TNG S5E4 "Silicon Avatar" Review By AnswerMan

Horrible:Meh:Adequate:Good:Fantastic

While working on a colony, the Crystalline Entity makes a re-appearance, and in its typical fashion, destroys all life on the planet, including Riker's main squeeze of the week. The others survive by hiding in a cave and sealing the entrance. Once rescued, the crew is joined by Dr. Marr, who is an expert researcher on the entity. She seems...oddly excited about being there, and shows a disregard for the destruction and loss of life that has occurred, in favor of her enthusiasm at investigating an incident so soon after its occurrence. Her initial excitement seems rather odd, as we later learn that she lost her 16 year old son on the same planet where Data was found.



A lot of this is a callback to "Datalore," an episode that uncovered Data's backstory and unearthed his evil twin. But it seems that Dr. Marr has not seen that episode, as she is astounded that the crew was able to survive in a cave, even though Soong's cave laboratory was left untouched by the entity in the previous show. Also, she seems convinced that Data must be working with the entity, which is why the crew was spared- so that the entity's ally would not be harmed. However, in "Datalore" we learn that Data was found laying outside on a rock, unharmed, after the entity's attack on his home planet. Data is not life, and therefore not susceptible to the entity's feeding frenzies anyway.

Dr. Marr is at first ice cold to Data, as she suspects that he has been in communication with the entity and caused it to attack. This is not exactly an unlikely scenario, as this is exactly what Lore did. But Data explains that he is not his brother, and has no strange emotions that would lead him to such a betrayal. Then the Dr. asks Data if he has any files on her son, as Data was uploaded with all the information on the colonists. He does have the information, and can even replicate her son's voice as he reads a letter to her. She now has an unending and misplaced admiration for Data. Almost as if he is a stand in, an....avatar of sorts, for her son. Also, he's made out of silicone. Get it?

Anyway, the Crystalline Entity is on the attack again, swallowing up a ship and headed toward a planet. Dr. Marr instructs the crew on how to alter their torpedoes to kill it, but Picard insists that it is not his intent to do destroy the being. He says that they are not hunters, and just because the entity is consuming food does not necessarily make it evil. He says that whales eat cuttlefish en masse, but we do not think of whales as evil because of this. Instead, they will attempt to communicate with the entity.

While Picard is right of course, we also place a higher value on our own lives over that of other creatures that do not value ours at all. We build shelters as a basic need, and we do not allow others to share it. Not up the food chain, nor down. No mice may share our space, nor may bears. If there are mice, we will set a trap. If bears want in, we will shoot them. If the cuttlefish had the means to kill the whale and save their lives, they would. To be fair, Picard is not ruling this out. He makes the alterations to the torpedoes. And I think his intent to communicate is noble. All I'm saying is the Dr.'s desire to just kill that thing that wants to consume them is not unreasonable.

It's unclear why the crew seems so unsure that they will be able to communicate with the entity. They know that Lore accomplished this, and seemingly in a fairly straightforward manner. They decide to send tones of some sort, which it does understand is communication, as it alters its own behavior in kind. Dr. Marr is taken aback at how beautiful the entity is, but this does not stop her from sending a tone that causes its destruction, and locking out the controls. She just watches this all happen, with a frozen dumb look on her face. The Crystalline Entity vibrates and shatters apart. Picard is so pissed! The doctor is ordered to her quarters, and Data escorts her. She speaks to Data as if he is her son, but Data refuses to play along. Furthermore he insists that based on the knowledge he has on her son, he would be extremely disappointed in her killing the entity. I'm not so sure.

"Silicon Avatar," like its predecessor "Datalore," is only a Meh episode of Trek. I like the Crystalline Entity as an unconventional bad guy, and I like the debate about whether it is proper to assassinate a foe. To me, Picard's suggestion that evil must be afoot to justify such actions is not really relevant. For instance, the Borg aren't necessarily evil. They assimilate not to be cruel, but to gain knowledge and experiences in their pursuit of perfection. But still they must be stopped. I think Dr. Marr took reasonable actions, and had she not Picard would have eventually been forced to destroy the entity himself anyway. Also, one unexplored loose end is the signal that the entity transmitted to the Enterprise. At the moment of the exchange, LaForge states that it would take some time to decipher it, but we never get to hear what the message was.

Published October 7, 2018