February 4th, 1991, "Devil's Due"
Let me just say, I don't like this one. People pretending to be gods when actual gods like Q, Travellers, and Douwds are running around gets old real quick when not written properly, and Ardra is NOT written properly.
Fiver (by FatMatDuhRat)
The Episode
MARLEY: You don't believe in me.
DATA: I don't.
MARLEY: What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?
DATA: I don't know.
MARLEY: Why do you doubt your senses?
DATA: Because a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. Why, there's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are. Humbug, I tell you. Humbug.
I thought this wasn't an accurate Christmas Carol quote, but it turns out all Data changed was adding "Why" before the gravy line and "Humbug, I tell you, humbug."
Then again, maybe I've watched too many movie adaptations. I don't read the book that often, the closest I get is the Patrick Stewart audiobook, which I don't think is 100% authentic.
DATA: Yes, sir. I have studied the philosophies of virtually every known acting master. I find myself attracted to Stanislavsky, Adler, Garnav. Proponents of an acting technique known as the Method.
Stanislavsky was a Russian theater actor and director. Any classic movie fan worth his salt will know of
Danny Kaye's routine based on him, which Tom Lehrer turned into "
Lobachevsky."
Hey, any excuse for a Tom Lehrer link, right?
Stella Adler ran a Studio of Acting in Los Angeles starting in 1949. A student of Stanislavski, her school later trained such actors as Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, and Kate Mulgrew. How's that for a coincidence?
Garnav is the obligatory fictitious addition to the list, or as TvTropes calls such examples,
Famous, Famous, Fictitional.. I'm disappointed that he didn't namedrop Anton Karidian (AKA Kodos the Executioner). Karidian certainly seems like a guy who would be a proponent of The Method.
Chakoteya comments in the transcript that Stewart himself is a Method actor. Which makes Picard's comment that he's vaguely familiar with it all that funnier.
DATA: Sir, I have modified the Method for my own uses. Since I have no emotional awareness to create a performance, I am attempting to use performance to create emotional awareness. I believe if I can learn to duplicate the fear of Ebenezer Scrooge, I will be one step closer to truly understanding humanity.
I don't think "fake it 'til you make it" works in this case. While I have no doubt that given enough centuries Data can internalize a complicated procedure to decide which fake emotion to display in most situation (a million IF-THEN gates, so to speak), it still won't give him real understanding. Whoever said the human race was logical and all that.
PICARD: Transporter room three. Lock onto the science team and beam them aboard.
CHIEF [OC]: I've locked onto Doctor Clark. I can't pick out the others. It's a mess down there.
PICARD: Then beam Doctor Clark aboard by himself.
What? Do enough cellphones in one place scramble individual lifesigns from ship's sensors? The sensors that can identify a single person on a planet by species, gender, and approximate age in seconds? Isn't this a situation for beaming up everything and disabling weapons in transit?
CLARK: First contact was made by a Klingon expedition seventy years ago.
Seventy years ago was 2297. You'd think they'd still be restructuring their economy and dealing with Praxis fallout at the time to spend time on exploratory missions. Yeah, yeah, STVI hasn't been made yet.
TROI: This situation is deteriorating, Captain. The people are approaching levels of anxiety that could lead to suicide.
They're not anxious enough YET? I shudder to think what Troi thinks is a justifiable level of anxiety for suicide.
PICARD: No. I'm going down to the planet myself.
WORF: Sir, you run the risk of being taken as an additional hostage
PICARD: Mister Worf, you and Mister Data will accompany me. Mister O'Brien can keep a lock on our communicators. He can pull us out if necessary.
Yeah, 'cause that kind of arrogance has NEVER backfired! Talk about contrivances...
DATA: So you do purport to be the mythic figure Ardra?
ARDRA: I have many names, my pale friend. I'm Mendora in the Berussian Cluster. Torak to the Drellians. The Klingons call me Fek'lhr.
WORF: You are not Fek'lhr.
Only mention of Mendora, the Berussian Cluster, Torak, or the Drellians. B'Ellanna mentioned Fek'lhr in "Barge of the Dead". It's a shame that TAS was noncanon at this time, as this would've been a great place to mention
Lucien.
PICARD: I have encountered many who more credibly could be called the devil than you.
Oh, the list we could make. Q, of course. The
God of Sha Ka Ree, who I still refer to as
The One. Trelane. A rogue Kelvan. Apollo, even!
PICARD: Q would never bother with contracts.
TROI: Or economic forecasts.
PICARD: I noticed that too, Counsellor. I had the distinct impression of in the presence of a flim-flam artist.
It's a shame Data is on the planet, because I'm sure some members of the audience don't know what a "flim-flam artist" is.
TROI: She has an incredibly focused mind. It was virtually impossible to sense any deception. Or anything else, for that matter.
I'm going to assume that Deanna was referring to Vulcan-style mental discipline. No doubt a Vulcan can lock down their telepathic transmissions to almost nothing for a short amount of time. What bothers me is that Troi was implying that Ardra has mental discipline as opposed to a gadget that can block telepathic transmissions (yeah, I know Data said that it wasn't possible, but that doesn't mean the idea isn't stupid).