"Wink of an Eye" is one of those Star Trek episodes that feels like a fever dream. Honestly, if you grew up watching the Original Series (TOS), you probably remember the high-pitched buzzing sound more than the plot itself. It’s the one where Kirk gets accelerated into a different time dimension by a group of hyper-fast aliens called Scalosians. Basically, they move so fast they're invisible to the naked eye. To everyone else, they’re just a blur or a sound. To Kirk, once he drinks their contaminated coffee, the rest of the crew looks like frozen statues.
It's weird. It's campy. It’s pure 1960s sci-fi.
But Star Trek in the wink of an eye isn't just a quirky monster-of-the-week story. It’s a fascinating look at how the show handled physics, sexuality, and the sheer terror of isolation long before they had the CGI budget to make it look "real." Most people get the premise wrong, thinking it's just a speedster story like The Flash. It isn't. It’s actually a tragic tale of a dying race so desperate for genetic survival that they resort to "abducting" men from passing ships to use as breeding stock.
Dark, right?
The Scalosian Problem: Why Speed is a Curse
We usually think of super speed as a superpower. Not here. For the Scalosians, led by the cold but alluring Deela (played by Kathie Browne), their hyper-acceleration is a biological dead end. Their planet’s water was contaminated by volcanic radiation, which sped up their molecular structure. The catch? Any slight physical trauma—a scratch, a bruise—causes them to "burn out" and die instantly because their metabolism is running at a million miles an hour.
Imagine living like that. You can't touch anything. You can't trip. If you skin your knee, you're dead.
🔗 Read more: How Old Is Paul Heyman? The Real Story of Wrestling’s Greatest Mind
The episode does a brilliant job of showing this disparity. When Kirk is accelerated, there’s a famous scene where he tries to touch Spock, but Spock is like a mannequin. A second for Spock is hours for Kirk. Writer Arthur Heinemann (who also wrote "The Savage Curtain") tapped into a very specific kind of existential dread here. You're in the same room as your best friends, but you're effectively in another universe.
What Most People Miss About the Production
If you look closely at the "Wink of an Eye" credits, you’ll see the name Lee Cronin. That’s actually a pseudonym for Gene L. Coon, the legendary producer who many credit with giving Star Trek its soul. Coon was responsible for the Klingons, the Prime Directive, and the United Federation of Planets. By the time this episode aired in Season 3, he had "officially" left the show, but he was still contributing scripts under a fake name to help out the struggling production.
The budget was tight. Really tight.
To save money, the "speed" effect was achieved through sound design and simple editing tricks. That buzzing sound? That’s just the Scalosians talking. When the Enterprise crew hears it, they think it’s a mechanical malfunction. They don’t realize they’re being invaded by people standing right in front of them. It’s a masterclass in "bottle episode" filmmaking—using one or two sets and clever audio to tell a massive story.
The Scandalous Subtext
Let's be real for a second: "Wink of an Eye" is incredibly horny for 1968 television.
💡 You might also like: Howie Mandel Cupcake Picture: What Really Happened With That Viral Post
There’s a scene where Kirk and Deela are in his quarters. Kirk has just been accelerated. He’s confused. Deela is... well, she’s very forward. The camera cuts away, and in the next shot, Kirk is sitting on the edge of the bed, putting his boots back on while Deela brushes her hair.
In the world of 60s network censors, that was the equivalent of a neon sign saying "THEY JUST SLEPT TOGETHER."
It adds a layer of complexity to the Scalosian threat. They aren't just "villains" in the traditional sense. They are kidnappers, sure, but they are driven by a biological biological imperative to prevent their own extinction. Deela isn't trying to conquer the galaxy; she’s trying to find a mate who won’t die immediately. It’s predatory, yes, but it’s rooted in a very human (or humanoid) fear of being the last of one's kind.
Why the Science (Sort of) Holds Up
Okay, the "contaminated water" thing is a bit of a stretch, but the concept of time dilation and varying perceptions of time is a staple of hard science fiction. If you were moving at the speeds the Scalosians were, the light hitting your eyes would actually shift its frequency. You’d see the world differently.
Star Trek didn't go full Einstein on us, but it did explore the psychological toll.
📖 Related: Austin & Ally Maddie Ziegler Episode: What Really Happened in Homework & Hidden Talents
Spock, being the genius he is, eventually figures out how to accelerate himself to help Kirk. This leads to a frantic race against time where Spock has to repair the ship while moving at hyper-speed. It’s one of the few times we see Spock genuinely hurried. Even his Vulcan logic has to compensate for the fact that every second he spends thinking is a day passing for the rest of the crew.
How to Watch "Wink of an Eye" Today
If you’re revisiting this episode on Paramount+ or Blu-ray, don’t just look at the dated costumes. Look at the framing. Look at how director Jud Taylor uses the "stillness" of the background actors to create tension. It’s a precursor to modern "time-stop" tropes we see in movies like X-Men: Days of Future Past (the Quicksilver kitchen scene) or Inception.
Here is how you get the most out of it:
- Focus on the Sound: Listen to how the buzzing changes pitch. It’s actually a sped-up recording of human speech. If you slow it down, you can almost hear the dialogue.
- Watch the Boots: That scene in the quarters? It’s a classic example of "Star Trek" pushing the envelope of what was allowed on TV.
- The Spock/Kirk Dynamic: Notice how Spock immediately trusts Kirk’s "ghost" messages. Their bond is the only thing that saves the ship.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Trek Fan
To truly appreciate the legacy of Star Trek in the wink of an eye, you should compare it to the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Blink of an Eye" (Season 6, Episode 12). While the names are almost identical, the Voyager episode flips the script: the ship is the fast-moving entity relative to a planet below.
Seeing the two episodes back-to-back shows how the franchise evolved from focusing on individual "monsters" to exploring the societal impact of time-differential physics.
If you want to dive deeper into the production history, look for the memoirs of Gene L. Coon or the various "Making of Star Trek" books by Stephen E. Whitfield. They reveal the chaos of Season 3 and how episodes like this were basically held together with duct tape and sheer willpower.
The Scalosians might be gone, but the questions they raised—about the ethics of survival and the fragility of our perception of time—still buzz in the ears of fans fifty years later.