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...

Risky Return Software
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.

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

Staying Hidden After Crystalline Entity
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....

Bring out your Dead!
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.

I cannot recall...
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.

Insecure about the captain
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.

 

[DonIago]

I've not seen the episode in quite awhile, but as far as Data taking over control of the ship, I think it's relevant that he's second-in-command, and as such already has a great deal of the authority he'd need to do so, including rerouting command functions. Most of what he does probably isn't considered high-priority executive function (mostly he changes the ship's course), so no need for a command code. Now, if Doctor Crusher was the android whose homing beacon activated, she would have had a much harder time doing what Data did because she innately lacks much of the command authority.

The bit at the end with locking out all command functions seems to be the only part that requires a code.

 

[Doug Otte]

I hadn't watched this one since, probably, the blu-rays were first bought. I watched it again yesterday inspired by this thread.

The plot issues are there, I guess. But I still enjoyed it immensely.

The cinematography, set designs, costumes, and makeup were amazing.

Spiner should have gotten an Emmy for his acting. Not only was Soong a great role, but even his acting as the controlled Data in the first part was stunning. Just look at the extreme closeup of his face when he reeled off that numeric code without blinking or changing his focus.

 

[Mojochi]

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?

Who ever said he was peaceful & respectful of life? Over the entire character arc, I'd more describe him as obsessive, self-serving, & shortsighted. He abandoned 5 different sentient beings, in various stages of development or disrepair, to further his goals before he ultimately took a person's identity & put it into another one, never letting it know its true nature. Dude is the space age Dr. Frankenstein IMHO, and no matter how sweet & kindly he comes off, guy has a lot to answer for, in my book.

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.

I imagine that since Lore is the reason why the planet needed evacuating, somehow Soong got advanced notice from him, or figured out what he'd done with just enough time to flee. I assume to some degree, they had limited transport capacity, as that's the excuse Julianna later gave for not bringing Data. Even though, that turned out to not be entirely true, it was probably true enough for her to delude herself for a while

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

Probably. What is explained, is that he's been something of a joke in the science community, & given the magnitude of the Omicron Theta disaster, that's directly the doing of one of his creations, maybe going into hiding & being presumed dead is a solid plan.

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?

Yes. Lore killed Soong. Those moments in the end with Data are implied to be his last. I imagine Data claimed (or later acquired) whatever research there was to get, but never tried to duplicate the emotion chip, largely because he too was apprehensive about it, as we'd later see, when he obtains it from Lore & doesn't immediately use it.

You'll notice that after the events of Brothers, Data also never again attempts to create his own sentient android. After his own failure with Lal & now having a better understanding of Soong's work, it may be more evident how perilous the endeavor is, with so much potential for mishap, that Data, who IS more concerned with the sanctity of life, wouldn't risk creating more beings only to die, or suffer, or need to be abandoned, as Soong did. Ultimately, it may be that Soong is something of a mad scientist after all, employing all manner of wrongful practice in order to achieve his goal.

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?

Not everything has to be explained away in fiction. It's exhaustive to be consumed with having it so imho. It's a 40 minute teleplay. Maybe Lore disabled the homing program, or no one bothered to go after him, given how things turned out. In the end, Data decides to leave Lore be, because he now knows the whole story, & frankly, Lore, to some degree, has been wronged by Soong, & what ultimately should he be expected to do about him anyhow?

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.

6. Admittedly, it's a bit of a plot contrivance, but being 2nd officer affords Data a great deal of access already anyhow, & the voice duplication thing might never have been an issue to that degree, because maybe no one ever possessed as perfect a capacity to duplicate voices as Data, which no one knew about. Note that it never happens again. I imagine it was rectified thereafter.

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 don't agree. The parallel is in place to allow us to see that Data has come to better understand Lore, that he is not just evil, or broken, but whatever he is, he's a person too. In the final scene, Data is really mulling that over, & I like to think he welcomes Crusher's words about forgiveness & leaves Lore be.

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.*

Honestly, I wish they'd never introduced it at all. I much preferred the natural progression of him in self-discovery, that seemed to be the general development of his character. The chip, IMHO is just a mcguffin

Anyway, what do others think of this episode?

It's by no means a perfect episode, but it works quite well regardless IMHO. It's engaging, dramatic, emotional & intriguing, with some of Spiner's better work. At the time we knew virtually nothing about Data's backstory, & it was sorely needed, whatever we got. It seeded the series for further exploration of him, & set his character into motion much better than the early seasons had imho, which largely dealt either with what he was instead of who, or was an exterior plot that simply involved him.

Honestly, The Offspring was the only story that was truly about him in some way, & this was a solid follow-up to that character arc.

 

[CoveTom]

I find the episode to be entertaining, but it's one of those stories that only works because the crew is behaving incredibly stupidly and the Enterprise systems are very badly designed.

Two factor authentication is commonplace today, but no one thought about it for the flagship of the Federation?

Also, it seems like a serious flaw that the captain has complete and total authority to lock down the ship and there is no one on board, even a group of senior officers, who can override him. What if the captain goes insane, which is not unlikely based on Starfleet history? Did Starfleet learn nothing from Kirk's run-in with Janice Lester?

Also also, you mean to tell me that standing in engineering, there's nothing that Geordi and his team could just physically do to incapacitate the ship? What about all those isolinear chips that drunken Wesley pulled out in "The Naked Now"? They couldn't just yank those out?

And then the ridiculous behavior things like Worf and his team continually backing up so that Data can separate himself with a forcefield, or Riker's team gathering together in a nice tight group on the transporter pad to make it easy for Data to isolate them all with a forcefield.

Finally, after the discovery that Data had been programmed with hidden code that could make him commandeer the ship and that Starfleet's engineers could not detect, I find it difficult to believe that he would ever be trusted with any level of Starfleet duty or access ever again.

 

[DonIago]

The E-D does have two-factor authentication for at least some functions such as the self-destruct sequence. As I noted above, much of what Data does while taking over the ship doesn't seem to involve functionality that wouldn't typicallly be unreasonable for the second-in-command (Riker can also reroute command functions singlehandedly); unfortunately one of the first things he does is lock down command functions, but otherwise, the majority of his actions aren't really anything that we haven't seen single individuals do in the past.

As far as nobody being able to override Data, the major constraint there seems to have been time. Our Heroes talk about what they can do to regain control, but the main issue is that they have a ticking clock.

Because they had a ticking clock, they also likely didn't want to pursue any actions that would significantly incapacitate the ship, especially since Data wasn't doing anything that was actually dangerous to anyone.

I agree with your other points for the most part, especially that I don't know what reassurances anyone could provide that Data couldn't be compromised again. But then, you yourself noted that we've seen others go insane or otherwise be compromised, so is Data really any different?

 

[Phoenix219]

I don't know where I first heard the idea, but I like the thought that the "emotions chip" is actually turning off an inhibitor chip that has turned Data's emotions down to a very low level, after what happened with Lore. And thats why it wouldn't do anything for Lore.

 

[Mudd]

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?

Most of the logical questions raised here are nitpicks at best. All the story contrivances that are left unexplained in just about every episode of Star Trek, ever, would fill the Pacific basin.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's a good TNG episode, top quartile at the very least.