Lal - One of TNG's biggest missed opportunities?

[Orphalesion]

So one of the biggest reasons I prefer TNG over TOS is that it gave all its major characters at least some sort of family. This made them, at least to me, more realistic and interesting.
However I am also aware that TNG never utilized this idea of families on board as good as it could have.

One of the episodes that makes this very clear is Lal, where Data creates his child.

First of all, let me tell you that this is one of my favorite episodes, especially the scene where Data says that he wants his child to pick out their own gender. Oh man, that Android is pure gold!

Through her interactions with Data and the rest of the crew we learn to know and love young Lal, only to (of course ) have her malfunction and shut down and that's the last we hear of her, because "Status Quo is God"

I think it was a huge mistake to not include Lal as a regular for several reasons:

1) It would have been a step to include the families-on-board concept without relying on guest stars for it. Another good step would have been to have one of the main characters marry (say Geordi or Troi and Riker)

2) It would have generated more story opportunities for Data. I love Data, but sometimes his quest to experience human emotion got a little bit trite (especially since the desire to feel emotion is arguably already and emotion). Lal could have given another facet to his arc.

3) She could have served as a foil for Wesley. Sure Wesley was a slimy, precarious little git, but I think it only was so obvious because there was little in the way of rebuttal for him. Now if they had Lal develop a dry sense of humor to counteract whenever Wes has one of his moments, it would have created an interesting dynamic.

What do others think?

 

[bbailey861]

I thought it was a good, tight, one hour episode that packed a lot of punch. It ended on a note that provided a lot to think about. I don't think anything would have been better by having Lal stick around to have another android trying to figure out humanity. Data was enough.

 

[BillJ]

I thought it was a good, tight, one hour episode that packed a lot of punch. It ended on a note that provided a lot to think about. I don't think anything would have been better by having Lal stick around to have another android trying to figure out humanity. Data was enough.

This. Data would've lost his uniqueness with another android regular.

 

[TheSubCommander]

Agreed. Data was supposed to be "the android" of not only the show, but Starfleet. He was enough as a cast member, part time or full. Even just having Lore was pushing it a bit.

But I think they could have found ways to recall Lal in dialogue more. It seemed like Lal was pretty much erased from character memory for the rest of the show.

 

[Orphalesion]

^ Yeah, or they could have brought her back for the movies, in a couple of scenes. The TOS movies were pretty good about giving at least some of the TOS cast families (Zulu's daughter, Scotty's nephew) the TNG movies did not do that, just as they didn't really expand the TNG universe in the same matter some of the TOS movies did with theirs. Would have been nice to see her, for instance attending Will's and Deanna's wedding in Nemesis.

And of course the crux would have been to make Lal a different enough character in her own right. Lal first and an android only second. And building up the family dynamic between her and Data. I don't think she should have been in every episode, but more a recurrent character like Guinan, Lwaxana and Alexander with maybe a couple of episodes based on her in the entire run.
It would have also given Data an additional role, that of a father and that would have been fun to explore.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I have a question: Why was Picard babbling incoherently when he heard the news about Data's child? He said a lot of things that didn't make much sense.



Do you need me to quote the passages?


Was Picard on some medication at the time?


I mean later on, he calmed himself down and started to make sense again but I found his outburst, odd.

 

[Zek]

I agree with you in part. Lal was a mighty interesting character that could have done a lot for Data's development specifically. However the other folks that commented in this thread make a good point in that Data's uniqueness may have been lost if she was a regular. Sure as a irregularly recurring character like Lwaxanna she would've been great. I always wished that episode had a happier ending, it would've been nice for Data to have some mechanical company

 

[Ghrakh]

What do others think?

I agree with you on all counts. Data's character development would have been more fulfilling than what we got, which was the hammy and cringe-inducing emotions seen in the tng films. Not to criticize Spiner but it was almost like he was a new and different character.

How would she react to Uncle Lore? Could have been for interesting story possibilities.

 

[at Quark's]

What do others think?

I agree with you on all counts. Data's character development would have been more fulfilling than what we got, which was the hammy and cringe-inducing emotions seen in the tng films. Not to criticize Spiner but it was almost like he was a new and different character.

Storywise, that's about what I would expect if you've never experienced any emotion in your life (OK, with a few rare exceptions), and then suddenly they are unleashed upon you in full force after inserting an emotion ship. I'd think it would take Data a few years to learn the ropes of dealing with emotions and channeling them properly.

I agree I would have loved to see Data as a father more. But that's from the perspective of Data, not Lal's.

I'm not sure if they could have kept Lal an interesting character for an extended period of time. I think part of this episode's power was that she was lost when she seemed to have a lot of potential, yet nobody really had gotten the opportunity to get to know her. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed seeing Lal make all the same kind of mistakes Data made over again, episode after episode.

 

[Orphalesion]

Not necessarily the same, she seemed to have a faster uptake than Data (she used contractions, for one) we could have seen Data in the situation were he finds his child advancing faster than he does. How would he have reacted?

Or an episode like Disaster with there being a crisis and Data suddenly finding that he has difficulty concentrating on his duty, because his mind is with the wellbeing of his child.

 

[at Quark's]

Not necessarily the same, she seemed to have a faster uptake than Data (she used contractions, for one) we could have seen Data in the situation were he finds his child advancing faster than he does. How would he have reacted?

Or an episode like Disaster with there being a crisis and Data suddenly finding that he has difficulty concentrating on his duty, because his mind is with the wellbeing of his child.

Faster yes, but how much faster ? Data should have a significant headstart, given all the years he's already spent among humans. (Unless he was somehow capable of 'uploading' some of his learnings to her brain, of course).

Even then, most of the examples you give seem to actually focus on Data, not Lal, Lal mostly being a storytelling device to get Data in those situations in the first place.

So in that case, the right approach would have been to let Lal survive but to not devote that much screentime to her directly, perhaps just enough so the viewers can relate to Data's perspective?

 

[Makarov]

Picard was angry that Data made a new robot without consulting him first. Undestandably so, because it immediately got him into hot water with Starfleet.

My problem with Lal as a regular is that it would make Data too human. Although I wouldn't mind having her for an entire season then sending her off.

 

[Dukhat]

The problem with a teenage girl android as opposed to a middle-aged male android is that in real life, the teenage girl will be visibly growing into an adult while Spiner pretty much remained looking the same for all 7 years of TNG.

 

[Mojochi]

Yeah, instead of having Lal stick around, I'd have much preferred having the theme of Data trying to continue to produce an android be revisited another time or 2, especially since we know nothing of what happened to Lal's "software package" or whatever is was that Data downloaded into himself from her. For all we know, everything that was left of her is now also lost with Data after Nemesis

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It did seem like an status quo-maintaining cheat to have Lal die like that in the end. One of those things they do when they want to tell a story but don't want to deal with the implicit consequences of that story.

It would have been interesting to make her a recurring character with an arc over the course of a season.

 

[Orphalesion]

So in that case, the right approach would have been to let Lal survive but to not devote that much screentime to her directly, perhaps just enough so the viewers can relate to Data's perspective?

Yeah that's what I was thinking, a recurring satellite character for Data akin to Lwaxana or Alexander. Definitely not a lead, maybe with a focus episode or two if she had become popular enough.

Her growing up issue could have been negated by casting a young looking actress for the part instead of an actual teenager. Isn't that rather usual anyway? I know that Beverly Hills 90210 show was frequently made fun of for casting 30-somethings in the roles of teenagers.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

The problem with Lal is that since she used contractions and didn't have yellowish skin, she had to move like an automaton (in a ridiculous mechanical way, so that we wouldn't forget that she was a robot. Remember how she moved her arms around her torso as if she were a hand puppet. I found that utterly ridiculous. It's as if the makers of TNG were scared stiff that we could forget for an instant who was human and who was a machine. Remember the Ilia robot, they didn't feel the need to make her look like a robot,they assumed that the audiance weren't complete morons. That's the way to do it!

I just find that ridiculous. The only reason why Data doesn't do contractions is to remind us that he's an android. What a stupid reason! Same reason why they gave him that yellowish skin.

 

[Orphalesion]

The Ilia Probe had her voice altered to sound like a stereotypical robot and had the glowing thingy on her throat...

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

The Ilia Probe had her voice altered to sound like a stereotypical robot and had the glowing thingy on her throat...

Be that as it may, it's much better than make her move her arms around the ridiculous way Lal did. One would think she was a puppet in a punch and Judy show. Am I the only one who saw that? I can't believe that.

 

[Orphalesion]

Her arm movement when she pointed at the view screen and said "V"GER!" was pretty robotic.
With Lal, give the girl some time, she is just getting used to her body.

And your original post sounded to me like:

Lal - funky arm movements= Stupid! Just there to remind us she's a robot!
Data - no contractions and golden skin= Stupid! Just there to remind us he's a robot!
Ilia Probe- Robot Voice, weird whole body movement, glowing lamp on her throat and constant "Kirk Unit, Ilia Unit" babble = BRILLIANT! They really didn't overplay the robot part!