In the fourth episode of the fifth season of The Next Generation<\/i>, I was seriously unprepared for this experience. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Star Trek<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of grief\/death<\/b>.<\/p>\n
I honestly did not expect this episode to become an intense character study about grief and longing and revenge. I DIDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T. I spent most of the first twenty minutes struggling to remember \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Datalore,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d only to suddenly realize that the whole point of this episode had changed. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a brilliant thing to watch, honestly, because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so unsuspecting. Ellen Geer takes this story, and she makes it hers, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m unnerved by what I just watched.<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the thing: I honestly thought this was going to be an episode that took place entirely in that cave. A survival episode, if you will! The show hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t done a claustrophobic thriller in a while, and with the return of the Crystalline Entity, maybe we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have a change to learn what the hell<\/i> it actually was. Given how exorbitant and showy the opening chase scene was, I figured that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where the story\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s energy would be focused. (Seriously, we have almost never<\/i> seen an action sequence like that on The Next Generation<\/i>.) There was enough emotional motivation to give weight to a whole plot. Riker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s crush was killed! Everyone was trapped! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an antagonist from a past episode that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s known for being brutal and horrifying!<\/p>\n
And then the Melona Four colony is spared. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t initially interpret it as them being \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spared.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Like Data, I figured something in the cave made it impossible for the Entity to kill them. Thus, Dr. Kila Marr is brought onboard and MY LIFE IS RUINED. I figured something was wrong fairly early on because her face<\/i> kept doing that thing<\/i> every time Data spoke. And lord, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to give credit to Lawrence Conley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story and Jeri Taylor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s teleplay, because Dr. Marr has so much depth it hurts<\/i>. It would have been easy to just make her the vengeful antagonist, the kind of character who is out to get what she wants and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it<\/i>. However, Dr. Marr is so much more complex than that, and I think her shifting relationship with Data is a perfect demonstration of that.<\/p>\n
Honestly, just think about what she goes through here with Data. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s openly hostile to Data at first, so much so that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s willing to openly refuse to work with him during her first meeting with the crew of the Enterprise<\/i>. Then, on the first expedition down to the caves on Melona Four, she ignores Data and rubs it in his face. Then she accuses him of the crime Lore was guilty of: collaborating with the Crystalline Entity. IT IS A VERY ROUGH THING TO WATCH. Of course, we know it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s absurd to consider that Data would ever<\/i> do such a thing, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right around the point where Dr. Marr finally reveals why she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so intense.<\/p>\n
The Crystalline Entity murdered her son on Omicron Theta.<\/p>\n
I think that this episode\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s willingness to use plot points from past episodes is what makes it so strong. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d forgotten that Data had the memories, logs, and limited thoughts of the people on Omicron Theta, and the story utilizes this fact in a heartbreaking manner. As Dr. Marr grows closer to Data, realizing her view of him is flawed, she begins to see him in a new light. Her friendliness towards him is for a selfish reason: he can give her a glimpse of the son she lost. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think she entirely misuses Data, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear to me at the end of this episode that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s projected an imaginary relationship onto him in order to feel more comfortable.<\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blame her, though, for feeling as she does. Grief motivated her to become obsessed with tracking the Crystalline Entity, and her lack of closure over her son\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death caused her to seek him out within Data. That scene where she listens to Data read out her son\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s log, but in the son\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 goddamn, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Ellen Geer, YOU ARE TOO MUCH.<\/p>\n
And look, I understand why she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d want to eschew her scientific sense of wonder and duty in order to kill the Entity. Honestly, I get it. I understand Riker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s logic, too. This thing, even thought it may just be surviving, was still killing thousands upon thousands of lives. It had to at least be stopped, and I got that one way to do that was to kill it. But Picard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reasoning was sound, too, especially since that was the whole point of the Enterprise<\/i>: to seek out new life and new civilizations and to respect that life<\/i>. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the horrible tragedy of this episode. Just as the group gets close to being the first people to ever<\/i> communicate with this Entity, Dr. Marr kills it. She kills it, believing it will have given her son peace.<\/p>\n
We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never know what it tried to tell the Enterprise. <\/i>But the most damning aspect of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Silicon Avatar\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is Data\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s final words to Dr. Marr. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d convinced herself of her morality, assuring Data that her son would have been happy with what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done. Look how she caressed Data in that scene! She was clearly affectionate with him as if he was<\/i> her son. But Data, unaware of the emotional weight of the situation, completely destroys her with his interpretation of her son\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thoughts.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Your son would have been very sad now.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n WELL, NOW I AM. THANKS A LOT, NEXT GENERATION<\/i>. THANKS. A. LOT.<\/p>\n The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Silicon Avatar\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – I am now on Patreon<\/a><\/b>!!! MANY SURPRISES ARE IN STORE FOR YOU IF YOU SUPPORT ME<\/a>. In the fourth episode of the fifth season of The Next Generation, I was seriously unprepared for this experience. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[614,632],"tags":[615],"class_list":["post-4980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek","category-the-next-generation","tag-mark-watches-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– The Mark Does Stuff Tour 2015 is now live and includes dates across the U.S. this summer and fall Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be the remainder of\u00c2\u00a0The Legend of Korra<\/i>, series 8 of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>, and Kings<\/i>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"