Star Trek TNG Brothers

In keeping with a family theme, we move on to the episode, Brothers.

It starts out with a personal disaster between a couple of boys.  The older brother tricks the younger into thinking he'd killed him with a toy pistol and then the younger brother eats a parasite infested fruit.  This all happened while they were on shore leave, and now the younger brother needs to be quarantined and moved to a star base for immediate attention.  The set up telegraphs the episode... the older brother is the one at fault and the younger brother suffers.  I guess it's just cuz I'm not a kid person that this part didn't interest me.  However, this is an improvement over the much overused plot device of a virus threatening everyone on the ship or in a colony and I appreciate that.

The way that this more focused version of that plot device is turned into the life threatening situation that they must work to diffuse is one of the coolest things they ever did on the show.  As Data is escorting the older brother to sickbay he stops suddenly and simply leaves him.  Spiner is such a good actor and he really had this android thing down to an art at this point.  Instead of behaving as a human, he begins to move more rigidly and his facial expressions become cold and dead.  This is not the Data from the first season

Bereft of all emotion, malice, and even memory he takes over the ship and he takes it over with such speed and ease that you almost have to laugh when you remember episodes like Measure Of A Man and suddenly the idea of Commander Maddox wanting to study his machinery seems understandable.  It also makes you think they'd never have admitted him into Star Fleet in the first place because there was always a possibility of this sort of thing happening... going all Hal 9000 on the Enterprise... and how they could've possibly explained all of this in a report later.  But he does it non-lethally setting up force fields and pre-programmed commands.  He blocks everyone from the bridge including Picard and hijacks the ship and take it to an obscure planet.  They can't even separate the saucer to stop him, for he knows the systems too well.  Spiner can also impersonate Patrick Stewart's voice flawlessly, but I can't find out for sure how many of the lines where Data uses Picard's voice are a dub and how many may be an impersonation, if any.  It would be fun to know.
 

He arrives at the home of a strange old man who wakes him from the trance he'd been in.  He doesn't remember how he got there and is therefore innocent of all that he'd done.

After a failed attempt to call the Enterprise he realizes that the man is Dr. Noonian Soong who was thought to be dead all these years.  They were having trouble casting Soong and it was Spiner who suggested playing him himself.  It's a great makeup job.  It had me fooled when I was a kid... I didn't realize that was Data under that face.  But it also makes perfect sense that the person who created a functional, essentially living android would want to make it in his own image.  He explains that he was brought there by a homing device in his brain.  Since Data doesn't know how he got there, Soong has no reason to think anyone was inconvenienced by this either.

Meanwhile Picard can't even get onto the bridge and time is ticking away to get the sick boy to the Star Base for medical attention.  The science fiction of this episode is really good, meaning all of the technobabble written to explain why they'd been locked out of all the major systems and the work needed to get them back in control of the ship.  The way the actors deliver the lines make it all genuinely interesting and exciting. They way they'd become tied up in knots made such a simple but adequate "enemy" for everyone to be fighting in order to avert the pending tragedy.  Nobody to physically fight.  Nobody to preach at on a soapbox for delaying their mission.  It was a wonderful puzzle.  I think I even like this part better than the main plot in some moments.  Or at least equally.  It means there are no slow spots.

After some touching moments with Data and his "father" discussing the purpose of Data's creation, the homing device draws Lore to the planet as well.  He'd been picked up by Pakleds and had been traveling with them. (Poor, stupid Pakleds; see episode Samaritan Snare from the second season.) Data warns Dr. Soong not to reactivate him, but he's sure of his command over him and understandably curious since he thought he was still disassembled in a cave.  Things still may have turned out all right if Soong had let Lore leave like he first wanted to but he mentions that he's dying and suddenly Lore is upset enough to stay and ask him personally why he was left in that condition. They very quickly give the history of the twin androids as it really was as opposed to how Lore had described it in the episode Datalore.  And, really, you had to think it was more like this anyway since Lore was so obviously evil from the start. However, I have to admit that this part of the episode was a little disappointing.  Dr. Soong's answers really weren't good enough to justify abandoning him to make Data.  That doesn't excuse Lore's behavior, but since he'd chosen an evil life, I found myself wishing that Soong's position had been stronger because it only made Lore's position seem more sympathetic. I could make the old complaint of them relying on the drama to cover up bad writing, but this is too good of an episode.  Dr. Soong's personality as it is briefly displayed here makes his excuse of simply moving onto another model seem like a believable action on his part. I would've thought they could've given it more detail though.

Then he reveals why he'd sent for Data.  He'd perfected an emotions chip for him.  This chip was often returned to for other plots in the series and a couple of the movies.  I sometimes wonder when they wrote brilliant little things like this in, if they knew how much mileage they'd get out of it.  The chip makes Lore suspiciously cooperative and supportive of Data and the new experiences he'll have with emotions.

But of course, Soong is an old man and needs to rest.  That gives Lore time, once again, to incapacitate Data and switch clothes with him.  They probably shouldn't have done that again in the very next episode that you see Lore in because one could see it coming from a mile away.  On the Enterprise they find out how to trick the transporters into thinking they're Data so they can transport down to get some answers.  But not before Soong unwittingly puts the emotion chip into Lore who mocks him and violently rejects his attempts to talk him into removing the chip.  He then leaves with a transporting device in his thumb.  This is probably where they got the idea of how Lore would function in the next episode he would appear in. 

When Riker and the team get there and see the destroyed room and what looks like Lore sitting deactivated in a corner, they take a chance on reactivating him since the whole clothes swap thing had happened before. As Soong lay dying he tells Data which memory banks to activate to enable him to release control of the Enterprise and they have a private moment to say goodbye.  It's always special to see the Data's emotionless yet perceptive viewpoint when exposed to a highly emotional situation.  They always used this perspective very well.  When he returns in time to set everything right the final scene shows that  the boys have made up in sickbay while they head for the Star Base and Crusher explains to Data that Brothers forgive each other, leaving Data to ponder if that's really true.

I love this episode, but I gotta knock off a half a star for not being able to explain Soong's abandonment of Lore better and the recycling of the twin-switch thing. I'm not overly annoyed by either, but five stars can't be lavished out just because I love an episode that isn't as perfect as it could be.  Four and half stars.