auteurus

After enjoying so many great Korean shows in recent years, I had high hopes for Silent Sea. Unfortunately, despite solid production values, this show is a cliched mess of generic science fiction plot devices lifted from older, better movies. It's proof of one thing - water is not the critical resource that Korea needs, it's good writers and directors that are in short supply around the globe!

Some of the production choices are quite puzzling. For example, the moonbase set is ridiculously oversized and very impressive, equal to anything you'd see in Hollywood perhaps short only of a Christopher Nolan movie. But the scenes at the Korean space agency on Earth are all filmed in small drab offices and random spaces that scream low budget rather than mission control. It's like they spent all their money on one huge set and had to back fill the other locations with whatever they could scrounge up.

It can be hard to get a read on the acting when watching subtitles but overall, we are given no reason to care about the characters fates and it appears the actors didn't care much either. Gong Yoo is so amazing in Train to Busan that I had to check IMDB to see this was actually the same actor, because he makes no real impression here.

It's really disappointing, because with better writing this show clearly had the people and budget to make an impact. Instead it's really painful to slog through all eight episodes.