Is anyone else disappointed by Brothers?

[tim0122]

Watched Brothers recently. First time seeing the whole thing, and I was quite disappointed in it. It wasn't awful but disappointing.

First, the plotholes and lazy writing:

1. Why would Dr. Soong, a man who's supposed to be peaceful and respect life, program the homing beacon to bring Data to him at any cost, even if it's putting one or more in danger? Wouldn't he program it to avoid that? Why deactivate Data's communicator? Why did he need to take over Data at all? Why not just make Data aware of the homing so he could come of his own accord?

2. How'd Soong escape the planet? He said he had an escape plan, but he never explains what the hell that was and why he didn't take others with him. Comes off like the writer couldn't come up with a good reason and so left it unanswered.

3. Why has he kept his survival secret, especially from Data? Did he just not want to be bothered? Again, never explained.

4. Did Soong die from his wounds from Lore? If not and he was just going to die later from his illness or natural causes, couldn't Data come by to see him at least one more time? If he died soon after Data left, did Data come back for Soong's stuff? Wouldn't Soogn have had paperwork describing how he made the emotion chip that Data could maybe replicate?

5. Couldn't Soong have used the homing device to bring Lore back or have told Data how to? Did Lore deactivate that or destroy the machine at Soong's place that activated it? If so to either or both, couldn't that have been mentioned to plug up that plot hole?

6. If imitating the captain's voice can allow so much access to and control over the ship, why isn't there a code required that only the captain knows (they use that later for the ship self-destruct and priority messages)? Seems like a huge oversight.

There are just too many questions left unanswered and too many holes in the story.

Anyway, onto the Data, Lore, and Soong stuff. It's so much nothing. We get some nice moments, but the story needed way more time and way more to say. Data takes a third of the episode to get to Soong, and Lore takes even longer. By the time they're all together the episode is almost two-thirds done. And when they do get to all talk, not much is accomplished. Some stuff is explained and some nice moments are had. But they could've done so much more with this story.

Also the parallel between Data and Lore and the two little kids on the Enterprise is pointless in the end since nothing is done with it.

I will say I liked giving Lore more depth. He's still evil, but he seemed to care about Soong dying soon and to anguish over why Soong didn't fix him.

Finally, I REALLY wish Data had gotten the chip. Would've been great to introduce a new element to his character and given him plots and moments where he learns about his new emotions throughout the rest of the show. But, no, we can't possibly change the status quo. *aggravated sigh.*

There's so much that could've been done with this, and they wasted that potential with lazy scripting and a whole episode that seemed only there to show Lore lives and to establish the emotion chip.

Anyway, what do others think of this episode?

 

[Qonundrum]

It wasn't my cup of tea.

With Riker looking over the boys as he promised to be their guardian because the kids' parents were off on sabbatical, he's then yelling at the one and gaslighting:

RIKER: Are you aware of the infectious nature of the parasites which inhabit cove palm?!​

What with them visiting a mall on an alien planet where the trees in the hallways or wherever are not producing foodstuffs that are safe for all species. Or why the species that own the mall grow trees that produce fruit complete with parasites that might not affect them but might just infect other species. Was there no sign in front of the tree that said "Yo, humans, eat this and die because it has toxic worms in it, we dare you?" or something?! Where was Riker being guardian then?!!

And that's just the first scene of the story!

Even TOS wasn't that bad and it had some moments of its own...

The voiceover work is technically impressive.

The visual effects for Spiner's triple role even more so.

But the story is utter cobblers. Right down to Picard Data being abducted to have Borg implants a new experimental chip installed. Early season 4 has this running gag repeating theme that has a main character (or guest actor) who was abducted by someone else and in comes the Enterprise crew and drama ensues. "Remember me" being the best of the bunch... (wait until season 6 when the repeating theme early on is the series of transporter accidents that cause the plot, too. )

 

[Doug Otte]

Excellent thoughts from both of you. Amazingly (or maybe not, if you ask my wife), I never thought about these issues with the episode. I remember it just seemed so clever to have Spiner play three roles against each other.

 

[carcinoGeneticist]

I personally quite like Brothers, but your points are ones I hadn't really given thought.

1. Why would Dr. Soong, a man who's supposed to be peaceful and respect life, program the homing beacon to bring Data to him at any cost, even if it's putting one or more in danger? Wouldn't he program it to avoid that? Why deactivate Data's communicator? Why did he need to take over Data at all? Why not just make Data aware of the homing so he could come of his own accord?

Good point. My best guess, maybe in case of some situation where Soong needs to bring Data to him for... some reason? I'm not sure what that reason could be; I'm just trying to think of a potential answer to the question. Programming it to bring it to him at any cost is something that might maybe make sense in the case of Lore because of how much Soong screwed up making Lore, but in the case of Data I truly have no idea.

4. Did Soong die from his wounds from Lore? If not and he was just going to die later from his illness or natural causes, couldn't Data come by to see him at least one more time? If he died soon after Data left, did Data come back for Soong's stuff? Wouldn't Soogn have had paperwork describing how he made the emotion chip that Data could maybe replicate?

I thought he was going to die soon anyway. I never considered the idea of Soong having paperwork for the chip, but now that you mention it it makes a great deal of sense.

5. Couldn't Soong have used the homing device to bring Lore back or have told Data how to? Did Lore deactivate that or destroy the machine at Soong's place that activated it? If so to either or both, couldn't that have been mentioned to plug up that plot hole?

Was Lore not brought back by the homing device? I thought he was, but I haven't watched Brothers in a minute. Forgive me if I'm saying things that are wrong or mixed up throughout this. I thought he was brought back by the device, and if he wasn't that doesn't make much sense because how would he have known Soong was there and all that

6. If imitating the captain's voice can allow so much access to and control over the ship, why isn't there a code required that only the captain knows (they use that later for the ship self-destruct and priority messages)? Seems like a huge oversight.

Again, I thought there was a code, that stupidly long one that Data put in at the beginning of the episode. But then again, I suppose you said *only the captain knows* and Data knowing is not 'only the captain knowing' so you're right there as well. The 'ship self-destruct' thing though it wouldn't make sense for only the captain to know it because IIRC the First Officer needs to also agree to the ship's self-destruct.

Also the parallel between Data and Lore and the two little kids on the Enterprise is pointless in the end since nothing is done with it.

I didn't like the parallel with the Soongs and the other kids too. It didn't really felt like it meant much that whole time and I didn't like that it turned out that the point of the parallel was "They're brothers-- brothers forgive." NO, do NOT forgive Lore! He wiped out nearly a whole planet and will later go on to turn Data evil and do whatever Borg shit he does in Descent!

Finally, I REALLY wish Data had gotten the chip. Would've been great to introduce a new element to his character and given him plots and moments where he learns about his new emotions throughout the rest of the show. But, no, we can't possibly change the status quo. *aggravated sigh.*

Ah, yes, the emotion chip. I'm glad he didn't get the emotion chip because honestly I wish it wasn't a thing at all. I do not like the emotion chip as a concept because I feel like Data kind of had emotions to begin with, he just had them in a different way to organic life-forms all that. I don't know how to word my feelings on it that well, but this entire thread does it pretty well, I think.

There's so much that could've been done with this, and they wasted that potential with lazy scripting and a whole episode that seemed only there to show Lore lives and to establish the emotion chip.

Anyway, what do others think of this episode?

Upon further reflection while typing this out I have concluded that this episode shouldn't really exist, honestly. Surely there's a more compelling possibility for a plot for a 'Lore lives' episode, and while I get that we need to establish the emotion chip, I've already established my opinion on the chip. So ideally for me this episode either straight up doesn't exist or is drastically different. LOL. I do still like this episode for the most part, though, even if it is flawed when I think about it. But that's probably just because I'm a sucker for Data episodes and I really like Lore as well.

 

[Turtletrekker]

The answers to all of your points is that so the story could happen.

 

[Leviathan]

I liked it, but had similar concerns. I resolved a lot of those issues with head cannon tho...

1. Lousy beta testing? Then again, there's no way to know if it was a recall at any cost. They did have enough time to save the kids...maybe Data figured he's be done in time to reach the starbase.

2. He had a ship hidden away...ship was named the "Plot Device".

3. It was all a life insurance scam? The isolation made sense to me...being called "often wrong" by a whack load of colonists, his invention got a load of them killed, engrossed in is work....

4. I assumed he died with Data there. As to the lack of documentation...meh, inventors hate writing manuals and getting ripped off by copycats.

5. He mentions in the ep that he thought Lore was in pieces....so didn't think a recall would work...although that sounded like an excuse to me so he could avoid being drop-kicked by a pissed off android.

6. That one bugged me too. The computer could tell who folks were by the comm-badge or visual, and a computers favorite words are "Access Denied" so...that's some lazy writing.

 

[tim0122]

I thought he was going to die soon anyway. I never considered the idea of Soong having paperwork for the chip, but now that you mention it it makes a great deal of sense.

Was Lore not brought back by the homing device? I thought he was, but I haven't watched Brothers in a minute. Forgive me if I'm saying things that are wrong or mixed up throughout this. I thought he was brought back by the device, and if he wasn't that doesn't make much sense because how would he have known Soong was there and all that

Again, I thought there was a code, that stupidly long one that Data put in at the beginning of the episode. But then again, I suppose you said *only the captain knows* and Data knowing is not 'only the captain knowing' so you're right there as well. The 'ship self-destruct' thing though it wouldn't make sense for only the captain to know it because IIRC the First Officer needs to also agree to the ship's self-destruct.

Soong said he was dying soon. Of what he doesn't say. But I felt his final scene was unclear about whether his wounds from Lore's attack meant he was going to do soon after Data left or if he still had some time.

He brought Lore to him with the homing device by mistake, because he didn't notice Lore had been assembled again. My point was why, once Lore runs away with Data's emotion chip, why can't Soong or Data bring Lore back with the homing device and get the chip back and possibly deactivate Lore.

Data locks the computer with a code, spoken in Picard's voice. But it makes no sense that Data could get that far JUST by imitating Picard's voice. He should've had to speak a code to even get to that level of access. Multiple officers are needed for the self-destruct, but I always assumed they each had their own code that only they knew for security purposes.