It’s going to be a difficult one. We’ve been fed rumours, we’ve heard gossip, but the release date of The Silent Sea was postponed since the beginning of 2021 and made me question if we’ll really going to finally see it. Finally in December we’ve got what we’ve waited for. The big title featuring big names like Gong Yoo and Bae Do Na. And yet, there was barely any hype for this drama. Netflix showed maybe two promotional photos and trailer and that was it. It was all pretty much a mystery.
I was expecting a great show, really. With this cast, with an interesting idea, I thought that this will be drama to perfectly close 2021. Perfect Christmas gift. And I was waiting with this review for two months. Not because I’m lazy (ok, also that) but to be honest, I barely had anything much to say about it. But it must be done.

So, the story is pretty simple and a bit shallow maybe in how it’s not showed to the fullest. In the future humanity is faced with a big water crisis. Water is hard to come by and needs to be rationed. The amount of water that a person can get depends on the social status. The only hope lays in failed search mission on the moon. Rumour has it that in the closed off research station there’s a sample that can end the crisis. The problem is that station was closed due to radiation incident. A crew is assembled that will go to the moon and try to search for the lost sample. It will soon turn out that the information about the incident that they were given are not entirely true.

So, first of all, the background. Or lack of thereof. I know that it was probably done on purpose. Since we’ve closely followed only crew on the moon, we didn’t get much of the background. Just some slight retrospection of the characters. And I’ve wanted to know more so much. To know the characters more, to know their motivations and why are they there. How is humanity coping with the crisis? What happened that it’s so severe? We’ve got answer to none of those questions and it really irked me while watching it.

And everything is covered with thick veil of mystery. And not only to the viewer. Upon arriving in the station, our crew discovers that they don’t even have a map of the whole station. Some of it’s parts are unknown and the members cannot reach them. Which obviously, makes their search mission much more difficult. The lighting is very limited, frames very narrow which ads to the claustrophobic feeling of the series. The viewer feels locked out together with the characters on the station. Especially that there’s barely any soundtrack here and lighting is very natural so it’s easy to feel trapped.

Speaking about characters. We’ll wait a long time until we’ll get to know them better or actually at all. Since we don’t have a lot of retrospection all we can work with is what’s happening right now. We don’t get much exposition, so characters are mostly a mystery for us. We’re left with questions and speculation about what pushed those people to take part in this risky mission. But it all fits together perfectly. This drama just simply doesn’t give us simple answers.

I need to say a good word about scenography. It all looks very solid and very real, which in drama that takes place practically only indoors, is crucial and took great part in creating eerie feeling to the drama.

The action is pretty slow, but that’s how it’s supposed to be. The viewer is suspended in constant feeling of pressure. We don’t know what lures behind next door of the station, but from what we can see, it cannot be anything good.

It’s hard for me to somehow review this drama. It’s coldness and lack of emotional engagement made it difficult to perceive. Well written plot and overall amazingly created atmosphere of the drama were in plus but still left me wanting some more.