Scary thought.
One thing I especially hate in "In Theory" ...
- Thread starter Skipper
- Start date
"In Theory" is such an odd duck of an episode because of the way Data's relationships are explored in the rest of TNG. As others have mentioned in this thread, it's clear that Data cares about his relationships. He considers his friendships important, he's devoted to Spot, he cares about the crew of the Enterprise, and he carries sentimental mementos of Tasha and Lal.
While "In Theory" posits that Data is categorically incapable of having a romantic relationship, I just don't think that's true given what we see in the rest of the series. What's keeping Data from caring about Jenna's interests, or making time for her, or being attentive to her needs? All of those things are within his capabilities, or within his capabilities to learn. It may be true that Data could never come to love Jenna in the exact way she could love him, but it's entirely within his characterization to demonstrate that same behavior. And the whole question with Data has been when does pretending to be a thing cross over into actually being that thing?
While "In Theory" posits that Data is categorically incapable of having a romantic relationship, I just don't think that's true given what we see in the rest of the series. What's keeping Data from caring about Jenna's interests, or making time for her, or being attentive to her needs? All of those things are within his capabilities, or within his capabilities to learn. It may be true that Data could never come to love Jenna in the exact way she could love him, but it's entirely within his characterization to demonstrate that same behavior. And the whole question with Data has been when does pretending to be a thing cross over into actually being that thing?
A question that kicks into high gear wherevthe Doctor on VOY is concerned.
Part of me thinks of when Geordi had his chat with Guinan in "Booby Trap",
GUINAN: I take care of myself these days.
LAFORGE: I mean, take care of somebody. I just don't get it, Guinan. I can field strip a fusion reactor. I can realign a power transfer tunnel. Why can't I make anything work with a woman like Christi? It's like I don't know what to do, I don't know what to say.
GUINAN: You're doing fine with me.
LAFORGE: You're different.
GUINAN: No, you're different.
LAFORGE: But I'm not trying now.
GUINAN: That's my point.
Was Data "trying" too hard due to emphasizing testing his new programming he made for himself? And why would anyone let the ship or android do self-programming any more than people doing the closest analogous thing to themselves?
Back to your point, why would Data treat Jenna any different when, as the ultimate inversion of the "non-player character" trope and long before NPC was "a thing". Was Data "trying" in a way that he hadn't for anyone else? Can a computer really try as such?
Plus, Jenna states she went from a boyfriend who couldn't have emotions in a way she recognized to a being that couldn't, also in a way she recognized because this time she saw he is an android and is incapable. She blamed him in a way, but is it a 100%-0% proposition? (Data saying this was an experiment to him aside, which now makes things a tad more complex...)
TROI: I think you should be careful. This isn't just some experiment you're running, Data. Jenna is a living, breathing person with needs and feelings that have to be considered.
DATA: Then you do not believe I should pursue this any further.
(Cue end credits?!)
TROI: I didn't say that. I just want you to be aware that this is unlike any other more casual relationship that you've attempted.
(Ruh-roh. Troi pegged everything prior to this as "casual" when circumstantial evidence suggests otherwise. But she wasn't around during Data's trial, either, and Data didn't blab to her about any of that either. So there goes that plot hole, dang...)
DATA: I have studied much human literature on the subject of love and romantic liaisons. There are many role models for me to emulate.
(If only Data did not inform Troi of Tasha and what he has kept as "memorabilia".)
TROI: Ultimately, Jenna will care for you for what you are, not what you imitate out of a book.
But personality types required for long-term couplings don't always gel and either way, one has to choose to work within the relationship or not.
JENNA: I didn't see it until today. I got out of a relationship with an unemotional man, and I got right back into another, with a man who is absolutely incapable of emotion.
The only way to avoid that is to be Lwaxana and figure 'em out beforehand, which isn't always easy to do. Maybe her ex should say he's unemotional in his personal ad-- wait a mo, how do people in the 24th century meet? What are the protocols and events, or do people go to boing first and ask about each other later? Much imagination can potentially be had in this... probably.
Naturally, I'm ending this reply on a relational song and dance number, or two as both are interconnected:
(aka "Ode to my ex", but I digress
)(But the number is not 867-5309...)
And in this incredibly vast choice of options, what did he choose?
DATA: You don't tell me how to behave. You're not my mother!
(This was in response to Jenna being genuinely concerned about Data's behavior, starting with "Honey, I'm Home!!!)Now, I'm very, very curious where in that vast literature on the subject this was considered a good and sensible response when having an argument with your partner.
Yes, I know, the answer is "It doesn't have to make sense, it's just to make the audience laugh!" Which is a great answer for "The Naked Gun", not Star Trek.
Probably from some obscure booklet from 1947, if not 1907, I suspect. The whole episode is so (unintentionally) odd that it needed a parody.
On the plus side, or the minus side, at least 'The Orville' got the parody of this episode right:
Which is odd as this episode, save for the sci-fi bit of the week, felt like a parody.
Yep, this episode makes no sense. It was obvious that Moore had an Axe to grind with Data's female fans. He did them and Data a disservice with this story. And every character came off as stupid. They should decide:
1) Data is like all other humans, so the advice (that is for other humans) is for him. So why does he act so inhumanely towards Jenna
2) Data is NOT like all other humans. So the advice they give him is completely nonsensical.
Great episode!
Last edited:
In the episode he wants to act like a stereotypical partner in a couple. So not like a friend would.
In 2025 the whole pantomime is incredibly cringe. Even my parents didn't act like Data's idea of a perfect partner. ("I'm at home" etc). I have no idea how the whole situation was interpreted in the 90s, but I can't believe anyone was like, "No no, Data's idea is right, maybe he needs to do some fine tuning."
As we said this was basically Moore's manifesto to tell female fans: "You see, my dearest deluded? Your idol would be a disaster in a relationship."
Obviously a romantic relationship is different from a friendship, but not that different. I can't believe that in the context of that episode Data has never met any stable couples in his life who didn't behave like a 1950's sitcom.
Clearly the story was only there to push a point: "Data is a machine, if you have feelings for him you should see a specialist" and the entire plot is centered on this point taken to the extreme, regardless of its plausibility.
I like this episode. I think it's neat that it gave Data an attempt at a relationship. That's something that I've thought about doing in my fanfiction but there I wanted to pair him with a Vulcan. I like that Jenna had the parallel of the dude that was unemotional and then having the same thing literally with Data. I like that she was flawed and that even Data went into this with the best of intentions but didn't really understand what he was doing. I think Data's behaviour was perfectly in character for what TNG had previously set up for him, that he was both incredibly smart and incredibly naive. Him doing the "honey I'm home" and trying to pick a fight with Jenna felt totally in keeping with his childlike behaviour, like "I guess this is how I'm supposed to act" And in this day and age I could totally see a guy or girl falling for their chatbot so I could totally see Jenna finding comfort in Data and then realising that what she is seeing is an illusion. I definitely don't think it means Data can't date but that whoever dated him would have to realise what he is and be prepared to accept that.
Would it have been better if we'd seen her friends advising her, too, not just Data's all telling him to go for it?
Yep. Jenna had also recently ended a relationship that was clearly hurting her. So she probably wasn't in the best state of mind when she decided to pursue a relationship with Data, which risked being a rebound relationship.
People on this thread here have said "yeah but she was an adult she knew what she was doing etc etc" as if getting into a relationship was the result of cold reasoning, carefully weighing the pros and cons.
Also, let's remember, Jenna was about to do something unprecedented, exceptional: starting a relationship with an android.
It doesn't matter how human his friends thought he was. This had never happened before, so perhaps it wasn't wise to assume that the normal parameters of a human relationship applied.
And what do his friends do, faced with this exceptional event that would probably be studied by psychologists and sociologists of the future as a very important precedent for the relationship between humans and artificial life?
They give him advice that I think would have been dated even in the 90s.
PICARD
"Yes, I've heard, Data. And I would be delighted to offer any advice I can on understanding women. When I have some I'll let you know."
Sure, Picard. You can routinely interact and understand gods and aliens who speak only through metaphors, but the females of your species are incomprehensible.
I imagine you kept this book on your nightstand trying to understand these mysterious beings.
The more I think about this episode, the more I dislike it.
BTW, It's interesting how any modern AI virtual boyfriend/girlfriend can handle a relationship in a healthier way than Data.
And before someone says "Oh no, it's not the same thing, Data is sentient!!", he was the first to say that he would be inspired by already existing relationship models. Just like an LLM does.
Last edited:
Could be just his awkward way of trying to stay out of it.
If Data's human girlfriend had been a non-sentient human hologram, would that have also been better?
Very awkward. In the same situation I would have replied, "Every person (because women are people too, duh!) is different and I can't give you one-size-fits-all advice. Have a great day."
Great question. Would his relationship be public? Was he really looking for this relationship or was it some kind of test run?
Given the crew's reactions in the Barkley episode, I get the impression that these types of relationships are frowned upon.
Unless you're Geordie.
We are probably more tolerant today towards people who have a relationship with a virtual AI partner.
As long as you recognize it's practice and not for real, it could be like a child playing house with a baby doll and a toy kitchen set, or practicing CPR on a dummy instead of a friend. You learn what to do and what not to do without real consequences that could harm you or them.
Yep. Well before Voyager, it had been amply demonstrated that even a non-sentient hologram was indistinguishable from a human being.
Nah. I don't think the logistics of trying to give all the main cast stuff to do and tell the B-story really allow time for it. Plus you have to pay those randos more if they have dialogue. Plus it's Data's story. It's not "guest star of the week's" story
Actually, I think a Vulcan would be frustrated with Data in a romance. He idolizes humans too much. Which would be seen as highly illogical. Maybe good to work with. Though he was impressed with Spock. In the episode 'Datas Day...'He said he "found their stark philosophy limited."
Why?
Unfortunate that the time constraints, especially with the sci-fi B-plot curtailed this one.
Good point, and this was a bottle episode to balance out costs in the season.
True, but TNG always made sure that the main titles crew were always right. Could never be wrong. Always paint the other person bad. "Ethics" is one of the worst offenders for that shtick.
Except, to show only Data seeking out his old life forms to ask for advice and never seeing her side, only getting bits of dialogue that don't paint her in the best light, and whatever's going on with her (if anything), she's not a machine testing self-created algorithms and is not capable of having hot buttered toast pop out of the-- eh, but anyway, as all relationships that involve the efforts of all participants involved, would it not make more sense to ensure Jenna got more said than "I just went from a heartless guy to a guy with no heart" or whatever her claim actually meant - and what the audiences can infer from what little she was given in script is fairly parochial, if not myopic, Pavloved into a single thought than a reasoned exploration, or whatever the comparable might be.
Plus, wouldn't it be neat if we could all upgrade our own neural brain cells just as nimbly? What limits might there be? More to the point, as well as being apples-to-apples as a point instead, remembering how Lore is just as advanced as Data, more in some ways, and if he's out there programming new subroutines for self-upgrades... (Canonically speaking, Lore floated around, took Data's coprocessor that would somehow give him emotions, implanted it, for which it did nothing, then created something that beamed emotions into Data as means of control, and don't ask how Troi could sense real emotions out of Data yet not from any other computer-generated doodad, doohickey*, or any other bit of electronic doodoo.
On the plus side, at least Data didn't go all Ralph Kramden - and literally as the Enterprise could be flown to any moon real quick by Data, who'd then bangzoom her there. With more hot buttered toast.
* at least Jenna never espoused exposition over all the times Data gave her last two syllables of that word...
She's not the best on interpersonal relationships.
Similar threads
