I don't think this was a popular episode and I've read that even the cast and crew had doubts about it. I'll admit it's not my favorite but I appreciate the effort to find closure on another weak area from the first season. I gave Datalore a good review, but it was admittedly more soap and drama than science fiction. I think that was what they wanted to correct in this episode.
So the away team is minding its own business. They're on Melona IV helping a group of people with plans for the construction of a colony. The doctor and Data are down there being useful to the cause. Riker's making moves on a pretty girl. Life is good. Then the sky darkens and they look up to see the Crystalline Entity in the sky. It's a decent hook. I'm sure nobody expected that if they hadn't seen the preview trailer during the week. Of course the Enterprise crew has had previous experience with this thing so they start to herd people up to flee. The Entity begins to destroy things with an energy beam. It validates the backstory provided in Datalore about the utter decimation that the Entity can cause to an entire planet and it's pretty intense to watch as damage is done and people are evaporated.
Data's scans find some caverns that may provide cover. The Enterprise is 27 hours away and pick up a disturbance from Melona IV. Sometimes I think it's strange that they were monitoring this planet so intently from so far away, but there are so many episodes that begin with them picking up an unknown disturbance that it's not that far fetched. They kill some time with the rescue. Data theorizes as to why the caverns are safe and it makes sense since Data was hidden underground for so many years after the attack on his home world of Omicron Theta. They're worried about running out of oxygen but then they're rescued by Worf and a landing party. The ruins of Melona are much more believable to look at than Omicron Theta in Datalore. Like I said, a lot of this episode was an attempt to improve upon that concept.
They decide to pursue the Entity and notify Starfleet. So they send Dr. Kila Marr along to help. She's a scientist that has made studying the Entity her life's work. And that's because her son was killed on Omicron Theta. Her obsession gives the story a Moby Dick flavor. They use her character to address the fact that Lore had contact with the Entity. Marr expresses hostility towards Data from the second she steps on board since she's never heard of people surviving any such attack. Troi picks up on this hostility and thinks that Picards decision to make her work with Data so soon could cause an irrational conflict of interest. But Picard sends them to the planet to study how the caves were able to protect the people anyway. She is first subtle with Data and then blatantly honest in her suspicions that he may be in contact with the Entity as Lore was which is her theory as to why there were survivors this time, no matter what kind of protective properties they would find in the caves. She is obviously a little unhinged.
They use the information they find with the astronomical traces the Entity left behind in the planet to track it. Marr takes the initiative of modifying torpedoes with the ability to destroy it, but Picard blocks her moves again insisting that they attempt to communicate with it at first since it appears to be unique and also that they may be able to provide it with whatever it needs so that it doesn't need to lay waste to planets. It's not entirely an unreasonable assumption. If it was unique and Lore's influence was all it had ever known of humanoid life forms, there's a chance that a resolution could present itself. He orders her to work with Data some more on finding ways of communicating with it. I mean, maybe he shouldn't have at this point since she is obviously biased against him. I can understand Picard wanting her to behave like an adult though. Her impression of Data changes when she discovers that he has records of all the colonists from Omicron Theta stored in his memory banks including personal entries of her son. He reads a message that Renny made to her in his voice and it seems to soften her hardened personality. They're then interrupted by a summons to the bridge where they have received transmissions from a freighter ship that is under attack from the Entity and listening to their screams over subspace upsets her again.
But she's not the only one upset by it and even Riker wavers and starts to think that this should be a seek and destroy mission instead of a contact situation. Picard is a little stiff with him too, but at least he's consistent. Picard is kind of on the sidelines in this episode just being the referee between all the emotional parties. His point is a good one, but he seems a little colder than usual in his delivery. Anyway, Data and Marr work more on a communication technique and agree on a graviton pulse. Then she gets another fix of hearing her son's voice as Data read a journal entry for her. You can see now that these moments are probably not helpful to her or having a healing effect, but only disconnecting her even more from reality.
They start sending out the graviton pulse when they're still far away from it. The pulse gets its attention and it stops and they're able to approach it. Data begins to fluctuate the signal which causes the Crystalline Entity to vibrate in different ways. It begins to give off a signal that they Data can begin to decipher. This is the best part of the episode. I liked the concept of the Entity vibrating like a musical tuning fork because in spite of the fact that it was this destructive force, it was also kind of beautiful. I can only assume the writers thought the same thing. In any other episode it would've been a neat development and for a moment it seems like they might establish communications with the thing. But that's when Dr. Marr snaps. She sends out a continuous pulse that makes the Entity vibrate uncontrollably and visibly irritates it.
They try to stop her but she locks out the controls. The Entity vibrates until it shatters. Picard is appalled and has Data escort her away, all the while her mental breakdown continues. She's happy and proud of this accomplishment and tries to explain to Renny through Data that she did it for him. Data surmises from the logs Renny left that he would've been disappointed that she ended her career as a scientist. That's not what she wants to hear, but you can assume she knows that it's possibly true.
This was a strange episode. Like I said, I like the idea of closure and inserting some real science fiction into the concept of the Crystalline Entity but the character of Kila Marr was mishandled, I think. Her presence from the beginning should've been a red flag to such an experienced crew and in the end I think the writers were a little hard on her by making her look foolish for desiring to kill the thing that killed her only child. It almost feels like making fun of a grieving mother even though she's years removed from her son's death. Even though I can acknowledge that her actions were wrong, the moment of hope that they might be able to communicate with the Entity isn't quite enough to make me think less of Dr. Marr personally. Any other time Troi would've been hovering around her offering the counseling she needs. The coldness to the whole situation represented in Picard doesn't seem to fit with the normal compassion shown in such cases and the whole episode ends up just being kind of a downer. Still it's a competent episode and I won't give it less than three and a half stars.
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