Episode: 1.12 Datalore (01-18-88)
Rating: 4/5
Redshirt Status: 0/1
Notable Guest Stars:
Biff Yeager – He returns once again as Chief Engineer Argyle.
Review:
Before I begin my review, why is Geordi attending the Senior staff meetings instead of the Chief Engineer? Or even the Assistant Chief Engineer? Of course I could be wrong, and Geordi is the ACE, now that Argyle is the Chief. Still, I wonder about that.
This is a pretty big Data episode. We return to the planet where Dr. Noonien Soong had built Data. He had been given the knowledge of the colonists of the planet and was left to be found by the Starfleet ship responding to their distress signals.
Data is the second born android son, the first built was Lore, who has been made even more human then Data. He has emoitions, but apparently tends towards the less ‘nice’ variety.
He has a relationship with the crystalline entity that killed the colonists and decides to feed the Enterprise to it as well. Only he manages to raise the suspicion of pretty much everyone. I feel Wesley actually doesn’t get enough credit in this episode. I think he deserves a talk by Riker and Picard apologizing for not taking his report seriously, and also perhaps telling him how to make his knowledge known a little better.
This episode is also a pretty good stretch of Brent Spiner’s acting abilities. He plays both roles,and does a spatacular job. I’m going to give this a 4/5 rating for his work and the fact it may be the best of Season One. But we shall see.
Its also kind of odd that it’s the better episode but I have less to say about it. The script could have been better, and more development of the crystalline entity as well.
Interesting Notes:
- Written by Robert Lewin and Gene Roddenberry based on the story by Lewin and Maurice Hurley
- Directed by Rob Bowman
- The original script was supposed to be a romance for Data. Considering its final state, it must have gone under some MASSIVE rewrites.
- Data’s creater, Noonien Soong, was named after Kim Noonien Signh, who also had Khan named after him.
- This was Gene Roddenberry’s final script credit on the show.
Pros:
- Brent Spiner’s Acting
Cons:
- The crystalline entity was a bit of a let down, but I think it comes back in a later Data episode.
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Sokorra Lewis 