Star Trek: 10 Characters With The Most Appearances
7. 196 - Data
Found out in the open by the crew of the USS Tripoli, Data has become one of Star Trek's most recognisable and popular characters.
Rivalling Spock as the quintessential explorer of humanity, the Soong Type android dominated TNG so much that by the time of the movies, Brent Spiner's name was following that of Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes in the credits.
Data featured in all 178 episodes of TNG as well as four movies before Spiner decided that he was getting too old to play the character. Bowing out by sacrificing himself to save Picard in Nemesis, this might have been the ultimate moment of his search for humanity but fans did feel a little robbed.
Oddly, Data has never appeared on-screen in any other Star Trek series - until the arrival of Picard in 2020. With some slight de-aging for his handful of appearances, Spiner's return in his iconic role was more than welcome and the finale of Picard's first season, Et in Arcadia Ego, Part II, provided one of the android's most powerful if not emotional scenes.
Importantly it also completed Data's story more fittingly than his abrupt exit in Nemesis with a genuine punch that makes it one of Picard's highlights. The character's return in the third season complicates things a little, though it could be said that this is a new version of Data altogether - just to confuse us all.