Star Trek: Picard - Amazon Prime [** POSSIBLE SPOILERS **]

B4 was just the worst. From the stupid name to totally forgetting about Lore to diminishing any of the impact Data's death should have had to that stupid glimmer of "hope" when he whistles that tune at the end.

Awful.

I hope by the time of the Picard show that Data just exists out there somewhere in the galaxy and we're left to work out the hows and whys on our own (or based on the Countdown novels at least) and B4 is never mentioned again.

And honestly, I love Data, but the characters arc is pretty spent at this stage – not to mention Brent Spiner is too old, and he knows it. If the character appears at all, have it be a brief video communication or audio message. Having any sort of long-term plot that involves Data would just stink of unnecessary fan-service.

pixelburp wrote: »

The 'positronic brain' part does definitely imply something related to androids being key to the story; maybe they'll finally embrace the possibility of other Androids beyond Data. Seems reasonable to speculate that eventually someone else would have devised a way to replicate Dr. Soong's work...

Or human hybrids

Inviere wrote: »

Part of the brilliance of TNG was the exploration of humanity by Data, often aided by Picard. I don't know if I'd call his arc spent or not, I'd imagine there's room for more especially given we only seen him with emotions in the few films, which weren't centered on Data really. As for fan service, hmm, not sure, it'd depend on how a Data storyline ties into Picards. I wouldn't instantly be opposed to the idea.

Don't get me wrong – I love Data and his character arc in TNG was one of my favourite parts of the show, but now that he has emotions I'm just not sure where else there is to go with the character. He's achieved his goal.

And as someone said about Picard maybe not being the Picard we know and love without his ship and crew, is Data really Data now that he has emotions? It changes the character entirely. Actually I think I recall an interview with Brent Spiner where he said something similar. That the emotion chip might have been a cool plot device for a movie, but ultimately not a good move for the character. Hence he gained the convenient ability to switch it off by movie #2.

So I wouldn't be too keen to see some big Data-centric story arc in a new series. But if he just shows up in some capacity as an admiral (or professor!), I'd have no objections.

Sad Professor wrote: »

Insurrection: took his unremovable emotion chip out before the movie started, leaves it behind and never mentions it again
Nemesis: emotion chip? what emotion chip?

Huh. Honestly that never even occurred to me. Probably my least watched of the Star Trek movies though, with Nemesis being a solid contender for my least favourite too.

Murray TheDemonic TalkingSkull wrote: »

Or human hybrids

They did that in DS9 with Vedek Bareil.

pixelburp wrote: »

If the writers simply must bring back Data - though I suspect they're just going to run with Dr. Soong's work being replicated - and Brent Spiner isn't on the table, then makes sense to recast, then throw together an explanation that Data's trying a new body for size.

The inner troll in me though? It'd delight if Data decided to try a female body, and watching certain corners of the internet explode in impotent rage

that would be insanely funny

"I don't care about a thing but I like to ridicule those that do" is such a weird attitude.

pixelburp wrote: »

If you put in such general terms, then yes it is a weird attitude: however, when it comes to the depressingly loud tangent of folks who go positively apoplectic if a woman becomes the focus - or worse, there's a gender flip - in a geek-culture property? There's 'caring', and then there's a misplaced sense of entitlement, anger and arguable 'isms that I have no problem calling bull*hit on

Anyway, that's getting deep into a total hypothetical; though as I think on it, recasting Data as some new exploration of humanity or sapience would be an interesting angle.

I see a lot of entitlement going the other direction too like "it's time x was a y instead of the z they've always been" and there's more than a few -isms attached to those people too.

Santiago Cabrera didn't ring any bells, but I was a big fan of the first season of Heroes. If you recall that most of the initial plot was kick-started by the premonitions of a drug-addict artist painting things that were going to happen. He played that artist, if I recall was one of the stronger cast members (until Spock killed him).

Michelle Hurd has a very long history of high-calibre US TV programmes, mostly dramas, though superhero/sci-fi stuff more recently. None of which I've ever watched, but she's far from a rookie.

As much as Gene Roddenberry made Star Trek he could have equally killed it off if not removed from TNG

Thinking further on the addiction thing. I suppose it's a form of self depreciation in a character that if not directed could lead to anything script wise.