Silicon Avatar

This episode begins with Riker about to get his groove on with yet another alien when out of nowhere comes that dreaded Crystaline entity. It kills some of the settlers (depriving Riker of some more nookie) and the rest miraculously survive and are rescued by the Enterprise.

Soon, Dr. Kila Marr (Ellen Geer--daughter of Will Geer, by the way) comes to the Enterprise to monitor the entity as they pursue it. It seems that in addition to knowing more about the killing machine that anyone, her son was also killed by it--and she is ticked! However, Picard soon makes it clear that his goal is NOT to kill it (even though it basically eats planets) and wants to try to establish contact with the crystalline entity). Naturally Dr. Marr is NOT pleased with Picard's namby-pamby attitude. What's next?

This episode was unusual in that I really found myself hating Picard. I understand about the Federation's whole Prime Directive thing, but the creature eats planets...and he wants to try to be it's pal! He also seems indifferent to the thousands (and perhaps billions) of folks it's killed. And, at the end, SHE is seen as a baddie because Dr. Marr wants to kill it. I say KILL IT!!! A strangely unsatisfying episode.

Enterprise has another encounter with the crystalline entity from the previous episode 'Datalore'.

This a fairly good episode with some decent character moments but for me it's not written well enough for certain scenes to work.

The plot has a great central theme with the guilt and revenge obsession of someone who has lost a child driving many scenes of great emotional drama. However, the resolution falls short on plausibility and lacks any real explanation about the nature of the crystalline entity.

The writers clearly lacked the screen time to tackle both Dr Marr's Ahab-like obsession and give enough background information to the entity that might allow the audience to empathise with Captain Picard's stance and Lieutenant Data's final observation. The result for me like some other viewers, particularly as a parent, I find myself siding with Marr, viewing Picard as a bit sanctimonious, and resenting Data for kicking a grieving mother with mental health issues when she's down.

Marr has a lot of screen time and Ellen Greer gives a fantastic performance. Her character is not the only parent to suffer after choosing to focus on a career over parenthood. This is a theme addressed before with Riker's father, but in less tragic circumstances. Her character is written and performed so well I sympathised with her situation.

Data makes a strong contribution to the drama, particularly in his scenes with Marr. His lack of emotion is a perfect foil for Marr's character and, as ever, Brent Spiner does a great job.

Picard's character is written to be consistent with the Federation values he often upholds, but I do not think it works in this episode for the reasons stated above. If there was time to properly define the entity as something other than a mass murdering threat to life like the classic 'The Devil in the Dark' it would have worked better. Ironically, Picard gets his own Ahab moment in the movie 'First Contact' and has to be talked round from some vengeful behaviour .

Other characters such as Riker and Troi are not written well either. Troi in particular could have solved a few of the plot holes that hamper the final resolution, but she is conveniently quiet on certain aspects of Marr's frame of mind. Riker is the only major character supportive of Marr and it is implied (intentionally or not) that he too might be out for revenge after the entity prevented his latest conquest.

Visually it is very strong in the scenes involving the entity and on the planet surface.

'Silicon Avatar' clearly defines the issue (the crystalline entity doesn't care if people are setting down roots; it needs to feed!). But while Picard wants to try and communicate with it (learning and all that), seemingly everyone else around him wants it destroyed; including a bitter scientist with a revenge thirst. The lynch mob has a good point because people are dying, but then again, the fractal menace reminds me of V'Ger and even the alien probe from "The Voyage Home", so it's not the most vile of creatures.

But this is a Moby Dick parallel, and it really comes down to the character of Dr. Kila Marr (Ellen Geer), and Geer does a good job spitting forth the hurt and seething hatred for this thing; and I think it's a nice way of readdressing the entity from episodes past and giving it some sort of closure.

7/10

Yes please Picard start a chit-chat with the crystal entity. Ask for its food preferences ! While entity eat worlds !

And Data said to Marr what COULD say her son about her action !

GIVE US A BREAK !

From the times that I completely disagree with Picard and Data.

And Data, next time do not make speculation WHAT could say another person. Specially when he is dead.

With all due respect and no matter if you have a giant database in your brain do not make speculation for a dead person.

And of course I blame only the screenwriters for this.

This time I am with Dr. Kila Marr side and is the reason I put a 10 in this episode.

I think this episode is more about what you would do if a mindless creature murdered your child / mother / someone close you. (In this case, how Dr. Marr feels about losing her son.)

If a bear ate your mother in front of you, would you just say "well it was hungry and that was just instinct, it didn't mean anything by it" or would you not try to kill the bear out of anger and heartbreak?

That's what this episode is about. The harshness of nature.

It's a pretty good, but sad episode. At first Dr. Marr comes across as being crazy, but then you quickly realize she was driven crazy by the death of her son. Who wouldn't be? So as the episode progresses, we being to relate more to her. I think it's a good episode because of the way it makes us think about someone's extreme emotional response to a horrible situation. It's part of being human.