board Voyager talking to the Captain), but what I would think would happen is that a different (and more advanced ship) would dock on Voyager every 10 seconds or so, and in about a minute, the astronauts would be sufficiently advanced to help send Voyager on their way. Think about it, in a year of real-time, the beings on that planet would be as advanced as Q! That would be neat to see!

Sigh! I guess nothing I had to say was original. Sorry about that guys

Why didn't Voyager stay nearby for a couple weeks so they can perform literally THOUSANDS of years of research on methods that might help them get home faster?

Patrick, Ha..... yup, that would have been nice :-)

It’s been said that it’s OK for SciFi to be unbelievable, but it can’t be unreasonable. As compelling as the story is, the basic premise is so far off the mark as to render the storyline totally implausible. They come upon this strange planet whirling at the incredible rate of one revolution per second; so fast as to create an enormous equatorial bulge. This extreme rotation, however, produces no consequences to life on the surface. The stars should be whizzing past so fast as not to appear as points of light. The so-called Sky Ship, being geostationary, would be the only stationary object in the sky. The Coriolis forces would wreak havoc with planetary circulation patterns. There couldn’t possibly be anything resembling normal day and night, and no time dilation theories could explain these away. Presumably the time distortion was due to the planet’s tachyon core and a few other oddities causing the passage of time on the planet’s surface to be much faster than in orbit. So how in heaven’s name did the astronauts find the Voyager crew frozen in time? Is this reasonable? For all the glowing comments on how this episode is what good SciFi should be, I would strongly disagree. It should first and foremost be self-consistent and not leave such gaping holes that MUST be overlooked to enjoy the story. Jammer, since you’re still writing reviews on The Orville, I know you’re still around possibly reading new comments on old reviews. I just want to comment on your comparison between this episode and the TOS Wink of an Eye. The two settings have nothing in common. In “Wink” the Scalosians were accelerated by some sort of radiation contamination. This caused them to move very fast, but time itself still passed at the same rate. (Although for them the speed of sound seems to have sped up as well.) Even with that relatively simple premise, there were obvious consistency issues in the rate at which events unfolded with the accelerated vs. unaccelerated characters. In “Blink” the planet’s inhabitants lived in a world where time itself passes much faster. In this situation the rate at which time passes depends on where you are at any given moment. One commenter correctly noted that anyone on the ground watching their own spacecraft climbing toward the Sky Ship would observe it slowing down and eventually coming to a stop long before it got there.

Another Dave

I was interested to see someone note the similarity to the book Dragon's Egg. It's basically the same story, up to a point, done in the style of Star Trek, so good pick up, Derek. Rather than nitpick plot holes or logical inconsistencies, I like to rate a show on how enjoyable an hour of television it was for me, and this was a good one. There are some even larger plot holes one could pick on for Living Witness, but as a whole I think these two shows are on a par with each other and very enjoyable hours of TV. If you're willing to suspend your disbelief enough to grant warp drive and universal translators, it seems to me you can forgive a lot if you were entertained, and even more if thought was provoked. /dl

I loved this episode and it's why I watch sci-fi. It's both inspiring and poetic in the tragedy of never getting to really make first contact with a species you have watched since its infancy. You would have had to tear me away from that planet to get me to stop watching and cataloguing everything as it happened. It reminds me of the "history of the entire world i guess" on Youtube, watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuCn8ux2gbs&t=2s That said, it's way too much fun to pick holes in it, so I'm joining the club. I don't care about the old man writing in English, but there is no shortage of nits. The main one is that I think everyone is off on their time conversion. One second = one day comes to a 1440 multiple, so one day on Voyager would be only 3.9 years and change planetside. The Doctor would have had to have been down there almost a full day, Voyager time. Given what they witnessed and assuming that the planet went 3600 years of development over the course of the show, Voyager would have had to have been hanging out for nearly 100 days, not two weeks, as I saw someone else post. Not terrible, but it really becomes distracting when you get into the attack with the antimatter weapons. Those weapons just mess up everything; I think they should have used a beam weapon instead of missiles, where you would be stepping down the speed of light, which is fast enough that they may not notice things slowing down once they break the 'time barrier' at a certain altitude. I find it impossible to believe that no one on the surface would have tracked their rounds, visually or with radar, and visibly seen their devices slow to a crawl. Also, the timing of the testing is, as mentioned, weird (6 weeks later?), and the strike interval is hokey as well. Of course, the astronaut sequence is weird for the same reason: they get a sped-up radio transmission on their little capsule craft after their first stage ends, but then they stay sped up themselves until they have been on the ship for a while. This doesn't really go with the premise of the planet's time issue as a tachyon field phenomenon with a barrier. It's more like the writers intended on a tachyon field to imbed itself in everything that spent time on the planet. That would make more sense... in fact, I'm just going to pretend like that's exactly what was intended if I watch this again. As for the rotation of the planet and the seasons: we never hear them talk about how long their seasons are, so maybe they do just go through 900 year seasons, and those seasons are mild. On day being almost 4 years long is a stretch for plants to get sunlight, but not impossible. Plants are hardy and people can deal with the dark for long periods, just ask Alaskans. All in all, really fun stuff.

Jammer, I thought your review was very accurate and I would give it the same rating. I really love the premise as well as the Doc living in the culture and having a life within it, and the last act with the two astronauts visiting Voyager. Like many here, I wish we had seen some of the Doc's life on the planet. I agree with Jammer, however, that the scenes with the extras were weak and not memorable. I like the premise of the scenes, and it's not as if the extras were terrible in my opinion, but those scenes should have popped and really stood out. I did like the Protector debating the monk but it was all too much like Earth. I especially liked the first scene on the planet showing the creation of ancient custom and belief when one humanoid assumed the bright object was a "god" and that now the natives were not supposed to eat a certain fruit. It makes one wonder about our own customs. I also enjoyed watching the evolution in the middle ages-looking period where the ancient beliefs are fading and that an attempt at scientific explanation is taking hold. For me, I'm fascinated by history, evolution and Anthropology. I have a History degree with an Anthropology minor, so the idea that Voyager was watching a civilization evolve over the span of centuries was a fascinating idea. Overall, much of the episode worked and I agree with many posters here that it could and should have been spread over 2 episodes. Overall, for Voyager, a very good episode. 3 Stars

What STEVE said, above on January 19 - it bothered me from the jump that their daily life was ... just like Earth’s, especially their experience of day and night, and the stars being visible as points. And to nitpick... Voyager was able to see the change of seasons in instants, which is related to your orbit around the sun, not your planetary rotation... right? I missed it if the episode ever mentions their sun. Also, if this civilization was roughly following our own cultural evolution, their own astronomy would have revealed more about Voyager to them directly. And yes, like someone else said above: their space program would not have gone from one shuttle -> warp technology with nothing inbetween. Ahhhhhhhhhh... I don’t want to think about it anymore, because I was truly very entertained by the episode.

OmicronThetaDeltaPhi

The stars *would* be points of light. Remember that everything on the planet is sped-up, so no person on the planet could actually see the ultrafast rotation speed. There are many things that don't make scientific sense in this episode (though we could probably fanwonk a technobabble explanation for most of these) but this isn't isn't one of them.

I’ve seen a number of people say this is one of their favorite Voyager episodes and I think a lot of people consider this episode as one of the best of the series. Those people are wrong. It’s a cool idea for an episode. It’s even executed fine. It’s just not a classic. At all. My biggest takeaway from this episode is finding out that The Doctor is a deadbeat dad. It was kind of funny that he seemed to not have a problem with that though. And they did not even so much as drop a hint as to how he could biologically even have a son. Well the series isn’t over maybe there’s more on that to come. I certainly hope so

@ Cody B "... and I think a lot of people consider this episode as one of the best of the series. Those people are wrong." Yikes.

@Yanks Lol. As if I was being serious. Admittedly sarcasm and humor can be difficult to perceive sometimes through text but saying only “Yikes” is snarky and rude. Of course people can list this as their favorite episode. Everyone is allowed opinions. Just like I am of the opinion that only replying “yikes” to someone’s comment is lazy and pompous.

@Cody B I thought that Yanks wanted to say something like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqw5-DT88vo

@Cody B "Lol. As if I was being serious. Admittedly sarcasm and humor can be difficult to perceive sometimes through text but saying only “Yikes” is snarky and rude. Of course people can list this as their favorite episode. Everyone is allowed opinions. Just like I am of the opinion that only replying “yikes” to someone’s comment is lazy and pompous." Pleased to have butt hurt you. I wear the snarky, rude, lazy, and pompous badge with honor! But I wouldn't dream of stating that someone's opinion of a show/episode was wrong. I guess I should work on my sarcasm/humor.

@yanks Oh no you would never say someone’s opinion was wrong. Unless it was them saying TOS does not not have the best first season in Trek. In that case you would have told them their opinion was wrong in the past week. “We should all preface this by being thankful we have so many to rank. I love and have watched them all at least 4 times (minus Discovery and Picard), but rank we must! Here is mine. I've rated all of them here except TNG and Star Trek. 1. Star Trek - Not even debatable.” Not even debatable?? You mean you are right and anyone disagreeing is wrong? But I thought you wouldn’t DREAM of saying someone’s opinion of a show/episode was wrong!?!

@ Cody B ...but I was correct, and you were not.

Bob (a different one)

I have never heard of Dragon's Egg. It sounds intriguing. I'll definitely have to check it out. Jammer said: "it almost seems like the original script's writers, Arthur Heinemann and Gene Coon, deserved to be inserted into this week's credits." The only person who deserves any credit for anything good about "Wink of An Eye" is Bill Theiss for designing Deela's costume. The basic idea of a society living at a faster pace than the surrounding universe isn't a new one. Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God" was printed in 1941 and the idea had already been done a few times by then. I love the idea for this episode. It's a Four Star plot for sure. But there is something missing. It just doesn't "pop." You don't have to have a multi-million dollar budget to tell a good story, but I think this episode would have been helped with an infusion of cash. Hire some better actors for the small guest roles, create some more visually interesting sets, and maybe hire a director who can get more out of the actors. I'm not qualified to criticize a director's work, of course, but a lot of the actors just seemed a little off. The story is great and absolutely deserves to have the producers pull out all the stops and treat it as a "prestige" episode. Voyager has a bad habit of having a bum note in otherwise excellent episodes. Doc having a "son" is this episode's. It comes out of nowhere, raises some pretty big questions, and is dropped and never mentioned again. Complaints aside, this is still one of Voyager's very best, imo.

Planet spins really fast = time goes really fast...Superman logic. What an amazing coincidence that Voyager arrived just as a primitive society was living on the planet, considering how fast time was moving on the planet the odds of that would have been infinitesimal. Life would have formed, evolved and gone extinct in just a few years from Voyager's perspective.

Jeffrey Jakucyk

"Planet spins really fast = time goes really fast...Superman logic. What an amazing coincidence that Voyager arrived just as a primitive society was living on the planet, considering how fast time was moving on the planet the odds of that would have been infinitesimal. Life would have formed, evolved and gone extinct in just a few years from Voyager's perspective." No, time goes really fast = planet spins really fast (to an outside observer). Considering how quickly this species was advancing in technology, you'd think Voyager could hang around for a while after they were pulled out of the planet's grip. A couple more hours and these people could've invented transwarp or some other propulsion method to help Voyager get home. I wonder if this is why the script made them try to shoot Voyager down near the end, besides the usual "we need explosions for the teenboys!" Get the crew on edge so they hightail it out of there as soon as they can.

I didn't enjoy this too much. 2.5 stars from me. Acting and issues with timeframes blocked my full enjoyment. My main quibble is the two astronauts reached high orbit and you heard the transmission from the surface sped up. So the time had already changed to space time/Voyager time. Yet they get on Voyager and everyone is 'frozen' and they haven't transitioned!

EmpressHoshiSato

Firstly this was an absolutely beautiful episode of Voyager and epitomises what Star Trek is about. Just wonderful episode. Moving, interesting and awe inspiring. Lovely. The visual effects, the concept and story were really nicely done. Five star episode. As far as the people of this planet go and progress at such a rapid rate given the time factor, I do concur on the notion of this civilisation becoming virtually omnipotent at some point. Indeed, I would love if these were the beings we come to know as the Q, having mastered all of time and space. Would indeed provide another reasoning for their "interest" in humanity.

A very good episode. Well written. Proper sci fi.

Snigdha Shekhar

Such an amazing episode. Leaves a lasting impression on your mind. If I say sci fi, this is how I would like it to be. A perfect mix of cerebral and emotional. It reminds me of the DS9 episode where they all go on the planet never to leave again and spend their lives down there coz if they attempt, the planet would be wiped from the normal space forever.

I thought it'd be interesting to make some time calculations based on the events in the show. Seven says 1 second that passes on the ship, 1 day passes on the planet. The doctor was gone about 3 years. So aboard the ship they spent about 18 minutes trying to get him back. When the doctor stops Goetana-Retz in the hallway, instead of speedily escorting him to his ship, to ask him to look up his son, that takes 20 seconds, or halted him getting home for almost 3 weeks while Voyager was being assailed from the surface. I always wondered why no one had the anxiety of time passing so quickly while he was there since getting him back as soon as possible would be best for him. Goetana-Retz gets on the radio and the woman says the frequency hasn't been used by the space agency in 50 years. If the space agency abandoned that frequency soon after his flight to Voyager, he was on Voyager for about 5 hours. Now assuming a lot of things like this civilization progressed like ours and Voyager arrived in what looks like what could be 2000 years ago in our history and then going from those primitive dwellings to going into space, Voyager was above the planet for about 8.3 days. And Chacotay is pretty much right when someone says Goetana should've been back home for 10 minutes and he says that's about an year and a half. I could be off on some of these. I was just curious to see how the writers handled the time and it seemed like they did a pretty good job. I just think the changing of the season was too fast and I didn't even bother with the intervals between shellings from the surface.

Doesnt anyone else agree this.episode is COMPLETELY ORIGINAL and only vaguely similar to the TOS episode Wink of an eye?

@Leif "Doesn't anyone else agree this episode is COMPLETELY ORIGINAL and only vaguely similar to the TOS episode Wink of an Eye?" I agree with that.

I do really like this episode. The concept is pretty original and even though it has execution problems, overall I appreciated it. The few things I was hoping to see ironed out but didn't: 1) I know Star Trek views humanoid society development as one way. They all go through an agrarian period, then an industrial period, then a warp period, etc... but the way it was depicted was a little bit too on the nose. They might as well have had Friar Tuck and the Sheriff of Nottingham talking about the sky ship for all the originality in those scenes contained. 2) The society's development, even at quick speed, was not totally believable. There were no ships in orbit yet they developed tractor beams, transporter tech, and ships capable of moving Voyager safely away from the planet, all without any previous experience in space. 3) Furthermore, they went from firing antimatter missiles to advanced ships capable of crossing the temporal threshold, using tractor beams, and transporter technology all within Gotana-Retz's lifetime -- and he appeared unaged one single day. Consider that the time period between humanity's first wipe drive and its first tractor beam was 150 years or so. 4) Seeing the society become en par (or close to it) with Voyager's era of space travel and then meeting Janeway on equal footing would've been a culminating moment. We watched their entire society develop in one episode but never got to have a full fledged interaction with them. Voyager was the most important icon in their entire history, yet the episode just ends when Voyager is moved back into free space? The episode should not have ended there! 5) If Voyager had waited a few more days to a week, the society would be more advanced than them and could probably offer suggestions about how to get back to the Alpha Quadrant. 6) There is no talk about how the people of that planet are likely on course to become the most advanced humanoid race in the Galaxy, in the not too distant future. Oh well, it was still an entertaining hour. It still would've been neat if in season 7 one of their ships just suddenly showed up from transwarp space with a desire to reconnect with Voyager and offer its crew some help in getting home. But I guess that would've been expecting a lot from this series.

4 stars from me. A few oddities like the transition" period of the astronauts, (as well as the ever adaptable universal translator) don't detract from an otherwise superbly smart episode. I would've also wanted to see a little more of the emotional effect on the doctor at the realisation that the life he had built in 3 years had just been taken away. He asked about sports before thinking of asking about his son.

Top 5 Voyager eps for me. Cannot believe someone could think Pathfinder was a marvel compared to this

This is an episode that you have to dig pretty deep to find fault with. In terms of sci-fi concept and execution it scores very high. I’m surprised they bothered with the title reference to the TOS episode, at their core the two episodes are fundamentally different. And while I loves me some TOS let’s face it, “blink” is better executed than “wink”. This and living witness are neck and neck for my favorite VOY episodes. A few thoughts: - if I have one nit to pick with this episode it’s the interaction between gotana-retz and that random air traffic controller as he was returning from voyager. I guess the writers couldn’t let an episode go by without our usual dose of hard-headed alien nonsense. I mean, one of the biggest moments in your entire civilization’s history literally flies up to you and says hello, and your response is “get off this channel!!” What kind of lunatics are they hiring down there? - this episode could easily be seen as a counter-argument against the prime directive. Outside of the inadvertent earthquakes, the relationship between the “skyship” and this planet is generally pretty positive. If anything voyager’s presence served to unify and inspire these people. Maybe the federation is underestimating pre-warp people throughout the galaxy? - speaking of the PD, if anyone ever asks voyager if they’ve ever broken the prime directive they can confidently answer “and HOW!”

This was science fiction!

Neo the Beagle

4 paws 🐾🐾 and a waggy tail! Great science fiction story within an ok series.

Fun fact: A planet where time flowed faster would actually have repulsive gravity, according to general relativity. But this is a great episode. This is classic sci fi, and they do it well other than a few little hiccups in execution.

That's not true. General relativity actually states that gravity doesn't exist. Gravity on earth is caused by acceleration. Gravity in space is caused by spacetime warping and motion along a geodesic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYq774z4dws Time also doesn't "flow faster" - a second is a second. It's only when "time" is compared between 2 people that have moved differently in spacetime that the clocks differ. This is something almost all sci fis get wrong. This episode actually kind of gets it right - the people on the planet are living normally. The people on Enterprise are living normally. It's only when they are comparing each others times that there is a discrepancy.

How come the doctor's mobile emitter didn't lose power in the *years* he was on the planet's surface?

With another couple of iterations of the script, this could have been one of the best episodes of any Trek ever. As others have said, THIS is sci fi. It's a great story. The Doctor's three year vacation might have been amazing to explore, especially given the relationships he hinted at, and all of the questions arising from him being an emission of photons and force fields projected from a device that he wears on his sleeve at all times. Does he have no pockets? How did he explain it to the locals? And then there's Naomi. Why? Like pretty much every other main cast member, she's given a gratuitous scene in this otherwise epic episode. Scarlett Pomers must have had an amazing agent! I wish this story could have been told a little better, with more attention to detail, but as it is, it's still probably the best episode of Voyager.

Great episode. Too bad it murdered the doctor as a sympathetic character. After his years-long efforts to grow as a person and experience humanity - including his experiments with having a wife and children (“Real Life”) , here the doctor finds himself at liberty to live any life he wants, melting into the planet’s citizenry, having no orders to follow or Sick Bay to run. The caveat, of course, is that he must live a lie: concealing his identity, unable to reveal a word about his past, his lost friends, his hope to return to the Sky Ship, and the essential fact that he is a hologram. So what does he do? Moves in with a woman and become father to a son. He later dismissively tells the Voyager crew that he got involved with her due to loneliness. He never mentions her again.) What did he tell this woman and child? Clearly, a pack of lies about his past, his essence, and his future plans. Let’s assume a best-case-scenario in which the woman was not emotionally engaged and was never expecting a future with the Doctor (EG, she could be polyamorous, his “friend with benefits”, or his sex worker, or he could have been jer sex worker or one of her twelve disposable husbands, or whatever). But what about the child? Why become a father when he knew he’d be swept off to Voyager at any moment? More importantly: why does the doctor spend not even an instant mourning the loss of his real Real Life - his family of three years - and all the people he will never see again? Contrast his behavior with Picard’s in “The Inner Light.” Picard had a wife thrust upon him, but, loyal to the Enterprise, he kept staring at the sky and could not give her his heart. Then when he finally gave up on the Enterprise, he gave his heart completely to his new life and community. The Doctor is a different character. He is fickle to everyone. It doesn't help that the following episode is “Virtuoso”: another demonstration of the Doctor’s shallow attachments and the ease with which he can abandon people! “Virtuoso” gives us a Doctor who readily ditches Voyager for fame. It also gives us a Seven who grieves the friend/mentor who is ditching her, and then welcomes him back with a kind and generous heart. Seven, like every other flesh-and-blood crew member, has deep feelings. Based on “Blink” and “Virtuoso”, I suspect the Doctor is not capable of returning these feelings. And that’s not necessarily a bad way to write him. He is a hologram, after all; maybe his programming simply doesnt let him reach the heights of friendship, love, and loyalty that the flesh-and-blood crew can feel. But if that’s the writers’ intent, then it should be explored. The other characters should recognize his shallowness. Seven should recognize it and come to terms with it. And we should not have episodes like “Real Life” and “Someone To Watch Over Me”, in which we are asked to empathize with the Doctor, and believe that he feels things strongly. (Instead, the final scene in “Virtuoso” gives us Seven showing the Doctor her heart for the second time, and the Doctor smiling to himself after she leaves. She offers him deep feeling, attachment, loyalty, and forgiveness. He demonstrates only shallow self-involved emotions: relief that he isn’t to be ostracized; restoration of his baseline vanity and pride thanks to Seven’s ‘fan mail’. But Seven doesn't seem to understand that the friend she loves is shallow and limited. And the writers present this ending as if it’s a happily-ever-after.) TNG spent a lot of time on Data’s similar issues and limitations. I think the TNG writers had a better grasp on what they wanted Data to be, whereas the Voyager writers seem less certain of who the Doctor is.

@ Tara, I couldn't agree with you more about Doc. Worse than that, Picardo is great at being the narcissistic jerk they appear to want to make him at times. In a way I think you have to mentally retcon some of the episodes into being other than what they are, because the writers are just too immature to realize the implications of what they wrote and deal with it. So I'd chalk it up to a 'mistake' and imagine that these proceedings were less severe than they actually appear. Virtuoso is the worst offender IMO, but these two aren't the only issue episodes for him.

@Peter G, I’m so glad to hear from you, because now I get to tell you that your comment in “Virtuoso” was hilarious, smart, and perfect.

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Eye of the Beholder

• Episode aired Feb 26, 1994

As a young lieutenant aboard the Enterprise commits suicide, his shipmates deal with the loss and Deanna deals with feelings surrounding her as she and Worf begin to form a relationship. As a young lieutenant aboard the Enterprise commits suicide, his shipmates deal with the loss and Deanna deals with feelings surrounding her as she and Worf begin to form a relationship. As a young lieutenant aboard the Enterprise commits suicide, his shipmates deal with the loss and Deanna deals with feelings surrounding her as she and Worf begin to form a relationship.

• Gene Roddenberry
• René Echevarria
• Brannon Braga
• Patrick Stewart
• Jonathan Frakes
• LeVar Burton
• 18 User reviews
• 8 Critic reviews

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard

• Commander William Thomas 'Will' Riker

• Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge

• Lieutenant Worf

• Doctor Beverly Crusher

• Counselor Deanna Troi

• Lieutenant Commander Data

• Lt. Walter Pierce

• Lt. Daniel Kwan
• Ensign Maddy Calloway

• Enterprise Computer

• Starfleet Ensign
• (uncredited)
• Crewman Garvey
• Crewman Martinez
• Ensign Kellogg

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia The first time we see inside of the warp nacelles.
• Goofs When Riker and Worf are warned that Kwan might try to commit suicide, they are far enough away to surreptitiously order an emergency beamout without Kwan hearing them, but neither does so.

Lieutenant Worf : I would never want to come between you and someone you are involved with, or had ever been involved with.

Commander William T. Riker : Is there someone in particular that you're talking about?

Lieutenant Worf : No. - Is there someone in particular you would rather I not be involved with?

Commander William T. Riker : Mr. Worf, you sound like a man who's asking his friend if he can start dating his sister.

• Connections Referenced in Star Trek: Elite Force II (2003)
• Soundtracks Star Trek: The Next Generation Main Title Composed by Jerry Goldsmith and Alexander Courage

User reviews 18

• asrexproductions
• Nov 30, 2012
• February 26, 1994 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (Studio)
• Paramount Television
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 46 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Throwaway Star Trek Line Secretly Pays Off Much Older Episode

Posted: June 11, 2024 | Last updated: June 11, 2024

One of the reasons that we love endlessly rewatching our favorite Star Trek shows is that we often discover cool surprises that help us appreciate these episodes in entirely different ways. For example, the Star Trek: Voyager season 7 episode “Inside Man” includes a line from Reginald Barclay about the Romulans long-simmering interest in Voyager. It seems like a throwaway line, but this dialogue actually pays off a dangling plot thread from way back in season 1.

Eye Of The Needle

After we refresh you on this earlier Star Trek: Voyager episode, you’ll better appreciate the significance of Barclay’s line. In season 1, the episode “Eye of the Needle” has the crew use a special wormhole to communicate with a Romulan back home.

They ask the Romulan to deliver messages to their families and their superiors, but the revelation that they are talking to an alien 20 years in the past (one who died a few years previously, no less) makes whether he will actually deliver the messages to an enemy government something of an open question.

Message In A Bottle

They are successful in their endeavor, and the Doctor tells Janeway that he communicated with Starfleet Command, who had declared Voyager lost 14 months prior.

When “Message In a Bottle” first aired, the revelation that Starfleet didn’t know about the ship’s fate implied that the Romulan from “Eye of the Needle” had never delivered the messages as Janeway had asked.

However, that earlier Star Trek: Voyager episode had a line from B’Elanna Torres in which she speculated that the Romulan might have sent word about Voyager to his government before he died. This was only speculation, but it looks like that speculation was confirmed by an episode from the show’s final season.

The Star Trek: Voyager season 7 episode “Inside Man” has an interesting line of dialogue from Barclay that the Romulans have been curious about Voyager for a long time.

That episode never really explains why that is, and there’s a chance that the Romulans are simply curious about a Starfleet vessel lost in the Delta Quadrant.

After Starfleet learns about Voyager’s fate in “Message In a Bottle,” it would have been easy enough for the Romulans to find out about the ship from the Federation, either openly or through subterfuge.

The Romulans Knew

However, I have a Star Trek: Voyager theory that Barclay’s line actually calls back to “Eye of the Needle.” Simply put, my theory is that the alien did transmit info about Voyager back to the Romulan government and these officials never bothered to contact Starfleet.

That means that the Romulans might have known about Voyager getting lost in the Delta Quadrant years before Starfleet did and would understandably be curious about a Federation vessel exploring otherwise unknown regions of space.

We’ll Never Know For Sure

I’ll probably never know whether my Star Trek: Voyager theory is correct or not, but I love the idea that Barclay’s later line is a deep-dive reference to a much earlier episode. It helps this fan-favorite series feel like one continuous story even though it lacks the serial storytelling of fellow spinoff Deep Space Nine.

Next time you stream the adventures of Janeway and her crew, just imagine that the upper echelons of the Romulan government may be just as invested in Voyager’s Delta Quadrant adventures as you are.  

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Published Sep 13, 2022

The Lower Decks Connection: The Mind's Eye

This isn’t the first time a crew’s minds has played tricks on them.

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Welcome back to The Lower Decks Connection, where we curate a list of episodes for you to watch after you’ve watched the latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks ! This week in “Mining the Mind’s Mines” (an episode you should say the title of three times fast), Mariner , Boimler , and Rutherford saw their fantasies and nightmares come to life thanks to “psychic mines” — green orbs that bring your thoughts to life. This ranges from the embarrassing (poor Leah Brahms ) to the frightening (clown Klingons). Of course, in legacy Star Trek , there were plenty of episodes where mysterious entities messed with the crews’ minds. From making things that don’t exist appear to altering people’s personalities, here are several top episodes where the mind took power over matter.

“The Naked Time,” the first episode in which the crew’s minds took a detour, is famous for the images of Sulu fencing down the hallways of the Enterprise and Spock sobbing when he loses control of his emotions. As an infection ravaged the Enterprise , the crew started to lose their inhibitions. It also marked the first time that the Enterprise time-traveled in the series, becoming a staple for future Star Trek stories.

Before Risa became the go-to relaxation planet, Captain Kirk and his crew found an “amusement park” of a planet that brought whatever they’re thinking of to life. An exhausted Enterprise crew conjured up a variety of strange visions, including one of Kirk’s ex-girlfriend and Alice from Alice in Wonderland . Ultimately though, the visions proved harmless, and Kirk decided to beam his entire crew down for shore leave. I suppose whatever happened on this planet stayed on this planet, as so far no one has mentioned it or returned to it.

Dr. Crusher went through a peculiar time in this episode. It appeared as if people were disappearing off the Enterprise-D , but only she remembered that the ship’s personnel ever existed. As the number of the ship’s complement dwindles, she is resolute in not only finding them but bringing them back into existence. A powerful Crusher episode, it showcases her tenacity and determination even in the face of disbelief and difficulty. Without Crusher, the crew would’ve been lost.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - “Qpid”

“I am not a merry man!” The line that spawned a thousand memes comes from this episode, where Q dropped the crew into Sherwood Forest. The goal was to teach Picard more about love via his relationship with archaeologist Vash , but it seemed more like an excuse for Q to cause some mayhem aboard the Enterprise-D . Ultimately, Picard and his crew were returned to the Enterprise and Vash departed with Q, ending her flirtation with Picard.

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As Starfleet and the Bajoran officers grew to trust one another in Deep Space Nine ’s first season, that tentative truce was disrupted by an alien force that made the crew turn on each other in a vicious power struggle. As the only one unaffected, Odo must unravel the mystery and save those involved before the peace on DS9 was permanently destroyed and someone got hurt.

During the Bajoran Gratitude Festival and a visit from Lwaxana Troi , the crew started behaving oddly. Quark was obsessed with Keiko , Jadzia pursued Sisko romantically, and Kira and Bashir found themselves drawn to each other as well. This was not usual behavior, and it’s up to Sisko and Odo to investigate what was making the inhabitants of DS9 behave in such a strange fashion. Fear not - the crew returns to normal, though Bashir advised they not think too hard about what caused this particular occurrence.

One of the scariest episodes on this list, the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager found themselves trapped in hallucinations caused by the telepathic Botha , a species they were meeting at the time. It took Kes and her telepathic powers to save the day, compelling the Botha to let them pass through space undisturbed. If you’re looking for the perfect episode on this list to ring in spooky season, this is the one.

Another frightening episode saw Captain Archer and his crew try to rescue a crew of Vulcans succumbing to insanity due to a neurotoxin. When T’Pol began to regress violently, it’s up to Dr. Phlox to save her. Demonstrating a dark side of Vulcan culture, the story was co-written by Terry Matalas, who would go on to write Star Trek: Picard Seasons 2 and 3. Did your favorite make the list? Let us know on social!

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Julian Gardner (they/them) is on the editorial team for StarTrek.com.

Star Trek: Lower Decks streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel. The series will also be available to stream on Paramount+ in the UK, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Italy, France, the Caribbean, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland and South Korea.