Datalore

"Datalore" is the thirteenth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, originally aired on January 18, 1988, in broadcast syndication.

In this episode, the Enterprise crew discover and reassemble Data's "brother", Lore (both Brent Spiner), who is in league with the entity that destroyed the colony on his home world.

The story underwent significant changes prior to filming, with it originally meant to be a romance episode for Data with a female android.

It was then altered to an "evil twin" plot at the suggestion of Spiner and elements of Data's origin were introduced, first as an alien creation and then at the hands of Dr. Noonien Soong.

[2] While on the way to Starbase Armus IX for computer maintenance, the Enterprise arrives at the planet Omicron Theta, the site of a vanished colony where the starship Tripoli originally found the android Data (Brent Spiner).

He also explains that a crystalline space entity capable of stripping away all life force from a world was responsible for the colony's demise.

Although Picard sends a security detachment to tail him, Lore overpowers Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) and evades pursuit.

Meanwhile, the suspicious Dr. Crusher and her son, Wesley, reactivate the unconscious Data, and the three of them race to the cargo hold to find Lore plotting with the entity to defeat the Enterprise.

[3] The "evil twin" story was suggested by Brent Spiner, instead, and was originally developed to include the creation of Data by an alien race.

[4] The script made mention of Isaac Asimov and the Laws of Robotics, something which had been suggested should be included at some point in the show as a spoken credit in a memo dated October 28, 1986 from executive producer Bob Justman.

[1] Bowman credited Spiner for making the episode work, giving one example, "He did the one scene in his own office with Brent sitting down and Lore discussing what it's like to be human.

"[1] Edits were still being made to the script during filming, as the writers wanted to introduce a new element to Data, in order to further distinguish him from Lore: an inability to use contractions.

Data had used contractions during earlier episodes, and Spiner refused to shoot the scene until a final decision was reached; production stopped while there was a meeting on this subject between Gene Roddenberry, the producers, and the writers, in the middle of the bridge set.

The music played when the away team explore Omicron Theta was similar to that created by Jerry Goldsmith for the 1979 film Alien.

Jones acknowledged that link saying that, "I was playing with the stuff like Jerry's music at the beginning of Alien, Bowman was like our Ridley Scott—he was like Ridley Scott Jr. and I was Jerry Goldsmith Jr."[6] Executive producer Maurice Hurley was pleased with the outcome of the episode, saying "The sets, the design of it and the look of that show was brilliant, I thought that might have been the best-looking show of the first season".

He described the stand-in as looking like "a break dancer doing the Robot" whenever he had to portray Data or Lore, and said that "I think the guy was really into playing an android, and his enthusiasm got cranked up to eleven, but by the end of the week, pretty much everyone wanted to deactivate him and sell him to the nearest Jawa.

He summed up, "While it's important in the grand scheme of things in what it establishes about Data's background, the episode itself is horrendously bad, from the clumsy script to the embarrassingly inept body-double work."

[10] Jamahl Epsicokhan at his website "Jammer's Reviews" valued the episode for providing backstory to Data, but agreed that the crew's inability to recognize Lore's threat and unwillingness to listen to Wesley made them seem stupid.

He thought that Lore was a well-conceived villain who works well with Spiner's strengths as an actor, but that the story only scratched the surface of the character's potential.

"Datalore" was chosen by Star Trek experts Mike and Denise Okuda because of the fan favourite status of Brent Spiner.