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Old 01-18-2018, 01:24 PM
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January 18th, 1988, "Datalore"

No Fiver
Transcript
Memory Alpha

The Episode

My usual line-by-line commentary got real negative real fast. Good performances here and there aside, there are plotholes big enough to drive a starship through, and it got really aggravating real fast.
* The Enterprise is gonna spend a couple hours here, just in case they stumble upon something that was missed before. Did Starfleet just not care enough about what killed this colony? Why'd it take so long to find Soong's lab?
* Lore's reactivation should've taken place in a more controlled environment nowhere near Data. Furthermore a method of differentiating between the two should've been devised and applied before reactivating him. Data's capabilities are fairly well known, Yar and Worf should've insisted on having a way to identify and control Lore should he prove dangerous.
* The contraction thing was just stupid. It's far too late to introduce something like this, Data's already used more contractions than would be considered acceptable and forgiveable. Cue usual Nate series bible-shrieking here. Furthermore, even if all previous usages are to be forgiven under the growing pains clause, that doesn't forgive the times in this and all future episodes where Data will use them.
* I get that they wanted to homage Isaac Asimov with the positronic brain thing, but they mixed up "artificial intelligence", "robots", and "androids" far too much in this episode. Were the technical advisors out to lunch this week?
* Data is very clear that he only has the information from the colonists' records, and yet everyone seems to act (here and in "Silicon Avatar") that he has all of the actual memories from them. But apparently no one remembered Dr. Soong or the android experiments. Did Soong take the time to clean out as many mentions of this stuff as he could before putting them in Data.
* Lore summoned the C.E., the colony found out, and then they managed to disassemble Lore? Why would Lore let this happen? If Soong had an android-stunning weapon, why wouldn't Lore take it to use against Data if needed?
* Again Picard gripes about Riker not letting him go on away missions. Is this a recent order and he went on away missions for the Stargazer all the time, or did Picard complain to Ben Zoma for over twenty years? If I were Riker, by now I'd ask Starfleet Command to give Picard strict orders on this point: no away missions unless it's absolutely safe, and stop bugging Riker about it.
* Crusher should know about Data's off switch by now. Full stop. Make it classified, need-to-know information by all means, but Crusher (and the whole senior staff, really) do need to know this.

Some good points:
* Data doesn't mind confirming his loyalty to Starfleet over his brother. And this is a good thing; if he hadn't I'm not sure he could be allowed to stay. A desire to help other forms of artificial life is one thing; treating his commitment to Starfleet as optional and temporary is another.
* Wesley devoted a lot of time and effort to earning his place on the bridge, and he was still willing to chuck all of it because the ship was in danger and he was the only one who seemed to know that it was. Even so, I wouldn't have gone about it the way Wesley did, I would've been in my lab building an android-stunner.
* The Crystalline Entity is a good idea for an alien. You could imagine how a crystal could slowly grow in size, power, and intelligence over a long time in space. And imagine the fanfic about when the C.E. meets Gomtuu or Junior!

Memory Alpha

* Final episode written by Gene Roddenberry. I didn't know that he wrote any episodes of TNG, but apparently he did "Encounter at Farpoint" and "Hide and Q" as well.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Lore says that he will drop the shields and beam something out for the C.E. to absorb. It seems he intended it to be Data, but when it turns out to be himself, why didn't the C.E. absorb him?
* Phil also mocked the fact that the entire episode was about the fact that Data can't use contractions, only for him to say "I'm fine" at the end. Seriously, those editors were asleep on the job...
* In my original blow-for-blow commentary I made a Princess Bride joke at the "almost lifeless soil." It turns out that Phil makes it himself in the Guide. I've read the Guides several times, but for any Princess Bride/Trek fanatic the joke is obvious.









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