“Blink Of An Eye” just seemed to strike the wrong chord with me. It dragged at times and didn’t seem to make much sense in parts.
I think it was really cool how after Janeway said, “Unless we want to live our lives in the blink of an eye, I suggest we get out of here,” she blinked once before the switch to the next scene.
The little hot air balloon that some of the planet’s inhabitants sent up to Voyager was so cute. I wonder what happened to it. Did it burn up in the planets upper atmosphere, or is it still up there, floating around?
Okay, I had a major problem with the whole “Doctor goes down to alien planet, Doctor has son, Doctor comes back three years later” plot. After Seven found the cultural center of the planet to be along the eastern coast, Harry located the Doctor, who was symbolized by a blinking red square on his viewscreen. Now, in the time it took Harry to exclaim, “I got him!” (approximately two seconds), nearly two days would have gone by on the planet. Yet the red square remained stationary. I find it hard to believe that he would stay in the exact same spot for two days straight. Also, it takes four seconds to ‘beam’ someone somewhere. That would be another four days on the planet. You’d think in six days he would have moved at least one inch.
The Doctor having a son... He might not have had enough time to discuss the details with the alien on Voyager, but wouldn’t WE like to know! “It’s a long story” just doesn’t cut it. A hologram having a flesh and blood son… Stranger things have happened. (I guess the civilization hadn’t developed birth control yet.) :)
When the Doctor was finally transported back to Voyager, he seemed very happy to see Janeway again. (That’s more than I can say for B’Elanna, whom he didn’t even acknowledge!) It bugged me that he didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that he just left his ‘roommate’ and young son behind, never to see them again. You’d think he’d be a little more upset than that. He seemed to be more interested in sports than the welfare of his family.
If I had to pick my favorite quote of the episode, it would definitely be Seven suggesting an essay title for Naomi: “The ‘Weird’ Planet Displaced In Time”. I just liked how she said the word ‘weird’.
Bottom Line: An episode that should have gone by in ‘the blink of an eye’ felt more like drawn-out torture.
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This was a very good idea: to have a planet that rotated much faster than conventional planets do. The view of the planet rotating was very cool.
“Shall we take a closer look?” Janeway’s famous last words... Okay, they knew that the planet was like a quasar or a black hole in the way it was rotating. Now, would they fly in the orbit of a quasar or go close to a black hole? I don’t think so! So why, would they fly close to a one of a kind planet that they knew nothing about – come on, run a few scans or something! Now I see why Harry hasn’t got his promotion yet... :D
Anyway, after their stupid mistake, Voyager begins to affect the history and evolution of this planet. Prime Directive ignored again. When Janeway, Chakotay and Seven are discussing the statistics of the planet, all the Captain seems to care about is that they might start aging really quickly and live their lives in the blink of an eye. Hey! What about the earthquakes that Voyager is causing the planet? Nobody seems to care.
I think it was neat the way we got to see the progress of the planet through the years as they learned more and more about the “skyship” and changed their views about it.
I’m wondering about the Doctor’s mobile emitter. After the Doctor goes to the planet as an observer and ends up spending 3 years there, the Captain and B’Elanna finally get him back. When he appears on the transporter deck, he has his mobile emitter stuck to his arm. Did he wear it visibly on the planet? Wouldn’t that have caused some suspicion about him?
Also, three years on the planet. That is a long time. I tend to think that the Doctor would have picked up different personality traits in that time. He has changed quite a bit over the last 5 ½ years (up to that point), and another 3 years would have changed him more. He did hug the Captain when he got back, which is different from the way he would have acted, but that’s where the development ends. I think that the writers could have made things much more interesting in his charater development. Does he have new hobbies? Has his program been developed further? We all know that he had a son, which was thought to be impossible for a hologram (I’ll get to my feelings on this later), so he must have changed his program somewhat. Does he still care for Seven?
I loved the look on B’Elanna’s face when the Doctor said, “It’s all in here,” when he is leaving the transporter room with her and the Captain. She looked disgusted! Great!
Voyager didn’t seem to have detected any spacecraft from the planet before the alien duo came aboard, so it would seem to me that they were the first people in space from their planet. Wouldn’t this have been a momentus moment for them? Wouldn’t it have taken several tries? I know in our history, we didn’t get to space on the first try...
I just don’t get the transition that the aliens went through when they came aboard Voyager. From the schematic in astrometrics, it seemed that there were definite borders of where the space-time difference were split. Wouldn’t the differences have taken place away from Voyager?? Why did it take that long for the normal time to kick in. Something seems wrong with this.
When the male astronaut woke up in Sickbay, he seemed knowledgeable of the time differential and the weird rotation of his planet. He seemed pretty clueless when he first boarded the ship... did he have a vision during his unconscious state?
OK. Back to the Doctor. A son? Come on. What the heck was the point of adding that to the story? It didn’t go anywhere. It didn’t serve any purpose. The Doctor knew that every second on Voyager was a day on the planet. Couldn’t he think that just maybe, something had gone wrong? He could see Voyager in the sky... Did they not have birth control on the planet yet?! I just don’t get it.
Now, back to the fact that the two aliens were the first in space. After that, there was no talk of more spacecraft, but then when the two devices appear beside Voyager and move it out of space, all goes as planned. Wow! Their second try and not a glitch?! Implausible.
I like the very end when the alien looks up at the sky and sees Voyager leaving. It was touching.
This show had many, many loopholes and unbelievable things in it. Combine that with bad acting by the extras and I can’t help but not care for it. This could have been a cool episode but turned out bad.
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