Akamia
Member
So I've been watching a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation recently on Netflix and figured I'm probably not the only one here who likes Star Trek. I've since become curious; of those of you who have watched Star Trek, what is your favorite episode (or movie, if you like) and why?
For me, that would be TNG Season 2, Episode 9: "The Measure of a Man".
Ever since I was a little kid, I found robotics and technology fascinating. I grew up playing games on my PC such as the Sonic & Knuckles Collection, MechWarrior 2, and later MechWarrior 4. I also watched the anime adaptation of the Mega Man Battle Network series, Mega Man NT Warrior, which would be my first exposure to the Mega Man franchise before I would go on to play Mega Man 10 many years later, then most of the rest of the Mega Man franchise, becoming the fan of that that I am today. Except for Battle Network and perhaps Star Force, the majority of the named characters in any Mega Man game series are androids who think and feel as, for want of a better word, "human" as any of us. These are robots portrayed as people or individual persons. Even the computer programs of Battle Network, the NetNavis, are pretty much people in their own right.
With that in mind, imagine how I would feel encountering a Star Trek episode where the question "are androids people?" is the primary conflict. For those who haven't seen this episode, here's a summary: A Starfleet commander by the name of Maddox wants to take apart the Enterprise D's crew member and resident android, Commander Data, in the interest of examining him and learning how he works so that he may replicate his construction and create more androids. Effectively, Data would have become the Mega Man X of the Star Trek universe.
Conflict arises when Captain Picard and Data determine that Maddox doesn't have the skills required to do this without harming Data in some way, and Data refuses. Maddox anticipates this and makes a transfer request that Data apparently cannot refuse. Picard disputes this matter with a JAG officer, named Captain Phillipa Louvois, on the station they were on, she references laws made about three centuries before the episode's events, and Picard challenges those laws. Forced to have a hearing on the matter, and with no staff of her own to choose from, she assigns Picard as the defense and his first officer, Commander Riker, as the prosecution. Riker objects to this, of course, because of an apparent conflict of interest (Riker disagrees with Maddox's position on Data's personhood and even considers Data his friend) but relents when Louvois threatens to stand on her ruling if he doesn't accept.
There's a bit of a subplot between Picard and Louvois, but I concentrate on the primary conflict because it's most relevant to my interest. I do think any android, any computer program, that demonstrates qualities like Commander Data does in Star Trek would constitute a person, but this is the first time I've seen that idea challenged in a legal setting, even if it is a science fiction story. I'm actually surprised the Mega Man franchise hasn't explored this in its own way; as far as I'm aware, it just sort of took the idea for granted. I guess it was kinda-sorta relevant in Mega Man 7's ending, and the Mega Man Zero villain Dr. Weil appears to actively deny the personhood of the series' own androids (called Reploids) but then again, Mega Man, one of the very first Robot Masters, really doesn't have the same kind of freedom the Reploids do (including his successor, Mega Man X) and Weil seems to hate absolutely everyone anyway, so his issues with Reploids (which include the protagonist, Zero) don't seem to be a big deal, relatively speaking. It's strange to me because "androids are people" seemed to be a running theme in that franchise.
That aside, though, the writing of this episode was amazing. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the most solid episodes in the entire franchise, if not the most solid. Which strikes me as unfortunate when we get to Star Trek Voyager, which contains a similar episode regarding the Emergency Medical Hologram, and the precedent established by this episode seems to go ignored… Which is one of many problems with Voyager, but that's a discussion for another thread, I suppose.
What about you? What's your favorite Star Trek episode and why?
For me, that would be TNG Season 2, Episode 9: "The Measure of a Man".
Ever since I was a little kid, I found robotics and technology fascinating. I grew up playing games on my PC such as the Sonic & Knuckles Collection, MechWarrior 2, and later MechWarrior 4. I also watched the anime adaptation of the Mega Man Battle Network series, Mega Man NT Warrior, which would be my first exposure to the Mega Man franchise before I would go on to play Mega Man 10 many years later, then most of the rest of the Mega Man franchise, becoming the fan of that that I am today. Except for Battle Network and perhaps Star Force, the majority of the named characters in any Mega Man game series are androids who think and feel as, for want of a better word, "human" as any of us. These are robots portrayed as people or individual persons. Even the computer programs of Battle Network, the NetNavis, are pretty much people in their own right.
With that in mind, imagine how I would feel encountering a Star Trek episode where the question "are androids people?" is the primary conflict. For those who haven't seen this episode, here's a summary: A Starfleet commander by the name of Maddox wants to take apart the Enterprise D's crew member and resident android, Commander Data, in the interest of examining him and learning how he works so that he may replicate his construction and create more androids. Effectively, Data would have become the Mega Man X of the Star Trek universe.
Conflict arises when Captain Picard and Data determine that Maddox doesn't have the skills required to do this without harming Data in some way, and Data refuses. Maddox anticipates this and makes a transfer request that Data apparently cannot refuse. Picard disputes this matter with a JAG officer, named Captain Phillipa Louvois, on the station they were on, she references laws made about three centuries before the episode's events, and Picard challenges those laws. Forced to have a hearing on the matter, and with no staff of her own to choose from, she assigns Picard as the defense and his first officer, Commander Riker, as the prosecution. Riker objects to this, of course, because of an apparent conflict of interest (Riker disagrees with Maddox's position on Data's personhood and even considers Data his friend) but relents when Louvois threatens to stand on her ruling if he doesn't accept.
There's a bit of a subplot between Picard and Louvois, but I concentrate on the primary conflict because it's most relevant to my interest. I do think any android, any computer program, that demonstrates qualities like Commander Data does in Star Trek would constitute a person, but this is the first time I've seen that idea challenged in a legal setting, even if it is a science fiction story. I'm actually surprised the Mega Man franchise hasn't explored this in its own way; as far as I'm aware, it just sort of took the idea for granted. I guess it was kinda-sorta relevant in Mega Man 7's ending, and the Mega Man Zero villain Dr. Weil appears to actively deny the personhood of the series' own androids (called Reploids) but then again, Mega Man, one of the very first Robot Masters, really doesn't have the same kind of freedom the Reploids do (including his successor, Mega Man X) and Weil seems to hate absolutely everyone anyway, so his issues with Reploids (which include the protagonist, Zero) don't seem to be a big deal, relatively speaking. It's strange to me because "androids are people" seemed to be a running theme in that franchise.
That aside, though, the writing of this episode was amazing. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the most solid episodes in the entire franchise, if not the most solid. Which strikes me as unfortunate when we get to Star Trek Voyager, which contains a similar episode regarding the Emergency Medical Hologram, and the precedent established by this episode seems to go ignored… Which is one of many problems with Voyager, but that's a discussion for another thread, I suppose.
What about you? What's your favorite Star Trek episode and why?
