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Friday, September 16, 2016

Star Trek TNG Datalore




Another satisfactory episode from the first season.  



I realize that the "evil twin" thing couldn't be more cliché, but it worked very well and they got some nice mileage out of it


It was Brent Spiner's idea for Lore to be an evil twin brother.  Lore was originally going to be a female and potential love interest for Data.  She may have even been Minuet (who they ended up making a holodeck fantasy girl for Riker instead of an android.)  But, I can't blame Spiner or anyone else for settling on this.  It gave Spiner the ability to stretch his acting ability since the role of Data, though wildly popular, was limiting for the actor.


And this episodes helped the limits to be further worked out.  Data has the ability to emulate human emotions - he acts, for example.  He can be stern when commanding.  But he doesn't actually feel any of these emotions.  Up to this point he emulated human emotions a lot in regular situations making a person feel like he had them.  It's similar to the way Spock, though logical through and through, at least had a personality.  But with Data, he actually doesn't have a personality, so when he seems excited at finding the deconstructed Lore on the planet, one can assume it's emulation, but we all know it's not right.  After he plays Lore, his Data starts to become slowly more detached emotionally, and it works much better.


It's also a line in the sand for his contractions.  They'd always intended that Data shouldn't be able to make contractions but mistakes happen.


After Lore it was like the final decision was made to really try harder to correct those mistakes.  As you see in the video, most of the mistakes happen in this very episodes.  In all fairness though, I think many of the "I'm" usages in this video are false.  I don't think he used "I'm" as much as the person who made this video does.  "I am" run together quickly sounds a lot like "I'm," hence the contraction.
 

First appearance of Crystalline Entity.   I don't think they had ever intended to use it again.  When they do bring it back, it appears to be more of a beast that responds to stimulus, like the vibrations they use to communicate with it.  In this episode, it is more of a malevolent, thinking alien that Lore can communicate with personally.


I don't know if anyone else notices that the Entity's motivation seems to have been the genesis for the Borg.  The writers at the time don't seem to have been thinking of anything so ambitious at the time and I've never known anyone else to make this comparison, but it occurred to me the last time I watched it.  But the Crystalline Entity is portrayed as having a desire to consume as many life forms as possible.  Lore implies that it'll be impressed with a larger number of life forms to be consumed from this ship than there was on the planet.  Later on, they toy with Lore and the Borg again, but the similarities are undeniable.


I must complain about the barren landscape planet again and spartan set designs.  I'm sorry, but after things got better, it's still dreary to see these recycled, lifeless set pieces and find them to be up to par.  It's just another mark of the worst parts of the first season.

Sigh... the woes of Wesley and how stupid everyone is compared to him.  I won't complain much, only to restate that after he was made a bridge officer they should've taken him a little more seriously and that   a chief engineer was desperately needed at this point because Wesley, the boy genius who can out think the adults, was starting to wear a little thin.



But the facial tick was a nice touch and a good part of the mystery.  One could even get philosophical and state that Data not only lost his trusting innocence with the appearance of Lore but that this event also sort of sparked his interest in the methodical mystery solving technique of Sherlock Holmes, even more so than the brief brush with it thus far in "The Lonely Among Us."

Still not good enough for five stars, but four for sure.


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