monkee's mini-reviews: Blink of an Eye

First Impressions: A compelling story, but not enough Voyager.

The Concept: The concept was interesting – it's been touched on before in Trek, but this was a nice take on it. A planet aging thousands of years while Voyager is stranded briefly, relatively speaking, in orbit. The aspect of it that I liked the best was how the planet and it's inhabitants were affected by the presence of the seemingly frozen 'sky ship' that was creating all kinds of seismic havoc for them. I liked how the ship's presence had impacted every level of their existence, from philosophy to children's toys.

The Problem: Although the concept was good, I thought the first half of the show was way too slow. There just wasn't enough Voyager there for my taste. The scenes on the planet dragged a bit – I think they could have been done more succinctly. I liked the scenes with the astronaut and pilot – the woman commander reminded me a lot of Janeway, and the pilot was outstanding. And the scenes with the astronomer and the technician were moderately interesting, mostly because the two characters were a bit offbeat. But the earlier scenes – with the primitives and then the 'Protector,' just seemed a little, predictable, or stereotyped, or something, to me. I would have preferred that they shorten those and either a) spent more time with the Voyager crew, perhaps with the Doctor (more on that in a minute) or b) given us a scene explaining how the people on the planet got from trying to contact the ship to trying to shoot it down. When the first ship they sent up disappeared, did that make them suspicious? Angry?

The Doctor: The doctor was sent down to observe for 3 Voyager seconds, or 2 planetary days. There's a problem beaming him back up, of course, so he winds up down there for three years, long enough for him to have gotten involved with someone and, apparently, fathered a child. (Would someone please explain to me how a hologram could father a child? I know, I know – it's a long story…). Then they get him back and he runs over and gives Janeway a big hug, which, okay, was kind of sweet, but…Wasn't the transition a little abrupt, even for a hologram? He was abruptly torn from his family and his son – shouldn't he have been a little…sad? Contemplative? It just didn't feel right to me.

The Astronaut Pilot: I just loved this guy! He had a personality from the first moment we saw him – I liked his interactions with his colleague, the doctor and especially Janeway. And I loved how his first memory was of the sky ship mobile hanging over his crib and the sky ship prayer song. 'How many people get a chance to make their first dream come true?' That was a gorgeous line! He reminded me of the astronaut in 'One Small Step' and the spirit of the astronaut in Star Trek in general. The actor's name was Daniel Dae Kim, and hats off to him! I thought it was touching, too, that the last shot in the episode was him watching the sky ship finally leave their sky.

Crew Interactions: I enjoyed Chakotay and Torres' scenes in Engineering, Janeway and the Doc's walk through the corridor (they should do that more often – they have nice talks while they're walking!). Some of the other scenes felt like filler to me – the Naomi and Seven scene, for example. I like to see Naomi when it makes sense to see her – this week it did not.

Janeway Watch: She did just fine this week. She was properly concerned about impacting the planet more than she had to, but flexible enough to send the doctor down anyway. Her interactions with the astronaut pilot were compassionate and real.

J/C: I didn't see any, aside from the normal 'ooh, look how close they're standing together on the bridge' bits. But hey, I'll take what I can get!

I don't have much to say about this episode. Looking back over what I've written, it seems that I'm being too critical, because I really did enjoy the episode. It just felt a little slow to me.

Rating: 7.5/10.