Brothers

TNG Season 4 Episode 3
Air Date: October 8th, 1990

Plot

The Enterprise is rushing to a star base for a medical emergency. One of the children on the ship played a prank on his brother that resulted in him getting a parasite. But as the Enterprise is making it's trip, Lt. Cmdr. Data takes over the bridge and brings the Enterprise to Terlina III where he meets his creator, Dr. Noonien Soong.

Soong had activated a homing beacon to bring Data to him. What neither expected was for Lore to show up as well. Soong had designed a emotion chip specifically for Data but Lore deactivates Data, takes his place and the chip. Finally killing Soong, he escapes. The crew of the Enterprise finally regain control and rescue Data and gets the boy to the star base.

Commentary

Data, Lore and Soong are all played by Brent Spinner. We learn more about both Data and Lore, specifically that both are pretty much the same in every way save for some programming. The episode showed how easily Data can take over the Enterprise. He was able to suck the air out of the bridge, emulate Picard's voice to lock out engineering control and create force fields to restrict movement throughout the ship.

Quotes

"I never felt too comfortable living anywhere without a prearranged route of escape. I admit, I, uh, I wouldn't have guessed I'd be running from a giant snowflake." - Soong

"Why did you create me?" - Lt. Cmdr. Data
"Why does a painter paint? Hm? Why does a boxer box? You know what Michelangelo used to say? That the sculptures he made were already there before he started, hidden in the marble. All he needed to do was remove the unneeded bits. Wasn't quite that easy with you, Data. But the need to do it, my need to do it, was no different than Michelangelo's need." - Soong

"I am not less perfect than Lore." - Lt. Cmdr. Data

"For all these years, I've been plagued by what went wrong with all of your complexities, Lore. Your nuances. Basic emotion seemed almost simple by comparison. But the emotion turned, twisted, became entangled with ambition. Lore, if I had known that you weren't lying in pieces on some distant shelf. If I had known I could simply press a button and bring you here, I would have spent those years trying to make things right for you as well." - Soong

"They're brothers, Data. Brothers forgive." - Doctor Crusher