I've recently had the great pleasure of viewing two of the creepiest episodes of TNG, "Skin of Evil" and "Where Silence Has Lease" and am curious to know what other fans made of these strange, haunting eps.
Skin of Evil/Where Silence Has Lease
- Thread starter Captain Zog
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Both "A" episodes in my book. The only thing about 'Skin of Evil' is that the villain was a little on the cheesy side at times; 'Where Silence Has Lease' has a lot of rewatch value for me: there's just some great random/weird stuff in there and they did a brilliant job of creating that certain weird/creepy mood.
Skin of Evil is a good example about saying goodbye to a crewmate in a TV episode. Tasha's farewell at the end of the episode had me sniffling.
Where Silence Has Lease is without a doubt one of my favorite TNG episodes of any season. I liked the episode on many levels...it was one the first episode that I watched when I rented the Season 2 DVD's...and I bought Season 2 first when I could afford the TNG DVD sets because of this particular episode.
Where Silence Has Lease is without a doubt one of my favorite TNG episodes of any season. I liked the episode on many levels...it was one the first episode that I watched when I rented the Season 2 DVD's...and I bought Season 2 first when I could afford the TNG DVD sets because of this particular episode.
"Skin of Evil" was, if memory serves, co-written by Joseph Stefano, the producer who wrote many of the best episodes of the 1960s "Outer Limits" series. The Armus creature, regardless of how it was realized on screen, is VERY Stefano: it apparently was created out of the evil shed by an alien race, which is a very abstract concept and Stefano created many such abstract menaces in his OL scripts.
A good first season episode!
A good first season episode!
I think both of these episodes are good TNG episodes. Both of them have good sf themes. People critiicise the Armus monster for looking lame but I can get past that, and I like the sparse set, too. It all seems more metophorical than realistic, and I can live with that. Tasha gets killed in Skin but people never seem to comment about Troi's life being in danger or the good scenes with her in conversation with Armus.
Skin of Evil was decent, Where Silence Has Lease was great. I haven't seen it in ages, unfortunately, but it was one of my faves.
"Where Silence Has Lease" was a neat little episode. Worf seemed to be having an off day though.
"Skin Of Evil" was good - the one thing I didn't like (and still don't) is that silly mark on Yar's face when Armus kills her. Is it supposed to be blood? It's so fake.
"Skin Of Evil" was good - the one thing I didn't like (and still don't) is that silly mark on Yar's face when Armus kills her. Is it supposed to be blood? It's so fake.
I like skin of evil, and even though Tasha's death was a bit rubbish, the message she made for the funeral totally made up for it, it was so sad.
I did think it was strange that they just decided to abandon Armus again, after all, he wasn't really "evil", just lonely and hurt.
I did think it was strange that they just decided to abandon Armus again, after all, he wasn't really "evil", just lonely and hurt.
Say what?!
It was evil. It was all the combined negative and bad aspects of an alien race that shed it's evil nature. That evil nature became Armus.
Um, yeah...it was bad.
So what if it was lonely.
"Skin of Evil" was, if memory serves, co-written by Joseph Stefano, the producer who wrote many of the best episodes of the 1960s "Outer Limits" series. The Armus creature, regardless of how it was realized on screen, is VERY Stefano: it apparently was created out of the evil shed by an alien race, which is a very abstract concept and Stefano created many such abstract menaces in his OL scripts.
A good first season episode!
Another reason why I think this is a great episode!
Stefano was a master! He wrote Psycho and the classic Outer Limits still stands as one of the greatest TV series ever.
Sometimes I wish Skin of Evil had been later in the run year 3 or 4 and Armus had tried to merge with Deanna. The merger even if it was for a short time would have had changed both of them Permanently somehow, that would have been interesting.
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That's not Where Silence Has Lease - that's Loud As A Whisper, about three episodes later.
If silence has the lease, who owns the fee?
They were both brilliant episodes, but I didn’t find them to be haunting. In my opinion the villains had a twisted sort justification to do what they did (even if it was bad justification). Armas had been betrayed and abandoned, so he was rightfully bitter. The dodgy alien in ‘Silence has lease’ was picking off humans to see what would happen, no differently to if we stepped on an ant…
I liked most of "Skin of Evil" in terms of dramatic execution and Trek content, but "Where Silence Has Lease" always seemed to have a limp in its dramatic execution. Much of it felt like desperate filler to keep the thin if interesting main plot sufficiently padded. "Silence" would have been an excellent The Next Animated Generation 25-minute story, but it was sorely in need of either more A-plot content or then a decent B-plot.
Perhaps they could have done more with Worf's strange state of agitation? He starts out with this neat fake fight where he nearly kills his superior officer, then spooks out on the bridge of his own starship and starts rambling about ship-eating space monsters, then goes to total panic (at least in Worf terms) on the bridge of another ship. Perhaps this would have been a good time to tell us something interesting about Klingon hormonal states or something?
As for Armus, I liked what they managed to do with the oil-slick costume. And I always felt Armus must have been responsible for the shuttlecraft crash in the first place - and that the heroes understood this and thus felt the need to carefully isolate Armus. Any personnel near Armus would have been at risk of further violence, even if "near" was defined generously as an interplanetary distance...
Timo Saloniemi
Perhaps they could have done more with Worf's strange state of agitation? He starts out with this neat fake fight where he nearly kills his superior officer, then spooks out on the bridge of his own starship and starts rambling about ship-eating space monsters, then goes to total panic (at least in Worf terms) on the bridge of another ship. Perhaps this would have been a good time to tell us something interesting about Klingon hormonal states or something?
As for Armus, I liked what they managed to do with the oil-slick costume. And I always felt Armus must have been responsible for the shuttlecraft crash in the first place - and that the heroes understood this and thus felt the need to carefully isolate Armus. Any personnel near Armus would have been at risk of further violence, even if "near" was defined generously as an interplanetary distance...
Timo Saloniemi
You could probably put Conspiracy in with the list of "early TNG creepfests."
You know, you don't have too many later Trek outings with the level of kind of eerie weirdness that early TNG managed to conjure. No, the Viidians don't count. I can't think of any DS9 episodes in that vein, either. Maybe Move Along Home, but obviously that was an unsuccessful attempt.
Perhaps The Assignment? Pah Wraith Keiko was kind of scary.
You know, you don't have too many later Trek outings with the level of kind of eerie weirdness that early TNG managed to conjure. No, the Viidians don't count. I can't think of any DS9 episodes in that vein, either. Maybe Move Along Home, but obviously that was an unsuccessful attempt.
Perhaps The Assignment? Pah Wraith Keiko was kind of scary.
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