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Commander Riker and Data are on the planet Melona IV overseeing construction of a new colony. Riker is also starting up an affair with one of the colonists and they seem happy together, which of course means she's doomed. Her destruction comes courtesy of the Crystalline entity, previously seen in the episode "Datalore" from season 1. The entity mines the entire planet for its energy, absorbing everything. All but two of the colonists are saved (Riker's girlfriend is killed when she stops to help another), thanks to a protective cave. Back on the Enterprise, the crew decides to pursue and study the entity, along with the help of xenologist Kyla Marr, who has devoted her life to studying it ever since it killed her son on Omicron Theta. She has no trust for Data because she knows that Data's "brother" Lore was responsible for luring the entity to Omicron Theta, but it's only with Data's help that she learns the secret to communicating with and possibly destroying the alien creature. Because the entity killed her son, she wants to destroy it before it kills again, and Riker agrees, but Picard would rather try to establish communications with it. Though the character of Marr is often annoying, and her communication with her son through Data's access to the Omicron Theta journal entries is a bit much, all is forgiven with an ending that is as brilliant as it is bittersweet. --Andy Spletzer
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 The ending will blow you away!, 2002-11-27
Guest star Ellen Geer is memorable as a scientist that has motives, other than science, in her investigation of the mysteriously dangerous "Crystal Entity". The episode abounds in one revelation after the other, with an end that is possibly one of the series' most surprising...and thought provoking."Trek" doesn't get any better than this!
One Of The Best, 2001-06-25
This episode has everything! Family loyalty, communicating with an intelligence, and the want for vengence. This one is a keeper & I'd recommend it to any Trek fan...
Silicon Avatar, The Return of the Crystal Entity, 2000-03-02
This episode (actually #204 on all the STTNG lists) featured the return of the Crystal Entity, first seen in the "Datalore" Episode. Rather than being just "the monster of the week" sort of story, this one was rich with character. The mother of a victim of the Entity uses the Enterprise (and Data) to track down the creature, and in the process has to face her own "survivor's guilt" over the loss of her 16-year-old son. The story deepens as the woman realizes that Data holds in his memory banks all of her son's journals and personal letters, and can even simulate his voice. At one point, the woman even believes that Data embodies her child, and begs him for forgiveness (for leaving him on Omicon Theta when the Entity attacked that planet.) She's thrown into further despair, however, when she learns through Data, after she's killed the Entity, that her son would never have approved of such an action, and would be saddened by the fact that she "murdered" another being in his name. A touching and deeply emotional story, well acted by all. This one's a keeper.
 Criminal Justice with No Laws, 2000-04-22
Many people seem to feel compassion and mercy for those who have done wrong and even killed, but I am seldom among them. But this episode shows us an unique situation in which a creature, the crystaline entity, seems to kill on a large level because of its nature. IT MAY NOT EVEN KNOW IT IS KILLING. Now enter the mother of a victim, who, since the death of her 16 year old son at the hands of the creature, has been obsessed with the study and eventual destruction of the entity. The crew of the enterprise figures out a possible way of communicating with the creature (reminiscent of the "Companion" from the original series). Despite the deadly nature and our contempt for the creature, I found my curiousity in what the creature "has to say" out-weighing my hate for it. Five stars if it were not for the high standard set by so many other episodes!
What's wrong with everyone's memory?, 2002-08-02
This is a good, solid episode - well made, and with some real depth to it.
The Enterprise crew are helping some colonists establish themselves on an empty planet when the Crystalline Entity, that "giant snowflake" that sucks the life energy out of entire planets, attacks. Starfleet sends a xenobiologist, Dr Kila Marr, to study the attack and find some way of dealing with the Entity. But she has secrets of her own, and the developing relationship between her and Data, set against the background of their mission, provides some real emotional depth as the tension rises.
There are some flaws with this episode. Dr Marr is allowed to get away with too much, and it seems that Data failed to tell anyone about the growing instability in her behaviour. It also seems that everyone has forgotten about the Enterprise's last encounter with the Crystalline Entity, where Lore proved that it was intelligent and that he could talk to it and understand when it talked back.
But those quibbles aside, this episode is very good. The acting is excellent, as is the pacing. The special effects are rather good, too. This episode also raises some thought-provoking questions. How do you react to a life-form that is so different from your own? How does it view the world around itself, and how can you deal with it? Star Trek: TNG at close to its best.
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