Wink of an Eye
Wink of an Eye (Video; Memory Alpha) finds Scotty in charge of the ship with Kirk in an abandoned city that the sensors say doesn’t exist. When suddenly, a redshirt disappears!
The crew goes back to the Enterprise, but a lot of crazy stuff is going on. Systems are turning off and righting themselves, things are being moved around by no one, and everywhere there’s a weird buzzing sound. Weirdest of all, a machine is in the environmental control surrounded by a force field.
The crew, apparently out of ideas, asks the computer for help.
Spock: Are we currently capable of resisting?
Computer: Negative.
Spock: Your recommendations?
Computer: If incapable of resisting, negotiate for terms.
[Kirk and Scotty look at each other]
Kirk: We will not negotiate. Do you concur?
Scotty: Aye.
Begin Spoilers
Shortly thereafter, Kirk drinks some coffee, and is sped up so he can see the aliens who’ve taken over the ship. They live at hyperspeed, and as such can’t be seen by the crew. They came by this fate accidentally when their world was hit with a volcanic cataclysm, and since they are unable to return to normal speed their race now survives only by luring passersby in and stealing the crews to repopulate their civilization. It’s kind of sad, really.
End Spoilers
This episode has one of the best female leads in the series. Deela, the leader of the aliens, manages to be menacing and charming at the same time. She shares most Star Trek villains’ misunderstanding of the crew’s motives (“why don’t you want to live as my slave?”), and she shares the familiar letting-her-man-get-to-her story arc, but she pulls it off a lot better than usual. Her situation is sympathetic, and that makes all the difference: this woman is trapped in her appointed role and this is the only way she can proceed.
Begin Spoilers
The weirdest thing about this episode is how the crew just takes off at the end. There’s no attempt made to help the aliens out of their temporal prison with the wonder-drug Spock and McCoy have made, or even to find out if they want it. Deela even goes so far as saying out loud that the solution Kirk is proposing is to let her and her people die, and then Kirk goes ahead and lets that be the solution. Giving them the serum would be an easy fix– a voiceover would do– and it’s strange that it’s not done.
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Best Star Trek Scene Ever
But this episode is worth watching because it contains my favorite scene in the entire series to date. Kirk, having been sped up and trapped at the aliens’ timepace, unable to communicate with the crew, is running to break the McGuffin. He comes around a corner, and there’s Spock, having distilled his own serum to speed himself up. The two of them look at each other, smile, don’t say a word, and run into the room with the McGuffin to the fight. This scene so perfectly encapsulates the Kirk/Spock dynamic I don’t know what I could possibly add to it.
Grade
A+
