Jammer's Review

Star Trek: The Next Generation

"In Theory"

1/2

Air date: 6/3/1991
Written by Joe Menosky & Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Patrick Stewart

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Some friendly conversation between coworkers leads to an unlikely dating situation when Lt. Jenna D'Sora (Michele Scarabelli) takes a liking to Data and makes a romantic move. Data in turn decides this may be a good learning experience about the human condition and considers entering into a relationship with Jenna. After a series of discussions with his friends, who provide varying advice (Troi: Be careful; Riker: Go for it; Picard: I don't have any answers regarding women), Data decides to give it a try. He writes a special program just for this experience. Jenna schools him on where his theory goes wrong and when contradiction must be embraced.

This is a pleasant enough storyline (and the title is perfect), but there's a problem that trumps everything here, which is that I never, for one second, understood what Jenna was thinking. Despite her early dialog, which establishes that she likes Data because he's polite, a great listener, etc., it's clear to her from the outset that he is completely emotionally unavailable. Love and romance by definition require someone who can return your feelings, and Data obviously can't do that. So I'm not sure what to make of Jenna's pursuit here, unless she, like Data, is also running an experiment in non-emotionally-based romantic relationships between humans and androids. The scene where Data attempts to manufacture forced "relationship behavior" scenarios based on anecdotal research is a perfect example of Data as a performance artist, aping human behavior without actually meaning or understanding it. This makes for an exercise in mildly curious behavior but painfully obvious inevitability. There's nothing at stake here — and again, what does Jenna expect?

The "sci-fi plot" involving the hazardous spatial anomalies is pure perfunctory filler barely worthy of mention. It made no sense to me for Picard to personally pilot the shuttle in this emergency (wouldn't a shuttle pilot be both more skilled and expendable?), and his navigation through the invisible anomaly field (depicted on his control panel) plays like a 1980s video game.

Previous episode: The Mind's Eye
Next episode: Redemption, Part I

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5 comments on this review

AeC - Fri, Mar 21, 2008 - 10:04pm (USA Central)

["Despite her early dialog, which establishes that she likes Data because he's polite, a great listener, etc., it's clear to her from the outset that he is completely emotionally unavailable. Love and romance by definition require someone who can return your feelings, and Data obviously can't do that. So I'm not sure what to make of Jenna's pursuit here, unless she, like Data, is also running an experiment in non-emotionally-based romantic relationships between humans and androids."]

Dude, all I can say is kudos on having at least a semi-healthy relationship history. You'd be amazed how easy it is to fall for the same type of exactly wrong person over and over, even recognizing the same set of faults that keep cropping up.

Destructor - Mon, Jul 7, 2008 - 12:41am (USA Central)

I love love love looooove 'In Theory', I would put it in my top 5, easily. The B-plot was terrible, I fast-forward through it every time, but the A-plot was THE Data story, as far as I am concerned. It contains everything that is amazing yet tragic about him. The final shot, where he deletes his 'romance' program and blows out the candle to sit in the dark is just utterly, utterly depressing, bold, powerful, thoughtful, wonderful. And I totally believed that Jenna would wilfully 'look past' Data's lack of emotions and project what she wanted to see in him- after all, isn't that what the audience does, every week. Do we really 'believe' that Data doesn't feel affection for his crewmates, or isn't a 'good' person? The amazing thing about TOS was how SERIOUSLY it took the idea of Spock, the idea of a totally logical being, and how cold and amoral that being could be, and make it a regular character with an unwavering conviction to that concept. Sometimes I felt that Data's writing didn't have the same conviction, but here was an episode that really, really examined what he is, what he lacks. He doesn't have emotion. He can't really have a relationship, with anyone. That's staggeringly sad, and goes right to the core of the character. I like this ep more each time I see it.

Kefka - Tue, Jul 10, 2012 - 6:08pm (USA Central)

Great episode, I normally hate all "comedy" episode in any of the Star Trek but this one has plenty of great one liners and the scene where Data is getting advice is great(as well as the editing). The only thing holding this back from 4 stars is the writers did not trust enough in the core material and tack on an absurdly bad sub plot with Picard doing something completely out of character and illogical.

Eric - Thu, Jul 19, 2012 - 3:52pm (USA Central)

"his navigation through the invisible anomaly field (depicted on his control panel) plays like a 1980s video game".

Well, this episode DID air in the early 90's... I imagine that readouts of a spatial anomally on a console would be designed to convey information, not look cool. Have you ever seen a radar or sonar display? They don't look pretty, but they tell the operators what they need to know.

Peter H - Sat, Nov 3, 2012 - 4:09am (USA Central)

Destructor hits the nail on the head about this one. This episode is the quintessential examination of Data's condition. I love the scene where he reels off a list of things he's simultaneously thinking about while in Jenna's company; this is surely what he's always doing in any situation with any of his friends or colleagues. Every second for one of us would be aeons in his mind; we could surely only ever occupy only a small fraction of his total awareness and computational activities, even if he remains totally attentive from out point of view. It exposes Data for the incredibly "alien" being he really is and how much we just see him as we want him to be.

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