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| Dr. Marr (Ellen Geer) is suspicious of Data. |
THE PLOT
Riker, Data, and Dr. Crusher have been dropped off on a world that is home to a new Federation colony. They are planning the building of key sites when the Crystalline Entity appears in the sky. As the Entity begins blasting the planet's surface, Riker leads the colonists to a nearby cave for protection. He is able to save most of the colonists - but not Carmen (Susan Diol), a young woman he had been making plans with just a few minutes prior to the attack. By the time the Enterprise returns, the Entity has moved on, leaving the planet's surface completely devastated.
Dr. Kila Marr (Ellen Geer), the Federation's foremost expert on the entity, joins the Enterprise to investigate the aftermath of the attack. She is initially suspicious of Data, due to Lore's prior collaboration with the Entity - but those suspicions are forestalled when Data discovers a way to track the creature through space. Now Enterprise is in pursuit of the destructive being. Picard hopes to find a way to communicate with it. But Dr. Marr, whose son was one of the colonists killed by the Entity on Data's homeworld, wants only one thing: to destroy it!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: His fascination for the unknown and his basic humane nature lead him to prefer communication with the Entity over its destruction. He is willing to destroy it if there is no other way to stop its path of devastation. But he considers force to be a last resort. He confesses uncertainty about that choice in his log, but he's made his decision and sticks to it.
Riker: Despite his grief at the loss of his one night stand-to-be, he behaves with professionalism. He has doubts about Picard's plan to attempt communication, but insists that he isn't motivated by revenge. He backs up that statement by laying out some very persuasive arguments to make his case. In fact, I found Riker's position to be more persuasive than Picard's, and it's worth noting that while the captain sticks to his decision, he is not able to dismiss Riker's arguments.
Data: Was programmed with some of the memories and journals of the colonists from his home world. This enables him to access the records of Dr. Marr (Ellen Geer)'s son. This seems to provide Marr with a certain level of comfort - though hearing her son's voice from Data's mouth also seems to push her over the edge as she becomes delusional that her son somehow is still alive within Data.
ZAP THE (HONORARY) REDSHIRT!
She's not actually an Enterprise crew member. But when cute young Carmen (Susan Diol) is seen not so much flirting with Riker as offering herself to him, and then the Crystalline Entity appears in the sky within about a minute, it's not hard to anticipate what will happen next. I suppose we're meant to see Riker experiencing a deep emotional loss. But given that we never saw her before, and he does not appear to have any lasting relationship with her, Riker's reaction to seeing her death can be validly read as, "Aw, crap. There goes getting laid."
THOUGHTS
The opening part of the episode is quite good. I particularly like how much is made of the time it will take Enterprise to reach the colony, even at top speed. It's always nice when an episode bothers to remember that space is, well, big. It's effective to see Picard helpless to do anything except increase speed (to cut the travel time to a still substantial six hours) to the colony and hope he's not too late.
Once the initial attack has passed, however, the episode loses its initial momentum very quickly. Writer Jeri Taylor tries to duplicate Rick Berman's success with his Brothers script, by kick-starting the episode with action before shifting gears to focus on characters and emotions. But while Berman's script focused on Data and his complicated relationship with his "father" and "brother," Taylor's script is mainly concerned with the characterization of a one-shot guest character.
Brothers observed Data's conversations with Soong and Lore in a way that showed all three as complex characters. We weren't told what to think of Lore - We were shown Lore's resentment for brother and father, were shown his grief upon hearing that Soong is dying, and finally were shown his anger and instability. Taylor's treatment of Dr. Marr in this episode is much more simplistic. Her initial resentment and suspicion of Data is not revealed gradually, but is overplayed from the first to a point that I started to wonder why Picard was putting up with it. After that is resolved (in literally one scene), all of her characterization then revolves around her grief for her son. It isn't simply a facet of her character - It is her character, which makes her a much flatter and less interesting person than she needs to be for this episode to actually succeed.
For all its problems, Silicon Avatar isn't bad. There are several good scenes. The entire opening sequence is terrific. Picard's frustration at being unable to reach Riker is later mirrored by his helplessness during the attack on the freighter. He is able to hear the freighter captain and crew dying, but is unable to do anything to stop it for the exact same reason he was helpless at the beginning: the Enterprise is just too far away.
Scenes like these, along with a very strong ending, make this worth watching. But after starting with so much urgency, it's disappointing how quickly that sense is lost. We know the Enterprise is engaged in a chase. But all the Data/Marr scenes make it feel like a soap opera (a recurring weakness with Jeri Taylor scripts). There's no sense that the crew is pushing either the ship or themselves. They're just... flying toward a destination, with the episode mostly marking time until they reach it.
All of which leaves the episode in that horrible "in between" space, the one that's hardest to really review. Silicon Avatar isn't bad. But neither is it particularly good, leaving me awarding it a score dead-center of the scale.
Overall Rating: 5/10.
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