Elementary, Dear Data (episode)

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The Enterprise is threatened when a character in Data and La Forge's holodeck simulation becomes sentient.

Summary

Geordi La Forge invites Data to take part in a Sherlock Holmes holographic story. Data, who has memorized all of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories of Sherlock Holmes, instantly recognizes the story after only the first few moments, and immediately solves the case. La Forge abruptly freezes the program and storms out of the holodeck.

Talking over the incident in Ten Forward, La Forge and Data are overheard by Dr. Katherine Pulaski, who states that Data is incapable of solving a real mystery. Data takes this as a challenge, and invites Pulaski to join La Forge and him in another Holmes story. This time, the computer is instructed to create a new mystery in the Holmes style. This is less than successful, however, because the computer merely combines elements of the existing Holmes stories in a way that Data is again easily able to solve.

Geordi makes another try, however, and carefully instructs the computer to create a story and character capable of defeating Data. The new program runs and the three are off on their new adventure. The story takes an unexpected twist when Dr. Pulaski is actually kidnapped by Sherlock Holmes' arch-enemy, Professor James Moriarty, who was somehow imbued with a measure of consciousness and witnessed the use of the holodeck arch. Moriarty desires to learn more, and makes it easy for Data to track him and his hostage. Upon handing Data a hand-drawn profile of the USS Enterprise-D, Data immediately leaves the holodeck with La Forge following in confusion. Meanwhile, Moriarty learns a great deal about the Enterprise from the computer, and somehow constructs a crude device that toggles attitude control in the holodeck. He uses this several times, causing the ship to shudder uncontrollably.

Meeting with Captain Picard and the senior officers, La Forge figures out that it was his instructions to create an adversary capable of defeating Data, not Sherlock Holmes, that initiated the holodeck override control and is preventing them from ending the holodeck program. Picard decides that he must personally meet with Moriarty, whom he confronts, but who is adamant that he is sentient and self-aware, and should be allowed to continue to exist. After Moriarty releases Dr. Pulaski and returns control of the ship to Captain Picard, Picard explains that the ship's computer can store Moriarty's character indefinitely, and that the Federation would work on a way to bring Moriarty out of the holodeck. Moriarty's program is stored and ended, and the matter is considered closed.

Background Information

Story

According to Maurice Hurley, the idea for this episode was inspired by Data's experiences in "The Big Goodbye". Hurley stated, "It wasn't a writer saying, 'Let's do this.' It was one of the people living on the Enterprise." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 174)
The original ending filmed was cut from the episode. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion 2nd ed., pp. 68-69) Hurley recalled, "In that ending, Picard knew how to defeat Moriarty. He tricked him. He knew all along that Moriarty could leave the holodeck whenever he wanted to, and he knew because when Data came out and showed him a drawing of the Enterprise, if that piece of paper could leave the holodeck, that means that the fail-safe had broken down. In turn, this means that the matter-energy converter which creates the holodeck, now allowed the matter to leave the holodeck, which was, up to that point, impossible. When he knew that paper had left the holodeck, he knew that Moriarty could as well, so he lied to him." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 174)
This ending was removed by Gene Roddenberry, who claimed that it hurt Picard's character by making him look deceitful. Hurley disagreed, noting, "I thought it made him look clever, and since you are dealing with maybe the most profound criminal mind in literature, you've got to be careful." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 174) The original ending can be seen in the script here (scene 62B).
In the episode as aired, the existence of the paper outside the holodeck is unexplained.
This episode contains elements from and references to the Sherlock Holmes short stories A Scandal in Bohemia, The Adventure of the Speckled Band and The Red-Headed League. Furthermore, Moriarty's creation being a result of La Forge requesting an opponent capable of defeating Data references Arthur Conan Doyle's creation of the same character for the short story The Final Problem – specifically, as an opponent capable of defeating Sherlock Holmes who, at the time, Doyle wanted to kill off.
When starting the initial Holmes program, Data gives the full name "Dr. John Watson" for La Forge's character. The stories of the Holmes canon have identified Dr. Watson's first name as both "John" and "James", though John is indeed used more frequently, and James may merely be an Anglicized version of Hamish, for which Watson's middle initial "H" may stand.

Production

Filming elementary dear data — Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton and director Rob Bowman (right) on the set

When given a choice of shows to direct, Rob Bowman chose this episode, as he was disappointed at missing out on the previous season's period show, "The Big Goodbye". (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion 2nd ed., p. 68)
Bowman noted that this episode was "a huge production. They built that whole street from the ground up on stage. Indoors. It's an awesome episode." However, Bowman was angry with a cost-cutting decision to reduce the schedule for filming from eight to seven days. He remarked, "They made the shooting process one of the most unpleasant I've ever been through. I thought it almost killed the episode...Here was a show where we had all this great production value. Brent Spiner was about to do the best work I've ever seen him do. We had all these sets and they said seven days. I think that show is when I started to pull away from Star Trek, because I felt that it was a great opportunity to make a wonderful episode, and there was an arbitrary decision because the sets cost so much – I think $200,000 – where they said, 'We'll save money by taking a day off the schedule.' It's like, 'Wait a minute guys, first you have to take a day out of the script. You don't just take a day off the schedule to save $60,000.' As you can tell, I was pretty angry about it, and still have a little hostility towards what I went through on that show to make it happen." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 174)
The equation fragments on Moriarty's chalkboard, surrounding his "sketch" of the Enterprise, include ${A_t A_r - U} \over {L - U_m}$ .
i.e. Ataru over Lum – the two main characters of Rumiko Takahashi's anime series, Urusei Yatsura.
Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) does not appear in this episode.

Reception and aftermath

Hurley remarked, "Wonderful episode...We had carriages, old London, and I thought the guy who played Moriarty was just wonderful. I've never seen anybody play Moriarty better than that." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 174)
Despite the issues with filming, Bowman was still proud of the episode. "Certainly Brent Spiner came through with flying colors and everybody did. The original draft of that script was so eloquently written; absolutely beautiful, but it was probably a two hour episode at least and was written way, way down, but that was a wonderful script. We pulled the episode off." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 174)
At the time of filming, the producers believed that the Sherlock Holmes character was public domain. After the episode aired, the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle notified Paramount that they still retained a percentage of the rights to the character, and would require a usage fee if the character was used again. This legal issue would delay sequel episodes for nearly four years, at which time an agreement was reached for use of the character in "Ship in a Bottle". (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion 2nd ed., pp. 69, 231). The unusual delay was subsequently referenced in the latter episode.

Awards

This episode was nominated for two Emmy Awards: Outstanding Art Direction for a Series and Outstanding Costume Design for a Series.

Video and DVD releases

Original UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 15, catalogue number VHR 2468, 3 June 1991.
UK re-release (three-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment): Volume 2.1, catalogue number VHR 4737, 1 March 1999.
As part of the TNG Season 2 DVD collection.

Links and references

Starring

Patrick Stewart as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard
Jonathan Frakes as Cmdr. William Riker

Also starring

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 2

Next episode:
"The Outrageous Okona"

Elementary, Dear Data (episode)

Contents

Summary

Background Information

Story

Production

Reception and aftermath

Awards

Video and DVD releases

Links and references

Starring

Also starring

Special appearance by

Guest Stars

Co-Stars

Uncredited Co-Stars

Stand-ins

References

Log entries

Fan Feed