Star Trek The Next Generation: Every Season One Episode Ranked From Worst To Best
1. Datalore
The introduction of Lore presented both an opportunity and a risk to the writers. While Data was purely good in all ways, could Brent Spiner deliver the opposite in his performance as Lore? The answer, most definitely, was yes.
This was the first time of many that Spiner would act against himself in an episode. The episode is both thrilling and there is a sense of building foreboding as the crew gradually comes to see that Lore is not what he seems to be. The crystalline entity makes its first of two appearances here, again offering a new take on what alien life looks like in the galaxy,
Director Rob Bowman was very pleased with how the episode ended up. He had been somewhat drafted in, as he had originally been due to direct The Big Goodbye but a delay switched both episodes production schedules. He felt that Spiner delivered a masterclass in acting. This was especially lucky as the original script had called for Lore to be a female android, one who would serve a possible love interest for Data.
It was a technically challenging episode due to the amount of split-screen action and body doubles needed to portray Data and Lore in the same shot but thankfully it all came together. The episode is also notable for being the last episode of Star Trek that Gene Roddenberry served on as a credited writer before his death in 1991.
The episode closes with a small continuity issue. Data, when asked by Picard how he is feeling, uses a contraction in his reply. 'I'm fine', he says.
Is Lore really gone, after all?