Lal - One of TNG's biggest missed opportunities?

[Kobayshi Maru]

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!

As I said, BE ALL THAT AS IT MAY, the way Lal moved her arms around was freakishly ridiculous. It reminded me of the tin-man in the Wizard of OZ. talk about stupid! I mean this was a fairy-tale not a sci. fi. movie!!!

So the best they could do to remind us that Lal is a robot is copy the tin-man????

 

[Ghrakh]

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.

Yeah, I realize that...it makes it all the more strange when you think about how many times in the past Data acted weird and it was always because there was something wrong with him.

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.

Well, the actress portraying Lal was 28 at the time.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I wonder why they made her look like Joan Of Arc? Is it because she would burn (her circuits) at the end?

 

[Orphalesion]

As I said, BE ALL THAT AS IT MAY, the way Lal moved her arms around was freakishly ridiculous. It reminded me of the tin-man in the Wizard of OZ. talk about stupid! I mean this was a fairy-tale not a sci. fi. movie!!!

So the best they could do to remind us that Lal is a robot is copy the tin-man????

Okay you don't like the arm movements, that's all fine and dandy.
Still, Probe Ilia was not a very good example of a more subtle android. Though I'm sure her throat light is handy if she wants to read in bed.
Maybe she could babysit Lal and read her bedtime stories:

"AN UNSPECIFIED NUMBER OF TIME UNITS AGO, THERE EXISTED THREE CARBON UNITS OF THE URSINE SUBCLASS..."

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Another solution to the screen time problem would be to have Starfleet carry out their threat to steal Lal and leave Data wondering if he's really considered to have rights.

 

[Taelon]

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.

Not if she liked the idea of modifying her exodermal casing and changed it every couple of years to simulate aging in a more Human-esque way.

Lal: "Maybe I'll take the age back a few years... just to freak people out."

 

[suarezguy]

It could have been interesting but it would have been hard to not have her become too much of a focus. Data remained if not generally became more childish in the latter seasons, not what I preferred but what the writers and actors wanted to do. Agreed that Lal should have been more remembered.

Alexander was a bigger missed opportunity as with his age he could have/should have been featured more but was often ignored.

 

[TheSubCommander]

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.

Data did that a little bit at times in Season 1. Who's to say he didn't move exactly like Lal when he was first activated, and took a long while to smooth out his movements?

 

[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.

Data did that a little bit at times in Season 1. Who's to say he didn't move exactly like Lal when he was first activated, and took a long while to smooth out his movements?

I never noticed it, but let's say he did then that would have been very odd, since in season 1 he was already decades old and therefore should have changed much less between season one and season seven even than between his activation date and season one.