The ship is sent to pick up a mediator to settle a centuries old conflict on a planet with a numerical name. They are ordered not to interfere, just transport. So, the job could have literally been done by anyone else. Are there no space cabs? Troi calls out Worf for being extremely anxious about the event, and he states that the mediator, Riva, is the one who negotiated peace between the Klingon empire and the Federation. Worf, who possibly benefited from this peace more than any other Klingon, is somehow disgusted by it? It makes no sense, other than yet another reminder that Worf is a warrior and all he wants to do is kill, kill, kill.When they beam down to pick up Riva, they are surprised to find that he does not hear or speak. He has a "chorus" of telepathic interpreters, with each one specializing in voicing specific parts of Riva's psyche. Picard notes that there is much that they weren't told about Riva. Yes, Picard, once again you've dove head first into a situation without bothering to find out anything at all about the people involved. Picard breaks protocol and speaks directly to one of the interpreters, and Riva is a total dick about it. He has an air to him. He definitely thinks he's superior, and maybe thinks he is a god. All of this could have been told to them before they met him, it's not as if it's any secret. In fact Picard is able to get the whole bridge crew up to speed in about 4 seconds when they return.
Picard: Riva is deaf. These three speak for him. Treat them as interpreters. Address yourselves directly to Riva.
See? That was easy enough. Picard just summed up all of Act I in four short sentences. Anyway, Riva has seen enough of the ship, and dismisses everyone in his chorus except for the guy that represents lust, and trounces off with Troi. Everyone is very aware of what just happened.
Later, Riva arrogantly dismisses a briefing on what is going on with the planet in order to go have dinner and a nightcap with Troi. But perhaps he should have paid attention, because the first thing that happens when they beam down is one of the aliens kills Riva's chorus. They flee, and Riva turns into a sniveling baby that doesn't want to play anymore. Oh ya, and he can't communicate at all now (although him and Troi had no problem communicating earlier when they played the most ridiculous game of charades where she immediately makes sense of gestures all too easily). Pulaski looks him over, and determines there is no fixing his hearing, because his brain just isn't wired for it. Oh also, turns out she CAN fix LaForge's face, he could have normal functioning eyes with only 20% loss over his current situation with the visor. He declines. They try very hard to draw a parallel between LaForge and Riva, but it's never quite right.
Now how could they ever communicate? Let's see....Riva communicates by having someone read his thoughts. Do we have anyone on board who might be able to read his thoughts? Anyone at all? An empath perhaps? No? Not this week? Troi's ever-changing powers apparently are useless to us in this situation (and basically all others). So instead we get Data learning sign language. It's interesting to me that he had to actually sit and watch a video about how sign language works, instead of just receiving an update by a thumb drive or over wifi, or by doing that weird stare off into space "accessing" thing that used to work for him. Anyway, he masters it in minutes, and now we can move on with this dull plot. Riva says that his technique in mediating is to get both sides to find any one thing in common, and then go from there. He has an "aha" moment and realizes what he must do. He will beam down alone, and slowly teach each delegation sign language. Once they have that down, war over. Amirite? Genius. Data points out this will likely take months, but Riva doesn't care and beams down onto a barren land with no supplies. It's assumed that this is a happy ending.
"Loud As A Whisper" misses the mark in so many ways. In fact, it's Horrible. Riva hitting on Troi the moment that he sees those pretty little black eyes screams misogyny. And she goes along with it, even though he is the creepiest dick to beam on board since they met the Ferengi. Forcing the metaphor of Riva's hearing and LaForge's sight added nothing to the story. Maybe I'm dense, but it just didn't even make sense to me, they were totally different situations. Also, Picard does his contemplating in his ready room over a solar system featuring a planet with what looks like an impossible orbit. Other than showing off a pretty neat graphic for the day, I don't get the point of this, either. However, having Riva decide to connect the aliens by teaching them sign language actually was a neat idea, and I really don't mind that the end wasn't completely buttoned up for us. However, THE ALIENS MIGHT VERY WELL KILL RIVA. Or maybe he'll get lucky and just starve.Published May 25, 2018
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