Re: Episode of the week: Where Silence Has Lease
Dangit, I started two episode of the week on Wednesday, the Child was done on a Tuesday, and now we're on a Monday? Why can't we just say what day it is and stick with it? GRRRRRRRR.
Where Silence Has Lease
This episode is just fantastic. I remember watching it when I was around 11 or 12 and being really creeped out on the concept of being trapped in a starless space where there was no escape, and weird things happened for no logical reason. Just goes to show that having a limited budget and being set entirely on the Enterprise can yield interesting results.
Special call out to guest star Earl Boen who did the role of Nagilum. Even though his face is heavily distorted, his voice work really brings this character to life. Boen's performance brings a sense of superiority, dread and even curiosity. For those who are unfamiliar with the actor, Earl Boen played Doctor Silverman in three of the Terminator movies and is the narrator of World of Warcraft. Hehe. Now I can officially label him as someone who took part in trapping people in a universe that they cannot escape both in the fictional world and the real world. :P
Even the scenes onboard the Yamato were very well done. The earie music of Ron Jones coupled with some very creepy sound effects in a darkened set really sell the creepy factor. In regards to Worf losing his cool? Classic. If I may nitpick here a little, Galaxy Class Starships have TWO BRIDGES! You should know this Worf!
This episode also helped spawn a meme that is in such bad taste I'm almost afraid to post specifics about it here in the forum. It involves the red shirt who dies at his station.
I also liked Picard's speech regarding death. The way he describes how different societies see it and what how he views it. That line "our existence is part of a reality beyond what we understand now as reality." really got me thinking. I asked myself if animals actually understood that we're living on a planet orbiting a sun. And if they don't, what is it that we're missing out on that we're not fully aware of? That's good Star Trek.
Over all, a perfect example of a limited budget and story being used to tell a simple and meaningful story that we can all relate to while still feeling alien.
REMASTERED HD THOUGHTS:
If there was ever an episode to showcase the lower end quality of the remastering work done by HTV, this episode would be the one I'd go to. There are several instances where not only was the quality not that good, but some shots weren't even done properly.
1. Inconsistent Grain Levels. Take the shot of the
CGI Enterprise launching the probe. The picture has absolutely zero grain in it making it look like a super clean modern FX job. Quite inconsistent with the grain levels seen in both the live action shots and fully restored shots of the Enterprise.
2. Didn't Nagilum have teeth?
3. The shot of the Yamato uses the incorrect stock footage of the Enterprise. In the original, the Yamato
isn't facing directly at the Enterprise where in the remastered episode,
it is. Some have speculated that this is because they couldn't find the film stock of the Enterprise from that angle. That turned out to be incorrect because the shot of the Enterprise is from "The Last Outpost", which was
fully remastered.
Not the kind of thing you want to see happen when the studios said the quality would remain consistent.
STINGER: Picard has a fascination with
Riker's Butt.
