Series: Star Trek The Next Generation
Episode: 2.02 Where Silence has Lease (11-28-88)
Rating: 3/5
Redshirt Status: 0/0/3
Notable Guest Stars:
Earl Beon – Nagilum. He is best known from his role in The Terminator series.
Review:
This episode begins the friendship between Riker & Worf. Riker over the years develops an interest in Klingon behavior and culture. Worf is usually quite helpful in helping him learn. By the end of the series they end up being best friends.
We also must wonder in the first ten minutes if Kirk sent in all his mission logs because TOS encounted a hole in space. Data has no record of it. Unless he’s being ultra specific and this hole in space has different elements that are available to them. Either way it comes across as a continunity error.
I like Katherine Pulaski, but I find her inability to respect Data to be vastly annoying and probably a good reason why people hate her. There are three episodes right in a row (and the next episode is particularly bad) where she either is rude or dismissive of Data because he’s an android. They made the character to have a Doctor McCoy like feel, but I don’t think McCoy would have been dismissive. Of course, this is probably people assuming that he and Spock hated each other.
This episode is interesting in the fact that it places humans as the inferior species being tested in a laboratory. The crew of course does not take well to this, particularly Worf and Riker who had to deal with the horror Yamoto.
This episode pretty much completely takes place on the Bridge, which probably saved a lot of budget money,They also updated the Auto Destruct to include a time frame. Which is probably good, considering how small five minutes actually is.
I wish they had used some of that money they saved not having to do new sets in doing the special effects. It might have improved the episode a little. I have very little to comment on other then the friendship elements because this episode is pretty bland over all, and has no connection to later episodes.
It does however give me “Ugly Bags of Mostly Water”. Which randomly gets said in my family once and awhile.
Interesting Notes:
- Written by Jack B. Sowards
- Directed by Winrich Kolbe
- This is the first episode directed by Winrich Kolbe who would later direct several episodes including the series finale.
- This is considered a ‘bottle episode’ as all scenes are filmed in one set.
Pros:
- Worf and Riker friendship
Cons:
- The episode was okay, but nothing really stood out to make it better. Its an episode that you wouldn’t mind having on for background noise but wouldn’t be distracted by the actual episode.
Sokorra Lewis 