The Measure of a Man

The question before the court today: is Data a toaster?

It's our first ever TNG poker game! Despite his endless supply of knowledge, it seems Data has absolutely no knowledge of the role of bluffing in the game of poker. Seriously, run the pot odds, my android friend - the cost of calling Riker is cheap, you have to do it. But never mind. Perhaps knowledge of poker was lost in the post-atomic horror. Anyway, the Enterprise arrives at Starbase 173 where Picard hooks up with his former lover and frenemy, Phillipa Louvois, who is setting up the local Judge Advocate Guild. They spar a little... but the drama is only just beginning! It seems a Starfleet cyberneticist, Commander Bruce Maddox, wants to take Data apart to see what makes him tick. Data doesn't want to play this game, so he looks mournfully at a hologram of Lieutenant Yar, probably warmly reminiscing about how terrible a security officer she was, and then he resigns from Starfleet. Not to be outdone, Maddox claims Data is property and can’t resign, so there. The scene is set for a courtroom drama to determine whether Data is sentient and deserving of rights - and because the local JAG has only just been set up, the Enterprise has to provide both the defence and the prosecution. So it’s Riker versus Picard in a battle for Data's soul! With a little help from Guinan, Picard triumphs and Data lives to see another day.

Words

This is one of my favourite episodes - not only because I'm a sucker for courtroom drama, and not just because it deals with a serious philosophical issue (the nature of consciousness and the rights of the individual), but also because Melinda Snodgrass’ script constructs an intensely human drama around its cerebral themes. I mean, as a philosopher, this screenplay had me at ‘metaphysics’, but the fact the story is also riveting marks it out as a real achievement.

‘Sentience’, ‘essence’, ‘ineffable’... terms like these do a great deal of work in the story. And as the machinations of the plot eventually reveal, a lot of what we take for granted in human consciousness rests on our intuitions rather than anything concrete and provable. It is perfectly possible to disbelieve in mind entirety, if you are so inclined - although I caution against this. A belief in free will is a prerequisite to its exercise, and the cost of discarding the concept of ‘mind’ is higher than most critics seem to have realised.

But it is the ethical language - ‘disposable people’, ‘slavery’, ‘property’ - that is at the core of this story. If it is perhaps too on-the-nose to have Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan deliver this realisation to Patrick Stewart’s Picard in Ten Forward, this in no way detracts from the power of the scene... and the vital lesson it teaches. It is a warning which is just as relevant today, in an age where our nations have quietly abandoned their commitment to the liberty of the individual that is so beautifully encapsulated by this story.

The dialogue was heavily rewritten in a number of key scenes. Snodgrass’ draft screenplay is much more focussed on Picard’s relationship with Louvois, something that’s very apparent in the rendering of the scene with Guinan, which contains exposition like the following, which doesn’t appear in the final show:

PICARD (Drumming fingers on the table, abruptly he decides to tell her. It emerges in sharp staccato): The Stargazer court-martial. It should have been a routine hearing. Yes, I had lost my ship, but my actions were entirely justified. Phillipa was assistant to the prosecution. She dug up every obscure case and citation and the panel hammered at me for three days. It damn near ended my career. It did end us. She’s enjoying this situation. She knows I disapprove of the adversarial system. Now she’s forced me into active participation, and she’s both pleased and angered to see me fail.

And at the critical moment in this scene with Guinan, Snodgrass’ draft is rather blunt:

PICARD (very intent): You said something earlier about decisions today.

GUINAN: Having implications for the future.

PICARD: Precedent! This case will set the precedent for all the future Datas. It will determine their status, and they'll all be property.

GUINAN: There is an ancient word for it -- slavery.

The final version is far subtler:

PICARD: ...And now he's about to be ruled the property of Starfleet.

GUINAN: That should increase his value.

PICARD: In what way?

GUINAN: Well, consider that in the history of many worlds, there have always been disposable creatures. They do the dirty work. They do the work that no one else wants to do because it's too difficult or too hazardous. And an army of Datas, all disposable. You as their leader, you don’t have to think about their welfare, you don’t think about how they feel. Whole generations of disposable people.

PICARD: You’re talking about slavery.

GUINAN: I think that’s a little harsh.

PICARD: I don’t think that's a little harsh, I think that’s the truth.

I suspect that Maurice Hurley polished up this script within an inch of its life, but he did so because he recognised that Snodgrass had given them an uncut diamond, and all they had to do was bring out the shine.

Snodgrass had previously worked as a lawyer, and had submitted this screenplay on spec to Paramount, having previously written a classic Trek novel for Pocket Books.

Thanks to the writers’ strike, the production team were looking for scripts, and they found this treasure sat in their slush pile, just waiting for glory. Snodgrass was swiftly added to the production team, and served as story editor for the rest of the second season, as well as having the fancy-sounding title of ‘Executive Script Consultant’ during the third season. She eventually quit in the grand exodus of writers triggered by Hurley's replacement, Michael Piller, but we’ll get to that...

This episode was nominated for a “Best Episodic Drama” Writers Guild of America Award in 1989, but it lost out to the short-lived TV101... that win was well-deserved (“Give me television or give me death!”), but it’s still a shame that Snodgrass missed out on getting the props she deserved for this brilliant script.

Acting Roles

This is a story about Data, but it is Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes who steal the show. It's not that Brent Spiner doesn't give a brilliant performance - he does - it’s just that Frakes is given the juiciest of roles, and Picard has a most magnificent set of scenes - Stewart eats up the material with devilish relish. His scene with Guinan (who only appears once in the episode) is among Whoopi Goldberg's great moments with the show, and he sparkles on screen with Amanda McBroom’s Phillipa Louvois, who frankly I'd have been delighted to see return in a future episode, but of course she never did.

Brian Brophy delivers a solid performance as the villain of the piece, Commander Bruce Maddox, and the script manages to keep him human, which I appreciate. But the more notable event in the guest stars this week is the arrival of Clyde Kusatsu as Admiral Nakamura, who we’ll see again twice more, although not until the final season.

Kusatsu actually auditioned for the role of Quark in DS9, but I imagine it would have been very difficult to turn down Armin Shimmerman for that role.

Oh, and O'Brien in the teaser? And playing in the inaugural poker game? Colm Meaney’s star continues to rise on this show!

Models, Make-up, and Mattes

Do you recognise the set for the JAG office...? No? Well, it's none other than our old friend the Battle Bridge (originally the Enterprise’s bridge in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but redressed within an inch of its life).

Hat-tip to holographic Lieutenant Yar, which was a very nice touch, and quite appropriate to the episode.

And so many shots of Starbase 173! So many shots of the Enterprise outside the Starbase! Look, here we are arriving...

Here we are inside...

And here we are in the conference room with the Starbase in the background...

That’s actually the first time we see something outside the ship in the conference room! We usually just get a starfield.

Honestly, this would have been a very cheap show if it were not for all these luxury composited shots, although I suspect this was not quite as expensive as it looks. The footage being used is essentially the same that that we saw in "The Child", and all of it was shot for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. We’ll see this studio miniature twice more on TNG, but it will never shine as brightly as it did in this episode.