#tng Where Silence Has Lease

[filmjunky-99]

r e m e m b e r i n g

Earl Boen

8 August 1941 – 5 January 2023

⚘️

[pic: boen as nagilum, where silence has lease, tng]

[riotdyke]

Best Star Trek alien. Nothing beats this.

[perrin-aybaras-hammer]

I want to start a gimmick blog about characters i want to transfeminize and trans reading of fictional men.

I also want to start a gimmick blog comparing how scary horror movies are compared to how much Star Trek: The Next Generation Season Two Episode Two "Where Silence Has Lease" scared me as a kid.

[eleftherian]

not nagilum reading picard for filth 😭😭😭

[leesargent]

Li'l TNG Season 2 I am so excited everyone loved revisiting season one so I'm very happy to share season 2 - also so many faces from my Tumblr past - it's so cool seeing you all!!!

The Child

Where Silence Has Lease

Elementary, Dear Data

The Outrageous Okona

Loud As A Whisper

The Schizoid Man

Unnatural Selection

A Matter Of Honor

The Measure Of A Man

The Dauphin

Contagion

The Royale

Time Squared

The Icarus Factor

Pen Pals

Q Who

Samaritan Snare

Up The Long Ladder

Manhunt

The Emissary

Peak Performance

Shades of Gray

[federationgothic]

Engineering updates

Noticed while skimming episodes the other day some changes in Main Engineering during the first couple of seasons that I hadn't noticed before (or just forgotten about).

Specifically, I'm going to focus on the back end of Engineering, where the Master Systems Display is located:

Nice and busy

Now that area doesn't show up in Encounter at Farpoint, the couple of shots in engineering are centered around the warp core and the catwalk surrounding it (the open elevator connecting the two gets a lot of use in there).

Hot elevator action!

The MSD appears in the next episode The Naked Now but it's all alone.

Nothing more than a repurposed wide corridor where we stuck a giant screen, and it's green (it will stay green for the first two seasons). There's also no isolinear stacks underneath the MSD, and the hallways panels are missing some LCARS. Oh and we don't have our pool table MSD table.

The next time we see engineering from this angle is The Last Outpost.

A lot of progress for sure, but it's not right. The LCARS panels have been added to the bulkhead and the isolinear stacks are now underneath the display. The MSD Table, itself recycled from Star Trek 4, hasn't fully undergone the TNG conversion and looks out of place.

Here it is in The Voyage Home:

The Lighting elements that are flush against the Display are the wrong shape, flanking it. for comparison:

And now, a brief interlude to Where No One Has Gone Before:

They're GREEN. I had not...it had not clicked with me before (at least not consciously) that the lighting panels were green for the episode. I don't know if they were still tweaking the look or decided it should be green bc of Kosinski's so-called upgrades but in any case it's green and distracting now that I see it.

table's still wrong:

I feel like they're going to show us some x-rays on here.

By the time we reach 11001001 the table looks right (hard to tell from this angle but looks like the entire surface is reflective now).

the big lights are off, for some reason.

Another quick detour, this time to Home Soil, where the MSD also acts as a viewscreen:

also when you put chairs there it really emphasizes how those controls look like navigation (you can control the ship from Engineering I guess you could set it up that way).

The rest of the season won't see any further changes. Season 2, starting with Where Silence Has Lease the lighting elements around the MSD will have been updated to the ones that will remain throughout the rest of the series

The lighting might have changed between Where Silence Has Lease and Q-Who or just might be colour processing.

Finally, season 3 brings us the updated MSD with more detailed okudagrams on it

There might be rubber duck in there.

It will remain mostly unchanged for the rest of the series, except at some point someone slapped a label on the bottom left.

(this occured at some point between s3-4)

A final, minor, update was brought to the MSD where the label was removed and two lines were added to the pedestal for Star Trek: Generations.

(similarly to how the runabouts had a bunch of random lines that looked like electrical tape to make the sets pop).

[cosmicretreat]

Today in 1988: "Where Silence Has Lease" (TNG)

Today in 1993: "Sanctuary" (DS9)

Today in 1994: "Fascination" (DS9)

Today in 2001: "Cold Front" (ENT)

[bortbytingen]

I'm watching Star Trek: TNG S2E2 - Where Silence Has Lease and at the beginning when they encounter the void in space and Worf instinctively wants to go to yellow alert, but then doesn't want to explain, although ends up doing so after Picard tells him that the ship operates on his officers shares what's on their minds. Worf then says there's an old Klingon legend about a black space creature devouring space vessels and that was what made him instinctively want to go to yellow alert. What I like with this exchange is that no one is making fun of this. No one tells Worf off for having fear of a legend and wanting to act on it (except Worf himself). All that happens is that Picard asks for another probe to be launch, though this time a class 1. I really like this. It shows that trust and acceptance of other cultures' beliefs are important for Picard and the rest of the (bridge) crew. No one makes any snide remarks about it, no one snickers or anything. It's shared and that's it.

[jonfucius]

Great Star Trek Rewatch - TNG Season 2

Originally posted on Twitter 17 March 2021 - 6 April 2021

Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 is up next in my Great Star Trek Rewatch. As with ENT, DSC, STX, TOS, TAS, TOS FF, and TNG Season 1, mini-reviews will document my progress.

The Child: A reused Phase 2 script gives Troi a unique pregnancy story, though I don’t like the loss of bodily autonomy. Still, it’s hard not to feel a little sad when Ian “dies.” Pulaski is instantly dislikable yet charismatic, a testament to Muldaur’s performance. 7/10

Where Silence Has Lease: I really dig the surreal scenes aboard the pseudo-Yamato, and the philosophical discussion about death later in the episode. The episode swings and hits, but it’s a single. 7/10

Elementary, Dear Data: Everyone loves a period romp, and a it’s Sherlock Holmes romp to boot. Moriarty is a compelling villain, whose motivation mirrors that of Data’s: what does it mean to be human? 8/10

The Outrageous Okona: A romantic farce with the dashing titular character at the center. I can see why Billy Campbell was both a finalist for, and ultimately passed over for, the role of Riker. It would’ve been great to see Whoopi Goldberg and Joe Piscopo trade jokes. Alas. 6/10

Loud As A Whisper: I appreciate the deaf representation, but the denouement leaves something to be desired. I’m fascinated by the idea of Riva’s chorus, however. A grisly scene in an otherwise tame series really drives home the danger into which Riva is going. 7/10

The Schizoid Man: Intriguing concept that is strung out far too long. Props though to the late W. Morgan Sheppard and Susie Plakson, who makes her Trek debut as Dr. Selar. 6/10

Unnatural Selection: This one hits a little differently in a post-COVID world. I don’t care for rapid aging stories, however. I do appreciate the somber tone at the end, with Pulaski’s voiceover paying tribute to the Lantree’s crew. 6/10

A Matter of Honor: I love this episode. It’s top-notch from the top down. Riker’s sojourn aboard a Klingon ship gives us some much-needed insight into the franchise’s most iconic aliens. Klag is one of my favorite guest characters. 10/10

The Measure of a Man: Another standout episode from this season that shows just how high Star Trek can go when it wants to. If you have access to the TNG Blu-rays, make sure to watch the reconstructed extended edition as well. 10/10

The Dauphin: After two standout episodes we get a dud. I don’t like the implication that Salia’s worth as an individual was directly tied to her appearance. 4/10

Contagion: The episode does a ton of worldbuilding without being tiresome. The stakes are high, with the destruction of the Yamato (RIP Capt Varley) and the Romulans investigating. The gag of Picard appearing on the warbird’s bridge, and his parting shot, is a great capper. 8/10

The Royale: The surreal style is reminiscent of “Spectre of the Gun,” but I still think that entry is the stronger of the two. Still, it’s a decent, off-beat entry that has somewhat disappeared from the franchise. 6/10

Time Squared: A small time jump sets this one apart from most time travel stories. The knowledge that this could have led into “Q Who?” is a bummer, since the anomaly ended up being pointless. Nice callback to “We’ll Always Have Paris,” and foreshadowing of the next episode. 7/10

The Icarus Factor: I wish Worf’s B-story and Riker’s A-story could have been swapped, because the former is far more compelling and less repetitive. 6/10

Pen Pals: The debate about the Prime Directive is meaty and well worth watching, which grows organically from Data’s communications with Sarjenka; the conclusion to Wesley’s subplot also easily melds with the main storyline. 7/10

Q Who?: In a petulant fit, Q tosses our heroes into the path of the enigmatic Borg. Great things have small beginnings, indeed. The Borg’s horrific relentlessness is on display here. 9/10

Samaritan Snare: The Pakled are a swing and a miss. I love Picard’s scenes with Wesley, however. And I don’t fully buy Picard’s sudden vain streak. 5/10

Up the Long Ladder: Hoo boy the Irish stereotypes. The pro-choice message gets a little lost in the shuffle, as well. 5/10

Manhunt: Lwaxana Troi haters can back off; she’s a delightful change of pace. Worf’s admiration of the Antedeans always cracks me up. 7/10

The Emissary: K'Ehleyr is one of the greatest Klingon characters ever written or performed, and her chemistry with Worf is off the scales. The Klingon sleeper ship concept is intriguing, and shows how much the galaxy has changed in the decades between TOS and TNG. 8/10

Peak Performance: This is just a fun, plot-driven action piece. Wesley's sneaky antimatter gambit, Riker's glee in playing pirate against the Enterprise, and the fooling of the Ferengi make for a fun outing. Guile, indeed. If only the season had ended here. 9/10

Shades of Gray: The use of barely-relevant scenes from previous outings makes the clip-show nature of this one stand out even more. I'm giving it a generous 3 points for the three days it took to film the "new" material, which is actually not horrible. 3/10

And with that, TNG Season 2 comes to an end in my Great Star Trek Rewatch. Final score: 6.86/10. Highest score(s): “A Matter of Honor,” “The Measure of a Man.” Lowest score(s): “Shades of Gray.”

[thegeminisage]

tng update time. last night we did "the child" and today i did "where silence has lease"

the child: GOOD. FUCKINGGGGG. LORD

first of all, i watched this after having been awake since 4am and working all day and then getting hate mail on my fanfics. i was so sleep deprived it's unreal. i dissolved into hysterics multiple times

the first time i think was after deanna got impregnated. i did say with my real mouth "i hope it's riker" and then regret it because i didn't actually hope that but truly i think we would have been better off

the second time i can't really remember. i think it was after the kid talked the first time. immediately my primal instincts screamed at me that the child was unholy and unnatural. anyway both times we had to pause for several minutes in order for me to collect myself

why did we have to have a meeting in front of all deanna's peers talking about the changes in her body and whether or not she should get an abortion...like im with worf, abort that thang, but what the fucj

at first i was kind of excited that dr crusher would be leaving because she is an exhausting character to contend with. now i realize i was a fool. with no dr crusher and no tasha yar deanna troi has to take on the role of Every woman. i made a joke in which the punchline was the mother the son and the holy spitroast but i don't think it's as funny without the leadup

also, on the replacement dr: i hate her forever for being mean to data. first mispronouncing his name and then being like ehhh who cares when corrected AND THEN being like wow this bag of bolts can actually get his feelings hurt! i'll kill her

am pleased to say i recognized her from tos not because of her face but because of her voice. score one for the ol' voice acting ear

anyway i kept going i be BEVERLY (upgraded from dr crusher) could have saved deanna's satan baby because at least she can FUCKING PRONOUNCE DATA'S NAME RIGHT. i hope beverly left because picard wouldn't stop making eyes at his ex it would serve him right

wesley was fine in this episode for once.

HIIII GUINAN HIIIIIIII wow she looks so young. just like in sister act, the primary thing i know her from. weird to have her playing shrink to wesley this entire time but i'm sure we'll get more from her later

anyway having deanna speedrun motherhood in 36 hours Because She's A Woman made me for the first time consider skipping some episodes on tng. but i couldn't do my skip/watch list that way so i will SIGH persevere.

where silence has lease: im blogging this as i go. first of all since the first few seconds of this have no dialogue i was excited and thought we were about to get a whedon-eqsue no-dialogue episode but alas. no.

secondly. "im worried about riker AND worf there are certain elements of the klingon psyche its best to be ignorant about" like girl are they fucking?? not quite but almost. riker was sooo dirty. paused the episode to inform cathy of this and got this gem

anyway, the skeleton prosthetics were good but i ca already feel that this is going to be a "klingons are so big and scary and savage" kind of racism day

worf automatically gaslighting himself about the klingon legend is SO sad especially bc we as viewers KNOW its gotta be true. get vored idiots

why is wesley always on the bridge now instead of geordi...is he just always in engineering now? that is Too sad

THIS BITCH JUST CALLED DATA "IT"?????????????? I WILL KILL HER MYSELF

like i cannot believe she is doubting DATAS ABILITY TO DO HIS JOB more than the fucking SIXTEEN YEAR OLD sitting next to him just bc wesley is human and data isnt. ill fucking kill her. i never thought id say this but i miss beverly

jonathan frakes has asked lots of questions this episode

this freaky ass unreality void thing that doesn't actually exist is sooooo fucking cool. stuff like this is what i like about scifi...sometimes the scifi premise is stupid but sometimes it fucks

WHATEVER RIKER AND WORF HAVE GOING ON IN THIS EPISODE. IS GAY. riker telling him to pull himself together and worf repeating his words from earlier...prolonged eye contact...i wish tng was like this all the time

actually riker is kinda fun in this episode...he keeps giving orders without waiting for picard's okay and he is soooo upset when he gets back from that freaky ship

WHOA THAT CGI FACE WAS FREAKY AND BAD

LMAOOO AT THIS ALIEN GOING AFTER THE DR FOR BEING FEMALE. WHEN DEANNA IS RIGHT THERE. like "your contruction is different" not to the half betazoid or the klingon but to the WOMAN. well if anyone deserves it

wow. love that they got ordered to fuck nasty on the bridge <3 riker and worf should volunteer

SIGHHH of course they kill the random black guy redshirt

started to have respect for picard when once again he was willing to blow up the ship rather than submit to enemy will but then he ruined it by going eeeh idk riker how much time do YOU think we need before the self-destruct? like how much time do they need to prepare to die?? and then riker was like uhh idk 20 minutes? like if you're gonna do it just do it. jesus christ. don't even tell them first it's so much kinder. there are FUCKING children aboard

AND HES JUST GONNA SIT IN HIS QUARTERS AND LISTEN TO MUSIC? INSTEAD OF COMFORTING PEOPLE OR DOING HIS JOB? it's always one step forward two back with this show

THOSE FREAKY HALLUCINATIONS TRICKED ME...it's just like data to ask about death. but it wasn't him!!

the ending to this was actually a little anticlimactic but i did enjoy the journey. too bad it wasn't a big klingon ship eating monster though

one down, five to go 😤

[filmjunky-99]

s t a r t r e k t h e n e x t g e n e r a t i o n created by gene roddenberry [where silence has lease, s2ep2]

'I have learned all I needed to know. Would you like me to share some of my conclusions?' - nagilum

'I'm not interested.' - picard

'Of course you are. You are too inquisitive not to want to know.

You seem to find no tranquility in anything. You struggle against the inevitable. You thrive on conflict. You're selfish, yet you value loyalty. You're rash, quick to judge, slow to change.

It's amazing you've survived.' - nagilum

[sshbpodcast]

Put a cork in it: Bottle episodes in Star Trek

By Ames

“Good Lord, didn't anybody here build ships in bottles when they were boys?” Well, Star Trek sure did, and quite frequently! According to Memory Alpha, bottle shows are “episodes which take place mostly on existing sets and do not generally involve major guest stars.” Basically, any time we never leave the ship so that the show can save money for more expensive future episodes that have bigger sets, more special effects, or most frequently, the Borg.

But even in that definition, there’s still a lot of vaguery. “Mostly” on existing sets. Do not “generally” involve major guest stars. Many listicles of the best bottle episodes across the internet include instances that don’t fit all the components, but fulfill at least some of them. Look at it like a four-set Venn Diagram (which I learned is best arranged like this):

So let’s climb inside the bottle. What episodes perfectly satisfy all the elements and sit in that much sought-after place in the center of the Venn Diagram? Read on below for A Star to Steer Her By’s favorites and listen to our almost certainly contradictory discussion on this week’s podcast episode (jump to 1:04:49) to find out if we’re suckups who’ve built ships in bottles like O’Brien, or if we don’t play with toys like Worf.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Bottle Episodes with a Central Guest Star 

Probably the most common kind of bottle episode is one with a simple plot, a physical confinement to the ship or station, and a non-crew character around whom the plot revolves in a pivotal way. The guest characters come to us and bring with them some kind of conflict for our main characters to handle. You know, your Richard Daystrom in “The Doomsday Machine,” Charlie Evans in “Charlie X,” Lal in “The Offspring,” Commander MacDuff in “Conundrum,” or Lon Suder in “Meld” (someone avenge that beautiful psychopath!). This list could go on and on because there are so many pretty contained episodes in which the guest of the week propels the plot forward. I’m compelled to include “The Changeling” here as well since I would treat Nomad as a full character even if he wasn’t a physical actor.

Our favorite example of this kind of bottle episode is easily “Duet” from season one of Deep Space Nine. Since so much of that entire series is set on the station, one would assume that most episodes of DS9 qualify as bottle episodes, but there’s frequently some specific budget expense that makes them more expensive than they were meant to be or some other guest stars hogging the spotlight. In this case, casting the extraordinary Harris Yullin as Marritza was well worth it, as this episode shines despite its self-imposed limitations.

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Bottle Episodes that “Leave the Ship” 

I call it impressive if the characters can leave the ship and the episode still be considered in the running as a bottle episode due to some kind of shenanigans. For instance, I’d qualify something like “Mirror, Mirror” in this category – technically, it’s not on our Enterprise and yet still reusing the same sets. Similarly, “The Mark of Gideon,” “Where Silence Has Lease,” “Empok Nor,”  and “Distant Voices” (wait, I said our “favorite” episodes, didn’t I?) all accomplish this by having the characters visit redresses of their respective sets for various reasons. What a great way to save a couple bucks!

In the The Original Series episode “The Doomsday Machine,” for instance, the starship Constellation is another Constitution class ship. Just turn the lights off in any of the usual sets and move some props around and blamo: instant new bridge! It’s like a whole new starship up in here! Thank Commodore Decker for this quick money-saving tip!

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Bottle Episodes with Other Sets 

Sometimes, you can stay on the ship and still need to build a new set, like in TNG’s “Eye of the Beholder” where we see the inside of the nacelles for the first (and last) time and Voyager’s “One” in which we set up the stasis room. Many holodeck episodes might fall into this category as well, since technically we haven’t left the ship, but we see, say, the Bynars’ jazz club in “11001001” or Sandrine’s in “Someone to Watch Over Me,” which we covered this week.

I’d also deign to call episodes with just a brief stop at Planet Hell more bottley than even some episodes that don’t leave the ship at all. Both “The Naked Time” and “The Naked Now” start with a crewman getting infected with space madness outside the ship, but it is that need to quarantine that forces the rest of the episode to focus the story inwards, utilizing every cent wisely thereafter. And episodes like TOS’s “The Corbomite Maneuver” and DS9’s “Whispers” and “The Sound of Her Voice” are off the ship so briefly at the very end that they might as well have been strict bottle episodes.

Possibly the most controversial thing I’ll include in this list is one of A Star to Steer Her By’s favorite cost-cutting episodes: the TOS third-season money saver “The Empath.” Sure, they leave the Enterprise for a whole new set, but it’s the cheapest set you’ll ever see. Nothing but black walls and spotlights for the actors to stand in. Like our previous category about central guest stars, this episode features a Gem (literally!), but I still think it’s worth bringing up because of how it told a decent story on a shoestring budget.

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Bottle Episodes with Significant Effects

Frequently, it seems like an episode is conceived as a bottle episode, but then ends up going over budget anyway because the design scope increased without expectation. You don’t have to leave the ship to spend a lot of money on special effects, costumes, and just blowing things up. Tell that to Janeway in “Deadlock,” which was a clever reuse of the Voyager set… until someone got a hold of the destruct codes. Similarly, if it weren’t for the Bozeman and the Enterprise colliding (and whatever it cost to get Kelsey Grammer on camera for all of sixty seconds), “Cause and Effect” would make it on more bottle episode lists. You can similarly go overboard with costumes and makeup in shipbound episodes like TOS’s “Journey to Babel” and SNW’s “The Elysian Kingdom.”

I’ve seen a whole bunch of listicles that all include the Discovery season one episode “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” as a candidate for a bottle episode. Which is an interesting choice because I don’t think ANY the currently running Trek series are scrimping to keep on a budget because of the sheer number of effects. And “Magic…” is a good example of this while also keeping all of the action to the Discovery. Who knows, maybe with how modern CGI has improved, it’s actually cheaper? Until you have to pay Rainn Wilson, that is.

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The Pure Bottle Episodes

Are episodes that fulfill every element of being a bottle episode better than the preceding? Well, you tell us because we did, in fact, find a number of pure bottle episodes! They can be as refreshing as fresh spring water because they keep very simple and focused. Having just our usual characters (and maybe some extras and repeated guest stars) really allows the writers to dig into character work without relying on spectacle, constant set changes, or a big planetside adventure. 

So episodes like TOS’s “The Immunity Syndrome,” TNG’s “Disaster” and “Clues,” DS9’s “Babel,” VOY’s “Worst Case Scenario,” and ENT’s “Shuttlepod One” and “Doctor’s Orders” succeed in telling a simple shipside story focused on their respective existing characters. Little episodes with big payoffs!

Here’s my pick of the whole blogpost: Give it up for Dr. Crusher in The Next Generation’s “Remember Me”! This episode has got it all – or rather, has got so very little – that it might be the ultimate bottle episode. The number of characters diminishes as the episode goes on because the whole world around Bev is constricting, but she’s still hard at work solving the riddle put to her. She’s quite literally in her own pocket universe – how much more bottley can you get than that? Effects are minimal, guest stars are most noteworthy in their absence, and it’s all confined to a couple of sets while still being a story that is impressive and, dare I say, memorable.

—

We’ve finally corked this bottle and put it on display in our ready room! The humble bottle episode displays some of the best qualities of Star Trek: stories in small spaces that encompass huge universes. A Star to Steer Her By is back to exploring more of the Trek universe every Thursday on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with our voyage through Voyager, raise your glasses with us over on Facebook and Twitter, and chug chug chug chug!

[liskadaebabbit]

Star Trek Retro Review: "Where Silence Has Lease" (TNG) | Bottle Episodes

[dat4l0re]

[geekygwen]

[spockvarietyhour]

Worf and his neverending battle with doors