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Picard VOs that some shore leave is being cut short by a medical emergency. Riker sternly questions a young boy, getting him to confess that he was responsible for his little brother eating a plant crawling with infectious parasites. Why is First Office Commander William T. Riker scolding children? Even very bad ones.
Riker calls in Data to escort the boy to the time-out corner. Data is expositing about the importance of getting to some space station to cure up the brother when he suddenly goes silent, occasionally jerking his head slightly, like a squirrel. The boy is understandably freaked out.
After the credits, Data enters the bridge and takes his place at one of the downstage console chairs. Worf, Wesley, and Picard begin expressing alarm at various weirdnesses. Why is the ship veering off course? Why is the ship speeding up to warp 9.3, even though Geordi keeps radioing them to cut it out, the ship shouldn't go above warp 8 until at least an hour after eating? How come everyone is locked out of command? Nobody seems to notice that Data is still quietly typing away and not responding to questions. Then bridge life support shorts out, and Picard orders everyone to reconvene at Engineering. Data remains on the bridge, and Picard just nods at him, as if to say, "Why aren't you--oh. Right. Don't need to breathe. Whatever. I'm outy!"
In Engineering, Geordi has figured out that the cause of the life support short is something-or-other running in "negative mode." Now, I'm no starship expert, but I don't think that sounds like a good mode to have. The senior staff, who for the purposes of this episode are knuckleheads, all try to remotely connect back into the main computer, but Data has shut them out. We cut to Data giving the computer various commands, including hacking into systems only Picard can access by perfectly imitating his voice. I guess there's no reason why Data's computronic net (or whatever it is he has in that noggin) shouldn't be able to do that, but it's creepy, and I object. The bridge team in exile finally figures out that Data has suddenly and inexplicably turned renegade and taken control of the ship and all its resources. They don't even seem surprised. I guess it's not like it hasn't happened before. Man, Data is such a liability.
Next time we cut to Data, he's sitting in Picard's chair. That's the biggest slap in the face yet.
Troi brings the little boy to see his sick brother, because it's not like there's a shipboard emergency going on or anything. The brother, who is in a little quarantine bubble thing, turns his back. Troi tries to get Older Brother to talk to Younger Brother, but Older Brother says, "It's a waste of time. He won't listen." Okay, I know that's anvilicious and I don't even know what it's anvilling.
The assembled cream of the Starfleet crop is totally useless against Data. They can't control or even read any of their consoles. "The only way we knew we'd come out of warp was by looking out a window," says Riker with disgust. Ew, windows. They're so... bougeois. Meanwhile, Data's still giving the computer commands in Picard's voice, this time issuing an incredibly long security code in which every other number is seven.
Data leaves the bridge and stalks through the halls, throwing up force fields left and right like a wizard, so we get a chance to showcase the uselessness of the security teams against Data's might. Data reaches the main engineering core, forcefields Riker nearly in the face, and beams away.
He rematerializes on a lush plant-ridden soundstage. He makes a beeline for the single human structure rising out of the trees. Inside, we pan over chemistry sets and human body diagrams and random prosthetic hands and feet--your usual Dr. Frankenstein kit--until the camera finds... Brent Spiner in Miracle Max makeup! I mean, Dr. Noonian Soong!
The gang on the enterprise tries to figure out how to get back control of the ship without rerouting power in such a way that it will disturb the force fields keeping the sick boy quarantined. In other words, a technobabble scene.
Cut back to the Soong compound, where Data is patting his head and rubbing his tummy and whistling "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush." Can we go back to the technobabble? Once Data has dance, monkey, danced for his pleasure sufficiently, the creator and createe have a heartfelt conversation.
SOONG: I gave you the ability to choose anything you wanted to do. Why Starfleet?
DATA: It was Starfleet officers who rescued me.
SOONG: So you emulate your emancipaters. How disappointing.
Data asks Soong, "Why did you create me?" and Soong leads him through a series of annoying Socratic questions to the conclusion that Soong wished to achieve a kind of immortality through his own special brand of procreation. Just as I'm getting sick of Soong, we get a badass old-west style shot of boots entering, and we pan up to the blank face of... Data. Oh, great, everyone, Lore is here.
After the break, Data hovers and frets while Soong restores Lore's consciousness. "Don't be ridiculous, Data! Lore is far from the maniacal android you've made him out to be," says Soong. Oh, this is going to turn out great. When he wakes up Lore begins doing his usual schtick, i.e. being really nasal and creepy. We get a bit of a recap of the last Lore episode--apparently, Data shot him into space after Lore wreaked some havoc on the Enterprise. When Soong hears Lore's version of the Data/Lore backstory (that Lore was created first, but was too perfect, so Data was created to be more comfortably non-human) he insists that they're equally perfect, just different. A dad would say that, but Data is so impressed he just stands there saying "I am not less perfect than Lore," over and over. By the time Lore brattily mimics him, I'm on his side.
Soong apologizes for not fixing Lore's obvious emotional problems, saying he would have if he'd known Lore was alive and conscious. Lore's like, whatever, and starts to walk out, but Soong stops him in his tracks by announcing, "I'm dying!" Raise your hand if you saw that coming, even in this nonsense mishmash of an episode. We get a textbook example of the differences between a robot without emotions and robot with emotions as the two androids take in the news of their creator's impending death. Data says "Interesting. What is the cause?" Lore cries, "What? No! You look fine! You're not that old! You look fine!"
Soong explains that he activated his trapdoor homing beacon to bring Data back so he could give him his final opus: a basic emotion chip calibrated just for him. Lore gushes that he's so happy for Data. Data says, "I question your sincerity." Soong says, "Maybe this chip will teach you to be more trusting." I hope not. Data is clearly right.
Cut to Soong finishing up the install and turning Data back on. Immediately Data breaks into song with "Abdul Abulbul Amir." A song about people killing each other. Nice. Data thanks Soong for granting him the gift of song--I guess the ability to sing depends on emotional response; someone go clue in those severely autistic kids with perfect pitch--calling him "dear father" in an evilly insincere voice. Still, Soong is touched to be called "father" and does not notice that this is clearly Lore. When Lore clues him in, Soong is horrified: the emotion chip wasn't calibrated for Lore! He will only become more unstable! Lore does not care. He knocks out Soong and effects some escape which I can't pay close attention to because Step One is opening his thumbnail door to access the controls in there and it is GROSS.
Riker and Worf arrive. I guess at some point the crew regained control of the ship and went after Data. No hard feelings about the whole hostile takeover thing, then. Riker revives Soong while Worf heads into an adjoining room and emerges manful-heroically with Data in his arms. Swoon! They get Data up and running again and everyone crouches around Soong. He's really dying now. Thanks, Lore! In a tables-are-turned kind of moment, Data asks to say goodbye to Soong, and Riker makes this face like, Uh, sure, go for it, what are you waiting for?, and Data has to say pointedly, "Alone?"
Data tells Soong it is all right for him to die because he has succeeded in creating robot-immortaility. For an emotionless android, Data is doing a hell of a lot of emoting, lots of wide eyes and little gentle almost-smiles. Then, as if remembering his character suddenly, he says, "You know I cannot grieve, sir." Right, right. Pure lip service. As soon as Soong fades away, Data says, "Goodbye, father." It's just like the previous episode when Wesley said "Goodbye, father." You know, this plot thread might have worked better in the previous episode. It would have had to be about 50% shorter to accommodate Picard's A-plot, we would have had to cut Worf's parents and the Quarantine Boys, and we would not have had to watch poor Picard be totally ineffectual against an attack on his ship. Win-win-win.
What, this is the end? What about Lore? Oh, whatever. In a final scene, Data watches the human boys reconcile and play dinosaurs through the quarantine field. Crusher says something pat about brothers always forgiving each other. Data makes creepy squirrel-jerky head motions, just to leave us with that classic X-Files Godzilla-eggs THE END...? kind of feeling.
Riker calls in Data to escort the boy to the time-out corner. Data is expositing about the importance of getting to some space station to cure up the brother when he suddenly goes silent, occasionally jerking his head slightly, like a squirrel. The boy is understandably freaked out.
After the credits, Data enters the bridge and takes his place at one of the downstage console chairs. Worf, Wesley, and Picard begin expressing alarm at various weirdnesses. Why is the ship veering off course? Why is the ship speeding up to warp 9.3, even though Geordi keeps radioing them to cut it out, the ship shouldn't go above warp 8 until at least an hour after eating? How come everyone is locked out of command? Nobody seems to notice that Data is still quietly typing away and not responding to questions. Then bridge life support shorts out, and Picard orders everyone to reconvene at Engineering. Data remains on the bridge, and Picard just nods at him, as if to say, "Why aren't you--oh. Right. Don't need to breathe. Whatever. I'm outy!"
In Engineering, Geordi has figured out that the cause of the life support short is something-or-other running in "negative mode." Now, I'm no starship expert, but I don't think that sounds like a good mode to have. The senior staff, who for the purposes of this episode are knuckleheads, all try to remotely connect back into the main computer, but Data has shut them out. We cut to Data giving the computer various commands, including hacking into systems only Picard can access by perfectly imitating his voice. I guess there's no reason why Data's computronic net (or whatever it is he has in that noggin) shouldn't be able to do that, but it's creepy, and I object. The bridge team in exile finally figures out that Data has suddenly and inexplicably turned renegade and taken control of the ship and all its resources. They don't even seem surprised. I guess it's not like it hasn't happened before. Man, Data is such a liability.
Next time we cut to Data, he's sitting in Picard's chair. That's the biggest slap in the face yet.
Troi brings the little boy to see his sick brother, because it's not like there's a shipboard emergency going on or anything. The brother, who is in a little quarantine bubble thing, turns his back. Troi tries to get Older Brother to talk to Younger Brother, but Older Brother says, "It's a waste of time. He won't listen." Okay, I know that's anvilicious and I don't even know what it's anvilling.
The assembled cream of the Starfleet crop is totally useless against Data. They can't control or even read any of their consoles. "The only way we knew we'd come out of warp was by looking out a window," says Riker with disgust. Ew, windows. They're so... bougeois. Meanwhile, Data's still giving the computer commands in Picard's voice, this time issuing an incredibly long security code in which every other number is seven.
Data leaves the bridge and stalks through the halls, throwing up force fields left and right like a wizard, so we get a chance to showcase the uselessness of the security teams against Data's might. Data reaches the main engineering core, forcefields Riker nearly in the face, and beams away.
He rematerializes on a lush plant-ridden soundstage. He makes a beeline for the single human structure rising out of the trees. Inside, we pan over chemistry sets and human body diagrams and random prosthetic hands and feet--your usual Dr. Frankenstein kit--until the camera finds... Brent Spiner in Miracle Max makeup! I mean, Dr. Noonian Soong!
The gang on the enterprise tries to figure out how to get back control of the ship without rerouting power in such a way that it will disturb the force fields keeping the sick boy quarantined. In other words, a technobabble scene.
Cut back to the Soong compound, where Data is patting his head and rubbing his tummy and whistling "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush." Can we go back to the technobabble? Once Data has dance, monkey, danced for his pleasure sufficiently, the creator and createe have a heartfelt conversation.
SOONG: I gave you the ability to choose anything you wanted to do. Why Starfleet?
DATA: It was Starfleet officers who rescued me.
SOONG: So you emulate your emancipaters. How disappointing.
Data asks Soong, "Why did you create me?" and Soong leads him through a series of annoying Socratic questions to the conclusion that Soong wished to achieve a kind of immortality through his own special brand of procreation. Just as I'm getting sick of Soong, we get a badass old-west style shot of boots entering, and we pan up to the blank face of... Data. Oh, great, everyone, Lore is here.
After the break, Data hovers and frets while Soong restores Lore's consciousness. "Don't be ridiculous, Data! Lore is far from the maniacal android you've made him out to be," says Soong. Oh, this is going to turn out great. When he wakes up Lore begins doing his usual schtick, i.e. being really nasal and creepy. We get a bit of a recap of the last Lore episode--apparently, Data shot him into space after Lore wreaked some havoc on the Enterprise. When Soong hears Lore's version of the Data/Lore backstory (that Lore was created first, but was too perfect, so Data was created to be more comfortably non-human) he insists that they're equally perfect, just different. A dad would say that, but Data is so impressed he just stands there saying "I am not less perfect than Lore," over and over. By the time Lore brattily mimics him, I'm on his side.
Soong apologizes for not fixing Lore's obvious emotional problems, saying he would have if he'd known Lore was alive and conscious. Lore's like, whatever, and starts to walk out, but Soong stops him in his tracks by announcing, "I'm dying!" Raise your hand if you saw that coming, even in this nonsense mishmash of an episode. We get a textbook example of the differences between a robot without emotions and robot with emotions as the two androids take in the news of their creator's impending death. Data says "Interesting. What is the cause?" Lore cries, "What? No! You look fine! You're not that old! You look fine!"
Soong explains that he activated his trapdoor homing beacon to bring Data back so he could give him his final opus: a basic emotion chip calibrated just for him. Lore gushes that he's so happy for Data. Data says, "I question your sincerity." Soong says, "Maybe this chip will teach you to be more trusting." I hope not. Data is clearly right.
Cut to Soong finishing up the install and turning Data back on. Immediately Data breaks into song with "Abdul Abulbul Amir." A song about people killing each other. Nice. Data thanks Soong for granting him the gift of song--I guess the ability to sing depends on emotional response; someone go clue in those severely autistic kids with perfect pitch--calling him "dear father" in an evilly insincere voice. Still, Soong is touched to be called "father" and does not notice that this is clearly Lore. When Lore clues him in, Soong is horrified: the emotion chip wasn't calibrated for Lore! He will only become more unstable! Lore does not care. He knocks out Soong and effects some escape which I can't pay close attention to because Step One is opening his thumbnail door to access the controls in there and it is GROSS.
Riker and Worf arrive. I guess at some point the crew regained control of the ship and went after Data. No hard feelings about the whole hostile takeover thing, then. Riker revives Soong while Worf heads into an adjoining room and emerges manful-heroically with Data in his arms. Swoon! They get Data up and running again and everyone crouches around Soong. He's really dying now. Thanks, Lore! In a tables-are-turned kind of moment, Data asks to say goodbye to Soong, and Riker makes this face like, Uh, sure, go for it, what are you waiting for?, and Data has to say pointedly, "Alone?"
Data tells Soong it is all right for him to die because he has succeeded in creating robot-immortaility. For an emotionless android, Data is doing a hell of a lot of emoting, lots of wide eyes and little gentle almost-smiles. Then, as if remembering his character suddenly, he says, "You know I cannot grieve, sir." Right, right. Pure lip service. As soon as Soong fades away, Data says, "Goodbye, father." It's just like the previous episode when Wesley said "Goodbye, father." You know, this plot thread might have worked better in the previous episode. It would have had to be about 50% shorter to accommodate Picard's A-plot, we would have had to cut Worf's parents and the Quarantine Boys, and we would not have had to watch poor Picard be totally ineffectual against an attack on his ship. Win-win-win.
What, this is the end? What about Lore? Oh, whatever. In a final scene, Data watches the human boys reconcile and play dinosaurs through the quarantine field. Crusher says something pat about brothers always forgiving each other. Data makes creepy squirrel-jerky head motions, just to leave us with that classic X-Files Godzilla-eggs THE END...? kind of feeling.