The Silent Sea

 The Silent Sea

8.5/10

The Silent Sea

Genre:                                     Episodes: 8                           Year: 2021

Mystery

Thriller

Synopsis:

In the future, Earth suffers from a sever lack of water. Water is strictly rationed creating tension between the different socio-economic classes. A team of soldiers and scientists are sent to a research station on the moon to receive samples that were left behind when the station was abandoned due to a radiation leak.

Cast:

Bae Doo Na (Song Ji Ahn)

Gong Yoo (Han Yoon Jae)

Kim Sun Young (Hong Ga Young)

Lee Joon (Ryu Tae Suk)

Lee Moo Saeng (Gong Soo Hyuk)

Lee Sung Wook (Kim Sun)

Jung Soon Won (Gong Soo Chan)

Kim Shi Ah (Luna)

Heo Sung Tae (Chief Kim)

Gil Hae Yeon (Director Choi)

General Thoughts:

This was a great show. I really enjoyed every episode and highly enjoyed the creepy atmosphere that was built throughout the show’s run. There’s so much in this drama that was made to grab attention and draw viewers in. Being a Netflix show, its reach was a little further than K-Drama’s that are only shown in Korea and on smaller streaming platforms internationally.

It's SPACE

Netflix gives a lot of people access to international content that they might not otherwise have had access to, and over the last couple of years you can really feel Netflix capitalising on Korean content. As well as being on one of the biggest streaming platforms, ‘The Silent Sea’ also had a handful of cast members that viewers would have seen before- also on Netflix. Bae Doo Na, who is the leading character of ‘The Silent Sea’ got a lot of attention when she starred in ‘Kingdom’ and ‘Kingdom 2’. The tone of both these shows are also similar- ‘Kingdom’ was a tension building zombie series, and ‘The Silent Sea’ was a tension building space mystery.

This is not her first Netflix rodeo

A lot of people who tuned in to ‘Kingdom’ would be the target audience for ‘The Silent Sea’. Gong Yoo, who plays the main male character, and Heo Sung Tae would both be familiar to those who watched ‘Squid Game’. And again, ‘Squid Game’ is a series that has a similar dark, mysterious tone. The casting of the drama was definitely a big draw card, not just for dedicated K-Drama fans, but also for newer viewers whose only experience with Korean content is through Netflix. A large budget and a large audience is a great way to start a show. Obviously I’m late to the party as ‘The Silent Sea’ aired almost a year ago now, but I still think it’s one of the better Netflix K-Dramas I’ve seen. I’ve mentioned before how a platform like Netflix gives K-Dramas certain freedoms that shows aired on Korean networks don’t have, and I think this show really hits that perfect middle ground of not being too conservative, but also not being too dark. ‘D.P’ is another Netflix release that was at its core a great show, but the themes were so dark that it wasn’t actually that enjoyable to watch. ‘Sweet Home’ is a Netflix release that I didn’t even make past the first episode- the horror themes were just too much for me. ‘The Silent Sea’ is great for me because it sort of dances on the edge of being horror, but never actually crosses over. I like being drawn in and I like being nervous for the characters and anticipating what is going to happen next. I don’t like being scared. I especially don’t like still being scared even after I’ve turned the show off.

It's the perfect amount of scary for people who don't like horror

This drama was fabulous because it was so great at drawing you into the moment and holding the viewer in these tense, highly suspenseful moments, but very rarely resorted to things like jump scares or gore to heighten the tension. Instead, there was always this slightly uncomfortable feeling that something wasn’t quite right, but it was hard to pick out exactly what it was. Things like lighting, small character expressions and music were excellent tools that this show used to create suspense and build tension. Another excellent way the show did this was to have scenes linger for slightly longer than they needed to.

A+ for atmosphere

A character would leave a hallway or walk past a door and the camera would stay focused on supposed emptiness for just slightly longer than would be normal, leaving the viewer waiting for something to happen- something has to be there right, or why else would the shot still be ongoing? It was a fabulous way of creating the feeling that something else was in the station with the team and that the team was being watched without actually having to show anything at all. The actual plot of the show was pretty slow moving. Not a lot was really going on in each of these episodes. You couldn’t really build these small moments and create this spooky atmosphere if a hundred other things were going on at the same time. I didn’t mind this payoff at all- there was enough in each episode to keep me hooked and the viewers were spoon-fed small pieces of the mystery in each of the episodes. One thing I will say about the plot, is that while technically not a lot happened each episode, I liked that the characters faced threats from different sources. As the story progressed deeper into the mystery, the threats the characters came in contact with were more varied. This certainly helped to up the tension and keep the interest in the story. The different threats were also hinted at early on so it never felt like they came out of nowhere. Right as the crew arrived at Balhae station they saw a dead mercenary and the dialogue was able to give some exposition on the group and why they may potentially cause issues with the crew. Which of course they did in the form of Gi Soon and Tae Suk.

Of all the ways you could die in this station, getting shot by a human sure seems the least cool

We also had Luna herself attacking the crew in the middle episodes in an effort to prevent them from taking the Luna Water away. And then of course there was the Luna Water itself that could instantly kill any of the crew if they came into contact with it. Having a range of threats and different types of danger kept the show engaging and suspenseful, and I enjoyed how it wasn’t an obvious enemy for the crew to go up against all the time. Much like the atmosphere in each episode built, the story built itself in a similar way, gradually upping the stakes and the tension until we made it to the final episode.

Is she a fish? Is she a human? Nobody knows!

The story itself I thought was good- we knew something had happened on the station and we knew it had something to do with the strange Luna Water, and enjoyed the gradual unravelling of what really happened at Balhae Station. I appreciated the final moral issue that the characters were faced with, and I didn’t feel like the viewers had to make too many assumptions about what happened on their own. I still have no idea what the hell Luna Water is or how Luna came to be the way that she is, but I’m not sure we are supposed to know those things by the end of the show. The lack of answers to the final issue raised by the drama is probably the show’s only weak point. I can see some people potentially being put off by the slow pace, but as I mentioned before, that was a price I was willing to pay for the creepiness in each episode. I also think the lack of explanation at the end may annoy some viewers and the science didn’t seem very science-y. The mystery substance just was and interacted with things we knew, such as people, just because the was what the show needed it to do. No reasoning and no explanation. I found this to be a minor flaw though, and it didn’t really have ay impact of my enjoyment of the drama as a whole. 

What Was Great:

Cinematic Experience:

This show is gorgeous. You can tell it had a high budget. The landscaping of the moon was absolutely beautiful and all the CGI with the space and violence and water was all very realistic. To add to the stunning cinematography, the acting was all top class.

The moon landscape was just absolutely stunning 

While the characters themselves weren’t exactly integral to the story, which was more focused on location and events, it certainly didn’t hurt to have actors of such high caliber filling out the cast. The score as well was done beautifully- the music added to the feel of what we were seeing on screen, both the setting and the characters, and certainly assisted with creating the dark, unsettling mood that the show was building. All the elements that supported the plot and storyline were absolutely top shelf, and gave the drama a clean and polished look that can sometimes be lacking from smaller budget shows. All the scenes and various locations we were shown as the story progressed felt so rich and real, and had great detail focus.

Spooky station with spooky lighting

All the areas inside the Balhae Station were populated with smaller details so that we knew where in the station we were. The smaller details all added up to build the bigger picture and add depth to the show. Each and every aspect of the drama came together to increase the foreboding atmosphere and worked together to build the tension that the plot of the drama was riding on. This show was a great experience all around, but visually it was really a cut above other K-Dramas. 

What Wasn’t:

Inconclusive:

As I've said in many a drama review- I’m not really a fan of open endings. While I understand it can be there to allow the viewer to imagine the story to go in any direction from that point, a big part of me has always felt that this is a slightly lazy way of ending a story. Sometimes I’m on board- such as the ending of ‘Inception’ where it’s unclear if the main character has made it back to his family or if he’s still in a dream.

We just kinda threw science away for that last episode, huh

Because there’s only two options and the story that we’ve sat through isn’t really impacted by which of those scenarios are true. But the ending here in ‘The Silent Sea’ was just too open. It’s unclear who is in the spacecraft that arrives for Ji Ann and Dr Hong. It’s unclear why Luna can live on the moon without the need for a space suit. It’s unclear if Luna is going to taken for more experiments and research. It’s unclear whether the moral quandaries the characters have experienced have any impact on wether the Korean government continues the research into Luna Water and if the cloning experimentation continues. It felt like the show spent all its time on uncovering the mystery of Balhae Station (which it did extremely well), but then did nothing with what was left after our characters had all the information. Is it setting up for a Season 2? I mean, probably but I don’t really like that either. Almost everyone from Season 1 is dead and any ongoing seasons are unlikely to have that same level of unsettling atmosphere and curious underlying mystery that made this series so good. Not a fan of open endings, and not a fan of banking on second seasons, so either way- not a huge fan of the way this drama wrapped up.

Recommend?

I would recommend this drama. Particularly for those that enjoy atmosphere building and the tension that comes from a mystery slowly unraveling. 

I sure hope they don't go back to Earth for a second season