The Offspring

A little back story: Through my teens I was an ardent fan of films and sci-fi (primarily Star Wars), and Star Trek always piqued my interest, but I was too intimidated to invest the time to acquaint myself with a franchise that stretched over television and film since the 1960s.

That being said, I came across this episode while scanning TV channels and was immediately drawn to the character of Data, an singular android who dedicates his improbable existence to evolve and grow in order to be more "human." His quest in this episode included creating a new android in the hopes of improving upon his own limitations through his designated "offspring" (as most true parents do), including having this android eventually find a way to develop authentic emotional reactions.

However, when Starfleet grows impatient with the development of Data's new android, they threaten to confiscate it, instigating a surprisingly emotional struggle over the philosophy of sentient rights and acceptance that ultimately becomes overshadowed in the face of tragedy. It's all the more astonishing to consider the most emotionally devastating moments of the episode feature characters who can't project any emotions at all.

Brilliantly written, performed, and directed, this is one of the finest hours of television that succeeded in appealing to an outsider of the franchise and making them a fan for life.

This is the best episode of STTNG.

Brilliantly written, acted, and directed. If you don't cry at the end, you might need a shrink.

Data returns from a cybernetics conference, inspired enough to create his own android which he names Lal. After deciding on her gender and species, Lal begins integrating herself on board the Enterprise with varying amounts of success until a Starfleet admiral arrives, decreeing that Lal should be relocated to a specialist facility - and away from Data.

A touching and surprisingly deep episode exploring the ethics and morality behind artificial intelligence, long before it started creating fake news and doctored images. Guest star Todd does really well bringing the infantile Lal to life while Spiner delivers another great performance as TNG's secret weapon. Apart from Lal's off-putting haircut and Coster's pantomime villain, this is a good episode.

Data's newest attempt at being human is a doozy. Now, to make his life more human, Data has decided to have a child! Of course he cannot procreate in the traditional sense, so he builds an android child! And, since it's an android, he allows it to choose its own gender and appearance. While this girl, Lal, looks more human than Data, she turns out to be amazingly slow compared to her 'father'. She cannot pick up on social queues as well, is clumsy and seems, at times, kind of stupid. Because of this, a bigoted Admiral is now pushing to have Lal raised by someone other than Data--and to be raised apart from Data. The WHY of this never really makes any sense--especially in light of an earlier episode which established Data's legal status as a sentient being. And, it makes little sense in light of the Federation's supposed attitude of tolerance and niceness--and this explains why I dropped the score just a bit.

As I mentioned above, in some ways this show is a bit like the story of Frankenstein--with Data creating a being like the doctor. However, unlike the irresponsible doctor, Data tries very hard to be a good father and not abandon her to some Federation jerk. Overall, this is a very good episode...and one that might surprise you with how sadly it ends. You might just want to have a box of Kleenex handy.

This is an amazing episode that shows that in ONE EPISODE the characters and the guest star that plays Lal could get into the viewer and make them feel the loss when she passes away at the end.

I understand why they had to have the Admiral involved, but I really hate that someone would think they know better than someone else and push them around. This kind of stuff I'm sure happens today.

The ending was beautifully done.

Lastly, why coulnd't Star Trek Discovery do this? When they have the last episode right before the crew goes to the year 3000 or something, you just don't care! The writers of Discovery should take notes of this and other great TNG episodes, and dump that pathetic idiot Kurtzman. Maybe we'd see some good Trek there. (Note, he wasn't involved in the 3rd season of ST:Picard and it was much better)