Star Trek TOS Re-Watch

Wink of an Eye:

This episode doesn't bother me much. It's high concept, non-science. Mostly harmless?

Kirk does his thing again, as Fred Freiberger keeps his "tits in space" ethos going.

There's a moment or two where the planet in peril storyline buys some empathy, but that's lost as we see the crew attacked. Why didn't they just really ask for help? A faction could have broken off later in order to inject some jeopardy.

This episode feels like definite filler from these long 60s seasons. Ideas were hard to come by.

The most noteworthy thing looking at it now is the new digital city in the background of the Remastered version. I gave it a good freeze frame. Nice

5 out of 10

 

Yup. I always found this one a solid adventure piece. Nothing horrible, some fun ideas, and a interesting scifi concept. Definitely I welcome it over some other concepts.

 

Wink of an Eye. I loved it when I was 9. Of course that was also the same time when Sulu's "double a penny every day" speech BLEW MY MIND!!!

 

Right? That sounded so achievable

 

Had Sulu made that analogy in the second season, no doubt Spock would reply ''To be exact....''

 

Yeah, Spock would say, "27 days, Mr. Sulu."

 

Unlike "Plato's Stepchildren" and "And the Children Shall Lead," "Wink of an Eye" at least has parts that are fun and amusing.

 

Long? In the 1950s and early '60s, weekly TV shows had 39 episodes per season. Star Trek's third season had only 24!

 

24 to 29 for a complex show is long! There's no comparison to shows of the 50s.

8 is becoming the norm today.

 

Indeed. A 30 or more episode season was pretty common in the 50s and 60s. Some examples...

VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA - season 1: 32 episodes. Seasons 2-4: 26 episodes each.

LOST IN SPACE - season 1: 29 episodes. Season 2: 30 episodes. Season 3: 24 episodes.

THE TIME TUNNEL - it's only season had 30 episodes.

THE FUGITIVE - all 4 seasons had 30 episodes each.

THE OUTER LIMITS - 32 episodes in season 1, 17 for season 2.

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. - season 1: 29 episodes. Seasons 2-3: 30 episodes each. Season 3: 16 episodes.

THE UNTOUCHABLES - seasons 1 and 3: 28 episodes each. Season 2: 32 episodes. Season 4: 30 episodes.


Most of the half hour long shows had around 30 episodes a season for most of their runs. Some examples...

THE TWILIGHT ZONE (1959) - seasons 1 and 5: 36 episodes each. Season 2: 29. Season 3: 37. Season 4 (the only hour long episode season): 18.

I LOVE LUCY - Season 1: 35, seasons 2-3: 31 each, season 4: 30, season 5: 26 and season 6: 27 episodes.

GUNSMOKE - Seasons 1-5: 39 episodes each. Season 6: 38. (For seasons 7 until 20, it became an hour long show.) Season 7: 34. Season 8: 38. Seasons 9-10: 36 each. Season 11: 32. Season 12: 29. Season 13: 25. Seasons 14-15: 26 each. Seasons 16-20: 24 each.


For shows produced during that era, 24 episodes is on the short end of episode count for a season. I'm not sure who said 24 episodes was long, but it doesn't track with the typical amount per season of the era as being a long season.

 

In the early 1980s 22 episodes for most dramas and comedies was the norm. When HBO hit it particularly big we tended to get 13. We were only spoiled in comparison to today.

 

Don't people talk like that when they're flabbergasted (Bones) or trying to talk through something they've just seen but don't understand? I don't mind it.

 

It's Star Trek. They've been seeing crewmembers vanish regularly for years. This ain't their fist recorded destress call either.

 

I would hope it never becomes so routine that characters can all casually dismiss it with a flippant remark.

The odd character doing so? Sure. A parody? Again, yes. But let's hope people still care when something like that happens, not just go, "eh, this again?"

Is there some kind of lost crewmember Bermuda triangle limbo spot where they all hang out while waiting to come back?

 

Eh, when flabbergasted I tend to speak less, not more.

 

Agreed. When Compton vanished, McCoy would think the guard had been beamed away by an alien transporter. And that would be an alarming report. but not mystifying.

But the script couldn't be written that way, because McCoy's initial mistake might confuse the audience later and make them think the show was messed up and self-contradictory.

 

With no accompanying sparkle effects?

 

I think the sparkle is added to our transporter experience for the benefit of onlookers, so they'll know what's happening during the process. It's like a progress bar on screen, or the blinking light on an external hard drive. It's just there for us, while the machine as such has no need of it.

As evidence, look at the very different visual effect on Klingon transporters (Day of the Dove). Their machine adds a different arbitrary visible signal, for people to know someone is beaming.

 

So when someone transports, they just vanish with no fanfare? What do transporter malfunctions a la TMP's look like in universe, then? Invisible except to the computer sensors?

 

Sol Kaplan, call your office!

The characters in universe see what we see. The machine is adding the visible effect for their benefit. Without it, transporter function and malfunctions would be invisible until it was done, and thus the whole situation would be more fraught with mystery, more jarring.