The TREKKER Reviews


SERIES
The Next Generation
EPISODE
13
TITLE
Datalore
STARDATE
41242.4


The Enterprise is detouring to visit Data's home planet. As a sign of his appreciation to the captain, Data decides it is time he learnt to sneeze. I wonder what Picard would have to do to get Data to fart? They reach the planet and discover that everything is dead, and not the farmland they had expected. Maybe someone already got Data to fart!

Riker leads the away team to the place where Data was found, and it looks like a cave. Geordi is suspicious of its origins though, and when he finds a secret door, is almost certain that it isn't of natural construction. The door leads through into a laboratory complex, which still functions after 26 years of vacancy. At least the future has a reliable power supply!

Data doesn't remember much about his origins, and is impressed when he finds a jelly mould in the shape of his face! After a while he remembers that this was the workshop of Dr Noonian Soong, Earth's leading robotics scientist who disappeared in a huff when he couldn't get his positronic brain working. It looks like the good doctor completed his work after all...

Further investigation reveals no other life-forms, but they do manage to locate a storage area with a complete set of android parts, possibly enough to create another Data. Data is keen to play doctor with his new-found plastic pal. The engineering section of the Enterprise is back in remedial class again, as it has to cut Data open, just to be able to plug the spare bits together! They finally succeed and the duplicate Data wakes up and announces that he is Lore, Data's perfect brother!

After Lore manages to ingratiate himself with the bridge crew, Data takes him aside for a little brotherly chat. He tells Lore not to underestimate humans. In return, Lore tells Data that he was actually created first, but was too perfect and the people of the colony despised him. That was why Dr Soong created Data, with some built-in flaws, such as problems with language and an inability to understand humour, so that he would be more acceptable to them. Data tells Lore that he will have to report all this to the captain, and Lore's report goes much further...

All the living things on the colony were destroyed by a Crystalline Entity that feeds on life energy. It totally stripped the world, leaving only the two androids who were not yet in service. The entity looks like a snowflake strung out on speed.

Lore has wandered off again, and when Data finds him he has prepared some champagne to celebrate the two brother's reunion. How exciting. Depending on what Lore put in Data's glass though, it may turn out to be a fun party after all. Moments after Data sips his drink he collapses onto the floor, and Lore, like all James Bond villains reveals the whole evil plot. He is in league with the Crystalline Entity, and in fact gave it the colonists, and now plans to give it all the life on the Enterprise. To fulfil his dastardly plot, Lore switches uniforms with Data, and also switches his facial tick, so that no-one will know...

The entity arrives and the Enterprise can't outrun it. There doesn't seem to be very much it actually can outrun, probably a rusty 1965 VW Beetle, if it had a head-start... The entity starts attacking the Enterprise and Picard orders shields up and weapons to the ready. "Data" says that he can communicate with it, to stop its attack, and over the whinings of Wesley succeeds. He then says that they should beam something out in front of the Enterprise and destroy it just to show they have a bigger Schwartz. Picard agrees, and moments later sends a security squad to watch what is done.

Wesley has another whinge about how he would have been listened to if he were an adult, and Picard responds in a calm and truly adult fashion: "Shut up, Wesley". As he has been sent from the bridge he convinces Dr Crusher to reactivate "Lore" as he is sure that it is really Data. The boy blunder got it right this time and Data claims that he can stop the now megalomanic Lore.

The trio find Lore in a cargo transporter room, where he is telling the entity that when the Enterprise drops its shields to beam something out it should attack. His witty repartee is interrupted when he is forced to capture Wes, shoot Bev and fight with Data. Being a super-villain can be so tiring! Data throws Lore onto the transporter and they beam him out into space, just as the security detail arrives. How? The shields were still up, so they couldn't have beamed him anywhere... Oops. Unfortunately, Wes has saved the day.

Roll Credits...

Data has an evil twin, and we now have our first recurring super-villain. To make it worse, Wesley saves the crew. The sooner he is beamed into cold space the better.


This review is Copyright © 1994, Phil Kernick.
Permission is granted for anyone to electronically distribute it - details available on request.