Datalore

This episode is an example of the extreme ineptitude of the entire senior staff. The premise is interesting but it just digresses into utter idiocy on the crews part. Being carefree with an unknown person and ignoring any signs of trouble or malicious intent.

This gets a pass because the first half is interesting, Worf gets his ass kicked again and Spiner does a great job.

Data having a brother is an intriguing notion but the execution is sloppy. What was Lore's motivation to help the CE? Why did Soon not just reprogram him? Which episode holds the record for most plot holes? When will the writers get tired of making everyone other than Wesley act like an idiot? Ugh.

Writing in 2021, it is great to see that I am not the only person taking a retrospective look at Star Trek, the Next Generation. When this series was first released in 1987, a little less than twenty years after the end of the Original Series, many people thought that, without Captain Kirk and his crew, it couldn't really be Star Trek. However, original creator Gene Roddenberry, was fully invested in the casting, writing and overall look of the new series, so let's see how it shaped up:

This is the Evil Twin episode which gives Brent Spiner the chance to show off as two contrasting characters: Data, the serving android crew member and Lore, his creator's discarded prototype. Surprisingly cunning for a reject, the counterfeit manages to deactivate his twin and deceive to the entire senior staff...............except for clever teen, Wesley.

We get to hear the immortal lines: "shut up Wesley" uttered more than once, suggesting that the writing team (which at this stage still gave a credit to Gene Roddenberry himself) already had an inkling of how unpopular the child-genius character was becoming. The Soong-Data backstory, of which we will hear so much more in the future, is laid down here and the concept of the crystalline entity is interesting. So, we do get some decent Sci-Fi here, after all.

Despite the resounding silliness of the main plot.

(Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5)

Q. What do you think Star Trek should mostly be?

A. Challenging situations solved by thoughtful people B. People doing gosh-wow things in a spaceship

This episode has one amazing strength: Brent Spiner, who is such a talented actor, we can almost watch this.

But not quite: stupid premise, stupid events, annoying scripting -- it's not even worth going into detail. The Data character is already a stretch too far, made enjoyable by Spiner's talents; stretching it further was never a good idea, and this episode falls into the realm of Bollywood plot (which would at least be enlivened by dancing and songs).

Instead, "Datalore" completes a trifecta of terrible TNG (along with "The Big Goodbye" and "Angel One"): a terrible misstep that should have been left behind ... but this is TNG, so they returned to the same premise in later seasons. An insult to Star Trek fans, but a great episode for Spiner.

Enterprise visits the planet where Data was discovered.

This is a mostly strong episode focussed on Data's origin, introducing a good antagonist and containing a great double performance from Brent Spiner. Unfortunately some bad creative decisions spoil the latter part of the story.

The plot is highly compelling for the first part of the episode. I found it intriguing to discover Data's beginnings and quite tense waiting for Lore to show his true colours. There are plenty of enjoyable exchanges between Data and Lore plus Lore and the other crew members.

Unfortunately as other reviewers have stated the episode becomes frustrating late on with its writing of Wesley Crusher and the behaviour of senior crew members. It would be fine if we were not expected to take them seriously as leaders in the next episodes, but that is the negative effect it has on the consistency of the characters. Also Wesley does not communicate his concern particularly well which feels like a contrivance just to get those reactions from the crew. The result is that the entire premise is annoying on all levels.

The visuals are done very well with good makeup, nice set design and solid effects creating the crystalline entity.

Performances are great with Brent Spiner dominating this episode with a superb turn as two quite different characters.

This is a 7.5/10 but I round upwards.