[TNG] Season 2, Episode 2 (Netflix: S2 E2): Where Silence Has Lease
Rating: 2
There are a couple scenes in this episode that are really cool, which make rating it difficult. What brings it down is the characters. Worf becomes one of our favorite characters, but in this episode he’s insane and stupid. Troi is unbelievably useless, managing to always stay about ten steps behind the audience. We know people hate Pulaski, and it doesn’t mean anything to “ruin” her character, but in most of the other episodes where she has a conflict with Data, it seems more like banter driven by her curiosity and uneasiness with Data. It’s not our favorite quality in Pulaski, but at least it’s usually handled better than in this episode where she basically just calls him a useless pile of junk. There are parts of this episode where we’re still not quite sure what to think about them, but as of now this episode gets a 2 rating from us.
Read more at Memory Alpha
Notes:
Worf and Riker are doing a training program
Worf fights a skull thing!
Worf is in some kind of rage mode and he starts to go after Riker.
The crew finds some kind of hole in space. Their reaction is actually interesting, in a way that can only be achieved in TNG.
Pulaski comes to the bridge for no discernible reason other than to talk trash on Data. She refers to him as “it” and a “non-living device.”
They go into the hole and find a Romulan Warbird
Then they see Enterprise’s sister ship, the Yamato
Riker and Worf go and check it out
All the doors lead back to the bridge. They go to each door and act equally confused each time. It gets pretty old. Yeah we get it, nothing makes sense
Worf says “One Riker! one bridge!” and then starts fighting a door
Back when it was just a hole Troi didn’t sense any mind, but now that’s it’s obvious to the viewers that something is messing with them, Troi isn’t so sure anymore
File under: Is Troi Even Telepathic?
Then a giant space face shows up. Data: “Sensors show nothing out there…” Geordi: “It sure is a damned ugly nothing.”
If you were wondering why this guy replaced Wesley, it’s cause someone needed to die
The face says he wants to see how people die in different ways, and says he’s going to kill a third or maybe half of the crew. Picard says screw it, let’s blow up the ship…
…”it’s better than standing around helplessly.” No, not really
Pulaski is the only one that suggests maybe that’s not such a great idea
Data comes to ask Picard about death. It’s cool how Picard tries to explain it to Data…
…It’s also cool when Picard figures out that he’s being messed with, although Troi and Data very suddenly go from acting completely normal to acting totally different
They suggest Picard maybe was bluffing.
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