UNCUT - Inheritance (TNG S7E10) | Star Trek Journey 296
Comments (75)
Surprised Josh didn’t remember this. He wondered how Data would act now without clothes - already happened when that art collector threw a solvent on him that dissolved his uniform to force him to wear the clothes he gave him. I suppose the ultimate reaction was to shoot the the guy with a Varon T disruptor and lie to O’Brien about it when he beams him back mid-discharge.
Good job Alex! Yes, Soong was probably so devastated that his love left that he decided to never make another android again!
Excellent rewatching it with you and review. Enjoyed it very much 👍👍
wait why couldn't Data just pick her up like Superman and then jump
ok good theory, you got it on your first watch. I've probably watched it a dozen times over 30 years.
Good episode but MAJOR plot hole…Soong clearly said she would be automatically deactivated if she found out she was an android……so the entire conversation in the briefing room is kinda moot….it’s certainly not implied or even hinted that Data or someone has a workaround to stop the automatic deactivation thing….so they are basically debating the ethics of murdering her
I think he meant that if she was damaged she would shut down so she would not find out she was an android. Just like data can be deactivated by his switch but it doesn’t mean he can’t be turned back on. How shocking it would be if she was damaged and she was alone and discover she was an Android. He loved her too much to allow it to happen.
This is my pick for best "long lost family" episode of S7. Spiner and Flanagan sell the story so well. Also while most of the cast had little to do, I would say Troi had one of her better advice scenes in the conference room. The point she made about taking away from Juliana that which Data has sought all his life was just perfect. Apart from the plot hole others brought up about the message referring to her having left which he wouldn't have had a chance to update(maybe over subspace), it's a really solid episode. Not much more to say that hasn't already been said. High A tier.
Good episode for sure. Would I want to know I was an android if I were? I think so. Especially then too, maybe try to disable Soong's aging program so I was immortal.
I liked this episode. I felt like Data was sometimes overused, especially when the writers found Brent Spiner could play multiple characters. This was not another data but some backstory. I very much liked his “mother”. His choice at the end was definitely a family choice. This episode fit data’s overall story well.
About stories that move Data’s arc forward, I now think it shouldn’t be about gaining humanity. But maybe accepting his own uniqueness as being as equally valuable. Like him wanting to be human is his adolescent phase of figuring out who he is and wants to be. And the adult version of that is making himself a hybrid of the qualities he likes the most about humans and machines. I look at it through the lens of growing up as an immigrant. Not seeing a lot of people like me, assimilating to a new culture, but then as an adult deciding for myself what to identify with from both cultures. It would’ve been interesting to see Data help his mom come to terms with being an android and finally also come to terms with it himself. Don’t get me wrong, there is such beauty in his arc/this episode as it stands now. I just wish that the writers would allow that growth in Data stories at some point.
Fionna... FEE-oh-nuh Fionnula... FEE-oh-nuh-luh Fionnghuala....
I don't think that's how it pronounced. It's pronounced like Fuh-noo-la
44:25 Doesn't explain Lore, though...
Huge continuity flaw in this episode: the interactive holodeck Dr. Soong would not have yet had knowledge of their inharmonious relationship or her leaving him. So there is no way that could have been programmed into the chip buried in her brain.
I mean it WAS in her brain...
I want to like and enjoy this episode... but I just don't. It's too shoehorned, too weird, too non-plausible. Just like Pulaski never saying to Will "I knew your father!" because "well it just never came up" 🙄🙄🙄
When Alex referred to the Soong family and data episodes as the father, the daughter, and the Holy Mother, I just about died laughing
I agree that adding this in the 7th season is fine as long as it’s done well, and I think it was done well. It is explained well and fits previously established canon, so it works for me
Data didn't just show up, Soong sent out a recall signal which ended up bringing both Data and Lore.
So first time I noticed this in a watching, but the hologram mentions how she left him....then how did he put the chip in her saying all this after she already left? Did he hunt her down, catch her in her sleep and shut her down and put it in then leave? Lol
Good point, I was wondering that too
yeah this is an ok episode it just grew tired of the soong family. Don't even joke about Picard.
💯
I always find Data episodes cringe...idk why, perfectly fine episode...but I always skip it.
When you guys said she was from the Dax episode, my mind immediately went to the old bajoran “judge” woman. I was like, WTF are these guys on? I had to look it up to be reminded of the OTHER older woman 😂
There has been a long standing fan theory that Data had emotions the whole time. Just had trouble figuring them out.
Or they're different and not instinctively tied to behavior/expressions/etc
Chaps, I think you may be making more of a meal out of the speed limit thing than is warranted. I kinda get what you're saying, but at the same time, in the episode where the speed limit was enforced, it was very clearly stated that it's warp 5 in areas of space particularly vulnerable to the same thing happening. So it's not a universal speed limit, it only applies in specific areas.
It’s a meme because we hate the episode
"What if she's an android?" Me... "ahhh you guys!"
"what if picard is an android?" Lol
Another season 7 episode another totally random family member comes out of the woodwork 😂 Also absolutely love this actress and her guest performance. It's flawless.
Data has a more complete family than a lot of us humans. Mother, father, grandfather (remember him?), brother, daughter. Even a cat and a best friend.
His grandfather did try to steal his body for his own consciousness. But yes
Fionnula Flanagan also played the mysterious Eloise Hawking in Lost
Yes, I remember! Great character
Interesting how this episode establishes that Data appears to age. I guess they had to account for Brent Spiner's aging.
I’m glad that line is in there, it gives them room to allow data to age with Brent Spiner in an age before de-aging tech existed.
Oops! All Androids!
troi sensed emotions from lal, so presumably it would be the same
She also sensed emotion from Data when Lore was giving him emotions during Descent.
they mentioned in the one with bashir he has an aging program
It occurs to me in retrospect that Deanna was probably advising to tell her the whole truth because of her recent experience in “Dark Page” not knowing she had a sister.
Wasn't Deanna the only one telling Data not to tell her the truth?
Bruh that random prediction about 4 minutes in. lmao
Is this the 4th or 3rd planet they have saved by phasering the surface 🤣😂😭
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like your thumb.
Alex, I wasnt expecting this to be the one that finally got you.
And as Alex always says: If you want to cry convincingly you have to try to hold it back. He sure does.
Did anyone else wonder how Soong was able to put a message chip in Julianas head which contains a backstory of her leaving him?
Given how advanced everything is, it’s obviously a program that updates itself and adapts to new things (like changing to talk to Data differently than someone else). In a way, Soong didn’t really record all of that message, it wrote itself by taking his original message and updating it, keeping his original intent. Which is kinda crazy!
Josh you predicted the twist during the intro!!
😏
So Soong wasn't notified because everyone thought he was dead, and he wasn't surprised Data showed up because he sent the signal that caused Data to head to that planet. Also I guess Data is now Deanna Troi's positronic vibrator
I'm not crying with you guys. It's just allergies .*sniff*
I love that Data's mother plays the viola. ❤️
Parents who love each other create children with nothing but goodness in their hearts? Juliana and Noonien must have been going through one hell of a rough patch when they designed Lore.
Oh, and guys…looking forward to your reactions on next time’s AWESOME episode of STAAAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION!!!
So yeah it’s another family member episode for s7 but when it’s done this well who cares. Fionnula Flanagan is great and Spiner is always fun as Soong.
I have to admit…I’ve always bypassed this episode since its first run. Thank you, Josh and Alex! Today, I feel as if I’ve just watched a brand new episode of TNG for the first time in a long time! I want to revel in this feeling for as long as it lasts! 🖖
Tainer makes me think of the movie Larry Crown. Julia Roberts character is professor Taimo. Cute movie guys! Tom Hanks goes to college in his 50’s and falls in love with his professor. Also George Takei is in it!
Isn't it interesting that the concept of androids being so human that they are virtually undetectable and don't even know it themselves is analogous to the cylons in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica which was created by ... Ronald Moore, a producer on TNG by this point of the series.
I get the Ronald Moore association you’re making between series…but as a concept, I’d go back even further to this being the very story of Blade Runner!
Wonderful episode. Lore (excuse the pun) dump for the Soong dynasty was great. Spiner at his best as usual - understated, eloquent and managing to convey more emotion as an android, than a human character with access to the full gamut of feelings.
One thing I never noticed until this watching, which is maybe a plot hole: how would the Soong hologram program know about Juliana Tainer leaving him if he implanted the hologram program chip into her before she left? The only ways I can think to reconcile that is that the hologram program auto-updated based on her experiences. Or he deactivated her before she left, updated the program, and let her leave? At least he didn't deactivate her and reprogram her to stay 💀 Great episode regardless
After this rewatch I also thought about the same fact. Maybe he could upload it via some kind of wifi (highly doubtful) or he deactivated her one night before she left him for good and placed the chip in. It can also be, that the Hologram is so connected with the positronic net, that it could update based on her memories collected and since Holograms can retain the character and behaviour of the original (if properly set up) it was just changing simulating what Soong would have felt.
By this time weve already seen people transferred into robots by Dr Korby, Sargon, Harry Mudd, I don't get why TNG keeps trying to wow us with what TOS already did.
Those were all alien technology. Soong was human. The first truly human transfer was Ira Graves. You look at Korby or Mudds robots they’re not quite on the same level as Data.
I didn’t really like this episode all those years ago, now older, looking at it through a different lens in life I see a lot more to the story and the writing. I even felt something that I never noticed before when Data‘s mother learned she was a grandmother, and in a second later was the grandmother of a grandchild who was dead . There were some actually very complex things that were basically two nuance for me at the time And complicated by my own personal life view of family from the crazy family. I grew up with. With my vision problems back then I honestly don’t think I ever noticed a single character shedding a tear. I always heard crying as the actual sounds of crying so maybe my perceptions of the doctor were off I couldn’t perceive her quite as the mother because I couldn’t perceive the Nuances of her expressions and to me she felt wooden Some details were drawn to my attention through the use of audio description as well
Same. Didn't appreciate it as much originally as I did on this viewing.
"Do you believe her?" "...no." LOL...this show has taught you so well. And yet...
A good show has twists A great show has twists that are better than you at first imagine
As I was rewatching this, it got me wondering... how did Soong update the interface on her chip to know she left him? I guess he could have "updated the firmware" so to speak and somehow sent it across subspace for... reasons?
Probably the cloud