Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Wink of an Eye

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Welcome to planet Scalos. Don't drink the water. "Scalosian Revenge" is hyperacceleration where you move so quickly you cannot be seen or heard.

These aliens live fast and die hard.

Polluted, irradiated, volcanic water killed all the Scalosian children, while most of the women and all the men were rendered sterile. One of the last surviving women, Deela, wants Kirk and a few others for breeders. For at least three generations, every Scalosian has been born of kidnapped spacemen accelerated by the water.

So... why doesn't the water also make the kidnapped new breeders sterile?

And, how did the Scalosians make a distress call that didn't sound like an insect buzz?

Similarly, how does Deela know what Kirk said about the sound of her speech? Has she been listening to Kirk's low-pitched droning for an hour per sentence?

Slight cell damage kills the recently hyperaccelerated. Why are they turning the Enterprise into a deep freeze? Freezing would cause massive cell damage, wouldn't it?

Deela apparently gets what she was after- Kirk's pulling on his boots in his bedroom while she brushes her hair. I suppose she could have been giving him a foot massage for hours and hours...

Spock drinks the water and accelerates to rescue Kirk. From more "massage".

They defeat the Scalosians and put them off the ship. Spock singlehandedly repairs all the Scalosian sabotage at high speed and returns to normal with McCoy's counteragent.

So was the high speed metabolism from the volcano water, or inherent? How long will these last handful of aliens live without new blood? Why don't the crew even offer to share McCoy's counteragent?

"Wink of an Eye" might be a three-star concept, and well-performed, but it seems to have more logic holes every time I see it. Still, that girl side-stepped a phaser beam! Sweet!

2 comments:

  1. So was Deela's "half a dress" a cost savings move for the costume department?

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    Replies
    1. Yes. Yes it was. Available From the 'Logan's Run' catalogue of tiny, tiny dresses.

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