Star Trek: Voyager may be one of the black sheep of the franchise, much like Deep Space Nine. However, some episodes prove why the series has a cult following. The season 6 episode ‘Blink of an Eye’ is the series’s highest-rated episode and explores the concept of time dilation in the context of an alien planet where time runs faster.
Time dilation as a concept has been explored many times since, but the most famous one seems to be in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. The sci-fi epic sees the Endurance crew visit Miller’s Planet, where an hour amounts to seven years in Earth time. While the ‘Mountains’ sequence is legendary, Voyager still did time dilation better.
Star Trek: Voyager’s highest-rated episode explored time dilation
The Star Trek franchise does best when it takes scientific concepts and explores a philosophical or human angle on them. In every series in the franchise, there is one episode that takes this aspect of the show to the next level. TNG’s Data and TOS’s Spock were two characters who would often question the basics of humanity from their scientific lens.
Star Trek: Voyager explored the nature of time, its fluidity, and the fast rate of decay in the season 6 episode ‘Blink of an Eye’. The episode saw Voyager being stuck near a planet with a tachyon field. The result is that the ship experiences time dilation, with a few minutes aboard the Voyager amounting to several years on the planet.
As the crew figures out how to escape the tachyon field, they witness the inhabitants of the planet evolve into higher beings and undergo several changes. The ship’s presence itself inspires the inhabitants to advance technologically and reach Voyager, which they consider to be a God-like presence.
While some see Voyager as an object of desire and curiosity, others see it as a threat, as the ship causes occasional earthquakes on the planet. The episode ends with the civilization being advanced enough to send a manned spacecraft to the ship and even attack them, until Voyager eventually escapes, in what amounts to years on the planet.
Star Trek: Voyager’s time dilation episode did it before and better than Interstellar
Time dilation is an interesting concept that has been explored by many sci-fi stories. Even Star Trek: The Original Series had an episode where an alien species experiences life faster, with the episode funnily titled ‘Wink of an eye’. A Rick and Morty episode shows the eponymous character use a faster world to age wine but causing irreparable damage to it.
The most popular depiction of time dilation is probably in Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic Interstellar. The film shows the Endurance crew, including Cooper and Dr. Brand, checking out Miller’s Planet, a water-rich planet where an hour amounts to seven Earth years. The sequence is incredible and vastly changes the plot’s course within a few minutes.
While details such as Nolan’s watch being used for the ticking noise score and Hans Zimmer implying each tick to be a year on Earth make the sequence all the more legendary, the concept itself was treated better in Star Trek: Voyager. The episode ‘Blink of an Eye’ is far more emotional and explores such complex emotions, taking time dilation as a plot device.
Humanity’s penchant for development and innovation, a curiosity about the unknown, God, religion, and more are explored in this legendary episode, which was rated 9/10 on IMDb, making it the highest-rated episode for Voyager. It does more with the concept than Nolan’s film, although the filmmaker did do justice to it in a grander sense.
Star Trek: Voyager is available to stream on Paramount+.
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