Loud as a Whisper

Enterprise transports a mediator to negotiate peace between two warring factions.

This is an okay episode with a good focus on self confidence and overcoming disability. It contains some classic liberal Star Trek philosophy but it is presented in a fairly non cinematic way.

To enjoy 'Loud As A Whisper' you need to be invested for the guest character of Riva who carries the main arc, along with Deanna Troi and have an appreciation for the use of communication to resolve conflict. His first impression is to flirt in a relatively creepy way with Deanna and for me I never really get over that distraction from the higher purpose of the story which shows him overcome his disability and confidence issues to make a huge contribution to the story. You also need to buy into his legendary mediation skills, which to be honest does not go hand in hand with his personality. I think if he turned up to resolve conflict in the Middle East or Northern Ireland his arrogance alone could fuel conflict. In fact throughout it all I kept thinking they should just let Picard do it.

All that being said, the main theme around Riva achieving success in the face of deafness, in a role that relies so much on communicating, is a good one. The scenes where Enterprise crew members such as Picard, Data and in particular Deanna help him find the confidence to make such a valuable contribution are good.

Visuals are a mixed bag with some ropey makeup jobs and costuming.

Performances from all cast are solid.

I was only able to watch about 10 minutes of this before I had to turn it off. Another boring, uninteresting episode courtesy of that hack Producer Maurice Hurley.

Was not even worth my time.

This is "the disability" episode, and it is rather good. I have attended lectures done by deaf-mute professors that are verbalized by interpreters. Such people are vital for understanding, for both the mute person and for people who do not understand ASL or other sign language, similarly to Riva's Chorus. The b-plot is about La Forge being able to possibly have eyes, literal eyes. Ultimately both decide to accept themselves for who they are and Riva uses his own victimization to advance peace.

You would think that with all their technology Star Fleet would have some way to ensure a person's safety - either by projecting a localised shield or a field that disables weapon. And if they couldn't do that, at least they would use sufficient security personnel. Here one of the ugly skulking cavemen involved in the conflict can just walk in and casually murder people. It is so lazy.

This episode also has another example of someone being "famous but not famous". Riva brought peace between the Federation and Klingons, Worf is anxious to meet him, his reputation is legendary. But apparently there are no records of the fact that he uses interpreters? Again, lazy stupid writing where something extremely simple goes wrong to cause an issue.

Worf is proven to be useless once again, Geordi rejects being cured once again, Troi is useless once again as well. She couldn't feel the dissatisfaction of the rogue alien? Worf didn't draw his weapon? Why does Geordi keep enduring his pain and poor substitute for vision for no reason?

Any of the interesting concepts in this episode are too undermined by assaults on logic to keep you interested.

I wanted to write a positive review because I feel like some of the other reviews are done by robots, focusing on things that don't match, and they're missing the point, which is how to achieve communication between people and the confidence to overcome our own issues to take a step towards someone else. This is one of the many episodes that carry positive values and make us think about how we can do or be better. Even if those episodes are sometimes long and are stretching a single idea over 45 minutes, I'll take it anytime over the drama that we find in most sci-fi series nowadays.