Wink of an Eye

This is a case of clashing cultures caught in conflicting time accelerations. After a visit to a barren planet, people begin to disappear on board the enterprise. Kirk and one of the unfortunate red shirted crewman have been moved to a ship where time is passing at an alarming rate. This is with coffee that's not on Starbuck's menu. A small group of aliens wearing shiny Mylar suits (well, I take that back. The women wear almost nothing) are on the brink of extinction and must bring people from a different time designation to mate with. Kirk, of course, gets the queen of the whole bunch. She likes him because he is a "pretty" one. She is quite sexy and doe eyed. Because they don't fear Kirk, he is allowed access to the ship. This is a mistake because he is nothing but trouble. There is also jealousy at work on the ship. Kirk's mission is to get a message to the crew who are moving at an indecipherably slow speed. This is a good concept. It comes up short but is engaging enough to keep one's attention.

We're back to space invaders in this one, similar to "By Any Other Name" in the previous season. These aliens hail from a planet where volcanic upheavals and radiation have accelerated them - make that 'hyper-accelerated' - to the point where they move too quickly for normal humans to see them. It's almost like they're stuck in another dimension (another level) and the concept is similar to the "Flash" comic book character, who moves so quickly at times that everything else appears to be frozen still. There are obvious discrepancies in the way the concept is presented here: though all Scalosians supposedly move at a pace of 100 times that of normal, they go through the same amount of experience in this episode as the normal-moving crew; the crew get just as much done as the invaders during the course of the episode. For example, the Scalosians should have completed their invasion plan in the time it took for Spock to head down to McCoy's medical lab in mid-episode. Right after Kirk is accelerated on the bridge, he heads for the turbolift, but that mode of transport would now take him an eternity; though it isn't mentioned, he must have used the stairs, er, ladders. This seems to be some careless scriptwriting. However, maybe the Scalosians were using the turbolifts in ignorance and this slowed them down enough for the discrepancies to make sense.

Despite a surprisingly slow pace in spots even though this is such an, uh, accelerated episode (we see video tapes of the Scalosians over & over), this comes off as fairly entertaining due to Kirk's odd conflicting attraction with the leader of the invaders, princess Deela, played by actress Kathie Browne like some naughty valley girl from outer space. It's amusing to see Kirk allow himself a very brief lecherous smirk when he first sees her, even as he knows he's in the middle of a hostile invasion. Here's where Kirk's rep as the super-stud of Trek space may have gained the most traction, ahem. There's even a scene of him putting his boots back on after he and the foxy invader have obviously done the nasty deed (since this is the sixties, all other TV episodes on this show never went beyond subtle suggestion, say, a veiled wink or two; by contrast, this scene was very direct). He and Deela obviously felt a genuine sexual heat, much more apparent and honest than the usual family-oriented titillation. In fact, the entire plot of the episode revolves around the theme of survival based on necessary procreation - mating for the sake of a species, but also seeking as much enjoyment as possible in the act. This is almost an episode for grown-ups only. Almost. But, the outfits on the male Scalosians were a bit too kinky for my tastes.

I would have rated this episode higher, except those alien costumes were so trick-or-treat tacky. Those costume designers were HORRIBLE!!! But the ideas presented were different and more imaginative than usual.

Living life in the super-fast lane, a rapid accelerating speedy domain, express and fleet, they've very quick feet, flying along like a swift bullet train.

A fast forward race of aliens in a hurry have designs on the crew of the Enterprise.

This was an entertaining episode, well played out by a great cast. Kathy Brown was great, and Kirk could easily fall for her. The idea, though, was first used in the H. G. Wells short story, "The New Accelerator," published in 1901 in the Strand magazine. Well's story was later adapted into the 1966 Wild Wild West episode, "Night of the Burning Diamond" written by Ken Kolb, two years before the Star Trek episode. I liked all of them. Dr. McCoy and Spock came up with the ideal solution to Kirk's disappearance and how to bring him back. The ending was bittersweet, as were so many episodes in which Kirk fell for a woman (or android).