sophisticated enough to send astronauts on a crewed mission to make contact with the sky-ship. A capsule is launched and succeeds in docking with Voyager. Its two astronauts, a male and female, begin to explore the ship, which appears frozen in time, but fall unconscious from the stress of adjusting to the different space-time. The bodies are found on the bridge and are taken to sickbay. The female dies from the shock of adjustment but the male, Gotana-Retz, is successfully treated whilst Voyager is hit by a bombardment of antimatter artillery. Janeway urges Gotana-Retz to return to the planet and convince them to cease the attack. Gotana-Retz does so just after Voyager's shields collapse. Suddenly, two spaceships appear alongside Voyager and use tractor beams to tow the vessel out of the planet's field. A visibly older Gotana-Retz briefly transports to Voyager to explain what has happened and Janeway thanks him and his people. On the surface, an elderly Gotana-Retz, long returned from his experience in space, gazes wistfully into the sky as his people's sky-ship vanishes from the heavens. Production Producer Brannon Braga said it was a challenging episode to put together: "It was a very ambitious episode. We did our best to depict the evolution of a civilization over the course of thousands of years. I thought it was fun to go from seeing primitive people to seeing space travel. It had a very large cast and lots of sets, special effects, a very high-concept show." Gabrielle Beaumont was the first female director on Star Trek (for the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Face of the Enemy"), and this was the last episode of Star Trek she directed. This episode is noted for the performance of Daniel Dae Kim as Gotana-Retz, who was already known to sci-fi fans for Crusade. He would later appear in Star Trek: Enterprise and became widely known for his role in the hit 2000s TV show Lost and a starring role on the re-imagined Hawaii Five-0. Olaf Pooley, who played the Cleric, was married to director Gabrielle Beaumont. The title echoes the title of the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Wink of an Eye" where Enterprise crew members were also experiencing time displacement. Reception In 2016, Blink of an Eye was ranked 5th out of 15 of the top episodes of Voyager by The Hollywood Reporter. Den of Geek ranked "Blink of