Filming error; Data shows genuine emotion

This was no doubt captures by viewers before. I'm late to the party as I only now, while in my 40's am getting into the Star Treck series:

In season 5 episode 4 "silicon Avatar" 00:29:45; as doc Marr walks around and behind Data, the camera pans left following her movement and captures a glimpse a genuine smile on Data's face.

 

He always had emotions that informed his actions but didn't knew it, as he was unable to feel them. Before he got the emotion chip.

 

This is no doubt true though i won't pretend to know so much about it myself.
The instance i am speaking of is cool to look up though as it is the actor falling out of character and being caught on film... "an all to genuine smile i dare say".

 

Not much of a smile

 

Absolutely. Interesting this odd feeling we're left with in this episode. Feelings of remose and sadness at the creature's death. Same creature tgat goes about killing so much life. And feelings of anger even at the mother 'scientists' who lost her child to it.

Or maybe this is all too telling on my own warped psyche...

 

It isn't the amount thats amusing, it's how genuine it looks. Di you bot get that sensation as the camera pans across him?

 

I think he quietly ate some of Dr McCoy's leftover beans before filming...

 

That's not a "filming error."

Data's character was not as fixed as the on-screen declarations of his supposed emotionless state make it sound. He showed emotion on any number of occasions throughout the years, particularly in the first two seasons. And the declaration by the producers that he felt nothing was not universally popular with the writing staff.

 

I always thought he subconsciously had emotional reactions that he himself didn't realize. He frowns, hesitates, makes faces all the time, from the very beginning. Or that is all part of his programming, like blinking in a certain seemingly random mode, to make him appear more human.

 

Especially when using contractions or emoting.

Which is different from being in the habit of using contractions or being emotional, especially for somebody that much in control of himself, be it Data or Spiner...

Timo Saloniemi

 

I have noticed through the years that Data seemed to show more 'emotions' during S1 and perhaps S2 than during later series. Maybe you could put that down to his character maturing during later series, I don't know.

I think he showed a bit more emotion than he should have done without his emotion chip but it doesn't take away from my enjoyment of the character. He was certainly more childlike than any other character, apart from Wesley of course.

 

The default state of a Soong android is to have emotions. By all accounts, Data is literally the only one to ever have had any prevention or limitation thereof. The specifics of that prevention/limitation is nebulous, to say the very least. An aberration now & then doesn't seem out of the question enough to fly in the face of the premise.

 

The specifics of why Data is like he is are clear, yes, but the specifics of what the design parameters of the prevention or limitation of his emotional makeup are not. We don't know hardly anything about how his emotion chip works. We don't know if without it his emotions are absent, blocked, dialed down or otherwise. All we know is he thinks he doesn't have any, which is mostly an observation on how he compares to human behavior he's around, & whether he or anyone else notices or not, there's multitudes of times he displays some level of emotional awareness... & that is not a production error in the show. It was meant to be happening.

 

I guess we can infer that blocking is more likely than omitting, since Data's unwanted attributes do surface every now and then, often because of outside interference that could well break blocks but would be unlikely to introduce upgrade packages or anything like that.

Data is resourceful, and could easily construct the most elaborate lie in the universe, full of contractions, while laughing - were he to choose to do so. The most effective block, then, would be to raise him right: he doesn't want to use contractions unless necessary, he doesn't want to lie unless necessary, and he doesn't want to believe he has emotions or has mastered sneezing or whatever. As long as nothing challenges this want, we get the punctuated consistency we observe.

In "In Theory", perhaps the want goes away and is replaced by another, so the emoting is all for real (even if controlled)? More probably, though, Data continues to be undermined by his carefully taught self-doubt, so the perfect boyfriend act in all its variations remains an act even if its elements are 100% real Data.

Timo Saloniemi

 

That's one way to interpret it.. I tend to favor a theory that is more like he's dialed back emotionally than blocked... which is loosely supported by how Lore manipulates him in Descent pt2, without giving him the chip. Dial up a little more emotion. Dial it back some

If his emotions were somehow turned down to a minute degree, it might've appeared to everyone that he had none. Since he doesn't retain much knowledge of his time with Soong, it's more than likely he got his impression that he's emotionless from people observing him. It could simply be he is mistaken that he has none, because he based that assessment on other people's reference base, & they might not have been astute enough to pick up on his micro emoting.

 

I never noticed this. It does look like an error. They just detected a ship being destroyed. The mood was somber. It looks like maybe this was one of the guest star's key performances. She's really trying to convey a lot of emotion on her face, while we hear the voice of the crew talking in the background. I bet they recorded those voices and dubbed them in later. They had the crew just stand there as she walked around and conveyed that it was traumatic for her to hear a ship being destroyed by the same type of attack that killed her sun. Spiner was probably just standing there with a neutral, slightly amused expression, while the guest star did her performance. He must have thought the camera wouldn't capture his face. He should have put on some type of expression of a robot with a hint of human concern over the tragedy.