UNCUT REACTION - Star Trek TNG S2E2 - Where Silence Has Lease
Comments (43)
Have you ever noticed how much of Riker's dialogue in this episode is in the form of questions? Have you noticed how few of those questions were answered? Combine that with eerie and disturbing this episode was, and you could almost say it's.......beyond belief. I do like this one. Yeah it's not a masterpiece, but it's creepy and unique, and Winrich Kolbe hit the ground running in his first Trek episode. I did think it was odd that Geordi was so bloodthirsty about blowing up a romulan ship, and Picard seemed almost disappointed that it was so easy. Bit of an odd scene. I like how they built up the comradery between Worf and Riker in this episode though. The kinda took Worf's "klingon rage" and losing control a bit too far, but I always get a laugh out of Worf fighting the door. The sequence in the corridors with the creepy sounds was great, and the duplicate bridges made it feel like a house of mirrors. If they could have pulled it off, it would have been awesome if they had to run from some Cthulhu like monster that barely fits the corridor chasing them. The suspense around the self destruct was pretty convincing as well, though realistically, even if Picard thinks it's a ruse, he can always start it back up again. One of my Trek peeves pops up here again, that being just because some alien has more advanced tech or abilities the crew can't counter, they act like they're "more civilized". Nagilum saying humans are "too aggressive, too hostile, too militant" falls flat after he murdered a guy just to see what it was like. But it's a move in the right direction for S2 after a weak opening episode. Pulaski still being a bitch for no reason though. Decent episode. 6.5/10
Solid underrated ep imho
I liked this better than the opening episode, but I've always liked the "unknown" storylines. Troi is the SHIP'S councillor, not the bridge councillor or the Captain's private confidante lol she has patients to see and a job to do 😂
Yes. I think this gets lost on some people In the novel series set after Nemesis involving Troi on another ship I believe there is another ship's counselor, and Troi's rare position on the bridge centers around her empathic abilities and their value when dealing with adversaries and new species. being able to "read" them is why she is ocasionally on the bridge. otherwise her seat would be held by some other mission specialist. Similarly, Not every Security Cheif is also the ship's tactical Officer.
This guy is showing up a good bit...
"And I must accept that" and the way Pulaski says it seems to indicate that she doesn't think that Data is living, or sapient. God, I hate Pulaski. Props to Picard/Riker for the earlier part where Worf said he was having feelings unbecoming of a security officer and neither superior officer chided him for it, just accepted his acknowledgement.
This episode’s title comes from the 1907 poem “The Spell of the Yukon” by Robert W. Service. Service’s work was extremely popular in the early 20th century, when poetry in general was of far more interest to the public than it is now. I recently read “The Spell of the Yukon” for the first time; I was not favorably impressed. Although the "Chaos on the Bridge" documentary contains too many spoilers for later episodes for Alex and Josh to see it yet, the time has come when we can tell them about one of the most outrageous anecdotes revealed in that film. The turmoil behind the scenes on TNG at the end of Season 1 was so bad that the production team briefly considered firing the entire cast and starting Season 2 with the destruction of the Enterprise with all hands. The series would then have followed the crew of another Starfleet vessel investigating what had happened to the Enterprise. I mention this now because I presume the new ship in this scenario would have been another Galaxy-class vessel identical to the Enterprise, allowing the show to continue using the standing sets (and, with a little repainting, the filming models of the starship). This episode, of course, does something similar with the scenes aboard the Yamato, making this a “bottle episode” in the strictest sense, filmed entirely on the standing sets. Fans often point out an egregious continuity error with TOS in this episode: Data states that no Starfleet vessel has ever encountered anything like the void in space, but Kirk’s Enterprise had encountered a similar zone of blackness around the space amoeba in “The Immunity Syndrome.” Patrick Stewart read Picard’s speech about the nature of death and the afterlife from the climax of this episode as part of his eulogy at Gene Roddenberry’s memorial service in 1991, three years after the episode aired. This speech also explains why Picard said, “Au revoir, Natasha,” at the end of the funeral scene in “Skin of Evil” (since “Au revoir” is French for “Till we meet again,” not “Goodbye”). Picard’s descriptions of the two views of the afterlife that he rejects are both oversimplified strawman characterizations. Members of the Abrahamic religions (including Roman Catholics such as myself) would disagree that “the purpose of the entire universe” is to maintain people’s existence in Heaven; the purpose of the universe, rather, is to give glory to God and reflect His mind. God could have chosen to create a universe in which sentient beings ceased to exist when they died, and the ultimate purpose of the universe would not have changed. On the other hand, atheists who do not believe in an afterlife would not necessarily agree that “all of our experiences and hopes and dreams [are] merely a delusion;” rather, many would say that the meaning of the universe is what we ascribe to it, that our “experiences and hopes and dreams” are real in this life and in the present moment, and that some part of them are carried forward after death in the memories of those who loved us (as Tasha’s hologram states in “Skin of Evil”). Nagilum’s name is “Mulligan” spelled backwards (dropping one of the “l”s); the actor Richard Mulligan was Maurice Hurley’s original choice for the role. Colm Meaney reprises his role as the transporter operator from the previous episode. Annoyingly, the closed captions include the surname of Meaney’s character, which the show has not yet established in dialogue.
I've always liked this episode and your reactions continue to be very entertaining. Thanks guys!
Definitely better than the child but that’s a low bar
Might have been cool if they'd KILLED Wesley, only to have Nagilum bring him back at the end. Would have been a shocker moment.
But they killed and brought back Wesley once already.
Not one of my favorites. In my list categorizing Season 2 this was listed as Time Filler With Good Moments.
Forgive me if someone’s already mentioned this, but actor/Director Richard Mulligan was supposed to have played Nagillum. He backed out at the last moment. Mulligan Nagillum. Get it?
You beat me to it 👍
....and the entire rest of the series is an illusion of Nagilum.
Exactly
I love this episode
Colm Meaney's character is the Transporter Chief. He is in charge of the transporters. The producers haven't quiet settled on a rank for him at this point in the show. In "Encounter At Farpoint" he was an ensign and in this episode he is referred to as a lieutenant. At this point in production, they are still adhering to Roddenberry's idea that all members of Starfleet would be commissioned officers, just like all NASA astronauts who have a military background.
You know what else they hadn't settled on at this point? His name, so delete this.
Far too slow. I know we have mentioned it a few times but you can feel the creaking of the writers strike. With a few more drafts this could have been a lot better. A few fun scenes though.
They could have let it use the holodeck to kill a bunch of people. Could kill thousands at a time in there.
It would only have learned how the computer thought people reacted to death, though. (Presumably they would all die shouting, "You can't do this to me! I'm Cyrus Redblock! I'M CYRUS REDBLOCK!")
This director, Winrich Kolbe, was an associate producer on Battlestar Galactica and directed "Baltar's Escape."
I thought it was really out of character for Picard to retreat to his quarters for the last twenty minutes of his life. It's necessary, of course, to set up the Nagilum/Deanna and Data scene but everything I know about Picard tells me he if his ship is facing its doom he will be on duty if he can possibly help it.
That was always my thoughts characters were out of character and I hated Pulaski coming on the bridge for no reason just to berate data .She was written so badly no wonder Muldaur had no lover for her role
Probably the first episode where I felt TNG was headed in a better direction. Direction and mood were great for this one. Solid, quality, stand alone episode.
this feels like it should be quite a good episode on paper but 18min in its quite slow moving
I think this episode gets put down too much. I certainly don't love it, but I also don't think it's that bad. A decent bottle episode, although for me it's once again the performances of the actors that wins me over and carries the show.
This is a great episode. It kind of has everything. Great hard sci-fi blackhole/void story, an emotional "what is life death" part, some cool house of mirrors stuff with the Yamato and even starts with Worf doing some Klingon stuff.
I didn’t feel like the philosophical aspect of death was very emotional at all, because it was tacked on to a bizarre self-destruct plan that was completely out of character for Picard.
10:55 It's not a big space amoeba is it?
Good one
Not one of the better episodes. I stuck with it with y'all because i don't think I've seen it past the first airing. What got me was Data said they had never encountered anything like the initial black space, but in TOS they did, and it contained a huge space amoeba.
Yep
One small but interesting thing...at the end of The Child they set course for the "Morgana Quadrant" and in this episode they actually are in the "Morgana Quadrant". Continuity!
Yes! I love continuity!
They absolutely do know who Kirk was. Kirk and his Enterprise are famous and well known by people in this era. The idea behind the larger phasers was to not have something that looks like a gun made for humans and to have a shape and handle suited for a variety of species that make up the Federation and Starfleet
A better plot, but one I totally misremembered. I forgot nagillum doesn’t show up until literally the last 15 mins.
Great bottle show episode! The only new set they created for the show was "Worf's Calisthenics Program." You MAY see it again.
It looked a lot like the set of the abandoned mining planet in "Conspiracy".
This is by far a better episode than the last one, I think it would have made a better season opener.
Other than a bit of humor, I like this one less.
A Thursday upload! You folks are too good to us x