Geek Review: The Silent Sea (Netflix)

Bleak. Somber. Grim.

These are the qualities that one would expect to feel when watching an apocalyptic drama like The Silent Sea.

Sadly, the real emotion that one would feel instead settles somewhere between dreary, dismal, and draggy. 

Set in the future, we learn that the world is facing a water crisis which results in severe resource rationing. So much so that humans are now segregated by class depending on how much water they are provisioned a day. The Korean drama treads familiar ground in its Snowpiercer-like setting, and we’ve seen this script before. 

Facing a grim reality, dramas offer the chance to witness the triumph of the human spirit or see it at its ugliest, and the biggest issue with The Silent Sea is that each character has weak motivations such that even by its eighth episode, it’s still challenging to relate to any of the characters, even as the show unfolds at a glacial pace.

Adapted from the 2014 short film, The Sea of Tranquility, the Netflix series sees the creator and director, Choi Hang-Yong, taking the helm once again. It must have been a challenge for Choi to expand his vision from a 37-minute short film, considering that the original seemed more arthouse and emotional in nature as opposed to The Silent Sea which leans more into the realm of action-thriller.

Fans of sci-fi expecting tension-filled moments in the quiet of space will end up disappointed, as The Silent Sea meanders around the space station they were sent to. Led by Han Yoon-jae (Gong Yoo), the crew is joined by Doctor Song Jian (Bae Donna), to retrieve a sample from a space station on the moon, which was abandoned five years ago due to an incident.

If heading into a forsaken moon base sounds like a bad idea all round, the crew themselves have no idea what they are heading into. Even the administration themselves have no idea what to expect but dangle the proposition of having the crew’s water status upgraded upon the successful completion of the mission and you end up with a crew that might not be the best people for the job.

Instead of using lengthy exposition to fill in the backstories of each of the crew members, the show opts for flashbacks to give us a better idea why Han Yoon-jae and Doctor Song Jian are motivated to even step foot on the moon in the first place. As for the rest of the crew, they are merely window dressing for the most part, and expectedly, merely a roster of characters to serve their utilitarian purpose.

Upon landing on the Moon, the audiences learn that the sample to be retrieved is key to solving the crisis on Earth. However, the word sample here should give you an idea of where this is heading. 

No, this doesn’t turn into yet another Korean zombie drama, but that might have been a consideration given the results here.

While the show is successful in subverting audience expectations, there’s actually little payoff for anyone looking to power through the entire eight episodes. It does really pick up right at the very end giving the show much-needed agency. Otherwise, the crew never comes into any real danger outside of events within their own control. This makes us wonder why the need for a fully manned operation in the first place. 

Gong Yoo, Bae Doona, and the rest of the cast make the best of a weak script but audiences don’t really get much true sense of their motivations even at the end of the show and if it is even worth the effort. While the audiences should expect some level of heroic sacrifice for the greater good of humankind, The Silent Sea is devoid of such key set pieces. Even though the crew was sent to the Moon by government suits, the political aspect doesn’t shine through at all. There’s even a moment in the show where Han Yoon-jae is advised by Kim Jae-Sun (Heo Sung-tae), the resource administrator on Earth, that his hands are tied due to political bureaucracy and fear of career suicide. It’s a bit too on the nose, and Yoon-jae doesn’t even put up much of a fight and the show simply moves on.

This sense of helplessness persists throughout the film though it’s not via the actions of the characters but from the weak script. And the show would have been weaker if not for the performances of Gong Yoo and Bae Donna, who carry the whole show. This is not to discount the rest of the cast, especially with Lee Joon (Captain Ryu Tae-Seok) returning to the screen for the first time since 2017. While Netflix is a great platform for him to showcase his acting chops globally, The Silent Sea doesn’t serve him, or the cast well.

Thankfully, the real bright spark of the show would be in the realm of cinematography and set design. We know that when it comes to period shows, the Koreans have it locked down especially with the likes of Kingdom. With The Silent Sea, the production team has been able to show off how well they are able to translate their craft into sci-fi. The only sore point would be the CGI open-world sequences in the show which have strategically been kept to a bare minimum. 

With the year coming to a close, many would have hoped that The Silent Sea would have been a good show to end it all off. Given the heights in which its Korean compatriot, Squid Game, was able to make its mark globally, The Silent Sea does fall a few thousand leagues short.