O Mar da Tranquilidade (2021)

Pretty but soulless

The Silent Sea seems to have all the right ingredients, from premise to set design to casting, but unfortunately somehow failed to truly grab my full attention.
I don’t consider my time with this show wasted at all, I did sit through all eight episodes in three days after all, but this is not a drama I see myself ever coming back to nor thinking about ever again

Visually speaking, this is a very impressive show. Probably the most expensive-looking Asian drama I have ever watched. The CGI definitely didn’t disappoint. And yet, for the most part, the cinematography didn’t leave a strong impression on me. Not implying that it was bad, not at all, I consider this to be a pretty visually stimulating drama, but it wasn’t anything more than competent. None of the shots felt bland or flat per-se but I can’t shake off the feeling, that The Silent Sea just lacked a certain something. Nice to look at, but not particularly interesting. The only thing I can say with certainty is that this show is dark, thematically, but also literally at many parts. So dark in fact, that at many points I was having real difficulties figuring out what was going on. That can be a stylistic choice of course, but I still don’t feel like it was an exactly smart one.

However, in my opinion, the biggest fault of the drama lies in the characters, which I couldn’t bring myself to really care about. For starters, I thought that many of them were too similar in personality. But I also just failed to connect with anyone emotionally. I don’t think that the actors are at fault here, if anything I was more than pleased with everyone’s performance, but it seems like The Silent Sea didn’t leave any room to showcase human emotion. For the most part, I don’t feel like we got to know anybody. There were very few scenes where I got a clear image of the crew’s dynamic with each other. I don’t need media to have banter and funny and witty one-liners every second scene, in a Marvel-movie-fashion, but I still needed something, anything from The Silent Sea that would have convinced me that these are truly individual people with their individual flaws, strengths, quirks, aspiration, and dreams.

Plot-wise I think this show was fine. The premise was what originally attracted me and the twists and turns kept me engaged, but I really do feel like a story can only be as strong as its characters and unfortunately, this drama just missed the mark here.

Please don't read this and conclude that I consider this to be a bad drama, I truly don't but it didn't really leave me feeling anything. It didn't make me smile (which, considering the genre, was to be expected), it didn't make me sad, it didn't frighten me, it didn't even really make me think about anything much.

Would I recommend The Silent Sea? Kinda a tough question. Personally speaking, it didn’t hit the spot, but I also feel like this might come down to a personal preference in genres. If you like science-fiction, violence, and (most importantly) cool-looking space-stuff, I’m sure you’ll have a field day with this. If you’re looking for a more emotional experience, maybe skip this one.

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Gong Yoo And Bae Doona Were My Main Reasons For Watching…

In all honesty I sort of feel as though opinions on this show are greatly divided and I can understand why.

I’m a big Gong Yoo fan. I love his works and typically trust his project decisions just as Bae Doona is a brilliant actress and I’m often blown away by her performances. But I often struggled to warm up to their characters. The drama rarely gave us opportunities to really grow to any of the onscreen main leads and supporting cast? It’s hard to explain fully but there were never real moments which were particularly emotional or really made you fall in love with the characters.

As a non sci-fi fan I can’t really say that I’m overly familiar with this genre but I do know that a lot of the storyline did strike a slight chord with me as a bit same-old. I liked how the series helped to show you elements of the world that the series was set in but apart from that it did feel a bit boring.

The pacing was also very slow. I get that the intention was to make you wait and see what would happen but it did turn me off a little during scenes to actually engage in the storyline.

Overall I wouldn’t say this is a bad drama per say but mediocre. I know that South Korea is still pretty new to this kind of genre and I guess we have to take that on board as watchers, but I’ve certainly seen better takes on this genre by South-Korean directors in recent years.

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