Was the scientist justified killing the Crystal in Season 5 episode 4? at the end, I forget the scientist name, but she ended up killing the crystal creature as a way of revenge her son’s death.
I can understand that she wanted revenge, but Captain Picard was obviously pretty upset that she killed the critical creature.
What are your thoughts?
I dare say I'll want to rewatch this episode... liked it reasonably well at the time, while noting TNG took another style format change and leaving seasons 3 and 4 in the dust-- but before I digress...
To save greater billions, my quickie answer is "yes", but since even the episode is trying to aim for more nuance then so can those who gawk and react to it like me, so it's going to be a tad more detailed than an episode of the Teletubbies:
Kila's Marr's reactions were very human indeed, and many not unacceptable given the scope of the issue - even if still taking it specific to her own family being devoured. Actually, this is a fresh and new type of plotting route to take regarding the big bad sci-fi monster because sci-fi often shows people getting eaten or whatever but doesn't spend the time showing the ramifications to survivors. Then again, "The Man Trap" felt more realistic (yes, I'm using that word in describing science fiction), and - for a fun tangent - had shows like - say - "Space: 1999" wallow on how the humans were coping with no moon affecting the tides and other ecological frivolities instead of how the moonbase crew were surviving, audiences would go long before the fictional people of that fictional circumstance would as you wouldn't have alien and/or psi-supernatural incidents occurring as often. Space being the unknown also makes suspension of disbelief more likely to be possible, but I digress...
Quick aside: We also have to forget that Lore was able to communicate with the crystalline entity in perfect RP English in its premiere story, yet Data couldn't. But noting that, now the crew have to become wine glass tapper musicians to get even the most basic linguistics across to the big galactic amulet there - even Captain Pike's two-option buzzer from "The Menagerie" had more depth, so having to figure out how to tell the thing "Find planets featuring silicon-based fritters, or if nothing else go for some dolphin-safe seaweed instead of bipedal monkeys" was going to take a fair bit of time given how big the crystalline entity was and how much it needs as sustenance.
But Kila was hyper-focused a tad much on Data when, especially for we the audience who knew already, Data didn't lure the thing to eat the colonists. That said, she did grow to like Data, especially when we find out that he has stored all of Renny's diary content and has "memorized" aspects of his personality, which may be incomplete but let's not worry over that right now. So then we get to the final scene where Data makes a bizarre and obviously inconclusive connection and decision on how Renny might have felt (he would be oh-so-disappointed, bad doctor scientist Kila, bad, bad!!), in an early example of season 5's soapbox addiction/contrived storytelling methods to where the bridge clique are always 100% pure-dee-right, even when they're not (or at least not as clear-cut as "Star Trek The Brady Bunch Generation" now wants to make things out as being.) The truth is, supposition can only go so far based on what is known, and even then it's not always a 100% predictable supposition.
Actually, I recall more about Riker being all annoyed about his latest bedbuddy of the week daring to want to save another colonist and then gets promptly devoured via a well-done special effect. But where's that enlightened 24th century spirit? When do we get the sequel to "Silicon Avatar" where Riker is blamed for not stopping the thing, or not stopping her from caring more about "an old man"* that she might have known better than him, or at least has to live longer with. There's a fun irony in all this, in that maybe, just maybe, Riker would settle down based on the number of double entendres she was serving up, but that seemed unlikely as well. But in stories like this, the power of plot armor is key.
Kirk would treat the crystalline giant keychain fob thing the same way as the big space amoeba or doomsday machine. Can't see Sisko or Janeway being as "enlightened" as Picard either. Especially when most humans in this story were showing they weren't either.
* Those were Riker's own words told in the story, perhaps misplaced because he couldn't get his horndog on... or not. Even 100-or-so stories shown prior to this one don't tell the potential full story either, and the story ran out of time and direction to explore every possibility.
