This episode is less about the crystalline entity and more about Dr. Kyla Marr turning Data into some kind of resurrection of her dead son.
It also gives the viewer a hard choice, as the crystalline entity is represented as intelligent. Unfortunately it can only exist by sucking the life out of everything living around It.
And there is also the question of why didn't it finish off The rest of the colonists hiding in the cave? Did it really think that Lore was there?
There were no good solutions for the crystalline entity, or for Dr. Kyla Marr, whose entire life was focused on destroying it. And she dragged the enterprise into the middle of her private little war while turning Data into something he never was intended to be.
The madness of Dr. Marr is well documented by actress Ellen Greer, whose mother Herta Ware ironically played Captain Picard's mother in the first season episode "where no one has gone before". She approaches the character as just a little bit off at the very beginning, and then her relationship with Data changes from Icy to warm, and then even adulatory, you just had to know that there was something wrong there.
Unfortunately this episode stopped any further development of the entity and finding out exactly what it was, where it came from and if it really was intelligent.
It also gives the viewer a hard choice, as the crystalline entity is represented as intelligent. Unfortunately it can only exist by sucking the life out of everything living around It.
And there is also the question of why didn't it finish off The rest of the colonists hiding in the cave? Did it really think that Lore was there?
There were no good solutions for the crystalline entity, or for Dr. Kyla Marr, whose entire life was focused on destroying it. And she dragged the enterprise into the middle of her private little war while turning Data into something he never was intended to be.
The madness of Dr. Marr is well documented by actress Ellen Greer, whose mother Herta Ware ironically played Captain Picard's mother in the first season episode "where no one has gone before". She approaches the character as just a little bit off at the very beginning, and then her relationship with Data changes from Icy to warm, and then even adulatory, you just had to know that there was something wrong there.
Unfortunately this episode stopped any further development of the entity and finding out exactly what it was, where it came from and if it really was intelligent.