"Blink of an Eye" is good but it's not Star Trek: Voyager's best episode

Star Trek: Voyager has as many "all-time great" episodes as any other series out there. While others may prefer one series or another, Voyager delivered the goods on a pretty regular basis. So often picking the "best" episode from the franchise is hard to decide.

CBR tried to do that recently and picked "Blink of an Eye". In it, Voyager discovers a planet that is experiencing time differently than the rest. Several seconds outside of the planet is months, if not longer on the planet. In an attempt to learn more about the planet, the Doctor goes down and lives a long time on the planet, even though it's only seconds on Voyager. It's a good concept and it's done well, but it's mostly a concept-driven episode.

Very little of the episode features any of the trademark weight that Voyager was known to do. Especially in episodes like "Year of Hell", "Scorpion", and "Timeless" are all, in our opinion, better episodes. Now, we're not knocking "Blink of an Eye", it's really good and as CBR points out, it's the top-right episode currently on IDMB.

While we think all of those are good episodes, two that should be in contention are season three's "Real Life" and season five's "Latent Image". Now, I'd put "Timeless" up against any of the episodes, but these two have a unique aura about them.

In "Latent Image", we find out that the Doctor has missing memories, taken from him without his consent. After believing himself to be caught up in a conspiracy where Kathryn Janeway has been tampering with his memories, he soon finds out he's right. Janeway had been messing with his memories, but not for some nefarious reason. In a prior mission, the Doctor was forced to choose to save a fellow crewwoman or his friend Harry Kim, who had near identical odds of survival, but only one would. The Doctor chose his friend and therefore was overcome with guilt. Such guilt that he spiraled in on himself and Janeway felt removing the memory would help the Doctor more than him processing it. The episode does a great job speaking to survivor's guilt and grief. Especially the ways to get through it.

"Real Life" however is more of a modern take on sitcoms. The Doctor decides he wants to see what it's like to have a family, and so he creates an idyllic one. After some tinkering by the crew, however, the holographic family begins to resemble a more realistic depiction, much to the Doctor's chagrin. He's forced to do some soul-searching with how he treats his holographic family, and even finds himself in a scenario no parent wants to be in. The way The Doctor's actor, Robert Picardo, plays the episode is perfect. Especially the final 10 minutes or so.

Both, I think, are stronger candidates than "Blink of an Eye" for the title of best episode in Star Trek history.