The Enterprise pays a visit to the world where Data was discovered. The entire Earth colony that once resided there has disappeared. Beaming down, the Away Team discovers a hidden laboratory, concealed within what is made to appear to be a natural structure. This laboratory is where Data was constructed. And in a storage area, they find a disassembled twin of Data's - Data's "brother," Lore.
Putting the pieces together, the Enterprise crew manage to revive Lore. But it isn't long before Data worries that Lore can't be fully trusted. It's clear that Lore has more ease in "acting human" than Data does, but his private comments reveal that he doesn't respect humanity. When Lore makes contact with a dangerous Crystalline Entity, he renders Data unconscious and takes his place on the Enterprise bridge. His plan? To deliver the entire crew of the starship to the Entity, in return for their knowledge to advance his own ambitions of power!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: Noting the discomfort of his officers in directly addressing Data's status as a machine, he quite sensibly clears the air. The advantages of having a more intellectual captain are demonstrated as he puts all at ease by drawing an equivalency between the machine that is Data and the machine that is man. Quick to erupt when Wesley breaches protocol to air his mistrust of Lore, but equally quick to forgive all when that breach of protocol helps to save the ship.
Data: His memory contains the accumulated knowledge of the colonists on the world where he was created. Data's first conscious memory is of being discovered on that world, 26 years earlier. Prior to this episode, he did not know the identity of his creator, nor did he realize that there was any other being like him. Insofar as it is possible for Data to be excited, he is excited at the prospect of having a "brother." He assists in assembling and reviving his brother, and initially attempts to act as a guide to Lore, to integrate him into life on the Enterprise. But, as he assures Picard early on, his loyalty remains to the ship and its crew.
Lore: Brent Spiner pulls double-duty, playing both Data and the "evil twin," Lore. Spiner's abilities as a physical actor serve him in good stead, making it very easy for viewers to differentiate between the two characters. As Lore, Spiner brings a slightly different pitch to his voice, a different tilt to the head, a near-eternal hint of a smirk, even a different walk. When Lore impersonates Data, Spiner doesn't simply "play Data" in these scenes... He plays Lore playing Data, giving us a Data who is slightly "off." It's an excellent performance by probably the strongest member of the Next Generation ensemble. If the Emmys didn't spurn science fiction as a matter of course, Spiner's work on this show, and in this season particularly in this episode, would have been worthy of a Supporting Actor Emmy.
SHUT UP, WESLEY!
Renaming this section after arguably the episode's best line, helpfully said twice in the course of the episode. Of course, this being the first season, when Gene Roddenberry's need for Wesley to act as a male Mary Sue was it its apex, it can only be delivered in the context of Picard being 100% wrong - and unreasonable, to boot - and Wesley being 100% right. Yes, Wesley the Wise is the only member of the Enterprise crew to even consider the possibility that Lore is impersonating Data. Even after Lore fails to respond to Picard's traditional "Make it so," or after he calls Riker by his last name rather than as "Commander Riker," the bridge crew only become vaguely aware that it might be a good idea to send a very small security detachment after him.
Fortunately, Wesley is on-hand to save the ship by beaming Lore into space. Doubly fortunate, since the Enterprise crew is apparently incapable of intra-ship communications to alert security crews on all decks to be alert for an intruder who looks like Data. And having these nonexistent security crews who cannot possibly be put on alert guard a sensitive area like the transporter room... Well, that would be just crazy, wouldn't it?
THOUGHTS
After being a generally dire program for the first half of its first season, Next Generation has been steadily improving over the course of the season's second half. Hide and Q and Haven were flawed episodes, but highly watchable and entertaining. The Big Goodbye was genuinely quite good. Now Datalore continues this steady run of improvement, presenting a well-paced and thoughtful script that plays to the strengths of most of the performers.
Some of the series' flaws are still in evidence. From a 20+ year on perspective, the technical limitations of early TNG are very evident, particularly in some of the very obvious split-screen moments in which Brent Spiner plays opposite himself. To harp too much on this point would seem churlish... but it is worth noting that there were studio-bound planet sets in '60's Trek that were at least as well-done as the one seen here, while the laboratory beneath the planet is far too obviously a redressed Enterprise set, with no attempt made to disguise this by even dimming the lighting.
Lighting in general remains a problem for this show, with every set consistently overlit when a bit of darkness would do a world of good. Note the brief scene after the first commercial fadeout, the scene in which the Chief Engineer is trying to assemble Lore. For a rare change, someone actually has turned down the lights, and it's so much more effective for it. If only this show was willing to do that more often! As it stands, the series always seems to be floodlit.
So why do I pick Datalore as the episode to complain about the overlit sets that are apparent in every episode? Well, honestly in large part because this episode doesn't offer up much else to complain about. It's a good one, almost a great one. It's an important episode, in that it introduces some major elements that would recur: Lore, Dr. Noonian Soong, and the Crystalline Entity. It's also very well-structured.
The first half of the episode is carried by the discovery of Data's origins, and of his twin. Once Lore is revived, we know we're in familiar territory - the "evil twin" episode - and that it's only a matter of time before Lore is impersonating Data. If that had been the extent of the story's invention, the second half would have fallen down considerably - as has happened in many other episodes.
But then the script throws us a curve ball, by introducing the Crystalline Entity. It doesn't come out of nowhere. It answers a mystery introduced in the teaser, in fact - What destroyed the colonists? By linking Lore to the Entity, the threat level is raised considerably. We have seen the dead world, so we know what the Entity can do. By making Lore its accomplice, we also see just how evil Lore is. At the same time, if Lore is communicating with it, guiding it to sentient life it can destroy, then the Entity is also intelligent - making it that much more dangerous. One plot strand serves the other plot strand, making the episode as a whole that much tighter and that much more effective.
THE PICARD SLEDGE-HAMMER
Regrettably, it ends with another battering by The Picard Sledge-Hammer, as the moral of the story is imparted to us by Picard musing about how Data and Lore reflect the nature of humanity. Really, honestly, we got it. We're not lobotomized, we got that the "more human" Lore is really humanity's greed and ambition, and the "struggling-to-be-human" Data is actually humanity's higher qualities, particularly loyalty in this episode. We don't need that shoved down our throats with a sermon in literally the final minute of what has been an excellent episode. Say what you will about the Kirk/Spock/McCoy "comedy" tags that make me groan often at the end of TOS episodes... At least they aren't spelling out "the lesson of the day" for "the children." I half-expect Worf to pop up in the background and grunt something about how, "Knowing is half the battle."
Nit-picking about the dreadful closing seconds aside, this is by far the best Next Generation episode yet. A superb dual performance by Brent Spiner, a taut script, and an ingenious story structure make this the first "great" episode of this series. A bit of grumbling about technical limitations and overlighting to one side, I have no problem in awarding this a very high:
Rating: 9/10.
Previous Episode: The Big Goodbye
Next Episode: Angel One
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This was much better than the episodes of TNG that preceded it, but I thought that "The Enemy Within" was a much better Evil Twin episode, because THAT episode suggests that we actually need our negative side, whereas this one doesn't get anywhere near that philosophical.
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