Loud as a Whisper by: Jacqueline Zambrano and directed by: Larry Shaw

 

“Loud as a Whisper” is written by: Jacqueline Zambrano and is directed by: Larry Shaw.  It was produced under production code 132, was the 5^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 31^st episode overall, and was broadcast on January 9, 1989.

 

Star Trek has not always been the best when representing disability.  The original series did several episodes with disabled characters, however, they were often incredibly ableist: “The Menagerie” being the biggest example of portraying physical disability as a fate worse than death, with a lotus eater style fantasy with a beautiful woman in the same type of fantasy being presented as a good ending for the characters.  Oddly enough the third season of the show with “Plato’s Stepchildren” was slightly better, but going into Star Trek: The Next Generation if we’re being honest there isn’t a whole lot of hope.  Having a character like Geordi LaForge is certainly a step forward as a blind character in the main cast.  “Loud as a Whisper” is an episode that actually tackles disability representation in an interesting way.  The plot of the episode is standard Star Trek fare by this point: there is a planet with two warring factions and the Enterprise is transporting a negotiator to stop the war.  The warring factions are not at all the focus of the episode, they are your bog standard savage natives tropes that haven’t aged well at all.  They don’t have any characterization, or even proper names or culture which is a little weird to still be doing in the late 1980s, but as it isn’t the point of the episode it doesn’t bring the episode down too much

 

The point of the episode is that the famed negotiator, Riva, is deaf.  “Loud as a Whisper” is an honest exploration of how a deaf person may live and thrive in the future, while also exploring how he interprets the world.  The episode goes the extra mile by having Riva played by deaf actor Howie Seago and really allowing him to have influence over how the episode plays out.  Riva communicates with a chorus, three people who are telepathically connected to translate played by Marnie Mosiman, Thomas Oglesby, and Leo Damian and exist in this non-traditional relationship.  Jacqueline Zambrano’s script actually portrays it as almost a form of love between these four characters, even if the three chorus members also are reduced as people to being accessibility aids.  The episode never quite reconciles that with the idea of Riva as his own full person who is just using his own disability aid.  That and the fact that a lot of the episode doesn’t actually do much in terms of exploring the main cast, Riva is essentially the main character and the conflict of the episode only comes at the halfway point.  The chorus is killed by one of the warriors on the planet just as negotiations are about to begin.  This is why the chorus is largely a problem in the episode, they aren’t actual characters and only exist to be killed so the episode can explore Riva losing his faith in his negotiation abilities.

 

The script does actually do something interesting with this, it actually makes the other characters learn the sign language of Riva’s planet instead of attempting to make Riva change.  Okay, it is Data who learns it and does it almost instantly, but that reads to me more like a limitation of the 45 minute runtime of a television show since the negotiations will still be led by Riva teaching the two warring factions, presented as willing to work towards peace, learning the sign language.  This is also supported by a minor scene between Geordi and Dr. Pulaski, offering Geordi the chance to have new eyes replicated for him and his own decision being to not take them.  His disability is part of who he is, therefore something that shouldn’t be changed.  As a message, while it is still wrapped in an episode that builds conflict around the idea that disabled people being misunderstood and in places being treated as lesser (Picard callously shouts at Riva who is trying to come to terms with losing his own accessibility aids), it actually does feel especially progressive even for 1989 when disability still isn’t seen often in media in positive portrayals.  In many ways disability representation isn’t still quite there.

 

Overall, “Loud as a Whisper” is actually one of those episodes that is incredibly messy in places, but it gets a lot of good grace for genuinely having its heart in the right place.  Technically Larry Shaw’s direction is particularly flat (he wouldn’t direct for the show again after this and you can see why) and the pacing of the conflict doesn’t quite work as well as it could, the conflict being weak.  It’s an episode that starts with the premise that disabled people are human and messily tries to show how able bodied people often do have these biases where they treat the disabled as lesser.  Having one scene affirming that a disability is something not to be fixed really does elevate it.  6/10.