4x03 Brothers

The story has some elements of classic drama. The son who just wanted a chance to please his father. A father who can overlook the evilness of a son because of the love he has for him. A love he shares equally between his two "children" And, of course, there are the two brothers themselfs.
However, it doesn't really work. You can't have sympathy towards Lore because of his past. You don't want him to redeem himself and in the end he shows, again, he really is the bad apple. Similar you don't feel sympathy towards Soong because you've just met him. We only know what we've been told about him so far. You do understand his intensions but that's about it. Data is left with the short straw so to say. Just meeting his "father" only to be loosing him again. Which, due to the lack of emotions, he can't even really grasp. Emotions he should have gotten hadn't it been for Lore's deception. There's tragedy for you.

Nevertheless this is another episode whos story will become more important moving forward. And, I remember from watching the first time, re-introducing Lore was a real surprise. I don't saw that coming. The b-story is pretty much neglectable.

[7.9/10] I couldn’t have been more than ten years old. I gave up on sleeping and raced out, distraught, to talk to my dad who was still working at the kitchen table. I wasn’t afraid of monsters under the bed or the bogeyman, but instead of the idea of death itself. I was just old enough to start seriously understanding the concept of my own fated nonexistence, and I couldn’t deal with it.

My dad sat me down and gave me some age-appropriate solace for an age-old unsolvable problem. And one of the things he said that stuck with me all these years later is that he was less afraid of death because I had come into the world. The idea that some piece of you will continue, in your children and the people you love, is a comfort.

There’s extra resonance for me, then, when Dr. Noonian Soong essentially tells his son the same thing. “Brothers” is, as its name portends, about family, and how those bonds can either cut through so much bad blood or simply magnify it. But it’s also about the reality of death and the act of creation, how the one helps balance out the other, and provides solace to us, whether we’re losing our lives or just losing someone we care about.

The episode sees Data unwittingly hijack the Enterprise to return to his long lost, thought-dead daddy. Dr. Soong has called his boy home because he’s dying, and wants to impart one last gift to his android offspring. Unfortunately, it means the Federation flagship is stymied. The Enterprise is unable to make its trip to a nearby Medical Starbase, which is bad news for young Willie Potts, a small boy suffering from potentially fatal poisoning after a practical joke from his older brother.

That’s one of the things I really like about “Brothers”. It’s mostly a cerebral/character-based episode. In arguably his finest hour, franchise bogeyman Rick Berman wants to examine the human desire to procreate and balance it against the prospect of death, while addressing what this experience means to someone like Data. But it also works as a nuts and bolts story, with stakes and tension.

Data can’t tarry forever in Dr. Soong’s hideout, because there’s a sick boy and a ticking clock to be able to treat him. The rest of the crew of the Enterprise isn’t just sitting around and twiddling their thumbs while Data goes on this mostly-internal journey; they’re trying to solve the problems Data accidentally created so that they can complete their mission. Before any of the Soong family business starts, there’s some pure excitement to be had from Data taking over the ship and going toe-to-toe with the rest of his fellow crewmen rather than assisting them, something that matches the “Thank goodness he’s on our side!” thrills of Spock performing a similar takeover in “The Menagerie”.

And there’s twists galore here! Data’s working against our heroes for some reason! Dr. Soong is alive! Lore’s been called by the same homing beacon! Dr. Soong is dying! Lore’s been lying to Data! (Shocker.) Dr. Soong has an emotion chip for his second android son. (Depending how you’re counting.) Lore pulled the old switcheroo!

“Brothers” constantly keeps the audience on its toes, not settling for what could have easily gotten by on Data conversing with his creator alone. It even gets little details right. We have continuity in the form of Riker knowing where Data’s on/off switch. And we get to see Dr. Crusher’s bedside manner on display in a way that shows the audience she’s good at her job beyond just coming up with the latest “regoogle the energymotron” cure of the week. Apart from its broader philosophical points, this is simply a well-built episode, something that’s a stealthy part of its success.

It can also boast the gimmick of having the same actor play three different roles in the same scene. Brent Spiner veers toward the hammy at times. It’s one of the reasons Data ends up being such a good role for him -- he’s expressive enough that even when going for restrained, we get just enough of Data’s personality for him not to seem flat or dull. But it’s double (triply?) impressive, both for him and the show’s production team, to not only make Data, Lore, and Dr. Soong feel like three distinct individuals, but to make their interactions feel so seamless.

Frankly, I forgot that they’re all played by the same guy at points in the episode, a tribute not only to the production work but the story telling. Data is familiar at this point. But Lore gets more wrinkles here, with new layers to his resentments and ability to deceive. And Dr. Soong especially is a pistol, as irascible and eccentric as you’d expect, with a certain Leonardo da Vinci vibe that nevertheless allows him to feel human. The rubber mask that’s supposed to make him look like an old man is a little much, but otherwise, the show does a stellar job of establishing and distinguishing the three characters, united by a performer, while allowing all of them to inhabit the same scene.

THe episode makes the most of that setup. Dr. Soong feels like a real parent, which may be the most remarkable accomplishment of the whole episode. He clearly loves both his boys, but has his regrets for both of them. For Data, it’s the implied disappointment that Data joined Starfleet rather than following in his father’s footsteps. There comes the episode’s most positive theme, which connects to the question fo why parents have children in the first place. Dr. Soong uses a bit of the socratic method to help his son understand mortals’ fascination with creating connections to the past and also to the future, and thereby help explain why people choose to have children, in whatever form they take.

Granted, Dr. Soong talks of simply having to create, of it being a drive within him no different than a painter painting or any great artist’s drive to apply their talents. Buy why make something like Data, something that resembles him, an android who aspires to be human, with free-will enough to mildly disappoint his father? Because Data represents a certain sort of immortality, a chance to live on in some form, to make versions of himself that can not only carry on his legacy but maybe even supersede him.

But he has regrets for Lore too, mostly that he didn’t have enough time to go back and fix his first android son. As much as “Brothers” deepens Data through the relationship with a father he never knew, it also deepns Lore, arguably more. We see his resentment for Dr. Song over having been dismantled. We learn about how the emotions within him created complications in the rest of his programming that Dr. Soong couldn’t quite compensate for, at least not yet. We see Lore’s sibling resentments, his gripes that Data got preferential treatment and his feeling like a black sheep.

The evil twin we discovered in “Datalore” was a fairly generic villain, one whose antipathy toward humanity was colored by his rejection by the villagers he encountered. The Lore we see in “Brothers” has more complex grievances, ones more closely rooted in a sense of paternal abandonment and filial jealousy, that come coupled with his father’s too-late apologies and a lingering sense of resentment that can’t be quelled.

Lore gets revenge on his father by mortally wounding him and stealing Data’s emotion chip. In Lore’s mind, he’s returning the favor to Dr. Soong and taking back his birthright. It’s a stunning betrayal -- especially after Lore seemed genuinely distraught when learning that his father was dying and legitimately happy to hear of his “dear brother”s upgrade -- but one that makes sense from Lore’s perspective.

It’s not the outcome Data was hoping for, to say the least, but it gives them all a chance to make good on what Dr. Soong said about living on. Data may not have his emotions, but he has a desire to say goodbye to his father. Dr. Soong has an unwavering belief that one day, Data will evolve to become the person he always imagined. And the two are both comforted by the idea that, in one form or another, Noonien Soong will live on, a family bond persisting and unbroken even by death.

I don’t necessarily subscribe to the ideas that “Brothers” offers anymore. While I appreciate the idea of living on in the hearts and minds of loved ones, I’ve come to see the downside of parents viewing their children as extensions of themselves in those who didn’t have fathers as caring and supportive as mine was. To the same end, as uplifting as strong family connections can be, there are also unforgivable acts that cannot be excused or set aside simply by dint of shared blood.

And yet, I am hard-pressed not to fall under “Brothers”’s spell anyway. Data meets and loses his father. He reunites with his brother and suffers yet another betrayal. He has good reason to contemplate the end of one’s existence, the familial ties that complicate that simple notion, and the reasons behind his and anyone’s creation, all wrapped up in a crackling Star Trek tale. A humble, forty-four minute episode may not be able to solve the infinite mysteries of life and death, but it offers plenty to mull over, for scared ten-year-old boys or more sanguine adults, neither of whom have the answers.