Data's Day

Dear Commander Maddox.

There was a time before Molly. A time when Keiko wasn't married. I sometimes forget that Chief O'Brian isn't a permanent member of the crew. It's only a couple of months since I sat through the entire DS9 back-catalogue, so I am still surprised that after four seasons of TNG, Colm Meany is only a guest-star.

This episode is like a day in the life of Data episode. A Light-hearted romp... Dr. Bev is something of a twinkle toes on the dance floor. Worf tends to regard drinking glasses as the ideal wedding gift. Deanna Troi has her cleavage on displayed within her teil dress this week, and a possibly untamed ornithoid is running around sick bay.

The Vulcan Ambassador is taking us close to the Neutral Zone???

The overall episode is a little light-weight and it certainly won't figure in any seasons best categories, but it is laying the seeds of future adventures.

A well designed episode featuring several stories into one magnificent episode. Romulan intrigue marriage jitters and an Android becoming more human. Worf is very funny. Riker is well written for this story. Enjoy!

Probably the second worst episodes iv'e seen so far, and it's too bad because Data is my favorite character, and Data episodes are usually the best ones. It deals with data's attempt of understanding the human experience, but doe's so with no subtlety once or ever. The scenes are built in an exaggerated pedagogic manner, and each scene directly addresses a specific aspect of being human. If, despite the overacting and highly unnatural dialogs, you failed to understand the subtext of a scene, don't worry - Data will narrate it for you at the end of it, under the plot pretence of a letter to dr meddox which is being read throughout the episode. And it's not your regular Data, it's a back to day one of being human school Data, with every over the top trope in the Data arsenal (ha ha data took a joke too literally or doesn't understand a metaphor). And it's the same thing with every other character, as if it features star wars collection of cliche's. The only good things about it are a good ol' romulan diplomacy side plot with a treki kind of mystery and susspence, and a nice treat in the form of dancing data.

Data corresponds with cyberneticist Maddox, recording his movements and musings over the course of a single day. And what a day it is, as well - in addition to Chief O'Brien's impending marriage to botanist Keiko, the Enterprise is escorting a Federation ambassador to tense negotiations with the Romulans.

This is genuinely one of the most heart-warming episodes I can recall seeing, taking the show in a new direction by shifting focus to Data's perception of life on the Enterprise instead of whatever drama or mystery is unfolding this week. There's room for the usual stuff, of course, but thanks to Spiner's brilliant performance and so classy writing, the episode feels like a real change of pace and stands out from the rest of the season.

Data's Day has been one of my favourite TNG episodes for over 30 years for one very particular reason and it's to do with a peculiar quality that TNG holds above all other shows-the desire it creates within the minds of its audience to "be there". Many of us who grew up on the revamped version of the original series watched and rewatched these episodes (one 5pm episode a day repeated at 11pm if you were watching it on Sky) right throughout our late childhood and early adolescence. In that regard, the series occupies a very special part of our memories, one couched in a sense of comfort and easy living (who else gets to watch tv at 5pm but someone who has little else to worry about?) of having the family buzzing about the house, of well rounded contentment. Complementing this was something that TNG rarely gets credit for but every fan cherished-the set design and decor. Far from the gloomy dark sets of modern tv, TNG was warmly lit in a palette of late 80's/early 90's creams and beiges, filled with spatial rooms and corridors, tidy and clean with soft carpets and long awning windows and featuring an array of facilities we would get to visit and revisit again and again. To the kids who grew up with it, the Enterprise of this series was a plush and safe space and most importantly familiar. We longed to be there and now as adults revisiting it all for the first time in decades, the nostalgia for that sense of safe comfort is palpable.

It is this strange power which Data's Day taps into. As the titular character recounts his daily business both personal and official in a letter to Commander Maddox (he of Measure of a Man), the set-up requires us to follow the oft comical android around the ship. In doing so, the episode sends us closer to our coveted destination amid the stars of our mind than any other, filling the gaps in our own private mental maps of the ship. We visit nearly all of the secondary sets and even see a few new ones such as the hairdressers and the gift replicators. We see the main characters doing a little bit of what they do on their free time and get a sense of what it really was like to live aboard the Galaxy Class flag ship of Star Fleet. If that wasn't enough, and it could have been, threaded into the mix is a delicious b-plot that serves the primary drama brilliantly in that it justifies the retrospective narrative of Data's letter to Maddox as well as Data's wandering while adding a sense of excitement to the proceedings. (Of course, the convenient absence of Troi and her empathic sense from this b-story could count as a plot-hole of sorts and is the reason this episode rates a 9 and not a 10.)

Though such a premise could have leant itself to being nothing more than a tedious season filler, Data's Day instead seemed to bring the best out in cast and crew alike. The interactions between Spiner and Burton, the great Meaney and Chao, Sirtris and McFadden are fantastic and director Robert Wiemer assists them greatly with some inspired staging. It results in some of the funniest interchanges in the entire series with Spiner at the center of it all. Whether it be Data's delivery of the "good news" to the chief or the slow turning reveal of his fixed dancing smile, this show will have you howling with laughter no matter how many times you've seen it. In between will be the type of smiles that only the contentment of being in one of your favourite places can bring.