Stardate not given: Voyager enters orbit around a greyish-blue oblate spheroid of a planet. This world’s rotation is so accelerated that years pass on the surface in mere minutes of Voyager’s time. The unusual gravitational properties of the planet trap Voyager in orbit, where it is spotted by the planet’s population over hundreds of generations. Before the crew’s eyes, civilizations rise and fall, technology advances from the bronze age to the space age, and the evolving society turns from curiosity about the vessel “permanently” fixed in their sky to hostility toward it. And at the exponential rate at which the planet’s technology is emerging, its inhabitants will soon have plenty of spaceworthy firepower to enforce that hatred.
teleplay by Joe Menosky
story by Michael Taylor
directed by Gabrielle Beaumont
music by Paul BaillargeonGuest Cast: Daniel Dae Kim (Pilot), Obi Ndefo (Protector), Daniel Zacapa (Astronomer), Olaf Pooley (Cleric), Jon Cellini (Technician), Kat Sawyer-Young (Astronaut), Melik Malkasian (Shaman), Walter H. McCready (Tribal Alien), Scarlett Pomers (Naomi Wildman)
Notes: This episode of Voyager is peppered with veterans of other SF franchises. Olaf Pooley guest starred as the mad Professor Stahlman in the 1970 Doctor Who Inferno seven-parter. Daniel Dae Kim shot this episode fresh from his brief stint as First Officer Matheson on the ill-fated Babylon 5 spinoff, Crusade, but a few years before his rise to mainstream fame as a member of the ensemble cast of Lost. Obi Ndefo had a small guest role in the fourth season opener of Deep Space Nine.
LogBook entry by Earl Green