Brothers is, unfortunately, a missed opportunity. It gives what could be argued as one of the best set of performances of the series. But those performances are drowned in a preposterous contrivance.

At the heart of this episode is a stellar performance given by Brent Spiner who skillfully portrays Data, Lore, and Dr. Noonian Soong. Their inter-relationships and conflict are utterly convincing, particularly so because they all originate from one performer. Dr. Soong, who is terminally ill, has summoned Data by way of a homing beacon in order to give Data something remarkable: a chip that will allow Data have basic emotions. It is a tantalizing opportunity that is threatened by Dr. Soong’s other “child” — Lore.

Ultimately, Lore overpowers Data and tricks Dr. Soong into giving him the emotion chip, instead of Data. Lore becomes even more maniacal (if that is even possible), attacks Soong, and then departs. Data is left behind to tend to his dying father. Data tells Dr. Soong that he cannot grieve for his death, but Dr. Soong replies: “You will. In your own way” — which implies that perhaps Data may find a path to emotion even without the chip. It’s an intriguing idea that helps propel Data’s character forward.

If only that had been the entire episode. Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case. When Data was summoned by Soong, he responded by literally hijacking the Enterprise, endangering a young boy who has a medical emergency as the result of a practical joke his brother played on him. The brothers are a thematic connection, but their subplot was mere contrivance to heighten tension.

But as contrivances go, that pales to Data’s hijacking of the Enterprise. There was utterly no need for him to go to those lengths. He could simply have boarded a shuttle craft. The issue of requiring a craft that has warp speed is irrelevant considering that it was mere happenstance that Data was on board a ship that had warp drive. Not to mention the preposterous notion that Data’s root programming would allow him to explicitly endanger a young boy and potentially endanger thousands. Can you imagine if that signal had gone off two episodes earlier in the midst of Data trying to plant commands in the Borg collective through his connection to Picard?

The problem is that this contrivance leads opens the door to even more questions, including ones regarding how Data could conceivably be allowed back into a position where such an issue might arise again? Worse still, is that this ploy wasn’t just a few minutes of setup before we dove into the real purpose of the episode (Data’s family). Rather, it comprised nearly half of the episode itself and was written merely to get some cheap thrills. We might have accepted something like this in season one, but after the bar was raised in the beginning of season four, this is simply unacceptable.

Brothers is an uneven episode. While it contains a powerful individual acting performance, that success is mired in a preposterous surrounding story.

Topics: Lore
Filed under: TNG Reviews