Nth - Why is Data showing distate for Barclay's performance?

[DarthTom]

Watched last night a dvr recording of Nth Degree. it occurs to me why is Data showing distaste for Barclay's play performance.

Liking or disliking a performance - even from a technical point of view - is an emotional response. Moreover, his reaction to the Barclay's performance was decidedly emotional. Why did the writers/producers make such a glaring error?

And before someone says it - in other episodes e.g. where Data is taught to dance from Dr. Crusher he gets emotional responses wrong.

 

[Start Wreck]

Liking or disliking a performance - even from a technical point of view - is an emotional response.

Data likes and dislikes lots of things. I'm sure you could make a long list if you went through the whole series!

Surely it's impossible to function without preferences in life. You'd never decide to do or not do anything, ever.

 

[DarthTom]

Data likes and dislikes lots of things. I'm sure you could make a long list if you went through the whole series!

Surely it's impossible to function without preferences in life. You'd never decide to do or not do anything, ever.

Only when the script called for it. When his own child dies they wrote in a distinctly non-emotional response to the situation.

 

[Robert Comsol]

TROI: Wonderful! Wonderful.
DATA: Lieutenant Barclay's performance was adequate, but clearly not rooted in The Method approach. I do not understand why.
RIKER: Data, because it's polite.

I don't think he was showing distaste for Barclay's performance but was rather irritated by the others' overenthusiastic reactions.

Looked to me like he had seen other performances and applause levels and couldn't figure out why Barclay deserved a "special" treatment.

Bob

 

[Makarov]

Agreed he's not showing dislike but rather confusion that the crowd is cheering and yet the performance doesn't match up to the standards in his records.

 

[DarthTom]

TROI
I don't think he was showing distaste for Barclay's performance but was rather irritated by the others' overenthusiastic reactions.

Even accepting it your way, irritation is an emotional response. Machines/Computers without emotional chips in Data's case wouldn't become, 'irritated.'

In short, when the script called for Data to have an emotional response to a situation in order to at least attempt to adhere to the canon that he doesn't feel emotions, they muted the response but it's still there - and it's still an emotional reponse.

Conversely, when the script called for Data to be devoid of emotions - they wrote it that way as well.

In hindsight it probably would have been better from the beginning for for the writers to have Sung have given Data, 'primitive and undeveloped emotions,' to stay consistent with how he reacted to various situations as opposed to no emotions at all, as stated numerious times on the series.

Here is another example, in the film First Contact Data apparently can turn the emotion of, 'fear,' on and off at will - after he's gotten his emotion chip. in Nth Degree no, 'irritation,' of Barclay's performance should NOT have been present nor shown on screen as we saw where Data grimmest at Barclay's performance.

 

[AgentCoop]

I can't agree with your assessment. There are definitely times throughout the series when Data seems to react in an emotional manner (just as Spock occasionally did on TOS), but I don't think this is one of those times. Data has been shown to be a student of the art of acting, and in this case I think he was merely comparing Barclay's performance with the other performances he had studied. I don't see it as an emotional response.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

This isn't the first time Data was perplexed by "bad art" either. Another good example is his critiques on Picard's painting in "A Matter of Perspective": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPSfN06gqo

 

[HIjol]

I do remember that scene, as a fan of both Barclay and Data, but I see Data's response as was alluded to by Coop and Robert and Markov; a confusion or misunderstanding as to why his human counterparts could not hear and experience the "flaws" Data heard, based on the versions in his records...versions that would, doubtless, be flawless and "perfect" in technique and acceptability...but the entity playing Data is human, and perhaps the actors reaction came across as "irritated" or "displaying dislike" because of the inseparable "humanity" (Brent Spiner) of the character, vs. the writer and director's intentions and wishes...I do agree with Darth, however, in that it would have been cool if Dr. Sung had included some nascent, primitive "emotion chip" into Data, that could learn and evolve along with him...

 

[Start Wreck]

Data simply must have emotions. If he didn't, he wouldn't have gone to see the play in the first place, because why would he want to? He wouldn't be in Star Fleet, because why would he want to be? He wouldn't construct an offspring, because why would he want to do that?

He has desires and wishes. He wants to grow and learn. He becomes accustomed to people and misses them when absent. He has hobbies and interests, ambitions, a pet! What are these things if not emotions? What are emotions if not reactions to stimulae?

He may not feel these emotions strongly enough to overcome his rational mind, but they are there regardless, otherwise he would never do anything!

 

[Shat Happens]

Data isn't un-emotional. Vulcans are.

Though, he has bad emotion circuits that play them wrong.

 

[Robert Comsol]

I think it would be best to compare Data with the Borg. He is programmed to learn and assimilate all kinds of information to evolve into a more experienced android, first.

His reaction to stimulae are mostly reflexes, IMHO, which he uses accordingly based on what he has learned thus far.

Essentially Data mimmicked human behaviour but lacked the corresponding human emotions.

Bob

 

[DarthTom]

Data simply must have emotions. If he didn't, he wouldn't have gone to see the play in the first place, because why would he want to? He wouldn't be in Star Fleet, because why would he want to be? He wouldn't construct an offspring, because why would he want to do that?

Which begs the question is if curiosity to begin with is an emotion or not?

Lets be honest, a more mature assessment of the show leads any viewer to come to the conclusion that Data did have some basic emotional understanding.

However, on a more practical level - and as I said upthread - the more probable answer is the writers simply didn't know how to make some scripts work without incorporating basic human emotions into his character [and other times not to fit the script as well] because without them his character would have been simply boring.

 

[jimbotron]

Data simply must have emotions. If he didn't, he wouldn't have gone to see the play in the first place, because why would he want to? He wouldn't be in Star Fleet, because why would he want to be? He wouldn't construct an offspring, because why would he want to do that?

Which begs the question is if curiosity to begin with is an emotion or not?

Lets be honest, a more mature assessment of the show leads any viewer to come to the conclusion that Data did have some basic emotional understanding.

However, on a more practical level - and as I said upthread - the more probable answer is the writers simply didn't know how to make some scripts work without incorporating basic human emotions into his character [and other times not to fit the script as well] because without them his character would have been simply boring.

Data has plenty of moments that would indicate some form of emotion. Whether that was intentionally written as such, or just Spiner adding some 'character' to the character, I don't know.

Some examples -

-In 11001001 (and Peak Performance), he expresses regret and a loss of self-esteem
-In Contagion, he winces after he throws Geordi too hard to avoid the shock.
-In A Matter of Perspective, he clearly doesn't like Picard's painting, and attempts to soften the blow of his criticism.

But for the most part, Data's schtick is custom-tuned depending on the story they're telling. So way later in Insurrection, he's still doing the Pinocchio thing, even though his character arc should have been done by GEN and FC.

 

[Makarov]

A real life emotionless robot would not be as endearing as data for sure. However I see nothing wrong with Data grimacing at his performance. There doesn't have to be any emotion involved, he's simply reacting the way he calculated a human would react to a bad performance. It's just that his calculations were off and he didn't get that they would be supportive of Barclay.

 

[Robert Comsol]

In A Matter of Perspective, he clearly doesn't like Picard's painting, and attempts to soften the blow of his criticism.

That's definitely not the impression I got:

DATA: Interesting.
PICARD: Oh, thank you. In what way?
DATA: While suggesting the free treatment of form usually attributed to Fauvism, this quite inappropriately attempts to juxtapose the disparate cubistic styles of Picasso and Leger. In addition, the use of colour suggests a haphazard mélange of clashing styles. Furthermore, the unsettling overtones of proto-Vulcan influences
PICARD: Thank you, Mister Data.
DATA: You are welcome, sir. If I can be of further assistance
PICARD: No! Thank you.

Sounds like Data believes Picard mixed these styles on purpose which is the "interesting" element.

Of course, this is not what Picard ever intended.

Bob

 

[jimbotron]

It's not what he says, it's how he says it. It's more like "In addition, the use of colour suggests a ...... haphazard mélange" with a hesitation and a funny look beforehand as he takes it all in.

I get the sense that Data doesn't want to be so critical, but the painting is so bad, he just has to tell it like it is. The hesitation indicates some form of emotional response.

I wish they had included the shot of Picard throwing paint onto his work.

 

[DarthTom]

A real life emotionless robot would not be as endearing as data for sure. However I see nothing wrong with Data grimacing at his performance. There doesn't have to be any emotion involved, he's simply reacting the way he calculated a human would react to a bad performance.

Why then cannot Data decide to like or dislike liquid beverages without his emotion chip?

 

[MakeshiftPython]

It's not what he says, it's how he says it. It's more like "In addition, the use of colour suggests a ...... haphazard mélange" with a hesitation and a funny look beforehand as he takes it all in.

I get the sense that Data doesn't want to be so critical, but the painting is so bad, he just has to tell it like it is. The hesitation indicates some form of emotional response.

I wish they had included the shot of Picard throwing paint onto his work.

I do like that while at first he seems hesitant to give criticisms, once he gets that out of the way he starts going on a roll before Picard shuts him up.

 

[Trekker4747]

Watched last night a dvr recording of Nth Degree. it occurs to me why is Data showing distaste for Barclay's play performance.

Liking or disliking a performance - even from a technical point of view - is an emotional response. Moreover, his reaction to the Barclay's performance was decidedly emotional. Why did the writers/producers make such a glaring error?

And before someone says it - in other episodes e.g. where Data is taught to dance from Dr. Crusher he gets emotional responses wrong.

Data can still judge a person's performance based on what he thinks are "good" ones which comes from his studies on acting. He can also *display* emotional responses to things even if he can't actually feel the emotions involved with what he is mimicking.

Data personally judged Barclay's performance to be sub-standarded and was even confused by the overly positive reaction his shipmates had to it.