The Good: Interesting concept, Decent acting (in general), Fairly interesting characters
The Bad: Campy execution of effects, Inconsistent execution of science
The Basics: When Captain Kirk is accelerated beyond the speed of sight by aliens who want him to mate with them, he finds the prospect more dangerous than enjoyable!
As I have grown up and allegedly matured, I've come to reject the idea of "guilty pleasures." If something is good enough for me to like it, it's good enough for me to like it without associating shame based on what others might perceive it to be. As a result, some of the episodes of Star Trek that I find myself enjoying more than others shall not be referred to as my guilty pleasures. Episodes like "Wink Of An Eye" that I like in spite of itself, not because of any true tangible or relatable quality, but rather because it simply makes me happy to watch it, are not guilty pleasures. They are just plain fun.
The U.S.S. Enterprise arrives at Scalos, responding to a distress call from the last surviving members of the Scalosian race. A landing party beams down, but finds no one about and their instruments register no life forms, despite the Captain and others hearing an insect-like whine. When Crewman Compton abruptly disappears while McCoy is watching, the landing party returns to the Enterprise with something of a mystery on their hands. When ship systems begin to fail and alien devices appear aboard the Enterprise, Kirk and Spock fear the worst. This leads Kirk to treat himself to a cup of coffee, prompting him to disappear.
From his perspective, Kirk witnesses his officers moving at a ridiculously slow pace and he turns around to find himself facing a beautiful woman who admits she is responsible for the current predicament. She is Deela, the queen of the Scalosians and she's abducting the Enterprise to use its men as breeding stock because the Scalosian men are now all sterile. And they are all out of phase, moving at super speeds so fast that people in normal time cannot perceive them. This comes with certain risks, as Kirk soon discovers when he finds Compton, most notably the risk that comes with the super metabolism burning out a body if the skin is broken. Kirk, then, must find a way to stop the Scalosians from freezing the crew, do so without risking his skin - made more difficult by Deela's jealous lover, Rael - and find a way to return himself to normal movement/phase.
Yes, this is pretty much the 15 year-old's wet dream of choice; being the one man in the world who, ho-hum, must help repopulate a planet by having sex with a beautiful and authoritative queen. In fact, the episode was written by Arthur Heinemann and Gene L. Coon (under the pseudonym Lee Cronin), but all evidence points to the fact that both were older than fifteen when they wrote the story or teleplay for the piece. It's a somewhat silly idea and it is pretty obvious in many respects.
"Wink Of An Eye" works because the essential idea is a good one. A dying people lure unsuspecting people to their planet to mate with them to save their lives. It's actually kind of clever. And keeping the Enterprise crew frozen as a giant sperm bank in the sky, not a bad idea either, especially when it is revealed just how fragile humans are when they are even slightly damaged after being accelerated. Therefore, it actually makes sense that the Scalosians didn't just accelerate all the men. After all, with only a few women left and the desire to create a healthy gene pool, the biological diversity represented by the starship crew makes it too tempting a target to not take them all.
And even the acceleration thing is a pretty clever idea. It's a clever enough idea that the concept of beings moving at a different speed was used in Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Time's Arrow." The concept that there are beings coexisting with us now, moving at faster speeds is an intriguing one and one that makes one think about all those things we fail to see out the corner of our eyes . . .
And finally, Deela and the Scalosians work pretty well as characters. Deela is interesting and everything she needs to be to realistically be a seductress who is intent on taking over the Enterprise. Rael is a very understandable jealous male who feels obsolete based on his lack of fertility. Surprise! An episode of Star Trek working on a metaphoric level! But the metaphor works. Rael is a very realistic character who also embodies the psychological fear most men have about being replaced when their potency or fertility wanes.
And Deela and Rael are well performed. Jason Evers is decent as the seething Rael realistically infusing the character with a subtle and constant rage. Deela is performed by Kathie Brown, who seems to delight in both the power trip and the seductress qualities she brings to bear in the role. Brown works the gadgets her character uses in a fully convincing manner and she seems to delight in the scenes where she expresses concern or even some of her character's simple naivete. She and William Shatner have decent on-screen chemistry and she and Evers play off one another well as two people who seem like they could have once had a thing together.
But guest actor Geoffrey Binney is just terrible as Crewman Compton. Aboard the Enterprise after his character's change, he delivers his lines with a terrible stiffness and his scenes are painful to watch. His character cannot be killed quick enough for the viewer. The rest of the cast performs well, though none of them give superlative performances, they all seem to take the plot and their place in it seriously.
But this is not a great episode for the primary characters. Spock makes a leap of faith for his love of Captain Kirk that would be incredible had the viewers not seen such risks before. Similarly, Dr. McCoy pulling a medical miracle out of his hat when he figured out the cause of the time accelerations is more par for the course than genuine character work.
What probably makes so many people uncomfortable about "Wink Of An Eye" is the special effects. Yes, it's campy, but to represent the speeding up of himself, Kirk sees everyone else moving far slower and Deela's initial appearance is simply indicated by a slanted camera shot, so viewers know everything is not quite right. Yeah, it's campy. It's making do with the limitations of the time.
And the concepts of the episode are woefully misapplied. Take, for example, the idea that Kirk, nor any of the other newly accelerated people may break their skin, lest they die. Kirk gets into a fistfight and is knocked around using force fields. But his skin, apparently, remains intact. And with the amount of time that it takes for Dr. McCoy to do his medical thing, a perceptive viewer would figure at least a day has passed in Kirk's accelerated frame of reference. How does he spend that time? Well, apparently having sex with Deela - there's a wonderful scene that ends with Deela and Kirk embracing and the next scene begins with him putting his boots back on! I'm not saying it's not possible, but for a man and woman to spend a whole day making love and not break any skin or blood vessels, that's just beyond suspension of disbelief! Well it is considering Deela looks satisfied!
The point here is that the science and the mechanics of the accelerated movement are dodgy at best and how the Scalosians actually get aboard the Enterprise (presumably they were beamed up, but how. . .) is a question deftly sidestepped within the episode. Should Star Trek fans demand more? Yes. But it's hard not to appreciate the simplicity and fun of it.
Who might like "Wink Of An Eye?" Anyone who likes science fiction will enjoy the premise, if not the execution. Young people will enjoy the simple plot with Kirk seducing the local alien woman because it's what she wants, though most adults and fans of drama in general are likely to be somewhat underwhelmed and unimpressed. People who do not take television seriously and enjoy suspending their disbelief will revel in this episode.
In the Star Trek pantheon, there may not be many episodes like that which I would consider fun episodes that may not be qualitatively truly great but I like anyway. But "Wink Of An Eye" certainly applies, as do Star Trek: The Next Generation's "The Price" and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's tribute to Tribbles with "Trials And Tribble-ations." People looking for the more fun - if not intellectually engaging end of science fiction might well enjoy checking those episodes - and this one - out!
[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek - The Complete Third Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the third and final season by clicking here!
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6.5/10
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© 2010, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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