“Wink of an Eye”
Written by Arthur Heinemann (story by Lee Cronin)
Directed by Jud Taylor
Season 3, Episode 11
Production episode: 3×13
Original air date: November 29, 1968
Star date: 5710.5
Mission summary
Enterprise visits scenic Scalos in response to a distress call. While Mr. Scott keeps the captain’s seat warm, Kirk takes a landing party to investigate the source of the transmission, a seemingly abandoned Scalosian city. Ship’s sensors seem a little buggy, and although Uhura can see the Scalosians on the viewscreen, she can’t see the Enterprise team standing at the same coordinates. Meanwhile, the landing party doesn’t see anyone either, and Dr. McCoy’s scanner doesn’t register life–not even the insect Kirk hears buzzing around his head. Spock’s eyes and years of training tell him there was an advanced, humanoid civilization here, and he must have better apps on his tricorder than McCoy:
Instrument readings indicate life-forms, but of a highly unusual and intermittent nature. They have no discernible form or location. A most puzzling phenomenon, Captain. I shall have to study it further.
Then McCoy sees Compton, a red shirt who has been playing in the water fountain, buzz off into thin air. Spooked, the crew returns to the ship. Dr. McCoy examines the remaining members of the landing party in Sickbay while Kirk plays back the Scalosian message Uhura saved on his DVR.
To any and all space travelers passing within range of the planet Scalos, I send you an urgent appeal for help. My comrades and I are the last surviving members of what was once a thriving civilization. Those of us who are left have taken shelter in this area. We have no explanation for what has been happening to us. Our number is now five. We were once a nation of nine hundred thousand.
Spock states the obvious: this was probably a pre-recorded message. But that doesn’t explain where the Scalosians went. He surmises that “some force or agent only partially discernible to our instruments may have been responsible.” But they have other troubles now–since they beamed up from the planet, gremlins seem to have infected the ship: multiple systems are freezing up, faster than the repair crews can respond. McCoy has some news too, but he can only tell Kirk in person. He’s lonely.
No wonder he wanted to keep this information off an open channel: Nurse Chapel reports that someone has been opening supply cabinets and looking at things. It’s probably poltergeists or a junkie crewman looking for his drug fix, and Kirk is more concerned by the persistent buzzing sound in his ears and something touching him. McCoy gives him a clean bill of health and assures him he isn’t hallucinating, which means there are intruders aboard. Spock calls, just as shipwide communications cut out, to tell him that “alien substances” are being introduced to the life support systems. Kirk orders communicators and phasers for everyone (now it’s a party!), and rushes to join the Vulcan at Environmental Engineering.
An odd force field in the corridor prevents two red shirts from approaching Life Support, but Kirk and Spock are allowed to pass. Inside, they find an alien machine plugged into the console that shocks them when they touch it. Since they can’t study the device or turn it off, they decide to destroy it–but something snatches their phasers from their hands and shoves them backward. They can look but not touch, which will hardly satisfy the captain.
KIRK: A show of strength.
SPOCK: Yes. Evidently they are convinced that we can do nothing to stop them, and they wish to impress upon us what they can do to us.
They ask the computer for advice, but it’s just as confused as they are–unsurprising since it knows only as much as they do. It tells them they’re pretty well hosed and recommends they negotiate for terms. Kirk hates that idea: “My recommendation? Make them take the next step.”
Maybe coffee will help clear their heads! Distracted by that buzzing sound, Kirk fails to notice an “alien substance” being introduced to his cup just before he sips it. He makes a face after swallowing the concoction, and shortly afterward he gets a nasty caffeine buzz and notices his crew moving really sloooowwwlllyyyy and then seem to freeze in place.
The camera angle also slants and the Scalosian woman from the distress call appears by the turbolift. Kirk demands an explanation but she cuts him off with a kiss, already fluent in his favorite language. But he doesn’t go for anonymous hookups, so he asks her name.
DEELA: Deela. The enemy.
KIRK: You’re the enemy?
DEELA: Yes. You beamed me aboard yourself when you came up. A ridiculously long process, but I’ve taken care of it.
KIRK: What have you done with my men?
DEELA: Nothing.
KIRK: Nothing? Mr. Spock? Scotty. This is nothing?
DEELA: There’s really nothing wrong with them. They are just as they have always been. It’s you who are different.
KIRK: Lieutenant Sulu. This is nothing?
DEELA: They cannot hear you, Captain. To their ears, you sound like an insect. That’s your description, Captain. Accurate, if unflattering. Really, there is nothing wrong with them.
KIRK: What have you done?
DEELA: Changed you. So you are like me now. Your crew cannot see you or any of us because of the acceleration. We move in the wink of an eye. Oh, there is a scientific explanation for it, but all that really matters is that you can see me and talk to me, and we can go on from there.
There’s some handwaving if I ever heard it. Well, there’s no scientific explanation, so let’s just forget it. It’s all perfectly plausible, and she doesn’t exactly like the captain for his mind. She reveals she’s been kissing him invisibly all along and demonstrates her technique again for him, but nothing ruins the mood for Kirk more than a threat to his ship. He pulls a phaser on her, but she easily sidesteps the beam and shows him hers–a weapon that can be set for stun, destroy, and “send the opponent’s weapon flying out of his hand.” Deela identifies herself as the Scalosian Queen. She intends to make him her King and will never let the Enterprise go, promising that eventually he’ll come around and won’t care about his crew anymore.
Kirk runs off the Bridge, and the camera angle returns to normal–the Bridge crew has just noticed Kirk’s abrupt disappearance after drinking his coffee. Meanwhile, Kirk returns to Environmental Engineering and discovers Compton, also accelerated since he vanished on the planet. Apparently he’s been drinking the Scalosian Kool-Aid, having shown them how to take over the ship. Kirk struggles with him and bursts into the Life Support room, where he is promptly stunned by a Scalosian weapon. Compton tries to protect him and is knocked down and out for his trouble.
As Spock takes Kirk’s coffee to the medical lab for study, Deela arrives at Life Support. Kirk wakes up and asks about the device they’ve attached to the console. It’s a work in progress, and the Scalosian engineer Rael cautions Kirk not to touch it–but of course the captain does, hesitantly at first, then clamping his hands on it though its defense mechanism causes him intense, numbing pain. Then he notices Compton on the floor, in a state of accelerated age–the side effect of “cellular damage” on the Scalosian level. Rael convinces Kirk that he’s the one who injured the poor red shirt, and Kirk runs off to try to contact Spock in the lab. Rael plays the jealousy card on Deela and forces a kiss on her, and she instructs him, “Go back to work.”
She finds Kirk recording a message, with a frozen Spock, McCoy, and Chapel studying his coffee nearby. The captain seems to be trying to slow his words down so they can hear him, speaking…in…halting…sentences:
Hyperacceleration is the key. I have counted only five of them aboard, but they have taken over the ship, and we are under their control due to this acceleration. They are able to speed others up to their level, as they did Compton and me. Presumably, this is enslavement? Those so treated exist at this accelerated level, becoming docile eventually.
Deela feeds him more details as he warns Spock that they’ve hooked up an alien air conditioner to Life Support to keep the crew in suspended animation, so they can use them for breeding stock as needed. A series of natural disasters polluted the Scalosians’ water and released radiation that sped them up and rendered the men sterile. They’ve been transmitting distress signals to lure mates to their sexy doom.
DEELA: Captain, we have the right to survive.
KIRK: Not by killing others.
DEELA: You were doing exactly the same thing. You came charging into that life-support room the minute you knew there was trouble. You would have killed every one my people if you could have.
KIRK: You invaded my ship. You threaten my crew.
DEELA: There is no difference.
KIRK: There is a difference! Your trouble is in _you_.
DEELA: We did not ask for it. We are not to blame. We are handling it the only way we know how. The way our parents and their parents before them.
Then he offers to help her find another way, but she refuses. Rael calls her to tell her the air conditioner is ready and she should beam down to Scalos with Kirk. The captain slips his message tape into Spock’s console and zips down to the transporter room to sabotage it while Deela’s looking the other way. With Rael’s plan thwarted for the moment, the only thing Kirk and Deela can do is go to his quarters to get to know each other better.
In normal time, McCoy detects a substance in the captain’s coffee cup that is also found in Scalosian water, and sets the computer to developing a cure. Spock makes a breakthrough of his own–he plays the recording of the Scalosian distress call at a high enough speed to make their speech sound just like the buzzing they’ve all heard. Just in time–McCoy discovers Kirk’s tape in the machine, and now Spock knows to slow it down to play it, which, uh, gets him up to speed on the invaders’ plan. Scotty suggests they play on the Scalosians’ level, and the Vulcan agrees. He orders the engineer to “stand by in the transporter room.”
Which Scotty takes literally–frozen in the doorway from an accelerated perspective–as Rael and his assistant try to repair the transporter. Rael tries to call Deela with an update, but she isn’t taking his calls. She and Kirk have been a little preoccupied with each other, judging from the fact that he’s sitting on his bed and pulling his boots on. Rael turns up and flies into a jealous rage. He attacks Kirk, but the captain fends him off with an office chair until Deela zaps Rael and lectures him.
DEELA: Don’t you dare do anything like that again. It’s contemptible.
RAEL: Then don’t torment me. You know how I feel.
DEELA: I don’t care what your feelings are. I don’t want to know that aspect of it. What I do is necessary, and you have no right to question it. Allow me the dignity of liking the man I select. Is the transporter repaired?
RAEL: No. I have more work to do.
DEELA: Don’t you think you’d better do it?
Rael takes off and Kirk pretends that he’s adjusted into the docile companion she wanted. In normal time, McCoy comes up with a counteragent to the Scalosian water. Spock intentionally drinks the water to speed himself up so he can deliver the cure to the captain, who has stolen Deela’s weapon as well as her heart. Kirk meets up with Spock in the corridor to Life Support, and they use Deela’s weapon to zap Rael and destroy the air conditioner.
Deela arrives and takes her defeat well enough. Kirk asks her what they should do with her people and she says if they send them back to their planet, they’ll die off, since the Federation will warn other ships of their tricks. Seems as good a solution as anyway. In the transporter room, where Scotty is still standing by, Deela tries to convince the captain to join her one more time, but Kirk refuses: “I can think of nothing I’d rather do than stay with you. Except staying alive.” They beam the Scalosians down to their inevitable deaths and Spock gives Kirk the cure. At first it doesn’t seem to work, but then he starts to slow down from Spock’s vantage point, while Scotty speeds up from Kirk’s own perspective.
Kirk returns to the Bridge, while Spock makes repairs to the ship at super speed before popping back into normal time next to the captain’s chair:
KIRK: Mr. Spock, my compliments to your repair work and yourself.
SPOCK: Thank you, Captain. I found it an “accelerating” experience.
KIRK: Yes.
It would hardly do to fire his first officer after he saved the day, so Kirk just ignores the terrible pun. Uhura accidentally replays the Scalosian message one more time, and Kirk says a sad good-bye to Deela.
Analysis
So there’s obviously some shoddy science going on here–the script even tries to distract us from it. I originally misheard Deela’s line about Kirk trying to record a message for Spock, “His species is capable of much affection,” as “His species is capable of much fiction,” and that’s pretty much what Star Trek is here, more fiction than science. I usually don’t have a problem with that, but this premise just doesn’t hold up under even the most casual scrutiny. The speed at which the Scalosians move versus everyone else on Enterprise isn’t remotely consistent. I’m sure someone has calculated the correct differential, but that’s beyond me. Surely months or years have passed for Kirk and the Scalosians in the time it takes Scotty to walk into the transporter room. And how does the water accelerate Kirk’s clothes?
Even so, I delighted in the way the hyperacceleration was demonstrated, with the buzzing sounds (which I imagined to be crying “Heeeelp meee…” in the best imitation of the Fly) and the slowing of everyone’s motions as Kirk sped up. I could have done without the crazy camera angles as a shorthand for Scalosian time, but I admire the effort; perhaps they could should have gone with a different color filter, or some softer lighting. I also loved Spock’s accelerated, invisible repairs of the ship. In general, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are at their best here: clever, resourceful, and competent as they defeat the Scalosians, a welcome change from some of their recent blunders. Some things do happen a bit too easily for them, but they approach this very unscientific situation rationally and logically. Since I immediately remembered that this was the episode where everyone moves fast (especially Deela! Wooooo!) , I wonder how the revelation of the source of the buzzing and shipboard malfunctions plays out for first-time viewers, though.
What really salvages this one for me is Deela. Like Natira in “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky,” she is a strong woman leading her people under difficult, even impossible conditions. She takes what she wants from Kirk unapologetically and instills both fear and confidence in her followers. Though tough on Rael, she’s fair, and shows compassion for his feelings though she doesn’t return his love. She’s free with the exposition, of course, but she also reveals wisdom and evokes sympathy, with some of the best lines of the episode. When she defends her actions, their right to survive whatever the cost, she tells Kirk, “We all die, even on Scalos,” foreshadowing their ultimate end, which she accepts gracefully.
DEELA: Don’t make a game of it, Captain. We’ve lost.
KIRK: If I sent you to Scalos, you’d undoubtedly play the same trick on the next spaceship that passed by.
DEELA: There won’t be any others. You’ll warn them. Your federation will quarantine the entire area.
KIRK: Yes, I suppose it would.
DEELA: And we will die and solve your problem that way. And ours.
Under better circumstances, she might make an ideal match for Captain Kirk–as strong-willed, caring, and ruthless as he is. In turn, she admires his “stubborn and irritating and independent” qualities. She’s as good a queen as he is a captain. Perhaps Kirk feels this connection too, as he demonstrates genuine feelings for her at the end (and presumably during their quickie in his quarters), or maybe he just regrets the sad end to the Scalosian civilization. Interesting that she chooses to die on her planet rather than accept stasis, when the Federation conceivably could find a cure for them one day.
All that taken into consideration, I still think it’s creepy that she was kissing him in super speed and touching him when he wasn’t aware of it…
Eugene’s Rating: Warp 3 (on a scale of 1-6)
Torie Atkinson: Yay, return of the painted backdrop! Am I the only one who likes those?
Neither the science nor the plot hold up to scrutiny (How did Deela become attracted to Kirk’s brashness if she doesn’t see him move or speak in real time? Wouldn’t hundreds of her years pass in the hour or two that McCoy and Spock look for a cure?), but I’m willing to forgive it because the premise is just so intriguing. The tilted camera was cliche thanks to Batman but it was effective–they literally seem to step out of their reality. The buzzing was clever, too, and watching Spock figure it out in real time gave the same thrill as reading a mystery novel and figuring out the clues just a moment before the detective does.
I also couldn’t hate anything that reminded me so much of one of my favorite Futurama episodes. When Fry drinks his 100th cup of coffee, he goes into a similar acceleration of time.
Overall this felt kind of like a cross between Bewitched and Bedazzled (the one with sexy Satan, not the original). Deela is cute, perky, and kind of charming, even if she is admittedly the enemy. I liked her uncompromising approach. It’s clear that she has accepted the course of action she takes only because none other is available. She makes no apologies for her way of life–they have “the right to survive,” like anyone else–and they’re handling it “the only way we know how.” But she seems genuinely sorry that this is the case, and appears sincere in her apologies to Kirk for forcing this on him. She also clearly likes Kirk for who he is, and I liked her disappointment when his show of contentment quashed exactly what made him so attractive to her. When he gets the better of her, she’s pleased in her own way: “I would’ve been disappointed if you hadn’t tried.”
Another nice touch: Kirk running into Spock in the accelerated time, and the two of them wordlessly acknowledging each other and heading for life support. They don’t even need to speak, they know exactly what they’re both up to.
But as much as I was inclined to like this one, I absolutely cannot forgive it for having the most senselessly cruel ending of any episode in the series. Kirk decides to let their entire race die as the “solution” to both of their problems. Why doesn’t Kirk share the cure with them? They can manufacture it! The Scalosians are obviously miserable in their isolated existence, and it’s clear that their otherwise abhorrent behavior would be rendered entirely unnecessary if they were able to live out their lives normally. There is no reason to deny them the cure to their condition. That’s just horrific and unforgivable.
Also unforgivable: the costumes.
Torie’s Rating: Warp 3
Best Line: DEELA: I’m glad we’re both innocents. I despise devious people, don’t you?
Syndication Edits: None.
Trivia: The origin of this episode may be traced to an episode of The Wild Wild West, “The Night of the Burning Diamond” (written by John Kneubuhl and inspired by the H.G. Wells short story “The New Accelerator“), in which a villain speeds himself up to steal jewels, at the risk of setting himself on fire from the friction of moving at the “wink of an eye.” (A neat scientific conceit that Star Trek threw out the window with the Scalosian bath water.) The episode aired during Gene L. Coon’s tenure as producer on that show, and he has the story credit for “Wink of an Eye” (as Lee Cronin). The Wild Wild West episode also used Star Trek communicator chirps to represent how hyperaccelerated people perceive the sound of those in normal time (“the separate vibrations of the sound wave”).
The show snuck an implied sex scene past the censors by showing Deela brushing her hair while Kirk pulls his boots on at his bed.
This episode made heavy use of recycled footage, including Scotty in the command chair in the teaser (which will be seen in the upcoming “The Empath”); a shot of the viewscreen showing Chekov and Hadley from behind, Chekov’s only appearance in this episode; and a matte painting of Eminiar VII from “A Taste of Armageddon.” The only original set created for “Wink of an Eye” was the Scalosian fountain, designed by Matt Jefferies, who also designed the Scalosian weapons.
Other notes: You can blame director Jud Taylor for the tilted camera angle to show the Scalosian hyperacceleration, borrowed from Batman. Again. And it won’t be the last time, either.
Kathie Browne, who played Deela, married Darren McGavin, a.k.a. Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
This is worth noting in case you missed it like I did. In The Nitpicker’s Guide for Classic Trekkers, Phil Farrand points out that while Kirk lies on the medical bed, a tuft of his hair moves as we hear the buzzing sound: the hyperaccelerated, and thus invisible, Deela kissing him and tousling his hair. A neat and very subtle effect.
Previous episode: Season 3, Episode 10 – “Plato’s Stepchildren.”
Next episode: Season 3, Episode 12 – “The Empath.” US residents can watch it for free at the CBS website.
The fact that Kirk doesn’t seem at all concerned with helping the Scalosians at the end really hurt what was otherwise an enjoyable episode for me. He doesn’t seem bothered by their inevitable deaths at all.
It’s possible Spock’s cure works on Kirk because his hyper speed was drug inducted, while the Scalosians were born that way. That would make the ending make more sense, but it would have been nice if this was spelled out.
The Enterprise crew had time to figure things out because Kirk and the Scalosians had to take the turbolift everywhere. I can imagine Kirk, alone and bored out of his mind for hours, even days, in that enclosed space. It might have made for a cute scene in the episode, but I can understand why the writers might want to sidestep that problem.
ooo you people are *far* more generous than I am with your Warp speed. This episode is as silly and as incomprehensible as the previous one.
First there’s the downright insulting science. Accelerated so fast you dodge light? Excuse me? What the other crew members would be hearing would not be soft buzzing but incessant sonic booms. (Assuming radiation from your local volcanic eruption rendered you immune to friction.) And if you are moving that fast I don wanna talk about the dopller-shift to your vision or what wavelengths of radiation you’d run into just by walking around. Am I too sciencsy? ok lets calls it time/phase shifted and not acceleration. Pure techonobabble. The story still falls apart.
How did Deela and Kirk get off the Bridge? I mean how long would they have waited for the elevator? (Sorry, turbolift, clearly it’s British.) Isn’t it lovely that ever set of doors was in mid open just when they needed it. (Guess Kirk trusts his crew and leave his quarters wide open all the time.) What sort of contamination training do Feddies get? Compton *drinks* from the fountain on the planet. (Kudos to the director for placing that in the background and not in your face stupidity.) Let’s ignore the drop in everyone’s IQ so that it takes then a long time to trip across the idea of a recorded message.
Kirk once accelerated *cough cough* finally learns of the enemy plans because well the enemy loves to chat. (Among other things. Oh yes, breeding with every passing alien ship? Lovely plan, you can see how well it has been working since there are only five left and none look like cross breeds. The partially trained biologist in me still throws up at alien crossbreeds.) So Kikr needs to let Spock know what is going on, *his* brilliant plan record a message at a speed that can’t be understood. Luckily for him McCoy didn’t go ‘hmm, bad file, nurse copy over this disc.’ You know I think I would have gone for something more practical like a hand written note! I can write it as fast as I want and Spock can read as slowly as he likes. Problem solved.
But the ending, you just gotta love that ending which be best summed up as.
“We got a cure and we’re not sharing, screw you.”
This episode is ballistic on all counts.
I’m not really sure which way to go with this one. The premise is stupid and bobsandiego @2 points out most of the major problems, but the handling of the flawed premise is done pretty well. Except for the ending, of course. I really don’t see any reason they couldn’t have shared the cure with the Scalosians or promised to send a Starfleet research team to help them with their infertility and speed problems.
We also have another example of Kirk and co. finding yet another superweapon that never gets used. OK, cellular damage while in an accelerated state causes rapid aging. But how much damage are your people going to suffer when they can dodge phaser beams? The next time somebody takes over the ship, just whip up a batch of this stuff, give it to a security team and let them clean up just like Spock doing the repairs.
I could have sworn there was a TAS episode that followed up on this one, but apparently not.
Ah crap. This is one of the ones I’m going to have to actually rewatch before I can weigh in. The fact that I tend to skip it does not bode well.
Yeah, I was disappointed in this episode. Interesting premise, and I’ll overlook the “gee that’s a slow elevator” problem (they actually would’ve gotten there faster taking the
stairsJeffries tubes), but the ending just didn’t make any sense and seemed very un-Star-Trek to me. So selfish.Also, I’m glad someone picked up on the implied sex scene, because I missed it — and here I was thinking, y’know, I don’t really see Kirk resisting the charms of the hot blonde queen lady and her adventuresome costume.
Other than that, I found it kind of sleep-inducing, but then I tend to watch these things a little bit too late in the evening.
Oh, I also love the potential for overtones in Kirk’s question “What have you done with my men?” Jealousy ill becomes you, Captain Cassanova.
DemetriosX took my point about a possible weapon for Star Fleet. Maybe it was that this episode is so forgettable. I have to admit that I couldn’t remember this episode from the title alone. Maybe the writers for the later series had the same problem and didn’t bother with actually looking at the episode.
I’d like to add to the list of problems with the science in this episode. As has been pointed out, the (then) current generation of Scalosians had been born into this condition so their bodies and nervous systems could have been adapted to these speeds. But what about Kirk and Compton? Would their brains have been able to handle the accelerated activity? If so then that suggests that the entire chemistry of the body had been changed. That fast? From consumption of a chemical or a combination of chemicals? And no pain or other debilitating effects? It could happen. (I’ll quote from Dr. McCoy in another episode – “In a pig’s eye.”)
Then there are a few other physical aspects to the problem. The ship and its systems are still operating in normal time. At the speed they appeared to be moving, pressing a button to activate something wouldn’t work – the contacts wouldn’t be together long enough to complete a circuit. Electricity is fast from our perspective, but I don’t think its that fast. They’d have to press then hold the button down – for minutes or hours. Now to friction. The cloth in Kirk’s uniform should have felt as soft as sandpaper against his skin while he moved at accelerated speeds. I use tee-shirt material to polish scratches out of styrene plastic so I know that even soft cloth can produce friction. And think about how the bedding material in Kirk’s bed would have felt against their shin during that suggested cultural exchange activity. Talk about incriminating friction burns.
Still. We should look at this episode as a product of its time. A silly, less than memorable episode from the same era that gave us Lost In Space. At least this episode suggested the existence of some science to explain what happened. Compare this to the Lost In Space episode “A Trip Through The Robot.” Okay. Now I’ve ruined your day with that bad memory.
Shin should have been skin in my other comment. My oops. Also. I meant to add that Compton’s acceleration may have been meant to have happened from just touching the water and not from drinking it – he was taking samples. Still. If that’s the case, than why were the others not affected by touching things which may have had residue on it – even traces from the rain?
@7 Ludon “I meant to add that Compton’s acceleration may have been meant to have happened from just touching the water and not from drinking it ”
What looked like what happened ot me was taht Compton spilled some of his samples (Clumsy lab skills and a push over for a babe.) then took the hands that had the spilled water on it and brought it to his mouth and drank the water he was sampling. So presumably he knows he is sampling to find out what happen to all the people and he still drinks the water. What a Maroon.
Presumably the sterility aspect is a recent development or the whole race would die out before the arrival of the next interstellar sperm donors. From Deela’s treatment of Rael, am I wrong to think this is a one-way fertility problem? So the sterility would seem to be somehow unrelated to hyperacceleration or a slow-onset, treatable condition.
Yes, it seems Dr. McCoy’s team could have spent some time in Speedoland investigating the nature and cause of the affliction. Failing that, Red Shirt volunteers might spend some time in a bathroom stall with some Green Orion Slave Girl Monthly mags to help ’em hang on a few more generations. Were sperm banks unheard of in 1968? I seem to recall that was about the time they were becoming the rage.
@9 Lemnoc
Dr.McCoy investigating things in “speedoland”. This is well beyond what Standards and Practices would have allowed and an image I did not need today.
LOL
How did I TOTALLY forget to mention this?
The name of the sterile super-tech alien, Rael, makes me rather suspect that this is the first Star Trek episode responsible for a UFO religion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raelian_Church
@1 JohnSteed7
Kirk’s callousness bugged me too. I think he makes a token gesture to offer them some help, but Deela seems pretty determined–if she can’t have him as a sex slave, she’d rather die. I’m sure the Federation will be back in a few hours when they’re all dead to steal all their cultural treasures.
@2 bobsandiego
This episode is as silly and as incomprehensible as the previous one.
This is silly in a different way, and despite all the crazy science, the story otherwise works, mostly. I do think it’s much better than “Plato’s Stepchildren,” which was the 1960s equivalent of torture porn, the television equivalent of the Saw films.
@3 DemetriosX
That Scalosian water sure would have come in handy in college, though it would turn paper cuts deadly. I wondered if anyone had followed up on the story at some point. Deela could have been pregnant with Kirk’s child, right?
I failed to mention this earlier, but this is another example where Kirk is more special than everyone else. He never makes the “adjustment” that Deela promised, as Compton did. But he’s already proven his mind is almost as resilient as Spock’s.
@ 1 JohnSteed7
Exactly. The ending is just so cruel (and inexplicable) it overwhelms what would otherwise be a perfectly serviceable episode. About being born that way: it seems that the acceleration is a result of the water on the planet (much like in “Plato’s Stepchildren,” where it’s the food that gives the powers, not anything innate). But they may not even need the cure–maybe they just need a long vacation from the tainted water? In any case, all manner of possible cures were available to Kirk.
@ 2 bobsandiego
All fair points, but they didn’t diminish the episode for me.
As for Deela being chatty, wouldn’t you be desperate for new conversation after that long, too?
@ 3 DemetriosX
Maybe drinking the stuff has long-term deleterious effects that make it unsuitable for weaponry?
@ 6 Ludon
Well maybe they, uh…. maybe… er….
@ 9 Lemnoc
You’ve given me not one, but several images to scrub from my brain. Congratulations.
OK, rewatched this one, and while it’s not as bad as I feared, I’ll give it Warp 1.5 (still my lowest rating yet.) The time discrepancy still bugs me as much as it did when I was a kid (It would have taken months or years in Kirk’s time for Scotty to get to the transporter room, for example.) However, I don’t think they age at an accelerated rate, but they’re on some vaguely different “vibratory plane.” (I remember that concept showing up elsewhere around that time.)
I did notice that on the original DVD you can see a sliver of the audio track on the left. I think that’s the only time they messed that up.
The Batman Tilt to show the accelerated scenes works pretty well, particularly when they pan to McCoy and the camera levels off as we drop into normal time.
I love Bill Theiss. That is all.
“Sabotaj” Heh. I’ve got to do a Beastie Boys mashup with that line.
The Scalosian neck-thingys are sort of proto-TNG badges, aren’t they?
What is it with water? They could have called this the Very Deadly Years.
The pollution angle is nice, but kind of a throw-away line. Weird since they usually beat you over the head with that kind of stuff.
I’m trying to remember how old I was when I ‘got’ the boot scene. Well into my teens, I think.
Kirk: “I can think of nothing I’d rather do.” Heh.
I wonder why they didn’t offer to ‘decelerate’ the Scalosians. Possibly they didn’t consider that a problem, but being in touch with the rest of the universe might have helped them tackle the whole sterility thing. Heck, there was only five of them, why not evacuate them from their polluted planet?
@11 DeepThought
Interesting. The timeline is about right, too, as TOS would have been well into its syndication glory days when it was founded.
ChurchHatesTucker @15:
Isn’t that how the Flash from this era was able to walk through walls? It doesn’t really work, though. If people who aren’t affected appear frozen, then obviously things are going by much faster for the speeded up people. Trying to think about this is probably just an easy way to get a headache.
@ 13 Torie
But a Warp 3?? I can’t see this episode as being better than one third of all episodes. I’ll forgive bad science and hokey Fx if you give me interesting characters. (Otherwise I couldn’t be a Blake’s 7 fan.) However this episode had terrible science, cliche’ characters and a terrible ending. Oh well, this is what makes interesting.
@12 Eugene
sorry even if I let all the bad science go by this story still does not work. Kirk can’t think to write down a letter to spock? They just fly away with the cure without a thought about the race that is soon to be extnict? What’s with this brain-washing effect? Where does that come from? Why accelerate Kirk at all before the deep freeze to switched on? Just freeze’em all and defrost kirk first when you are planet-side for your kinky royal pleasures. The only reason to accelerate him on the ship is because the plot needs it.
@18 bobsandiego
All the nitpicks everyone is pointing out are very compelling and I find myself persuaded that I rated this one too high. I expect I’ll be downgrading it when we do our season review.
Geeze, you’re right. Why wouldn’t he just pick up a pad and write a note for Spock? *facepalm*
@ 15 ChurchHatesTucker
The TNG collars just had pips… their communicators were still on their chests.
@ 17 bobsandiego
I stand by my Warp 3. I didn’t find the characters cliche–I liked Deela, actually. She was perky and excitable but I assume that’s because she’s been starved for humanoid interaction, and I liked her strength throughout, even when she knows she’ll be facing her death in the end.
And the Warps don’t fall on a bell curve. Or at least, that wasn’t the intention. I like to think of it as all Warp 3s being about the same, a way to stratify the episodes. This why half-warps are expressly verboten. *looks sternly at ChurchHatesTucker* Given that, I think it’s on par in terms of quality and enjoyment with my other Warp 3s: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”, “Operation: Annihilate!”, “Metamorphosis,” “A Piece of the Action,” “Gamesters of Triskelion,” “By Any Other Name,” “Bread and Circuses,” “Spectre of the Gun,” and of course the one that earned me all of your ire forever, “Arena.”
Hmm, now I want to make the Star Trek Hierarchy Pyramid, for easy data consumption.
Re: the notepad: IT’S THE FUTURE. When was the last time you ever saw anyone take notes on that show? I thought the tape recording was pretty clever.
@ 20 Torie :”Re: the notepad: IT’S THE FUTURE. When was the last time you ever saw anyone take notes on that show? I thought the tape recording was pretty clever.”
I don’t know how about every time I’ve watched Kirk sign adatapad brought to him my some cute Yeoman? Or all the times we seen Spock making notes on the smae datapad?
““What Are Little Girls Made Of?”, “Operation: Annihilate!”, “Metamorphosis,” “A Piece of the Action,” ” All solid threes in my opinion. ““Gamesters of Triskelion,” “By Any Other Name,”” this set rates twos in my book. and the other you listed as three are 1’s ecept of course “Arena” at a 4.
Yes on my deathbed I expect to be curing your poor ratig of Arena. LOL
@BobSandiego #18
What’s with this brain-washing effect? Where does that come from?
It comes from Bill Thiess. As to what it is — are there any minors listening here?
Re: the “leave Spock a note” idea: Kirk has to disguise what he’s doing from the Scalosians. A note would be in open sight for way too long, given the glacial pace of normal time. The electronic message actually makes more sense, since it’d be the reverse of the ‘insect buzzing’ (assuming Kirk compensated for the speed difference when recording.)
@16 DemetriosX
Yes! Flash was one of the examples I couldn’t think of. I think there were a couple ideas that were muddled in the script, possibly as a result of different writers taking a pass at the script.
@20 Torie
I mean the collars function the same as TNG badges. I’m pretty sure that’s the first time we’ve seen that in the Trekverse.
@23 Churchhatestucker
ummm Kirk recorded his message with teh enemy *right there* listening in and giving feedback.
A note is still a better idea.
DeepThought @22:
That line made my day. It also made me snort my tea, but I’ll forgive you because it’s the best line we’ve had in ages.
@ 21 bobsandiego
I don’t think they’re writing notes. Signing off on a report is one thing. I assumed the were using a stylus to like, click through menus. Anyway, I think note-taking with a pen and paper would be a thing of the past.
But you’re right, he does record the message in plain sight of Deela, who goes on and lets him do it because she’s sure there’s no chance he’ll succeed. I suspect this little game has played out before…
Torie @26:
You’re using technological hindsight there. Menus as such wouldn’t even exist for another 15+ years. Also, if you watch, you can clearly see that Kirk usually scribbles something (presumably his signature) whenever a yeoman hands him a pad. The designers were very unlikely to have thought beyond “futuristic way of dealing with memos and other paperwork.” It’s probably more like signing for a package, an electronic signature. Come to think of it, that’s the way Sisko gets an autograph from Kirk in “Trials and Tribble-ations”.
But handwritten note taking is actually making a comeback of sorts. Tablet computers are very well-suited for it and most of them have software to recognize their user’s scrawl and convert it into legible text. There’s no reason not to have at least tried to leave a note for Spock. He’d certainly have reacted to a pad suddenly popping up under his nose.
Okay. I’m still confused with this episode. Are the Scalosians living – and aging – in their accelerated state, or are they just living in that state but still aging according to real time? My mind keeps telling me that there had to have been generations living in this state for them to have devised this plan and hope that it would work. Otherwise, they were just lucky that the Enterprise heard the call before they died off within hours (going by normal time). Had they been in this state for only a few hours (by our time) then the Enterprise should have been aware of that world and its problems before the disaster. If they could send a signal after the event, they could have been sending out all the usual chatter before it happened.
No wonder I had forgotten so much about this episode.
MOst epidodes have the pre-UPS signature pad, but “”The Cage” has yellow quasi-legal pads on future!clipboards, complete with the paper corner curling up.
I liked the character of Deela (and the actress Kathie Browne in that outfit), and also felt for Rael. Let your honey be impregnated by a stranger for the good of your race? Bleh.
I did enjoy this episode, not worrying about the obvious flaws (cue MST3K mantra) except for the last one. DId the never say die, never give up, profess to help even the Andromedans crew not even try finding a cure?
@ 28 Ludon
I assumed that they were living in their accelerated state, which would mean that entire generations could have come and gone between the Enterprise landing on the planet’s surface and Kirk getting kidnapped. Hmm. Maybe they age in our time?
@ 29 sps49
I don’t get it either.
@24 BobSanDiego
You’re right. Ironically, I must have been making a note when they showed that.
@28 Ludon
It’s very muddled, but it appears they’re long-lived in their accelerated state. (That’s assuming that it was thought through at all.)
@31 ChurchHatesTucker
If that is the case than the idea of Kirk leaving them isolated to die off is all the more distressing. Unless they’d go mad and killed each other, or themselves, they would be stuck waiting for what would seem to be decades or centuries to die.
@32 Ludon
Yeah, it’s a mess. I don’t know the history behind it, but I suspect it involved a lot of writers who had only a vague idea of what the previous ones were on about.
The more I think about it, the more I think my 1.5 was generous.
Next up, The Empath! In which Church remembers what the bottom of the scale looks like.
speaking of the next episode. (shudder) Is that going up tomorrow or Thursday?
@ 33 ChurchHatesTucker
so shave that .5 off and you’ll be in Tori’s good graces again!
@23 ChurchHatesTucker
Good catch on the communicators. The thought flitted through my mind too, but then I was distracted by trying to make sense of everything else :)
@34 bobsandiego
Thursday, I think, since it isn’t really a proper holiday. Though Torie can always overrule me since she’s doing all the heavy lifting on the next one. (Thank goodness.)
@ 34 bobsandiego
Tomorrow! What am I, a machine? :D This will be the usual Thursday.
I hope you’re all planning to motivate us somehow. I’m finding it more and more difficult to put that DVD in every week…
@37 you have to stay with it Torie. There are classic moments of Trek that you’ll never get the geek refernces to if you don;t put in that disc.
“Spock, help me Spock”
“Herbert, Herbert!”
LIncon in space! Even Michale Bay hasn’t gone there!
you can do it. You can hang in there. We’ll help you through with our decidely sharp comments.
:)
Agree with all the comments that the ending decisively ruined what had already been a pretty iffy episode. Although also agree that there could have been much pathos and food for thought in there with Deela’s moral quandary and Jael’s helplessness in the situation. So many of the 3rd season episodes left me frustrated because there would be the germ of a really interesting idea that was never fully exploited. The scene with the boots seemed gratuitous though it was in line with Kirk’s usual method of dealing with threats to his crew by getting close to the enemy. But the general callousness at the end left me stunned on first viewing and made me realize decisively that things had run off the rails in the third season, and I wasn’t really watching my Enterprise crew anymore. It seemed more fitting for a mirror universe episode. The obvious thought was why weren’t they getting the cure, but if as someone else has said, it couldn’t have worked on these people, that should have been spelled out very clearly. And even then, it seemed as if Starfleet’s resources should have been brought to bear on their problem.
Torie @37:
Shouldn’t that be, “Dammit, Eugene, I’m a blogger, not a machine!”? We don’t seem to be having the proper influence on you. We must try harder.
Like the others, I’m dreading the next episode. But it is also the reason I suggested Torie add “half-naked man whipping” as a tag to “Bread and Circuses”. Because she would get to use it again here.
“and Dr. McCoy’s scanner doesn’t register life–not even the insect Kirk hears buzzing around his head. Spock’s eyes and years of training tell him there was an advanced, humanoid civilization here, and he must have better apps on his tricorder than McCoy:”
Even in the original series there were differences in the tricorders. McCoy used a medical tricorder while Spock used a science tricorder and I believe there were also general use tricorders. I remember noticing a difference while watching the series then the Star Fleet Technical Manual had diagrams of both the medical and the science tricorders.
So, Spock may have had better apps or at least he had different apps on his.
@41 Ludon “So, Spock may have had better apps or at least he had different apps on his.”
Highly accelerated lifeforms? There’s an app for that!(tm)
There was also a psychological tricorder, for all of one episode.
@42 ChurchHatesTucker
Why did you have to bring up the psyscho-tricorder? I was trying my best to forget that, just like the Star Trek writers…
Gradually re-integrating following Christmas, though I’ll probably get derailed again by New Year’s.
For now, however: Kathie Browne. That’s all.
@44 NomadUK
That’s saying plenty. Welcome back, and happy holidays!
Ah, despite it’s flaws, I still have a soft spot for this one. Yes, you have to turn off your logical mind…a lot… for the plot to work ( sometimes I’m very good at that ), but you quite often have to do that in much better episodes ( “Tommorow Is Yesterday” anyone? ). Probably the bug-a-boo I had the hardest time with was the turbolifts. If the Scalosians had altered them to travel faster for their convenience, then our crew would have been splatered like lasagna all over the interiors. Conversely, it would have been quicker for the accelerated folks to climb up and down the access tubes.
Yes, in hindsight, the ending seems callous, but I think they were trying to go for a “The Cage/Menagerie” pathos of a doomed race…without quite pulling it off. Still, I really enjoy Kathie Browne as Deela. In fact, had the series gone on, it could have been fun for the actress to return in another role as a recurring crewperson / foil for Kirk ( along the lines of what Yeoman Rand was intended to be…except with more moxie ).
Coming late, as I do my own rewatch.
I am finding these season 3 episodes not as horrible as I remembered. There’s a lot of nonsense, but there is nonsense and illogic in just about every episode, so in the end, I’m interested mostly in the entertainment value. And even in something like “Spock’s Brain”, I enjoyed Uhura (and the other bridge regulars) having something to say and do, especially with Checkov’s Powerpoint.
With regard to the ending of “Wink”, when Deela and Rael leave, the cure has not even been tested. And Spock and Kirt can’t test it until the baddies leave. And once they leave, so much time has passed for the Scalosians that it would be hard to bring the cure to them. Although we don’t know that Kirk *didn’t* provide the cure afterwards.
I’m probably getting into this way too late, but I’m sure I heard a line earlier in the episode where Deela said that anyone of her people who tried to change back to normal time died. I took that as an explanation of why the cure didn’t work.
@Book Girl comment 48. Good point. They could have had a bit of dialog about that. But it was dramatic that Deela left believing that Kirk, too, was stuck in accelerated mode;
Were there only five of them left? That’s what the Scalosians say, but if so, it’s pretty pointless having the two women breed. There’s no reason to believe that their strategy of kidnapping breeding males is not effective.
Deela says that the nonesense volcano explosions happened “a long time ago, in our history.” Since all of the children died, it’s not possible that Deela was a child at the time. Therefore, she must be at least a second-generation Scalosian (i.e. a descendant of one of the original hyperaccelerated Scalosian women and some random male space traveller). Let’s assume a spaceship visiys Scalos once a year in non-hyperaccelerated time, which seems pretty often if it’s in an uncharted part of the galaxy. Then the acceleration factor can’t be much more than about 40:1 in order for there to be any women of childbearing age when the next ship arrives. Of course, with the clothes dryer-suspended animation thingy, one ship’s crew could last multiple generations. This might explain why the Scalosians aren’t interested in having Federation scientists look for a “cure” for them: this is their way of life, practiced over many centuries (in their time scale).
Sorry for all the typos in the previous post; “nonesense” for “nonsense”, “visiys” for “visits”, etc. That’s what comes of trying to type on my phone.