SILICON AVATAR Well, this was trivial. This episode reminds me of a line I used when I reviewed "In Theory": It left no cliche unturned. While this episode isn't in the same class of mediocrity as "In Theory", it was still pretty dumb. The episode got off to a bad start, with Riker trading innuendo with the woman in the colony, but bounced back from that pretty quickly. The terror involved in the mass destruction was handled rather well. It looked like there were any number of ways they could have taken this story and made it interesting. What do you DO with a creature which destroys whole planets in mere hours? Unfortunately, things fell apart almost as soon as Kyla Marr comes on board. Marr is one of the truly mundane characters in Star Trek. "Character by the numbers" seems an appropriate phrase. First we have the "hate the android" schtick, then the bloodthirsy revenge schtick, the tragic mother schtick, the "over-the-edge" schtick, and finally the "oh no I screwed up" schtick. It was pretty easy to figure out at any one time which role she was going to slip into; the character had all the subtlety of a starship plowing into a starbase. The actress was not particularly outstanding. Marr was far to mercurial to plug into, or to really work as a single character. None of the facets of her "personality" had any depth to them. The writers just took the path of least resistance in crafting Marr. The plot was similar: We have the "find the hitherto-unknown trail that the entity leaves behind" schtick, the non-violence schtick, the "gosh-it's- beautiful" schtick, and the "how-could-you-kill-it?" schtick. All facets of the plot, as with Marr's character, are essentially superficial. Popcorn action-adventure, and nothing more. We never learn anything new about the entity, like where it came from and if there are any more of them around. Yawn. One thing the story DOESN'T give us is the reason the entity didn't kill everyone on the planet. Was it because of the mix of minerals in the rock, or what? For all the emphasis placed on this question early in the episode, I think the viewers deserve a clear, explicit answer. The title of the episode was also a nothing-burger: Silicon Avatar? So where are the god-like qualities in the entity that are implied by the title, and how do they figure into the story? And why, as the title implies, is a SILICON avatar more worthy of examination in a Star Trek episode than any other type of god? Come on, people, put a little thought and creativity into your work, okay? This was another almost painfully routine episode, though the interesting handling of the first act makes it worth at least one viewing. On the whole, though, not only was the first game of the 1991 World Series more interesting, but it had better music. Grade: C- SEASON FIVE AT A GLANCE: Redemption II: B- Darmok: A+ Ensign Ro: C Silicon Avatar: C- --- Total Points: 10 2/3 Season Average: 2.667 ( B ) (Fall of .333 from previous episode.) Next week: They finally find those design flaws in the Enterprise they suspected back in "Booby Trap", Troi bounces around in an elevator, and we get the obligatory "woman goes into labor in the middle of a disaster" sub-plot which was old before I was born. And I bet Riker won't even get his dessert. ;-)