ALL SCI-FI

[Bogmeister]

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DATALORE episode #13, first season / Air Date: 1/18/88
written by Robert Lewin, Gene Roddenberry; Directed by Rob Bowman





Here was the first show-up of Lore (also played by Brent Spiner), the android built just before Data and physically identical to him (except for a facial twitch — I never did get this).

Because the Enterprise is in the vicinity of Omicron Theta, Picard decides to visit the planet where Data was built/born. The scientific colony which used to be there is gone and the planet has been devastated (by what we would later learn is called The Crystalline Entity, a massive lifeform that flits through outer space).

Inside the deserted underground base, the landing party finds the parts which make up Lore. Of course, they decide to bring the parts back up to the ship and construct the android — with Data anxious to find out if he has a brother (anxious? An emotion?).

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This was a chance for Spiner to act out an evil twin (it was Spiner's idea also. The original story involved a female-shaped android). This worked to Spiner's benefit and to ours — he clearly enjoyed the opportunity to present a nasty version of an android. All his scenes as Lore are very entertaining — there's nothing deep here, no exploration as to why Lore is so different from Data, besides that elusive emotion chip — and there's some tension as we wait for Lore to make his move.

In the end, Spiner succeeds in creating a completely different persona as Lore — snide, duplicitous, over-confident and thoroughly unpleasant.

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As a result, there are quite a few memorable moments in this one. All the adults treat Wesley like a moron here, even as he's the one who first suspects Lore of not being on the up-&-up. This leads to Picard telling the kid to shut-up. As a drawback, however, the adults are kind of slow on the uptake in this one.

The sort-of-fight-scene in the turbolift with Lore and Worf is a kick — now we know how tough such an android really is. And the finale with Lore and Data is also rather high in the action quotient, more so than the usual first season episode.

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Yeah, it ends up a simple action thriller with contrived subplots (the face twitch, the whole thing with differing speech patterns for the androids, the cluelessness), geared towards kids maybe, but I still liked parts of it.

BoG's Score: 6 out of 10


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

[Pow]

"Datalore" Trivia.

As already noted, the original plan was to have a female, non~lookalike android love interest for Data in this episode.

She was programmed to go into dangerous situations and repair them.

"Apocalypse Anon" was the original title for this episode.

This episode would be the final writer credit for Gene Roddenberry before his passing on October 24, 1991.

Brent Spiner convinced the producers and director Rob Bowman that it would make a more intriguing episode by changing the female android to Data's brother Lore.

In the original concept for Data it was to have been an unknown alien race that constructed he & Lore.

Later on that idea was altered to have Data & Lore created by genius human scientist & cybernetics expert Dr. Noonian Soong.

Data's positronic brain was an homage to the legendary s~f writer Isaac Asimov.

We learn that Data spent four years at Starfleet Academy, three years as ensign, and ten or twelve years in the lieutenant grades.

Data & Lore were portrayed by four different actors including Brent Spiner.

Andrew Probert created the concept drawings for the Crystalline Entity. He found that the model makers did not adhere to his design and came up with something totally different.

First time we see Data's quarters on board the Enterprise-D. Later episodes would show a much different looking quarters for Data.

I always preferred the idea that Data & Lore were created by aliens instead of a human being.

The concept first surfaced with Gene Roddenberry's TV-movie/pilot "The Questor Tapes." In that made-for-television movie, the android known as Questor had been created by an alien civilization.

Somehow, Data, for me, seemed to be so technically advanced that I had a hard time buying that a lone human being could build such a sophisticated artificial intelligence.

I know, if they had star ships, warp drive, and transporters systems then they surely could create a lifelike humanoid.

It seems to me that creating such a human-like A.I. would be more complex & arduous to pull off even in that era.

[johnnybear]

I've just finished the first part of Best of Both Worlds again! It's still a wonderful episode and clearly the one Borg episode a year for TNG certainly enhanced their reputation!
JB

[Pow]

Nitpicks

Are the engineers running diagnostics on the communication systems during this episode?

Twice Picard sends someone to fetch Data instead of simply paging the android via the comm-badge on his uniform.

As Data practices his sneezing, Wesley asks if Data has a cold? Realizing that Data does not understand the question, Wesley explains that it was a disease that his mom said people "used to get."

If people no longer suffer at all from colds, why would Wesley ask Data if he had one?

And why would Wesley think that an android could even have a cold in the first place? Does Wesley attribute the sneezing Data is doing to some kind of mechanical issue that manifests itself as sneezing?

Wouldn't the definition of a cold be in Data's memory banks? Why would Data not know what a cold is in the first place?

Shortly after arriving at Omicron Theta, La Forge proclaims that the soil is almost completely lifeless. Moments earlier, Riker states in his log that the world is completely dead.
Shouldn't the sophisticated scanners indicate as to whether the soil is almost dead or totally dead, but not both?

Picard's & Riker's attitudes toward Wesley seem a bit odd in this episode. Riker trusts Wesley to send him to check on Data & Lore, but neither the captain or first officer seem interested in hearing what Wesley has to say later on.

At the conclusion of this episode we see Wesley transport Lore into outer space. He obviously did not disperse Lore's pattern because the android shows up later in the episode "Brothers." So why didn't Wesley disperse Lore's pattern?

Why did the Enterprise just leave Lore? Couldn't sensors pick him up and then Picard could have him beamed to the ship's brig?

Lore is obviously intelligent, self-aware, and probably conscious. Doesn't he deserve the right to a trial as that of any sentient being under the charter of the Federation of Planets? We're told time and again throughout all the Star Trek TV series that all life is to be respected & protected.

Subsequent episodes, such as "The Measure of a Man" and "The Offspring" reveal that Starfleet would love to have more than one Data. Yet, for some reason, in the twenty-six years that Data has been associated with Starfleet, no one has bothered to revisit the android's home world.

Does this seem logical?

I would also add that this fact should be another reason not to retrieve Lore from space. Aside from the humane reasons Lore should be brought back to the Enterprise, Starfleet could examine and study Lore in the hopes of replicating Soong's work.

When Data pick's up Lore's head, you can see that Lore's ears are missing. Soong claimed in the episode "Brothers" that Data & Lore were identical except for a bit of programming. Yet Data tells Dr. Crusher in "Unification I" that his ears are not detachable.

Lore fires on Crusher as she flees the cargo bay and the doors automatically open.

Then how come we see that Picard, Riker, Data, and Yar all must press a panel beside the cargo bay door before it will open?

[Bud Brewster]

[Bud Brewster]

[Pow]

I feel that even in the 23rd century that constructing such a life-like android as Data would not realistically be within our grasp.

Then on top of that fact we have one single individual (Dr. Noonian Soong) able to do it without the massive resources of the Federation or alien planet.

Just all seemed like a stretch to me even though I greatly enjoyed Brent Spinner as Data, Lore and Dr. Soong. The roles all displayed just what a nuanced actor he was.

[Bud Brewster]

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Mike, my good friend, you seem to be forgetting the well accepted edict stated below.
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Moore's Law states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles about every two years, though the cost of computers is halved. In 1965, Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel, made this observation that became known as Moore's Law.
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This profound observation has become the assumption that (for example) by the 23rd century, the computing power of the human race will have doubled 100 times (once every two years).

Computers are that much powerful than ours today won't even need mankind to design androids which are indistinguishable from you and me!

Mike, when we were kids, a computer was a giant machine which had thousands of moving part, took hours to solve problems, and required a lot of electrify.

Today our commercially sold computers are far superior to those antiquated machines . . . and yet we all own one which we can hold in our hands or place in our laps — powered by batteries or household current.

Forgive me, Mike, but based on the lessons we've learn during our own life times, how could we possibly think that in 200 years our technology won't be so far advanced of what we have today that there isn't anything we could imagine that it can't be capable of!!

Frankly, I suspect that mankind will have become a "minority" by then. I'm actually worried that we won't even around!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

Star Trek seemed to have prohibitions against certain technologies which have gone underground. We learn from DS9 that genetic engineering is forbidden, but the knowledge is there, and people will get it from underground doctors. The AI and robotic technology seem to be stunted, although I do not see how starships could be operated without them. But you see very few robots, especially human form robots in the series, and when you do it usually doesn't end well.

So I can believe that there is an underground dark web of technology in the Federation, with scientists doing research into prohibited technologies and sharing it. And knowledge from those forbidden technologies was used to construct Data.

David.

[Bud Brewster]