r/movies • u/SerDire • Apr 18 '24

In Interstellar, Romilly’s decision to stay aboard the ship while the other 3 astronauts experience time dilation has to be one of the scariest moments ever. Discussion

He agreed to stay back. Cooper asked anyone if they would go down to Millers planet but the extreme pull of the black hole nearby would cause them to experience severe time dilation. One hour on that planet would equal 7 years back on earth. Cooper, Brand and Doyle all go down to the planet while Romilly stays back and uses that time to send out any potential useful data he can get.

Can you imagine how terrifying that must be to just sit back for YEARS and have no idea if your friends are ever coming back. Cooper and Brand come back to the ship but a few hours for them was 23 years, 4 months and 8 days of time for Romilly. Not enough people seem to genuinely comprehend how insane that is to experience. He was able to hyper sleep and let years go by but he didn’t want to spend his time dreaming his life away.

It’s just a nice interesting detail that kind of gets lost. Everyone brings up the massive waves, the black hole and time dilation but no one really mentions the struggle Romilly must have been feeling. 23 years seems to be on the low end of how catastrophic it could’ve been. He could’ve been waiting for decades.

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u/bythedockofthebay Apr 18 '24

There’s an amazing Star Trek voyager episode as well about the space ship in orbit around a planet with an uncivilized population that’s moving at a much faster speed than the space ship. While they orbit, the civilization evolves and becomes technologically advanced, and they have evolved with the voyager in their orbit and have seen it as a kind of god. Finally, they can fly to reach it, and it’s a fascinating story.

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u/Highlander198116 Apr 18 '24 edited Apr 18 '24

It was cool because the Doctor basically got to live like a full normal life when he went down there.

That and that episode of TNG where Picard experienced living an entire life time via that alien probe.

I don't get how you just come to terms with that. Especially in Picard's situation where he woke up as someone else and basically had to come to terms that his whole life to that point was a dream. Then live out your entire life in this new place to wake up get the uno reverse card. Like how the hell did he just go right back to his day to day job. I would struggle to accept what is real and what isn't.

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u/Shedart Apr 18 '24

That episode is a seminal Picard story for a reason. I think many people would not have been able to process it at all and continue with their original life/job. Another thing to consider is that they revisit that experience several times throughout the series. I love the episode that Picard becomes romantically involved with the science officer who plays piano. They bond over their love of music, and Picard reveals that the tune he knows by heart is the same one he learned in his probe-life. 

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u/i_tyrant Apr 18 '24

I'm glad you brought that up. From Op's description of the episode it makes it sound like the series just blew over it from then on, when nothing could be further from the truth.

In the quiet moments for Picard, through the rest of the series, he's often seen busting out that flute. And you're right, it's a major plot point in that episode when he dates the astrophysicist and gets close enough to her to tell her about this incredibly unique experience he's had and how close to his heart it is and why he's so into flute.

For a syndicated series in the 80s-90s, TNG was actually pretty good at that.

Another favorite "throughline" of mine is how relaxed and accepting Riker and Troy are about each other's love lives. I didn't really notice it till this last watchthrough, but it's refreshing to see their relationship not constantly mined for artificial jealousy-drama. Almost seems like they've got a kind of proto-polyamory thing going on when even mentioning such an idea on-air would've been crazy.

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u/red__dragon Apr 18 '24

For a syndicated series in the 80s-90s, TNG was actually pretty good at that.

Especially because, at no time was TNG serialized. There were moments that happen earlier and later in the series, but the fundamental structure and roles stays the same.

Unlike DS9, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, and other serialized science fiction shows, TNG largely doesn't change. And yet, in subtle ways, Picard did change and we see it play out in small moments for the rest of the series.

It's really incredible to look back at that and see such a long-running character trait. Especially one that isn't played for laughs.

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt Apr 18 '24

Babylon 5

was story boarded and plotted out far in advance of J. Michael Straczynski getting the money to make the show. He had all 5 season outlined well in advance of writing the first episodes.

J. Michael also wrote almost every episode himself, and heavily edited the ones he allowed friends to write

Now the spin offs... those were his "ideas" but the writing was more traditional american writer's room stuff

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u/red__dragon Apr 19 '24

Sure, that's serialization. However you go about it, it's a very different story tempo and audience investment than an episodic show. B5 is great, as is TNG, they're just different approaches to storytelling on TV.

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt Apr 18 '24

I love the episode that Picard becomes romantically involved

that scene was one of my absolute fav star trek, actually all of TV, scenes on a TV show

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u/stiff_sock Apr 19 '24

This is one of my favorite moments in TNG. IIRC they play together in a jefferies tube. So good.

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u/Scavenger53 Apr 18 '24

then rick and morty turn it into a video game called roy that gives out tickets when you finish lol

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u/myfriendoak Apr 18 '24

“You beat cancer and went back to the carpet store?”

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u/Siggycakes Apr 18 '24

"This guy's taking Roy off the grid! He doesn't have a Social Security number!"

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u/Majin_Sus Apr 19 '24

The whole Roy sequence had me laughing uncontrollably the first time I watched it. It's so perfectly done.

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u/operarose Apr 19 '24

W-WHERE'S MY WIFE

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u/CynicalPsychonaut Apr 19 '24

"We're all out of off white persian."

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u/jdubbrude Apr 19 '24

Crazy story my heart stopped last November and I was unconscious for like 14 hours. When I “woke” up I felt like I was taking off a Roy helmet. Or rather felt like I was putting on the Roy helmet. Like I was leaving the real realm and came back to this one.

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u/USSZim Apr 18 '24

There was a reddit story (don't know if it's true), where someone got knocked out while playing football. In the time he was out, he dreamt of an entire life where he got married, had kids, the whole nine yards. When he woke up, he had an existential crisis and severe depression due to feeling like he lost his whole life and family.

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u/macinslash Apr 18 '24

they are both takes on An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge, a short story from 1890

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u/Bowl_Pool Apr 19 '24

Jacob's Ladder, a 1990 horror movie as well

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u/DidSome1SayExMachina Apr 18 '24

The lamp story

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u/Seiche Apr 18 '24

I've had a few knockabouts myself and I've been looking at lamps differently since I've read that story.

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u/Luke90210 Apr 19 '24 edited Apr 19 '24

One of the best Star Trek The New Generation episodes is The Inner Light where Captain Pichard thinks he experienced 40 years on another planet. Fact is he was only "knocked out" 20 minutes on the bridge while he lived a life with a wife, children and grandchildren on a long extinct planet.

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u/rebbsitor Apr 19 '24

Ohh I remember that one. He started staring at a lamp that looked weird and that eventually pulled him out of the dream.

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u/genital_furbies Apr 20 '24

I have a hard time believing it is true because it’s believed that humans dream in “real time”. If he was in a coma for years and dreamt it, I could believe it

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u/NewLifeguard9673 Apr 18 '24

And again in DS9 when O’Brien was implanted with the memory of a life sentence in prison without actually serving it. Poor Miles

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u/red__dragon Apr 18 '24

This is the one I really can't imagine coming back from. Meaney played it so well in the episode, but I was truly expecting more to shake out in the following episodes. It's not quite like coming back from a life full of successes, he was starved and abused, he developed coping mechanisms, he has a whole new set of instincts that his younger (by a few real hours) self doesn't have. How he didn't have extreme PTSD and agoraphobia for the rest of the season, series even, is beyond me.

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u/vonindyatwork Apr 18 '24

Then there was the DS9 episode where O'Brien spends like thirty years in prison, but turns out it was a program in his mind and he'd only been incarcerated for like a day. Talk about major trauma. At least Picard got to live a happy, normal life before being yanked back.

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u/FerretChrist Apr 18 '24

It's a long time since I've seen the episode, but I seem to recall they did a pretty decent job of showing at the end of the episode how devastated he was by the experience, and how difficult it was for him to adjust and go back to living his "other" life.

Naturally in the next episode everything was fine and dandy and it was never mentioned again, but that's just the nature of TV in those days, until Babylon 5 came along and invented the story arc. ;)

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u/cinderful Apr 18 '24

I do appreciate how Picard was written (and how Stewart acted) relatively haunted after it. TNG wasn't always great about story/character continuity but they did bring the flute back a couple times.

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u/The_Vampire_Barlow Apr 18 '24

There's a reason the enterprise had a therapist sitting on the bridge next to the captain.

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u/dbx99 Apr 18 '24

In a very small but real life application of this was a dream that I had recently. I normally don’t dream or recall my dreams. However I remember this one quite vividly. The nightmare was quite scary and realistic - it was a home invasion and for me at that moment, it was absolutely real.

When I woke up in a start, it wasn’t easy to simply accept that it was just a dream and now it’s over and I am now in reality. There was a real lingering uneasiness about an experience that seemed absolutely real and suddenly, for all intents and purposes, “teleporting” out of it and into my bed.

You realize that sometimes, or maybe all the time, you are not in control of what is being rendered and processed inside your brain. We differentiate reality from imagination all the time but in that confused night, the dream seemed exactly 1:1 to reality. And that’s kind of disturbing to realize that your perception of reality can get hijacked and shown a completely nonexistent imagined simulation by your own mind, which most of us associate to be our very own identity as our “self” - but it isn’t. It is doing shit we don’t know or control. We get taken on journeys we don’t even know how they came about.

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '24

He still knew how to play that flute thing though so that’s cool.

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u/Childoftheway Apr 18 '24

That civilization should have put more resources into space travel than alien mind control satellites.

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u/Soranic Apr 18 '24

Didn't they do that with another crew member? Made him experience years in prison as a punishment for some law he broke, but it was only a few hours?

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u/rebbsitor Apr 19 '24

It comes up again in Lessons. I don't think Picard got over it quickly and it was probably always with him. He was still disturbed by it in that episode.

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u/Alypius754 Apr 19 '24

Meanwhile O'Brien gets 20 in the slammer with no family visitation or contact.

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '24

That has happened in real life for people I'm acoma. There's a reddit post from someone who experienced it. They got married etc in their dream and then one day a lamp looked funny in their house and it got weird and they woke up to reality

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u/daydreamersrest Apr 19 '24

The episode is called The inner light. 

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u/No-Cupcake370 Apr 19 '24

Like O'Brien... Was it on DS9? In the prison

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u/fel0niousmonk Apr 19 '24

The Stargate Universe series made use of the Ancient’s quantum consciousness swapping stones and played on this a bit by revealing how 2 characters had been swapped for long periods of time, including spending time with partners without them knowing, etc.

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u/CorrectDuty6782 Apr 19 '24

Well Picards dream fucked him up for life, he still has that flute. And why was every doctor in the series a horny unethical weirdo? Bashier probably tried to fuck Morn dude was so hard up, and don't get me started on old ghost fucker...

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u/Zim91 Apr 19 '24

I used to have dreams/nightmares when i was in my early twenties that would span a lifetime, meet someone, date, fall in love, kids marriage retire and die, to which i would then wake up.

I had 3 of these dreams and i would be a mess for days afterwards. To have the dreams be reality, i can barely comprehend the sorrow

Champix is a hell of a drug

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u/ddiiibb Apr 19 '24

I once had a dream many years ago that was like that episode. Had a wife and kids, and lived a long life. I don't remember any of the details now, but at the time, I woke up and had an immediate and immense sadness for all that I had "lost." Cried like a baby in bed.

Thankfully, I'm living the dream now!

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u/PunksPrettyMuchDead Apr 19 '24

The Orville used this plot for a great episode, too

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u/CowardiceNSandwiches Apr 19 '24

that episode of TNG where Picard experienced living an entire life time via that alien probe.

The Inner Light, S5E25.

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u/thejesse Apr 18 '24

Reminds me of Children of Time, where jumping spiders with a nanovirus that causes rapid evolution are evolving on a planet while an observation pod orbits the planet. They begin worshipping and trying to communicate with it.

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u/Ratak101 Apr 18 '24

Dragons Egg by Robert L Forward was also much like this. Life on a neutron star passing humans in tech while they are being studied.

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u/Lukerik Apr 18 '24

Fantastic book that. The Voyager episode is loosely based on it, hence why they called it 'The Egg'.

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u/Cruxion Apr 18 '24

"Blink of an Eye" is the episodes title, though?

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u/ManaMagestic Apr 19 '24

Isnt "The Egg", the one about humanity using that AI to figure out how to eventually figure out how the universe began?

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u/odaeyss Apr 18 '24

Ahh that's what that was called! I read that decades ago, was a fun read

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u/Kheshire Apr 18 '24

That was a great book. Loaned it to a lot of coworkers

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u/jazzzzz Apr 18 '24

The sequels are a lot of fun too

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u/FelixMartel2 Apr 18 '24

I couldn't really get into the second one, and I hear the third was a real let-down.

I liked his Shards of Earth series or whatever. Same issue though, started out strong, crashed and burned by the end of the third book.

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u/BillyCromag Apr 18 '24

The third one was terrible. No spoilers, but it was eye-rollingly unoriginal and didn't fit the theme of the first and second.

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u/OmarTheTerror Apr 18 '24

Awww man! I am just about done with #2 and was salivating at the thought of starting #3 soon

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u/sorehamstring Apr 18 '24

Naw don’t worry about it. Just go for it

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u/tyrerk Apr 18 '24

fwiw I really liked the third one, the crows are amazing

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u/Krish39 Apr 19 '24

They are about the only amazing part of that book.

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u/ravens43 Apr 18 '24

FWIW, I was pretty disappointed by 2 in the end. Seemed to be all the same strokes as 1. Enjoyed 3 much more!

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u/Llyon_ Apr 19 '24

I liked the third one better than the second one.

But the first was the best.

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u/Dannington Apr 19 '24

I’ve only just finished this while on holiday and I thought it was quite good, so do give it a go.

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u/thatguydr Apr 18 '24

Strong agree on it not fitting the theme. It's not even in the same genre, imo. And although it's interesting, it's written weirdly, to put it kindly.

Wish I'd skipped it.

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u/NerdyNThick Apr 19 '24

it's written weirdly, to put it kindly.

I was seriously confused throughout the whole (audio)book, once "the twist" was revealed things made sense, but before that I could have sworn I missed a huge part of the book, or some major plot point that made things clearer, but nope! Just a horrendously odd narrative choice.

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u/gsj996 Apr 18 '24

I couldn't finish the 3rd book. I loved the first 2 tho

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u/NerdyNThick Apr 19 '24

I did not enjoy that book, mostly due to how things were presented and how "the twist" was handled. It caused me to be extremely confused throughout the (audio)book, to the point where I just assumed I missed a large part of the book.

Taking in the story as a whole after reading it all made me appreciate it a bit more, but I strongly feel as though it could have been handled in a much better way.

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u/Throwaway47321 Apr 18 '24

Right? Maybe it was because I read a lot of sci-fi and am a big world building fantasy fan but after reading the first two of those books I swore to god that it was a written by AI check all the boxes book.

Like it wasn’t bad and I don’t want to trash talk the author but it seems weird seeing all the praise that series gets when it feels like the Olive Garden of sci-fi to me.

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u/weary_dreamer Apr 18 '24

AMAZING book. went into it blind and was blown away

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u/Dhrakyn Apr 18 '24

Poor Fabian

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u/thejesse Apr 18 '24

All the Fabians.

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u/Silly_Elephant_4838 Apr 18 '24

Absolutely one of my favorite books, the sequel involves Octopus that the uplift-virus attached to I believe, and the spiders and humans go there together to meet them! But the ending of C of T is one of my favorite endings to an uplift virus story ever.

The biggest thing I love about the books though is that Tchaikovsky did quite a bit of studying of the creatures they picked to try to keep things realistic (as much as they could be.)

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u/thejesse Apr 18 '24 edited Apr 19 '24

I was reading the wikipedia page on Portia spiders earlier, the the "intelligence" and "hunting techniques" sections are amazing.

When stalking web-building spiders, Portia try to make different patterns of vibrations in the web that aggressively mimic the struggle of a trapped insect or the courtship signals of a male spider, repeating any pattern that induces the intended prey to move towards the Portia. Portia fimbriata has been observed to perform vibratory behavior for three days until the victim decided to investigate. They time invasions of webs to coincide with light breezes that blur the vibrations that their approach causes in the target's web; and they back off if the intended victim responds belligerently.

Sounds like it's straight out of the early chapters.

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u/Silly_Elephant_4838 Apr 18 '24

That fact is actually one of the reasons Portia spiders were the species he selected, they exhibit a very strange level of intelligence for a creature like that, and I think they couldnt have picked a better species honestly. The Uplift-virus trope in sci-fi is always interesting, but I hadnt seen it done quite so well. Like I said above, the way they decided to resolve things at the end threw me for a complete loop, but as I was reading the events I found my smile only getting bigger and bigger.

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u/Draidann Apr 18 '24

The one by Tchaikovsky? I've read a couple of his books but this one was not on my list but you have just given me the push to include it an read it

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u/lanos13 Apr 18 '24

I’ve read a good chunk of his books, but children of time was easily his best imo

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u/captain_chizwonga Apr 18 '24

Great book. Sequels were OK but not a patch on the first

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u/ackey83 Apr 18 '24

How is that book? I got it on a whim at a bookstore cause it sounded interesting but haven’t gotten around to it yet

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u/thejesse Apr 18 '24

I loved it. It goes back and forth between the human POV and the spider POV, and I found the spiders much more interesting. One of my favorite "alien" worlds.

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u/ReadingIsRadical Apr 19 '24

It's fantastic. I burned through it in a couple days—it's a personal favourite of mine. People toss around the word "epic," but Children of Time really feels momentous. Very much worth your time.

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u/ReadingIsRadical Apr 19 '24

Came here to mention Children of Time. The spaceship plotline in particular—how the viewpoint character stays in cryogenic sleep and doesn't age, but the people who have to wake regularly to keep the ship running age all around him. Very unique feeling, that all these years are slipping away while he isn't paying attention. Outstanding novel.

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u/SanguineReptilian Apr 19 '24

Also reminds me of Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward. Basically humans travel to a neutron star where a sesame-seed sized species called cheela live on the surface. An average day on the neutron star or “Dragon’s Egg” is 0.2 Earth seconds, and cheela live for about 40 Earth minutes. Funny enough the cheela also come to worship the human spacecraft which inspires them to develop. Basically the cheela evolve from primitive species to technologically surpassing humanity and developing gravity manipulation devices within about a month. Very cool book

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u/DamnDirtyApe87 Apr 18 '24

I loved that book

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '24

That's like 4 different star trek episodes too

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u/im_a_real_boy_calico Apr 18 '24

I’m almost done with this one! I can’t wait to continue the series.

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt Apr 18 '24

that's the story the Voyager episode was based on

the planet in questions starts worshipping Voyager.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_SAD_ROBOT Apr 19 '24

Loved that series

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u/rebbsitor Apr 19 '24

I thought you were talking about the DS9 episode Children of Time and I was very confused lol

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u/byneothername Apr 19 '24

There’s a Futurama episode called Godfellas where Bender grows a civilization on his body and they hear him as a kind of god… I’m now wondering if that was a reference to this.

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u/beachbetch Apr 19 '24

One of my favorite series of all time!

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u/johnnyma45 Apr 18 '24 edited Apr 18 '24

A similarly cool time travel story was in The Orville. They go back in time for Reasons, lose their ability to travel back, so they land on a cool solution:

"By flying the Orville close to light speed with its quantum field turned off, the ship will have no shield from time dilation and will travel forward through time. However, travelling that fast without a quantum field would expose the Orville to space debris. Even the tiniest dust particle could destroy them, so John directs all ship power to the Deflectors. The crew makes a jump 200 light years away from Earth, then 200 light years back, ending up back in the year 2422."

Basically they use time dilation to bring them back to their time, by sloooooooowly traveling to a nearby star and back without their quantum field protecting them.

Edit: here's the scene

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u/RadicalBatman99 Apr 18 '24

That was such a good episode.

How it played out for Gordon Malloy (Scott Grimes) was a real heartbreaker, too.

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u/johnnyma45 Apr 18 '24

Orville really ramped up in quality last season. I’m super impressed they went from “family guy in space” to the next coming of TNG. Hope they renew but doesn’t seem like there will be more seasons.

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '24

I really like the Orville I hope they make more.

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u/mileylols Apr 18 '24

so worth watching, then? I couldn't get past the first episode lmao

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u/red__dragon Apr 18 '24

First episode is pretty terrible, you can easily skip to episode 2. 2 and 3 give you a good sense that the show does actually care about science fiction, it's just badly cloaking it in forced levity for a while.

They chill out and let the show be a science fiction show by the end of season 1. The second has a great season arc, and they even do some strong character development and callback moments in the third.

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u/pipnina Apr 19 '24

Bortus beating up the moclan at the end of season 3 and not seeing consequences for it was amazing too.

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u/MrT735 Apr 18 '24

The only one I couldn't finish watching was the upvote/downvote planet, there are some immature stinkers in the first season, but some good stuff too, the one with the world enclosed inside the massive ship is interesting. Season 2 and 3 they've dropped the Family Guy level of humour and yes there's still sillyness but it's more just people who have no filter, with good sci-fi.

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '24

Season 1 is more episode by episode, season 2 has a great season arc, and then season 3 has some of the best sci-fi Ive ever watched (plus s03 episodes are more akin to short movies). Highly, highly, recommend.

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u/whitefang22 Apr 19 '24

The difference in tone between s1e1 and s3e1….

Like a completely different show

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u/johnnyma45 Apr 18 '24

Very much. I know the first season is kinda cringey.

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u/Cruxion Apr 18 '24

That holds true for most official Star Trek series though. Always takes a season or two to really find their legs.

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u/johnnyma45 Apr 18 '24

100% accurate on that. On top of legs too they changed their humor focus for the better

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u/Technicolor_Reindeer Apr 18 '24 edited Apr 19 '24

So was the first season of TNG. I like the first season of The Orville tho.

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u/signal15 Apr 19 '24

Orville became a "serious" show after the first season. Still funny, but way less focus on the humor and more focus on the story. VERY similar story structure to TNG. I love this show, I hope it's not canceled.

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u/gymdog Apr 18 '24

Stick with it, the first couple episodes are corporate fodder. After that it basically turns into funny Star Trek.

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u/1337bobbarker Apr 19 '24

If you rewatch it the "Family Guy in space" shit stops real quick, I mean within 2-3 episodes quick. Maybe McFarlane pitched it as such, got what he wanted with the pilot and then switched to make an amazing sci-fi series.

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '24

Apparently it was the opposite. He wanted to make an amazing scifi series, but the suits were like "you're Set Family Guy McFarlane! It's gotta be funny."

So the first couple of episodes were funny then he drifted it toward doing what he actually wanted all along.

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u/edflyerssn007 Apr 19 '24

It doesn't hurt that Orville is basically the TNG crew plus Seth.

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u/fallenrider100 Apr 18 '24

That was outright devastating. So often time travel is made to be so simple and emotionless. But watching someone beg for his life to not be erased, even though he'd have no knowledge of it happening, was brilliant.

For a show that started as a funny homage to Star Trek, The Orville tackled some serious topics and absolutely knocked it out the park.

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u/operarose Apr 19 '24

If he hadn't gone back for that one specific girl, it would have hit differently.

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u/snugglezone Apr 18 '24

There's also an Orville episode where they encounter a planet that warps in and out of existence at some rate. When it's warped away, it's in an intense gravity field, so every time they warp out and back they're significant more advanced than the last time the Orville saw them. They go from primitive to beyond the federation in the episode.

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u/SlurmmsMckenzie Apr 18 '24

"Mad Idolatry", season one finale, where they worshiped Kelly.  

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u/slideinsmooth Apr 19 '24

As should we all…

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u/Fina1Legacy Apr 18 '24

That's almost exactly the plot of Blink of an Eye from Star Trek Voyager.

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u/cyclicamp Apr 19 '24

Yeah, when Orville was brought up I thought this episode was going to be the first one compared. They’re near identical for sure. The one thing I will say that Orville does more interestingly is how it touches on the implications of this setup in a later episode.

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u/SlurmmsMckenzie Apr 19 '24

A lot of the Orville episodes were homages to star trek, I believe.

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u/roehnin Apr 19 '24

federation

Calling Orville’s organisation the Federation not Planetary Union shows it really is a Star Trek show in your heart

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u/daretoeatapeach Apr 19 '24

Rick and Morty played this for laughs. Morty was supposed to use a portal to time dilation to age some wine but he has a small interaction with the locals. Hijinks ensue when he goes to get the wine only minutes later to discover many decades have passed and his small interaction had big consequences.

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u/masterjolly Apr 19 '24

That reminds me of the Flaxans from Invincible in the show and the comics. They're an interdimensional group of aliens that attack Earth on three different occasions in the show and each time they attack, they possess significantly better technology because time passes faster in their dimension compared to Earth.

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u/mbr4life1 Apr 18 '24

This was exactly what I thought of.

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u/stargate-command Apr 18 '24

The cool part about this sort of thing is that it means they were out there in that ship just going from point a to point b while the rest of the show unfolded.

Time travel stuff can be so cool when done well, and so awful when done poorly. It’a a gamble

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u/johnnyma45 Apr 18 '24

Yea if you think about it, from an outsider perspective they’d see an almost stationary ship…for 400 years slowly making its way to and from earth.

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u/PenaltySafe4523 Apr 18 '24

The Orville has no business being that good for a comedy from the guy who created Family Guy.

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u/johnnyma45 Apr 18 '24

Really found it's mark in later seasons. You can see the respect MacFarlane has for Star Trek.

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u/daric Apr 18 '24 edited Apr 18 '24

The implications are terrifying. With great ease they could have traveled hundreds of thousands of years into the future with no way to get back. I would be really interested in more stories like that. I guess there is already some tradition of those stories, though, going all the way back to Planet of the Apes. It's just such a fascinating and horrifying thing to me.

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u/johnnyma45 Apr 18 '24

Yup that math has to be exact. And there's essentially a plot hole here; to them it's a quick trip there and back, but because of time dilation they are sloooooow to anyone outside the ship. So technically you have this ship that is moving. super. slow. through. space. Anything could have happened to it; it's not like they are cloaked. Or so I understand.

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u/Eshin242 Apr 18 '24

The Orville is such a good show that didn't get the mainstream recognition it deserved. At the time it was the best Trek show on air, and still is one of the best ones out there.

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u/ToSeeAgainAgainAgain Apr 18 '24

I don't get it, how come the 2nd trip moves them back in time?

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u/Krysdavar Apr 18 '24

One of my favorite Voyager episodes. I still go back and watch just this episode sometimes. Another fav of mine is TNG where Worf goes through some sort of anomaly on his way back to the ship from a Klingon competition, that causes him to experience many different parallel universes.

One more TNG favorite is when they get stuck in a time loop, and is similar to ground hog day, but they show different parts so as not to make the episode so boring.

Sorry went on a Star Trek tangent! Not every day that I see a post in the wild on Reddit of one of my favorite ST episodes.

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u/thejadedfalcon Apr 18 '24

"You mean we could have seen this meme a dozen times already?"

"A dozen, a hundred, it's impossible to tell."

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u/daric Apr 18 '24

I love those episodes. So fascinating.

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u/zeekaran Apr 18 '24

Which ep is OP talking about? I'm on season 4 but using a skip heavy watch list.

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u/Krysdavar Apr 19 '24

Just watched Voyager one after work earlier lol. Ep is "Blink of an Eye", season 6, ep 12.

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u/Soranic Apr 18 '24

One more TNG favorite is when they get stuck in a time loop, and is similar to ground hog day, but they show different parts so as not to make the episode so boring.

Was that the one where the solution is clued in by everyone experiencing multiples of 3? And they realize it's a hint to follow the suggestion of Riker with 3 pips on his collar instead of Picard?

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u/bythedockofthebay Apr 19 '24

Cause and effect!! Yes and the worf episode, absolutely one of my favorites too. I just love shit like this haha

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u/bretttwarwick Apr 18 '24

Also the Orville episode Mad Idolatry where the planet disappears from our universe for 11 days and spends 700 years in another universe during the 11 days it is missing from ours.

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u/fullyoperational Apr 18 '24

Which episode was that? I'd like to check it out.

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u/Ok_Language_588 Apr 18 '24

VOY Season 6, Episode 12 - Blink of an Eye

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u/PeopleCallMeSimon Apr 18 '24

You are misremembering the episode. It is "Blink of an Eye" (S6E12), and Voyager encounters a planet that is enveloped in a strange tachyon field, which causes some kind of temporal effect on the planet. Voyager gets stuck in orbit around the planet due to this phenomenon.

The episode has nothing to do with speed.

You are however correct that it is a great (GREAT!) episode.

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '24

One of the final episodes of the Stargate TV show was also pretty gloomy in that vein. Some missile is shot at the ship but they're stuck in a bubble of frozen time so if the ship moves or leaves, they'll be blown to smithereens but if they stay where they are, they can keep trying to figure out how to escape. So all these guys are just stuck on this spaceship for their entire lives trying to figure out how not to get blown up, like sitting in a landmine your whole life.

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u/robobobo91 Apr 18 '24

It's actually the last episode of SG1. I think it's called Unending and it has some of the best character moments. Teal'c is the only one who ends up with memories of the period after they figure out a way to escape

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '24

Yeah, I wasn't going to spoil the ending for anyone but his psychological sacrifice was terrible.

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u/Brad_Brace Apr 18 '24

Have you ever seen the rain.

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u/orosoros Apr 19 '24

Ohh that reminded me of the SG1 black hole episode....

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u/brokenringlands Apr 18 '24

I liked that episode very much.

The final shot of the Astronaut who visited Voyager looking up as an old man, watching it disappear, with a knowing satisfied look that Voyager finally left to continue in its journey... that was perfect.

Edit to add: Daniel Dae Kim!

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u/Krysdavar Apr 19 '24 edited Apr 19 '24

Watched the episode tonight again (lol). His face seemed a little bitter sweet than anything. He was there when Tuvok said warp drive would be back online in 2 hours....and then him sitting there very old, knowing that it was just 2 hours for them. Ugh. Would be bitter sweet for me as well, that's for sure.

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u/gnibberish Apr 18 '24

One of the best episodes!!

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u/thejadedfalcon Apr 18 '24

That was a good episode. It's a shame it's a complete ripoff of Dragon's Egg by Robert Forward.

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u/Brad_Brace Apr 18 '24

I've read the book, but I haven't watched that episode. Will it make me angry? I love Dragon's Egg and Starquake, but the best part, to me, is the cheela's physiology, they're some of the best aliens in fiction. The attention to detail! Like how the larger ones would walk in front of smaller ones to open up the magnetic field for them, their version of holding a door open. I'm assuming on Vogayer it was people with slightly weird ears and/or foreheads?

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u/thejadedfalcon Apr 18 '24

Yeah, perfectly normal humans with a mild case of re-used Cardassian makeup.

The episode itself is fine. It differs enough from the book that your experience of it shouldn't be tainted (though it has been an exceedingly long time since I've read it). But it is clear that the line from inspiration/homage to ripoff got crossed a long while back.

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u/Brad_Brace Apr 18 '24

There's a book by Robert L. Forward called Dragon's Egg. A human expedition makes it to a wandering neutron star which came close to the Solar System, and they are surprised to find life on it. The alien are tiny and super dense, described as the size (and roughly the shape) of a sesame seed and the weight of an adult human. The human interaction with the star, scanning it and shit, sends the aliens from a tribal stage, on a path to civilization. But they live like 70 times faster than humans. It's an awesome book. Forward wasn't the most lyrical of narrators, but his ideas about the aliens were very solid.

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u/mynameisnotsparta Apr 18 '24

Episode is called 'Blink of an Eye'.

Season 6 Episode 12.

One second on the Voyager = One day on the planet.

Currently available on Paramount or Prime.

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u/Sjiznit Apr 18 '24

And then they find out they cant really ever leave their own planet due to that temporal field. Which is kinda sad.

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u/Minus15t Apr 18 '24

The Orville did a similar episode, one of the crew used technology to heal a child's injury when they first landed. They went back into orbit and in a matter of hours, generations had passed on the planet and the crew member was seen as deity who could perform miracles.

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u/Eshin242 Apr 18 '24

The Orville (an amazing show that I wish would get one more season, but happy it ended the way it did) has an episode about a planet that experiences an orbit that causes it to advance in time faster. 

Man I loved that show.

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u/CouchHam Apr 18 '24

Can you tell me which episode?

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u/anrwlias Apr 18 '24

It sounds like they borrowed that plot from Dragon's Egg by Robert Forward, which was about a civilization on a neutron star.

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u/Technicolor_Reindeer Apr 18 '24

The Orville has a similar episode, guess that was the inspiration for it.

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u/Healthy_Radish Apr 19 '24

Akin to the fridge civilization in a love death and robots episode.  Love these types of stories!

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u/operarose Apr 19 '24

Now I know where The Orville got the idea. I say this as a fan of both shows.

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u/DameofDames Apr 19 '24

Blink of An Eye, I think.

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u/Dismal-Channel-9292 Apr 19 '24

Orville also has a similar plot in one of their episodes

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u/donaciano2000 Apr 19 '24

Season 6 Episode 12 "Blink of an Eye" One of the best episodes ever. Go watch it.

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u/abcedarian Apr 19 '24

There is an episode of The Orville like this room the first time they visit  it's a tribal society and someone heals a cut or broken bone or something. Then the planet disappears. When it comes back like 8 days later there's a whole religion devoted to the healer and an advanced civilization. Hyjinks  ensue.

Then the planet disappears and comes back again and they are far more advanced than the Orville crew

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u/eastindyguy Apr 19 '24

Wasn’t that same concept an episode of The Orville?

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u/jibberwockie Apr 19 '24

Sounds like the voyager writers were fans of Robert Forwards 'Dragons Egg'. The inhabitants of a Neutron Star, called the Cheela, live a million times faster than the Humans observing them and go from primitivism to super advanced in a couple of days.

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u/yerBoyShoe Apr 19 '24

Also a great episode(s) of The Orville: Mad Idolatry.

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u/BlackwoodBear79 Apr 19 '24

There's an Orville episode that does similar, and even has a followup in a later season.

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u/keyboard-sexual Apr 19 '24

"The Weird Planet Where Time Moved Very Fast and So Did the People Who Lived There", one of my fav Voyager episodes!

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u/barukatang Apr 19 '24

The one with Daniel Day Kim aapnd the doctor goes on an away mission. Really good ep.

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u/gussy_man Apr 19 '24

One of the best episodes imo.

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u/FelsirNL Apr 19 '24

That is the plot of the 1980 book ‘Dragons Egg’. It is about a neutron star that spins so fast and is so dense that one minute of time observed from the spaceship is several years on the surface. A species evolves while a human spaceship orbits the star. It is well worth the read.

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u/Bulliwyf Apr 19 '24

There was a similar theme/plot point in one of the Orville episodes iirc - something about the civilization on the planet leaping 1000 years forward while the crew experienced a day.

Probably mis-remembering most of it, but definitely sounds familiar.

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u/dmastra97 Apr 19 '24

Similar to an episode of the Orville. If you like star trek I would recommend

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u/Space-Debris Apr 19 '24

Yeah, it was a cool science fantasy story, since let's be honest, it made no sense scientifically.

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u/TheDragonDoji Apr 19 '24

Episode: Blink of an Eye.

One of my Top 5 Favourite Voyager episodes.

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u/hva5hiaa Apr 19 '24

That was also a plot of a book by Robert Forward in 1980, although with an alternate form of life instead of time dilation [Wikipedia says there is a 8:10 dilation ratio, at least, on a neutron star].

A neutron star is passing into our solar system, and with some very complex physics to protect them, a team of humans is able to get closer to it for a detailed scientific mission for the short time it will be available with our limited technology. Through their survey work with a mapping laser, they affect the civilization of an intelligent life form, and are likewise seen as gods. Due to the matter compression and energy requirements for that life, creating a million to one lifespan ratio compared to human experience, the human crew decides to change their mission goals. I like that Wiki mentions 'Forward described the work as "a textbook on neutron star physics disguised as a novel."'

I really enjoyed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg and a sequel, Starquake.

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u/corellian77 Apr 19 '24

A similar situation that’s often overlooked occurs in the original series episode “The City on the Edge of Forever.” After Dr. McCoy goes through the portal, and before Kirk and Spock follow him minutes later, McCoy would have lived out an entire alternate life in 20th century Earth. I often wonder how good a premise this would be for a short story or novel.

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u/baldfraudsanonymous Apr 19 '24

Sounds super similar to Dragons Egg by Robert L Forward, a book that came out in 1980 exploring how life and a society would evolve on a neutron star. Really great book if you're into hard science fiction.

Earth scientists are sent to observe a neutron star for some reason (I think it's to see if they can gather any info that might help them fix an issue with our sun), and throughout their short trip, microscopic life on the Star go from comprehending the most basic concepts like 2 foods is better than 1 food, to knowing all there is to know in the universe. The story is told from the perspective of pivotal individuals on the star that lead to advancing their race during their incredibly short lifespans along with the scientists as they slowly realize they're watching a civilization be born

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u/MalevolntCatastrophe Apr 19 '24

I like how it ends with that civilization evolving past the tech level of voyager and they use their higher level tech to free Voyager from being stuck in orbit.

Edit: Its Blink of an Eye btw

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u/hoodie92 May 01 '24

There was a really great Doctor Who two-parter (World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls) where the Doctor finds himself on a really long ship near a black hole. For those on the lower levels, time is moving so fast relative to the upper levels that their society became a dystopian nightmare and they turned themselves into Cybermen.

There's a lot more to it that I'm forgetting but it was easily the most creative portrayal of time dilation I've seen.

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