My wife and I are rewatching The Next Generation and just finished Measure of a Man, the episode in season 2 in which Data’s personhood is legally debated and his life hangs in the balance.
I genuinely found this episode infuriating in its stupidity. It’s the first episode we skipped even a little bit. It was like nails on a chalkboard.
There is oodles of legal precedent that Data is a person. He was allowed to apply to Starfleet, graduated, became an officer and rose to the rank of Lt. Commander with all the responsibilities and privileges thereof.
Comparing him to a computer and the judge advocate general just shrugging and going to trial over it is completely idiotic. There are literal years and years of precedent that he’s an officer.
The problem is compounded because Picard can’t make the obvious legal argument and is therefore stuck philosophizing in a court room, which is all well and good, but it kind of comes down to whether or not Data has a soul? That’s not a legal argument.
The whole thing is so unbelievably ludicrous it just made me angrier and angrier. It wasn’t the high minded, humanistic future I’ve come to know and love, it was a kangaroo court where reason and precedent took a backseat to feeling and belief.
I genuinely hated it.
To my surprise, in looking it up, I discovered it’s considered one of the high water marks for the entire show. It feels like I’m taking crazy pills.
Your argument ignores one important aspect.
They were looking for a reason to de-person him, to take him apart, and to build loads more like him to be used as slave labor in mines and other dangerous places.
I fervently disagree. I think you can view it in a very optimistic and utopic way.
When confronted with his friend’s sentience and individuality being questioned, Captain Picard chose to debate on the basis of data being a person and deserving rights. Sure you could’ve just said that data was a person because Starfleet accepted him. But does that specifically extend to all androids or beings in similar circumstances? I think it’s a good character moment for Picard that he chooses to argue on the basis that star fleet is better than stripping away someone’s agency. And he wins too. Ultimately the federation comes to agree with that view point. Thats why it is a utopic society. Because when faced with a moral dilemma they didn’t simply choose “technically legally correct” they chose “morally right”.
You forgot that it was starlet that created the need for this legal argument in the first place.
If the judge was truly moral; this trial would never have happened. If starfleet was moral, the docheberger that wanted to dismantle data would never have been a member.
Also the other best defense would have been to ask docuheberger to prove he’s not just a machine, and crusher explain in intricate detail how they can reassemble Ryker’s brain. And reattach Ryker’s limb after Warf rips it off.
(Okay, so maybe I don’t like Ryker.)
Yeah they encountered something new in the universe and they had to decide on what to do. They decided to do the moral thing for moral reasons. Starfleet isn’t a utopia but it’s utopic because of instances like this where the right thing is done for the right reasons.
The fact they had a trial to determine data’s personhood and that it was agonizingly close, that they were actually considering denying it.
If they were truly moral, the question would have never come up; or Maddox and the general would have been slapped down with a scathing “don’t be evil”.
Also, at that point data was hardly new- he’s been in starfleet for 20+ years in which Data earned his place as a decorated Lt. Commander.
In any case, this isn’t even a question for a starfleet court - this would fall under civil purview, and even hearing the trial is a miscarriage. (Also the IFP courts probably have some sort of test that doesn’t require destructive testing. Details.)
That’s because Star Trek is sometimes a show about introducing basic philosophy and ethics to American nerds who genuinely could not and often still do not grasp the idea of giving at least theoretical personhood to someone that wasn’t biological.
Just ask half of this community what they think about Fallout 4 synths if you don’t believe it.
Hot take. But put it in the context of the year it was aired, not today. Star Trek (and sci fi in general) was suffering from being perceived as “blue babes and laser guns”.
This episode was thoughtful if taken as standalone. And TNG really was about taking the episodes more or less independently. The season long story arcs and such didn’t exist. People weren’t binge watching. So the world building was less important than the specific hypothetical moral quandary of the week. Like, they are almost like Asimov short stories with a shared cast.
It wasn’t until a few years later that serialized TV even really became a thing – Twin Peaks probably was the first here, but Babylon 5 would have a good claim (and DS9, Buffy, and others were coming together then too). So the style of storytelling on TNG S2 is different.
Divorce the story from Star Trek and the setting and evaluate it as a sci fi ethical quandary. And in that framework, it is a remarkable episode.
Also, Brent Spiner played it well :)
I think that’s a terrific argument and it is always wise to contextualize it in history.
We have absolutely been binging which certainly gives it a different feel, but I would argue even as a standalone episode it was poorly written if superbly performed.
There are ideas that could have been played with in a way that respects the setting. Perhaps another computer attempting to join Starfleet, but it looks like a box rather than a person and asks Data to argue its personhood.
I don’t know. I’m not a writer and I’m just spitting an idea off the top of my head, but I think there’s a place for internal consistency within a narrative regardless of when it was written.
There is an episode later where Data defends the rights of a less-human-looking artificial life (the one with exocomps), though no courtroom scenes.
I think most star trek episodes can be torn apart pretty easily - I actually enjoy pointing out errors while I watch. But it’s good drama and themes with fun characters in an optimistic future, which is still a rarity decades later.
(This is vague enough that I don’t feel spoilers are necessary)
Perhaps another computer attempting to join Starfleet, but it looks like a box rather than a person and asks Data to argue its personhood.
They kind of had that exact opportunity in Discovery. But instead of an entire courtroom episode, it was more of a forced arbitration scene :(
I don’t mind spoilers—but use spoiler tags if necessary—what do you mean?
And TNG really was about taking the episodes more or less independently.
This era was also the high water mark for syndicated TV which really drove the episodic format. Viewers couldn’t be guaranteed the show would air on the same channel or even the same timeslot. So long form serial TV were really rare.
It wasn’t until a few years later that serialized TV even really became a thing – Twin Peaks probably was the first here, but Babylon 5 would have a good claim (and DS9, Buffy, and others were coming together then too).
Soap operas were doing serialized storytelling for decades before your examples. Maybe not good serialized storytelling, but still.
There’s still an important distinction: JMS likened Babylon 5 to a novel for television. It had a defined beginning, a middle, and an end, conceptualized that way from the start of development.
Yes, soap operas are serialized television, but totally open-ended. The producers of Dallas didn’t plan for J.R. Ewing to get shot as part of the series arc; they didn’t even plan him as a main character. A lot of soap operas have a very throw-it-against-the-wall feel. My grandmother was a Days of Our Lives watcher, and stuck it out even through the alien abduction storyline. Other people I know would stop watching for even years at a time, then come back and pick up whatever new storylines were then current.
I mean no disrespect to soap operas, as they give lots of people years of enjoyment. TNG itself was largely episodic, but had some soap opera elements, following evolving relationships among the crew which were carried through. But that’s still not the novel-for-television concept.
Yes there were soap operas. But was anyone doing it in prime time? Another commentor mentions how syndication was big at the time. Also you did have the concept of a “mini series” which was a popular term at the time, which implied the distinction.
Just because you got away with breaking the law for decades, doesn’t mean you weren’t breaking the law and the law can’t be applied today.
i mean it could tho. That’s why every lawyer answers “it depends”
Just because you got away with breaking the law for decades, doesn’t mean you weren’t breaking the law and the law can’t be applied today.
That notion is rather well addressed in Strange New Worlds s2e2 Ad Astra Per Aspera
Eh, soap operas had been doing serialised TV for decades before the 80s and 90s. And if you look to outside of the US, in the UK serialised TV was extremely normal, and had been for decades - ever since TV started, really. And even before that it was common in radio plays.
The dumbest part is when the JAG appoints Riker as the…plantiff/prosecutor? And threatens to summarily vote in the plantiff’s favor if he refuses to serve in that capacity. “If you don’t do anything, you win.”
