I loved Data's Day. This is one of my personal favorites.
The writers wanted to create a ship board wedding and even considered making Picard permanently married, but instead they went with a secondary character - O'Brien. Keiko was originally intended to replace Wesley at Ops, but this worked out so much better since the fans' approval of Keiko wasn't typically off the charts. And I've remarked before that this is actually the perfect way to portray the different scenes of a regular family living aboard the Enterprise. They could begin at the wedding of the couple, and proceed to other domestic sub plots later on without taking away from any of the main characters who had to carry the main sci-fi story lines of the show. All of this episode is seen through the eyes of Data. The set up is that he still keeps in communication with Bruce Maddox, the man who petitioned to have him declared Starfleet property in Measure of a Man in the second season. Maddox still studies Dr. Soong's work and Data is helping him to understand what a typical day for him involves with a special emphasis on friendships and maintaining them and how he has made programs to interact within these friendships as a person with no way of emotionally connecting with anyone. A personal log that Data is recording for Dr. Maddox provides a running narrative throughout. The whole episode is just a great idea. It's the first time a "night watch" is referred to and we get to see the regular mundane reporting involved in a shift change. Riker arrives to his shift a little early to give Data time to get ready for the wedding since he is to be a part of it giving Keiko away.
And the first thing that happens to poor Data is that Keiko, having cold feet, persuades him to become a go-between to tell Miles that she's not going to go through with the wedding. This is a mostly comic episode because Data naturally has no reason to think that O'Brien will be angry since Keiko explains that he probably feels the same way. At any rate O'Brien is very angry and Data is very confused and Geordi wisely advises him not to be a message runner anymore. The log entry to Maddox also serves as a way of hashing out why people behave the way they do and how they rationalize their sometimes convoluted thought processes when they're nervous or upset.
But it's not all fun and games. The subplot is one of business. They welcome a Vulcan ambassador T'Pel on board and she's very unfriendly, which is not uncommon to Vulcans. Her personality is more for Data to remark on as he tries to convey his attention to detail throughout the day. They're transporting her on a mission to meet with Romulans in the Neutral Zone, so tensions are high.
Data carries on with his preparations for the wedding and the comedy continues. He picks out gifts with Worf who is always laughably uncomfortable in such matters. He then goes to Dr. Crusher to learn how to dance. He doesn't tell her why at first so she teaches him tap and jazz steps. It's always fun to see them creatively and subtly work an actor's natural talents into the show. McFadden is an accomplished dancer. They used a double for Spiner, but she's doing her own moves in this scene which is fun and hilarious. Once she realizes that Data needs to learn how to have a father-daughter type of dance with the bride she has to start over again. It's one of the best parts of this episode.
Data observes and interacts with other characters as well to continue in his quest to understand the machinations of human friendships and relationships. This is one of those episodes that's hard to describe with words. You get more out of it from seeing it yourself.
It's also the first episode for Data's cat, Spot. He's not an orange tabby in the first episode. Even though this was intended as a joke on Spiner, who supposedly hates cats, it's actually a pretty brilliant little detail in the life of this character, matching an emotionless character to what most people consider to be an aloof, emotionless animal for a pet. Things then progress with the Ambassador. Data must analyze the probability of things going amiss in the Neutral Zone and she refuses an escort. She then corners Data alone and begins asking him curious questions about the ship's deflector shields that he has clearance to answer, however he informs her that he must report her questions to the Captain. She changes her inquisition to a fairly unconvincing explanation that she was testing him to see how secure the ship was. That is, it's unconvincing to the audience, but serves to display Data's instincts or lack thereof. He often mentions in the running narrative that he thinks he would have cause to be nervous about the whole situation if he was capable of having that emotion.
They then meet up with a Romulan admiral named Mendak who Ambassador T'Pel is supposed to be meeting with. She agrees to transport to his ship alone against Picard's advise and then the transporter malfunctions and she's killed. Mendak reacts as expected, being suspicious that the Federation arranged the whole thing for their gain and then suggests that they both retreat from the Neutral Zone before things escalate. Expected, although this isn't as aggressive of a threat as Romulans usually employ. An investigation is ordered and Data includes his admiration of the investigatory styles of Sherlock Holmes in his log entry.
They discover that the transporter malfunction was used to cover up the fact that the transport actually took place. Assuming that this was a kidnapping, Picard hurries back to confront Admiral Mendak only to find out that T'Pel was actually a Romulan spy who had duped them into returning her to Romulan space. They're out numbered and there's absolutely nothing they can do short of starting a war, so they leave defeated. It seems sort of weak, but since it was just the subplot, it's easily overlooked.
The wedding proceeds as planned. Captains can't actually marry people on board ships, but it's a fantasy we all enjoy, so no complaints for technicalities. It's a wonderful scene. They bring out the dress uniforms and Keiko wears an ethnically traditional gown. And it comes full circle with Data beginning another night watch. Like I said, there's more to see for yourself than there is for me to write about, but it's one of the best episodes and one I would pick to show somebody if I was trying to sell them on watching Star Trek. Four and a half stars.
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