B is for "Brothers" which begins with the USS Enterprise-D being covertly diverted to Commander Datas home planet!
In this 77th episode episode of Star Trek TNG, Data takes over Captain Picard's ship when a malfunction in the androids programming summons him to a mysterious planet. Apparently all it took was a homing beacon to get Data, Lore and Dr Soong reunited in a cosy family get together.
A surprised Data meets his creator, his actual living father who hasn't been killed by the Crystalline Entity after all. Soong has created the perfect chip specially designed to allow Data experience human emotions for the first time! The real mind twister here is how will Data's Emotion Chip affect the android whom we have come to know and love.
In a bizare twist, Data's evil brother Lore fools the old man. Lore gets the chip and in turn goes quite mad, assaults Dr Soong and runs away. What made this really unique is Spiner plays all three characters but when Soong touches Data's face, the hand belongs to a photo double.
Brent Spiner candidly admits,
'I didn't have a clue as to who the character was, he was just a generic old man.' Four hours of ageing make-up later, 'People started treating me like I was an old man with so much more respect' 'The older I acted between scenes, the nicer people treated me, it was incredible.'
The brothers are soon at odds but when Soong interrupts to reveal he's dying, its like WOW. For a moment I actually believed Data's evil twin, Lore had a heart!
'Brothers' was written by Rick Berman and directed by Rob Bowman. The element of jeopardy was suggested by TNG's Michael Piller who wanted Lore on the scene.
How many days of shooting do you think it took Brent Spiner to shoot this episode? What did you think of Data fooling the computer by impersonating Captain Picard's voice? Who's your favorite character, Data, Lore or Dr Noonien Soong?
9 comments:
They shot those quickly, so I'd say an extra week.
Funny that chip eventually wound up in Data when the show switched to movies.
All of them.
Brother. Very nice choice for B.
I'm a little partial to Soong because he's old and I understand that.
Data will always be my favorite of the three, but any episode that involved Lore was always entertaining.
I'm a sucker for a good Data episode, that's for sure!
What a cool pic for 'B' :-)
Gah! So glad I found your blog on the A-Z list.
Man, this takes me back. I really started watching ST:TNG in the third season, and got completely hooked. Data was my favorite character of all, so I was very pleased with this episode.
I'm looking forward to the rest of your list.
B4!
I love Data!
Post a Comment