Where Silence Has Lease by: Jack B. Sowards and directed by: Winrich Kolbe

 

“Where Silence Has Lease” is written by: Jack B. Sowards and is directed by: Winrich Kolbe.  It was produced under production code 128, was the 2^nd episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 28^th episode overall, and was broadcast on November 28, 1988.

 

“The Child” being a repurposed idea/script from the 1970s meant that the second episode of the season would actually be the first original script, being afforded some time to be written.  Jack B. Sowards was tapped for the episode, previously having co-written Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which in my estimation is one of the best pieces of Star Trek out there.  “Where Silence Has Lease” is the result and it’s almost the complete opposite of what I would expect from someone who wrote that film.  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan works because of how atypical it was for Star Trek up to that point.  “Where Silence Has Lease” is a completely typical episode of the original Star Trek series in almost every way.  It’s essentially got a classic redshirt, an alien with godlike powers, a resolution that ends completely peacefully, and contemplative attempts at exploring humanity.  Add in Gene Roddenberry’s general dislike of conflict in a future setting and that’s really all that you have here for an episode.  This makes it a particularly difficult episode to talk about, because there isn’t actually a whole lot to discuss.  The Enterprise finds a space anomaly, a Romulan ship, the Enterprise’s sister ship the USS Yamato, and eventually a godlike entity called Nagilum.  Now, the best sequence of the episode is actually the work aboard the USS Yamato after Riker and Worf are the ones sent over to investigate.

 

The investigation into the Yamato allows director Winrich Kolbe to have a lot of fun creating a version of unreality and Jonathan Frakes and Michael Dorn both get to have a lot of fun, almost overacting with the weirdness of two bridges on the ship.  Riker and Worf are paired early on in a holodeck sequence giving a little bit towards Klingon culture, plus when the weirdness begins Worf goes into a question of a Klingon legend not wanting to push forward into the blackness.  It's incredibly effective and one of the few genuinely great things in this episode that desperately needs them.  The godlike entity of the episode is Nagilum, represented by a creepy looking face suspended in space using what I believe are computer effects that really don’t integrate particularly well.  Earl Boen plays the character and he is certainly fine, Sowards’ script being clearly interested with exploring the philosophy of understanding that comes with a higher dimensional being understanding the workings of our dimension.  It’s a perfectly fine premise, but this is an episode that if I had to posit a guest, didn’t get many drafts or revisions to really put together whatever it was trying to do.  It was the second episode produced post-strike after all: Sowards mischaracterizes Data intentionally so Picard can realize that it isn’t him, Troi is also in the scene for some reason but she just kind of stands there.  It also does a standard redshirt sequence, wants to kill more humans to understand what death is, yet Sowards doesn’t explore the implications of that at all.

 

Overall, “Where Silence Has Lease” is the definition of a completely fine episode.  It’s really just a collection of Star Trek tropes put together into a narrative that doesn’t actually end up saying or doing anything of note.  It’s perfectly serviceable.  5/10.