Wink of an Eye by: Arthur Heinemann from a story by: Lee Cronin and directed by: Jud Taylor

 

“Wink of an Eye” is written by: Arthur Heinemann, from a story by: Lee Cronin a pseudonym for Gene L. Coon, and is directed by: Jud Taylor.  It was filmed under production code 68, was the 11^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 66^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on November 29, 1968.

 

By this point in the third season of Star Trek both Gene L. Coon and D.C. Fontana had moved on, despite both having story ideas that would be put into production under the pen of other writers.  “Wink of an Eye” is the first of these scripts, originally pitched by Coon and the story idea is credited to Coon’s pseudonym Lee Cronin while Arthur Heinemann is responsible for actually writing the script, and as such much of Coon’s general punchy and fantastical style feels sucked right out of the episode.  The premise is a pretty great one: the Scalosians are a people on the brink of total extinction and have found existence in a state of hyperacceleration and they have decided Captain Kirk must become their king, dragging him into their world for the episode from which he must use his cunning to escape.  The clear ideas from Coon are ones of examining Kirk’s duty as captain of the Enterprise which is an undercurrent of the entire episode, however Arthur Heinemann who actually writes the episode leaves it as undercurrent in subtext.  “Wink of an Eye” is an episode that must be built around the performance of William Shatner as Captain Kirk.  The rest of the crew are reduced to minor roles and it is clear that Heinemann has little interest in writing them, only having Spock get a larger role later in the episode to save Kirk’s life and repair the Enterprise.  Shatner’s performance further sinks the episode, he seems bored with the material.  Kirk as a character has always been one romantic and Shatner attempting to be bored with the female Scalosian Deela, played by Kathie Browne, just doesn’t work.

 

The characterization of the Scalosians who are largely the other characters we spend time with is just not there.  The designs of the costumes are interesting enough to look at, partially inspired by the idea of being out of time with odd designs and these light, faded colors that while campy are effective.  The internal politics of the characters suffer largely from not being there, Heinemann as a writer doesn’t seem to have the chops to really make even the regular characters shine.  For instance the dialogue between Spock and McCoy is a sequence where they feel out of character, mainly because it’s functional dialogue and not really character dialogue.  What’s stopping “Wink of an Eye” from being a total loss, however, outside of the interesting ideas is actually Jud Taylor’s direction.  “Wink of an Eye” is an example of a bottle episode, there is only one set at the beginning that was constructed specifically for the episode and the action takes place on the Enterprise.  For bottle episodes to work the direction often has to be interesting, and Taylor decides to make use not only of Dutch angles to indicate scenes in hyper acceleration but also physically tilting the camera while shooting which adds to the surreal nature of the episode.  If this was a script that went down a fully surrealist route it would have been a much better episode.

 

Overall, “Wink of an Eye” is an episode of Star Trek with a lot of potential, something that seems to be a recurring issue for the third season.  It’s an episode whose quality hinges on the script and the performance of William Shatner and neither are up to snuff in terms of what the episode needs to be doing leaving just a bland experience.  4/10.