“And a very good job I did of it too.”
In which, to the chagrin of fangirls everywhere, Data turns out to be the worst boyfriend ever. While the Enterprise is flying through a dark matter nebula, Data decides to try his hand at dating, and the results are predictably disastrous – even leaving aside the inevitable complications that come with a workplace romance. (Like, Worf playing protective big brother to Data’s girlfriend.) So here’s poor, broken-hearted Jenna, a friend and colleague of Data’s coming out of a bad breakup, who tries to set up a relationship with the android, and later becomes disappointed when it turns out that Data can only simulate the properties of an emotional attachment, not actually feel any of them. Well, you get what you pay for.
It’s Patrick Stewart’s first try at directing an episode, and it’s solid from that standpoint; but it begins to make me think that the series became a little too reliant on ol’ yellow-eyes as a lodestone of perceived inherent strength. (Frakes got his first directing gig on a Data episode, too.) Spiner may well have been the series’ breakaway star, but a good Data episode is actually a pretty tricky task to manage, rather than an easy win. The tone can be a tough sell – one can’t fault the acting in the scene where Data tries to force an argument with his partner, but he comes off one stroke shy of a serial killer nevertheless.
There’s a pitiable quality to the story here, first as Jenna begins to demonstrate her foolhardy schoolgirl crush on the android, and later as all and sundry try to jump in and help the couple get off to a good start, from the O’Briens to Guinan herself. Come on everyone: we know better. (Even Counselor Troi, the only character to express reservations about this suicide mission, is eventually won over by Data’s bright-eyed earnestness.) I guess there’s something to be said for the fact that Jenna essentially invents all the reasons Data would be a good partner for her, based on her own projections of what she wants, rather than what is factually there. Such a take on the dangerous mirror-images that sometimes lead us astray in romance might have made for an interesting theme, but because Jenna is the guest star and not the principal, the episode can’t help but take a Data-centric (and by extension, fairly male-centric) point of view.
The A-story bears no connection to the B-story, wherein the nebula is creating pockets of negative space that are gobbling up parts of the ship. These scenes are well-managed (particularly the bit where a crewman gets fatally half-absorbed into the deck plating), but it’s a bit weird that Picard insists on personally piloting the shuttlecraft that will guide the Enterprise to safety. This is a Data episode, about a Data relationship; might not Data, or Jenna, or both, have been better employed to solve the crisis? Next Gen learns its – ahem – lesson in this regard by the next workplace romance episode rolls around, “Lessons.”
Blogging The Next Generation runs every Tuesday as I work my way through every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on blu-ray. Season Four is in stores now, and here comes Season Five.