EDITED - Silicon Avatar (TNG S5E4) | Star Trek Journey 211
Added 2025-01-02 16:40:24 +0000 UTCComments
I get all that. To clarify, I'm just speaking as a writer. Understanding the constraints of the form -- a 48 minute drama featuring a one-off character-- it's a challenge to create a deep, nuanced character and make them believable. That's why the times that TNG succeeds in doing it are so memorable. It's more common to get one-dimensional caricatures than it is fully fleshed nuanced CHARACTERS. I remember a friend of mine who worked on the cattle call for a reality show, and he said that the people who came to the audition "weren't like real people, but were like actors playing real people in a reality show." This character doesn't seem like a real person with real pain and depth, but like a caricature of a real person with real pain and depth. She's deceptive and shifty in an almost soap-opera villain way. STAR TREK deserves (and at its best DOES) better. That's just my take, of course.
Max Shenk
2025-01-05 12:27:54 +0000 UTCI think the shortcomings in this case is not star trek writing predictable antagonist, but expectations of how we think the characters should be. After almost 30 years the Dr in this episode is about to finally come face to face with the thing that killed her son. She is not evil or bad or stupid, If you dont buy into that pain, then the reaction that she is just stupid and predictable may be the result. I buy it, and I buy that she cna get away with her plan too. She mainly only shows her darker side in the interaction with data. The other crew dont see the red flags. I dont think she is poorly written or uncomplex. And the actor does a great job.
Nico Salerno
2025-01-05 01:57:35 +0000 UTCokay, now I'm confused 🤪
Grey Invader
2025-01-03 11:19:15 +0000 UTCAnd best of both worlds is about Riker and not the borg
Fishing Trip
2025-01-03 08:08:27 +0000 UTCThe Lore!!!...and a reference to Lore!...sorry, but any character that hates Data can suck it!
Grey Invader
2025-01-03 06:39:11 +0000 UTCIt took me forever to realize that the title "Silicon Avatar" refers to Data and not the Crystalline Entity.
Darin Wagner
2025-01-03 01:31:27 +0000 UTCYet again, STAR TREK shows that its achilles heel is its too-frequent inability to create nuanced, multilayered antagonist characters whose true intentions aren't visible a mile away. Not saying that it makes for an awful episode, but when the crystaline entity is less predictable than the human scientist, you know you need some character rewrite. C.
Max Shenk
2025-01-02 17:21:54 +0000 UTC
