"Blink of an Eye" is the twelfth episode from the sixth season of the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager, 132nd episode overall. The show is set in the 24th century of the Star Trek universe, aboard the USS Voyager spaceship on a decades long journey back to Earth.
The episode follows the crew's interaction with a world where time passes rapidly, allowing them to witness most of its inhabitants' history. For the inhabitants, Voyager is fixed in the night sky, inspiring them as the eons pass. The science-driven aspect of this concept is time dilation, which is a real-world physical effect that must even be accounted for regarding the time of communications signals from satellites in Earth orbit.
This television episode debuted on United Paramount Network (UPN) on January 19, 2000.
Plot
The starship Voyager approaches an alien world which is enveloped in a tachyon field, giving it an odd temporal nature. To learn more about the planet, Captain Kathryn Janeway orders the ship to move closer, but Voyager becomes trapped in orbit by the planet's magnetic field. While the crew concocts an escape plan, Seven of Nine surveys the planet and discovers that Voyagers presence is causing occasional quakes. Further scans reveal that time passes at a much more rapid rate on the planet and it is inhabited by primitive humanoids.
As hours on Voyager pass, centuries pass on the planet and its humanoid inhabitants reach a level of technology similar to 20th-century Earth. As the crew discusses the unusually rapid technological progress of the species, a radio message is broadcast at Voyager. Tom Paris wants to reply but Tuvok points out that the species has not developed warp technology; a reply would be a violation of the Prime Directive. Janeway suggests a covert one-person mission to the planet. As he would not be affected by the change in the passage of time because he is a hologram, the Doctor volunteers for the mission, which, due to the time differential, lasts three years from the Doctor's perspective, even though he is only gone from the ship for minutes. Upon returning, he reports that Voyager, simply by its presence, has encouraged the society to advance as the humanoids attempt to contact the "sky-ship". While some strive to establish peaceful contact, others are developing increasingly powerful weaponry to shoot down Voyager and stop the earthquakes.
The humanoids develop technology sophisticated enough to send astronauts on a crewed mission to make contact with the sky-ship. A capsule is launched and succeeds in docking with Voyager. Its two astronauts, a male and female, begin to explore the ship, which appears frozen in time, but fall unconscious from the stress of adjusting to the different space-time. The bodies are found on the bridge and are taken to sickbay. The female dies from the shock of adjustment but the male, Gotana-Retz, is successfully treated whilst Voyager is hit by a bombardment of antimatter artillery.
Janeway urges Gotana-Retz to return to the planet and convince them to cease the attack. Gotana-Retz does so just after Voyager's shields collapse. Suddenly, two spaceships appear alongside Voyager and use tractor beams to tow the vessel out of the planet's field. A visibly older Gotana-Retz briefly transports to Voyager to explain what has happened and Janeway thanks him and his people. On the surface, an elderly Gotana-Retz, long returned from his experience in space, gazes wistfully into the sky as his people's sky-ship vanishes from the heavens.
Production
Producer Brannon Braga said it was a challenging episode to put together: "It was a very ambitious episode. We did our best to depict the evolution of a civilization over the course of thousands of years. I thought it was fun to go from seeing primitive people to seeing space travel. It had a very large cast and lots of sets, special effects, a very high-concept show."
Gabrielle Beaumont was the first female director on Star Trek (for the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Face of the Enemy"), and this was the last episode of Star Trek she directed.
This episode is noted for the performance of Daniel Dae Kim as Gotana-Retz, who was already known to sci-fi fans for Crusade. He would later appear in Star Trek: Enterprise and became widely known for his role in the hit 2000s TV show Lost and a starring role on the re-imagined Hawaii Five-0.
Olaf Pooley, who played the Cleric, was married to director Gabrielle Beaumont.
The title echoes the title of the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Wink of an Eye" where Enterprise crew members were also experiencing time displacement.