Blink of an Eye

[Bsisko]

I have never read the Dragon's Egg and this review doesn't excite me to do so. His comparison of this episode to this book only hinders the review in my view and I wish he had just spoke to the merits of this episode. The reason this episode is generally well liked, including by me, is that even though the execution is not great, the concept is so intriguing that it makes it very memorable. It would have been best done as a 2 or 3 part episode so you could spend more time with the ever changing people of the planet. Nevertheless, high concept science fiction like this is why I was hooked on Star Trek since I was a kid and I am grateful that Voyager made this episode.

[rickgriffin]

Blink of an Eye is a Voyager episode: http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v933.php

[Admiral X]

Him speaking about the book is important as it helps to give a better picture of the episode and its merits, which is to say that it doesn't really have any of its own.

[PerrySimm]

high concept science fiction like this is why I was hooked on Star Trek since I was a kid and I am grateful that Voyager made this episode.

You know, you're right in this respect. If you just watch episodes of Voyager and compare them against each other, "Blink of an Eye" is going to rate above average. Once upon a time, I had thought that this was probably the best, but learning this from SFDebris forced me to reassess.

I think it's still a good episode, but can't be rated among the top episodes because it's not really a story about Voyager anyway. It's a ripoff? No kidding, it's Voyager! Voyager has ripped off so many TOS and TNG episodes, even its own episodes, it's actually an impressive feat to steal from literary SF instead.

[Admiral X]

Pfft! Okay, so compare the job done here with how TNG did their own version of Enemy Mine/Hell in the Pacific. I mean, VOY had its decent episodes and all (few though they may be), but I can't say I really thought that about this episode even before I found out that it'd basically cribbed all its best aspects from another story. I think even as far as cribbing from another source that VOY was behind TNG.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I didn't consider this episode to be one of the greats even before I knew that they "borrowed" the story from a novel, so I certainly don't consider it to be one of the greats now. My problem is that the actors are mediocre, the script isn't interesting, the characters are boring, and the culture is just the stereotypical "primitive alien race" we see in average episodes. There's no point where I really bought in emotionally.

Chuck is dead on in his review, in my opinion, and his discussion of homage vs. ripoff is very helpful. What works in this episode? Pretty much just the concept. And the concept isn't theirs, so why do they deserve credit for it? Take The Inner Light. It certainly has a noteworthy concept, but what sets that episode apart is that the execution was nearly flawless.

[Veggietrekker]

I've recently read through Dragon's Egg after finding a used copy and rather enjoyed it, my choice to read it only after seeing this review. Though at first I had trouble wrapping my mind around the inhuman flat creatures that grew intelligence I did thoroughly enjoy the parallels where a character became one of the first to connect seeds and shells instead of considering them separately. This episode did not go with anything risky and kept all the characters as humanoid and basic with some of the same story beats but minimized.

I did want to point out though that Chuck brought up the bugs bunny logic of time finally noticing the aliens on Voyager. In the novel the alien ship even after entering space continued to operate at an accelerated rate reaching levels of hundreds of years development in minutes while still in Space. Even a space craft meeting the Earth ship continued to be much faster while occupying the same location, which seems strongly to meet that which was in the episode. I'm not sure which is more or less acceptable but it is something I noticed right away when I was reading.