1x12 Datalore

[7.0/10] Sometimes the concept does a lot of the heavy lifting for Star Trek episodes. “Datalore” isn’t the best-written episode of the show, or the one with the best performances, or the most thought-provoking outing for the series. But the strength of its central premise -- what if Data had the robotic equivalent of an evil twin -- is so compelling that it’s hard not to be invested even when the episode is stumbling.

Granted, this is another one where revisiting the show as a devoted fan ironically saps an earlier episode of some of its power. I already knew Soong’s history (and then some). I already knew that Lore was the bad guy. I already knew that the Crystalline Entity was a malevolent, or at least antagonistic, force. Much of the episode hinges on the impact of those reveals, which is blunted when you’re already in the know on all three.

The way to avoid that phenomenon is to root the story in character, to where even if the audience already knows the twists and turns, we can empathize with the major players’ experience of them. “Datalore” tries, in places at least. It uses scenes to explore the almost wistful sense of Data discovering the place he was born, confronting a brother who’s very similar and yet very different from him, and prioritizing his loyalty to Starfleet over this new familial connection. But most of these scenes are brief and clumsy, focused more on the twin-sanity novelty of Lore’s arrival than on the interior experience of it.

That said, there’s some interesting psychology at play here, one hinged on the distance between Soong-style androids and that vaunted “humanity” that Data’s been chasing after, with some questions as to whether him achieving his goal would be a good thing. Data is stiff and stunted in various ways, particularly in understanding human customs and practices like humor, contractions, and even sneezing. But he’s also a consummate professional, one who’s loyal to Starfleet protocol and, more importantly, to his colleagues. That makes him a hero when he emerges to stop Lore and save the ship.

Lore, on the other hand, is “more human.” He is able to understand the nuances of jokes and casual interactions. But he is also duplicitous, ambitious, and even bitter in a way that Data’s never been. He’s supposedly closer to us in terms of demeanor and understanding, and yet we only see that manifested in a sense of superiority, mendaciousness, and even cruelty that Lore displays in contrast to his more strait-laced sibling.

Why is that? The suggested answer seems to be a difference in the balance of human frailties to human achievement. As Picard and Riker’s conversation at the end of the episode suggests, Data’s mix of the too is just right. Lore on the other hand, has traded closer resemblance for humanity’s deeper flaws.

But at the risk of reaching, I think there’s another answer, one hinted at in later episodes and which is more satisfying, to me at least. When Lore was born, he was rejected by humans who feared him. When Data was born, he was saved by humans who welcomed him. How different one’s view of humanity would be when faced with such disparate treatment. Lore’s story here is one of Frankenstein’s monster, turning on the villagers who came to his door with pitchforks and torches, afraid of what they did not understand. There’s a fascinating psychology at the root of that.

Unfortunately, “Datalore” loiters around in narrative cul de sacs and rushed confrontations for much of the episode rather than digging deeply into that material. Some parts of the episode, parts that I really like even, feel like the characters talking directly to the audience. Picard announcing that humans are just biochemical machines or declaring that Tasha’s question about whether he can trust Data was a legitimate and necessary one are both interesting moments, but feel too conspicuous in their integration.

Likewise, Lore goes from mildly suspicious to conniving villainy in no time flat. There’s barely enough time to establish the threat of the Crystalline Entity before he’s conspiring with it. Likewise, this is yet another “Wesley Crusher saves the day with his wonderboy talents” episode, somehow able to discern Lore’s deceit better than any of his colleagues. (It at least gets us a couple of all-time great “Shut up, Wesley” retorts.)

But that’s part of the problem here too. The crew frankly seems dumb for falling for Lore’s shtick. I don’t want to be too biased by my knowing who and what Lore is before the crew does. At the same time, though, Lore seems so shifty from the jump that anyone falling for his routines, and doing so unquestionably, plays as though everyone on board is a sucker (except the specialest ensign Wesley, of course).

It remains nice to see Brent Spiner cut loose and show his range in this other guise, much as Leonard Nimoy could demonstrate his more animated chops whenever Spock was possessed by the spore or energy being of the week. Lore isn’t a subtle character, and Spiner plays his manipulative and dapper villainy for all it’s worth. But that only goes so far when a thin shipwide duping, clunky reveals about Data’s family history, and a dopey phaser standoff (replete with a cheesy, Kirk-esque doppelganger fight) are the order of the day.

But by god, it’s catnip for the mind. What would it be like, to uncover a long lost twin? How much can you tweak in your personality, change the volume of your humanity, until you’re a totally different person. How would two beings, built much the same, diverge when one’s learned to trust humanity, even aspire to it, and the other’s come to resent it as an inferior species that fears his greatness? There’s so many unique concepts here, that it’s tough not to be sucked in despite the general lumpiness of the episode that contains them.

That’s the beauty of Star Trek though. Even in the series’s lowlights, it often presents its audience with thought-experiments that keep our brains humming long after the story’s dissipated. This isn’t the last time The Next Generation would use Lore as a foil and a mirror to Data, and despite the middling execution, the force of the ideas underlying him makes it easy to see why.