Weekend Trek “Inheritance”

Season seven of The Next Generation decided to do a number of episodes involving family members of the main cast of characters.  Up next?  Data.

Data has family?  Well, Jimmy and Tom have some thoughts.

“Inheritance”

Data meets a woman who claims to be his mother.

jimmy:  So how did Soong implant the holographic chip into Juliana’s head if she had already left him?

tomk:  …

Jimmy, you magnificent bastard, they should read your book!

jimmy:  They should!

tomk:  You did write a book, right?

jimmy:  Yes. “How To Spot An Android In 12 Easy Steps”.

tomk:  I’m sure it was a bestseller.

jimmy:  Data’s read it obviously.

tomk:  As long as he didn’t write it for you.

jimmy:  No. Of course not.

tomk:  Good.

You’re both very honest people who probably would have said something before too long and given up the game.

jimmy:  Especially me. But especially Data.

tomk:  I mean, you giggle like a schoolgirl if someone says, “tufted titmouse.”

jimmy:  Hehe

tomk:  And when has Data ever kept a secret?  Unless Captain Picard ordered him to or Dr. Soong asked him to through a hologram?

jimmy:  Uh, I dunno.  This time he did for sure!

tomk:  He sure did. You really earned your book royalties for this one.

jimmy:  Data’s a good student.  He picked up on her being an android when I hadn’t yet.  I knew there had to be something about her, or it wouldn’t be much of a show, but I didn’t see that coming.

tomk:  I kinda remembered and looked for clues. Data looks at her for a second too long when she does the advanced math. She was also obviously sweating in the caves when the other characters weren’t.

jimmy:  Her husband was too.  They made it real obvious the two of them were sweating profusely.

tomk:  Oh, well, I wasn’t looking at him. He had trust issues with androids.

jimmy:  Riker doesn’t.  And I would assume Picard.  But if the ship ever needs to be piloted out of a delicate situation involving intense calculations, don’t let the android do it.

tomk:  Data has to restrain Spot during those times.

jimmy:  He might jump on the console and cause their destruction.

tomk:  It might be standard procedure to secure all pets and small children at such times.

jimmy:  Hopefully he’s better at protecting Spot then he was his mother. Making her do a jump that probably would have killed most people. And why didn’t he just pick her up and jump?  Probably because he suspected already that she was an android and weighed hundreds of pounds…which no one else noticed. But wait, Data only weighs 220lbs which is less than me. So she probably weighs…oh…nevermind.

tomk:  Data was pretty sure by then.

jimmy:  It was still a dangerous jump. I mean, her arm came off.

tomk:  You can just regrow one of those if she’s a person.

jimmy:  The future is amazing.

tomk:  You just have to live to see it.

jimmy:  I’m trying.

tomk:  So far, so good. You aren’t dead yet. And you finally realized you aren’t a robot.

jimmy:  Which ironically would have helped me survive into the future.

tomk:  Yes, but then you couldn’t enjoy this brownie.

jimmy:  If I was a new gen like Juliana, I could.

tomk:  Those are invented in the future.

jimmy:  That’s why I need to get there.

tomk:  I think we’re going in circles.

jimmy:  Indeed. Let’s get back to the episode that saw most of Troi’s scenes get cut. Again.

tomk:  Troi is still on this show?

jimmy:  You’d never say from the number of deleted scenes she has.

tomk:  Well, you’d need the whole series on blu-ray or something to see those.

jimmy:  It’s a blessing and a curse.

tomk:  More Troi or Troi After Hours?

jimmy:  Yes.

tomk:  Isn’t Troi After Hours just the same scenes but she’s wearing her pajamas?

jimmy:  …

I’ll check the Blu-rays again.

tomk:  The last time you did that was to check for a threesome with Riker, Troi, and Ro. You kept saying you’d be back in a jiffy.

jimmy:  Was I?

tomk:  Were you what?

jimmy:  Back in a jiffy?

tomk:  You would run off every time I said something about Trek After Hours to check.

jimmy:  I’m much more mature now.

tomk:  Oh good. So, did you find the After Hours scene?

jimmy:  No. Just the normal numerous deleted scenes.

tomk:  Man, there must be a lot of them.

jimmy:  At least two this episode.

tomk:  And you watch all of them?

jimmy:  I do.

tomk:  My condolences.

jimmy:  Some are not bad. You can often tell why they got cut. A lot if Troi’s start with “this was cut because it was redundant”.

tomk:  I see.

I mean, you actually see, but I get it.

jimmy:  I brought it up before if someone like Siritis knows or even cares when her scenes get cut.  She does her job, gets paid, moves onto the next episode.

tomk:  One thing I know about Sirtis is she was very grateful to get the role because it meant she got to stop playing rape victims in sleazy movies.

jimmy:  That is a big step up.

tomk:  She’s not shy about saying as much either.

jimmy:  She has a suprinsingly long filmography for someone I feel like I haven’t seen outside of Trek.

tomk:  And I somehow suspect she wouldn’t be too upset if you didn’t see the pre-Trek work.

jimmy:  No, probably not.  Nor the post-Trek work, as she probably doesn’t care what I watch.

tomk:  That’s a realistic view of fandom. Have a cookie.

jimmy:  Thanks!

tomk:  Now you can comfort the Moose since some strange woman just claimed to be his mother.

jimmy:  We’ll know for sure after the violin recital.

tomk:  How does a moose play the violin?

jimmy:  Not very well.

tomk:  That is an instrument that usually requires hands.

jimmy:  And blinking to the Fibonacci sequence.

tomk:  Yes.  That.

jimmy:  But not complex math equations.

tomk:  No.  Not that.

jimmy:  So, you’d think that Juliana would have figured out she was an android.

tomk:  Must have been a programming block.

jimmy:  That’s probably the argument. But she never noticed she was incredibly strong or anything?

tomk:  Was she incredibly strong?

jimmy:  It didn’t show it, but you’d think so. Data is. Or when she washed her hair that head flap would come up exposing her brain?

tomk:  Or when she cut herself shaving.

jimmy:  Exactly. I mean, at some point you notice something is up. Or you go through a metal detector. Or your eye starts twitching wheber the microwave is turned on.

tomk:  But Crusher said Mama Data had different gadgets inside of her to fool scanners and the like.

They also don’t seem to use metal detectors and microwaves anymore.

jimmy:  That’s true on the gadgets.

What’s funny is that just recently I was reading about the work they had to do to make Spiner look younger in season one of Picard. They mentioned how there was a throwaway line in TNG about how Data had programming to appear as if he was aging. Which showed up in this one.

tomk:  Well…the Data scenes in Picard were dreams and flashbacks.  Picard wouldn’t remember Data older than he ever was.

jimmy:  Yes. But the TNG line was supposed to account for Spiner aging since season one.

tomk:  And he’d aged so much in six years!

jimmy:  Well, when you’re not supposed to age at all, 6 years is a lot!

tomk:  You only say that because you claim time spent with Watson is why you look so much older now.

jimmy:  Have you seen me?  I’m hideous!

tomk:  I thought you looked like Hugh Jackman?

jimmy:  Hugh Jackman in Logan not Hugh Jackman in X-Men.

tomk:  He’s hardly hideous.

jimmy:  It’s relative.

Anyway, Data looked weird in Picard. There was certainly a degree of accepting reality and letting it go.

tomk:  No wonder he only appears in shadowy dream sequences.  Those are allowed to look weird.

Kinda like how they kept Marlon Brando in the shadows for Apocalypse Now to hide the fact he showed up a big fat guy who was supposed to play a commando.

jimmy:  Like that, but less insane.

tomk:  Well, it isn’t every day we can compare Star Trek to Apocalypse Now.

jimmy:  That makes today special. We deserve a cake!

tomk:  Is that how it works?  You just say we deserve cake and…huh, Malin Ackerman just dropped off a cake.

jimmy:  You were saying?

tomk:  I was saying you should try this rum raisin cake.

It’s delicious.

jimmy:  Uh…

tomk:  You’ll just have to settle for this brownie that came with a bucket of fried chicken.

jimmy:  Do I get any of the chicken?

tomk:  The whole bucket.

jimmy:

tomk:  I hope you like extra crispy.

jimmy:  Do I!?

tomk:  I don’t know. Do you?

jimmy:  Sure. But only white meat.

tomk:  Well, the thighs can go to someone else.

jimmy:  Perfect.

tomk:  Well, I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson: don’t force your elderly mother to jump over a chasm.

jimmy:  Did we not know that previously?

tomk:  It’s good to get a reminder sometimes.

jimmy:  This episode made me feel bad for Data. I know she was built after, but Soong built this near perfect android and Data was left so “incomplete”.

tomk:  Data doesn’t seem to mind. At least he’s not walking around naked and fully functional.

jimmy:  Anymore.

tomk:  Well, we don’t know about After Hours Data.

jimmy:  Tasha did.

And Troi might according to Mama Data.

tomk:  It’s probably all on some hidden extra on the blu-rays.

jimmy:  I’ll have to have a look.

tomk:  Be careful. Hit the wrong icon, you could get all kinds of horrifying images.

jimmy:  If that came up the blu-rays would go right in the incinerator.

tomk:  What if the next shot was Worf killing that guy?

jimmy:  I wouldn’t know as I wouldn’t get that far.

tomk:  You might feel better if we moved on. How would you feel about combining one f our favorite things with something Watson hates?

jimmy:  Ice cream and me?  I do like combining those things.

tomk:  I meant something else. How do you feel about Worf and the Multiverse of Madness?

jimmy:  MVP and something Watson complains about but then loves anything multiverse.

tomk:  Yeah, something like that.  Would that be more to your liking?

jimmy:  I like Worf and the multiverse.

tomk:  Even the one where it’s you as the Garbage Day Guy?

jimmy:  At least I don’t have to watch it in that case.

tomk:  That is true,  Would you like to watch Worf go through that sort of mess?

jimmy:  Would I?!?

tomk:  That sounds like a yes.  Ready?

jimmy:  Ready.

tomk:  Engage!

Next:  “Parallels”