Star Trek TNG Inheritance

When I first saw this I thought it was overkill because they were trudging up more family members for Data, but looking back on it I've come to think of it as a relief and something different as far as Data's family is concerned.

It opens with a lot of the heavy technical jargon as it sets the stage around a planet whose core is cooling which is making habitation difficult and causing seismic activity. In the observation lounge, they entertain two scientist, a married couple from Atrea IV, to discuss the problem. Geordi thinks he can re-liquify the core by using phasers to drill through to the core and set up plasma infusion units... giving the planet a molten blood transfusion essentially. They figure the core will stay molten for centuries after that. The lady scientist, Juliana Tainer, hangs back while her husband, Pran, leaves with Picard and Geordi. She approaches Data and tells him that she is, in a way, his mother since she was married to Noonian Soong and was present at his creation. In Ten Forward she explains that his early memories had been erased when they were refining his processors. She likens his early years to childhood and to him as a "baby" needing to learn his motor skills and things like that. She says after they deleted all of that they programmed the colonists memories in  him to help him with human experience and had planned to reactivate him but didn't get to since the Crystalline Entity attacked. Data carefully notes that there wasn't a Juliana Soong on the planet but a Juliana O'Donnell. She tells him that she and Soong were secretly married since her mother didn't approve of him and the fact that he was much older than she was. She's amazed and shaken to learn that he'd met Soong and that he's now dead. She admits that she left because it was just the two of them on the jungle planet and she was going stir crazy since he obsessed over his work. He thanks her for the conversation and leaves rather abruptly, practically saying outright that he wants to fact check her story, which leaves her a little startled but at this point the audience is suspicious as well. We probably all thought something nefarious was in play since Data's family stories are usually filled with problems. As he's working with Geordi on the planetary issue, he tells Geordi that he looked up the records of she and Dr. Soong's trip to the remote planet where she claimed they eloped. Geordi remarks that it seems like Data is trying to disprove her story to which Data comments that his father had never mentioned her. But Geordi reminds him that when Lore gave him the emotion chip he said it had memories in it that his father wanted him to have and suggests that it could be memories of Juliana and his childhood. He decides to accept her story and returns to Ten Forward to get to know her better. They walk through the corridors as she tells him that she wanted to make him a girl, but Soong insisted on a son. She thinks he's found a girlfriend as he tries to take her to counselor Troi, but when he explains that she's the ship's therapist, she says goodnight to him.

Later in Engineering while they're cutting into the planet with the phasers she tells Geordi another childhood story about Data as mothers often do. She doesn't want to embarrass him with details, but Data reminds her that he's incapable of embarrassment and is curious to hear about how he needed a modesty subroutine written just so that he'd willingly wear clothes. On the bridge, Pran monitors their progress with heavy skepticism since Data is a machine. But they drill the holes they want precisely and Juliana credits Data's brilliance. So, with time to kill while they're waiting to set up the plasma infusers, she and Data spend more time together. He plays his violin for her. She loves it of course, but he wonders if her enjoyment is because of a parental bias. She takes credit for his artistic side claiming that Soong thought it would be unnecessary since he didn't have emotions. She also offers to play the piece he was working on with him when he is scheduled to preform it. He readily accepts and while he's replicating a viola for her to practice with she notices his paintings which include one of Lal. She's unsettled when he tells her brief story and, seeing her changed mood, he suggests they go practice in Ten Forward. It's there after a brief practice session that she talks about the difficulty they had in creating androids in reference to Lal. They'd made and lost three before Lore (which would be tied in with the movie Insurrection) and she confesses that she was unsure of Noonian's wanting to try again after Lore turned out to be evil and twisted. She also confesses the reason she'd never sought him out before even though she'd followed his career. When they left there had been room for him in their escape pod, but she made Dr. Soong leave Data behind because she was afraid he'd turn out like Lore.

Later, in Engineering, they're having trouble with a particle beam. It's looking like they'll have to terminate and find a new place to set up an infuser. Juliana insists there isn't another suitable place and after a few moments she hit's the right frequency they need to proceed with the plans. Everyone is shocked including Data and she chalks it up to luck. Data, Juliana, and Pran go to a magma pocket, which is a big cave area, on the surface to begin setting up the equipment plasma infusers. While Juliana and Pran are making some final decisions, Data is watching Juliana very carefully. Pran misreads Data's curiosity and sincerely hopes that he isn't angry with Juliana because of what she told him. He isn't angry because he can't be but he does want clarification on if she would've abandon him if he'd been their biological child. She reiterates that her fear of having to dismantle him like Lore isn't an excuse, but an explanation and she hopes that she's made her feelings clear. Data is satisfied. But later at the concert as they're playing, you see Data studying Juliana carefully again as she preforms. The actress who plays Juliana is an accomplished violinist and was actually playing for this scene. Afterwards he goes to Beverly to request Juliana's medical records. I guess there's no HIPAA in the 24th century since she tells Data that she only has a little hypertension that's normal for her age. He is certain that she's not who she claims to be but gives no further explanation than that. It's a genuinely sad part of the episode because I, for one, liked Juliana and was worried that it would end in another debacle like the rest of Data's family episodes. Their conversation doesn't get very far though when he's called to the bridge because there's been a cave in at one of the magma pockets. He and Juliana go to the transporter room again as Pran has beamed up with minor injuries due to a wall giving out under a quake. Juliana wants to beam down and try to get the infusion started before the seismic activity collapses the pocket. Riker doesn't want to risk her, but Pran is in favor since it may be months before they could have another chance and the core would be cooled solid by then.

Data and Juliana transport down and have to stand the transporter pattern enhancers back up as the ground begins to quake some more. They leave the area and work quickly and efficiently to start the programming in the infusers over again. Riker is keeping close contact with them the whole time. When they get back to the transport site, the floor is sunken several meters deep. Juliana asks if they can get back without the enhancers, but they can't. Data notes that there's no place to climb down so they'll have to jump. Juliana is afraid to because it's too far down, but Data seems to know she can make the jump and takes her with him as he jumps. She does fall and is knocked unconscious and we see when one of her arms is torn off that she is an android as well. In sickbay it's determined that she's the most perfected Soongian android yet. She even puts out a false bio signal along with sweat glands and tear ducts and the fact that she ages like Data. It's important that they slipped that part in there about her "aging like Data" since, after seven years, it's obvious that Spiner's physical appearance has changed some. That line explains why he's not as skinny as he was in the first season and why his face seems to have gathered some age. But Beverly can't figure out why she's unconscious. She should be awake since everything else seems to be fine. Data suggest checking in her positronic matrix. When Geordi asks how he knew she was an android he ticks off all of the things he'd been noticing about her. First, was when she made the rapid calculations in Engineering. That could've been a coincidence, but he also noticed her blinking pattern was exactly like his - designed to look random which is something only he would notice. Finally, her viola performance in Ten Forward was identical to the way she'd practiced it earlier which is something only an artificial life could do.

Geordi and Beverly find a chip that contains a hologram program so Data takes it to the holodeck to find a message from Dr. Soong. This is Spiner's last Dr. Soong performance at a midway age between the unrecognizable old man version in Brothers and the young scientist in Birthright. At first he speaks formally introducing himself as her creator and assuming that whoever found this chip must know about her. Data tells him that it is he that's found it and the Soong hologram begins to answer more personally in a subroutine written specially in case it was Data that had found out about her. He confirms her story up until the Crystalline Entity attack where she was mortally injured. He couldn't live without her so he made an android of her and managed to transfer her memories into the android body just before she died. When the android awoke, she recognized him and he was pleased that it worked. He also knows that he didn't let her know how much he really loved her which is why she left him and he is aware that the real Juliana would've left too if she'd lived. Data is concerned about her finding out that she's an android but Soong insists that she need never know. He programmed her to terminate after a long life and die believing she's human. He begs Data not to take her humanity away from her. In the observation lounge they hash out all the options and consequences. Troi is in favor of Soong's plan for her since it would traumatize her to know the truth. But Beverly points out that if another accident like this were to happen, it would be better to learn it from her son now than a stranger later. Data is torn because if she knows, he'll have someone that is an android like him and can share in his experience, but that would mean taking away from her the humanity he's set out to achieve for himself. It's a tense moment with Picard stating the obvious - that it's Data's decision since Pran apparently doesn't know and it's probably for the best. It cuts from that to Data presiding over Juliana as she wakes up happy to see him. He tells her that she'd suffered a broken arm but that Beverly had taken care of her.

They say goodbye and Data promises to visit Atrea on his next leave which makes Juliana happy. There's another breath-holding moment just before she leaves in which Data says that he has something to tell her. But he only says Dr. Soong told him when he'd met him that he regretted losing the only woman he ever loved and that he was certain that he was talking about her. That makes her happy as well and she leaves praising Data's goodness because he was conceived in love.

Like I said, I've changed my mind from thinking that this was overkill to thinking that this is a nice way to put an end to Data's family. I mean, Data doesn't have emotions, but we do and all of his family stories up to this point have been stressful and tragic. Lore was evil and tried to kill everyone; he was responsible for the Crystalline Entity's destruction of Data's home planet. His "grandfather" was a mad man who tried to steal his body. His father was killed by Lore shortly after Data discovered he was still alive. His daughter died a short time after he made her. Lore then popped up again to control Data through manipulation of the emotion chip and tried, once again, to kill him, so Data had to dismantle him for good. Yes, I'm very glad that he finally gets a happy ending with one family member even if there is no follow up. There doesn't really need to be in this case since the audience is secure in the supposition that she'll live out a normal life and Data will get to see her from time to time and hear about his past from a trusted source. It's a perfect way to end his family story and appropriate for the last season. I like it more each time I see it. Four stars.