My Random Journey Through Trek #21

The Next Generation 
S5 Silicon Avatar

The early preparations are being made for a new colony on Melona Four with Riker and Data helping out the first wave of federation people but then the Crystalline Entity appears and begins to feed on the planet, the people flee to some caverns but two are killed. The Enterprise arrives at the planet and digs the survivors out and are soon joined by Dr. Kila Marr an expert on this alien lifeform but shows severe animosity towards Data and it turns out she lost her son on Omicron Theta the planet where Data was created and were Lore helped to murder everyone. In time however he convinces Dr Marr of his sincerity in helping her towards finding a solution to the problem of this alien life form thanks in part to his memory containing the journals of her dead son.
The Enterprise tracks the entity but are unable to prevent the destruction of a ship but eventually they lure it towards them and try to communicate, there is some success as it responds but then Dr Marr adjusts the frequencies of the signals being sent and the sympathetic vibrations shatter the life form and the Doctor walks off the bridge has everyone turns towards her.

Silicon Avatar is the sequel to the season one episode Datalore, this lifeform continues to feed on organic life but Picard is looking for a way to communicate believing that an understanding can be reached. Dr. Kila Marr as you would expect has the very human reaction to Data seeing only his brothers betrayal and the fact there were survivors points to the entity sparing them as Data was there thus suspected collusion. Ellen Geer did a fantastic job in the role of Kila Marr first with the negative aspects of her character and then the flip as she accepted Data and took joy in the revelations of her sons journals. This change really makes the payoff of her revenge against the entity work well, you don't really expect her to take such a cold and clinical action and that elevates this episode higher than you might think it deserved at least on the surface.

A few niggles, the Enterprise is over a day away from the planet yet her sensors can detect the energy disturbances on the planet and why exactly were first shift bridge personnel digging the survivors out, I know why from a tv point of view but it was a little silly. Amusing to see Riker in full on "pull" mode despite the discussion originally being about long term settlement, I wonder if this was Carmen's last fling but of course she had to die for dramatic effect, pity it really had no relevance for the big picture. I have to say despite initial reservations I enjoyed the episode, Ellen put in a performance to be proud of and we also got the clash of beliefs, treating a life form with respect and trying to understand before passing judgement and the need for revenge and a quick leap to action.

IMDB

Rating 8

My Random Journey Through Trek #13

TNG

S6 & S7 Descent

Descent is the season six finale and the season seven premiere two parter and deals with Data, the Borg and Lore returns just to spice things up a little. So the episode kicks off with Data playing poker with some historical figures on the holodeck including Mr Stephen Hawking, a nice fun scene but then a distress call reveals all an outpost full of dead Starfleet personnel and then the Borg make their appearance resulting in Data killing one and experiencing a very definite emotion. As Starfleet mobilises for a potential Borg invasion Data tries to recreate the emotion and he describes it a mix of fear and pleasure. Another attack results in the capture of a drone who convinces Data to free him and together they flee the Enterprise but the ship is able to track the shuttle through the energy vortex which is being used to outperform standard warp travel and reveal the base of operations.

It turns out that Lore had met up with the Borg who had been directly affected by the individuality imposed on Hugh (I, Borg) and had filled in a very obvious gap in their collective and by extension giving him an almost unstoppable killing machine army to aide in his desire to rid the galaxy of those pesky biologic lifeforms. La Forge, Troi and Picard are captured and Data begins to experiment on Geordie which gives us some good dialogue between the two "friends" but it still requires a technological approach to make a wedge between the two brothers. Meanwhile Crusher is in charge of the Enterprise and is in battle with the Borg ship, she does a pretty good job but as always it requires quite a bit of luck and good fortune. Riker and Worf are captured by Hugh and the cast offs from Lore's experiments but eventually everything comes together and when push comes to shove Data (with a little help) turns on his brother and after the battle takes away the emotion chip that had been built for him an co-opted by Lore.

I wasn't a huge fan of Descent when I originally watched it and while I could appreciate the work of Brent in the two roles Lore was never a plus point of the show for me. That said this wasn't a terrible episode to use as a two parter season cliffhanger but it pales a little compared to some examples of the tv story telling "keep 'em interested" ideals. I thought it was a little amusing that everyone was in standard uniform when on the planet, this was a covert mission and well too many times you had to just live with it to allow the episode to continue. It was interesting to see Crusher in command and supported by officers other than the main cast, Alex Datcher as Ensign Zandra Taitt was excellent and worked well with higher ranked Lieutenant Barnaby ( James Horan ) who later was the mysterious figure within the temporal cold war. It was also fun to see Benito Martinez down in the transporter room, he's more familiar to me on The Shield, Saving Grace and Sons of Anarchy. One last bit of trivia, Jonathan Del Arco who played Hugh is now a recurring character on The Closer and now Major Crimes, it's always fun to recognise actors who have moved up their professional ladder in the years since a guest spot on a scifi show many moons ago:)

IMDB I & II

Rating  5 & 5

My Random Journey Through Trek #7

The Next Generation

S5 Hero Worship

The Enterprise searches for a science vessel that ceased communicating, they find the wreckage and the only survivor is a young boy who is trapped, they can not beam him out so Data risks himself to lift a beam and escape with the boy who is amazed at his strength. Timothy played by Joshua Harris claims the ship was attacked and soon withdraws into himself and surprisingly becomes attached to Data, his lack of emotion seems appealing. As the Enterprise investigates a possible enemy hiding in the Black Cluster of gravitational anomalies it becomes clear that there was no attack but soon the Enterprise itself is fighting for it's life as it's pummeled by waves of gravitational force. 

Data grooming a young boy...

So this is a bit of a Data episode dealing with the plus and negative aspects of his character and how it can be appealing to a immature psychi who is dealing with misplaced guilt over the deaths of perhaps his immediate family. It also begs the question why any Federation or Starfleet sanctioned science mission takes children along on a research mission which has obvious dangers involved and the Enterprise school room and it's very creepy teacher was so cringe worthy.

I was however quite amused how the boy saved the day, even Data wasn't up to speed with the cause and effects of their current situation and surprisingly Riker was going to dismiss Data's recommendation to drop the shields, when the second officer and expert in pretty much everything makes that statement in a time critical situation you listen and thankfully Picard did.

The helm officer Ensign Felton was cute, not sure that level of makeup would be the norm for Starfleet but who knows, the world of tomorrow is strange and wondrous.

Sheila Franklin as Ensign Felton

Hero Worship has it's moments but overall it fell a little short, I don't think the whole backstory that supports the Data/Timothy narrative works well, too many holes and I'm sorry but that will make or break an episode.

IMDB

Rating 5