While Data has countless killer lines from Star Trek: The Next Generation and other installments of the Star Trek franchise, his best quote ever highlights the delicate balance that made the character so iconic. While Star Trek: The Original Series is beloved by many fans of the franchise, there are also plenty of viewers who feel like the series truly came into its own with Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Not only did this series spawn an entire legion of later ‘90s space operas, including Stargate, the Battlestar Galactica reboot, Firefly, and Farscape, but the show also introduced a bigger, more diverse crew for its ship. In terms of personality, temperament, and leadership style, Picard was such an obvious contrast to William Shatner’s Kirk that a decades-long debate over who was the superior captain is still ongoing in the fandom.
However, it was ultimately the complexity of all the characters in The Next Generation that made the show shine. Admittedly, Leonard Nimoy’s Spock was arguably the most complex, multifaceted, and nuanced character in Star Trek: The Original Series, but The Next Generation managed the impressive feat of ensuring most of its supporting crew members received the same depth of characterization as the original show’s leads. Brent Spiner’s Data, who could easily have been reduced to a one-note comic relief character, is a shining example.
Data’s Best Line Highlights What Made His TNG Role Great
Throughout The Next Generation, Data grapples with his status as a robot and, paradoxically, his growing ability to experience some simulacrum of human emotion. Maybe the most moving example of this came as early as season 2, episode 9, “The Measure of a Man,” arguably the best episode of The Next Generation, wherein Picard argues in court that Data has the right to self-determination despite his robotic roots.
Of course, a lot of Data’s struggles when communicating with non-robotic characters end up providing the show with its funniest moments, as well as moving scenes. Take his best line in season 7, episode 2, “Liaisons,” wherein a frustrated Worf tries to open up to the robot about his struggles with the ungrateful Lyaaran diplomat he has been assigned, Ambassador Byleth:
Worf: “Ambassador Byleth is demanding, temperamental, and rude.”
Data: “You share all of those qualities in abundance. Perhaps you should try to build on your similarities.”
Data’s Shifting Humanity Underlines Most of His Greatest Lines
While the line itself is savage, the fact that Data cheerfully walks off immediately afterward is what truly sells the gag. As is so often the case with Data, there’s just the slightest hint that he knows he’s annoyed Worf, but the robot will always have the infallible excuse of being a literal machine who can’t process human emotion whenever he says the wrong thing.
Data is clearly genuinely anguished over his potential malfunction in season 2, episode 21, “Peak Performance,” when he loses a game of Strategema to the grandmaster Sirna Kolrami, in a subplot that prompts Picard’s greatest The Next Generation quote. However, there are plenty of other instances where the robot displays hints of what seem like deadpan human humor, and the fact that he is technically an android is the only thing that allows him to get away with these comments.
From the legendary “Oh S***!” in Generations to his attempts to understand comedy, almost all Data’s best moments are the ones that prove he has a little humanity beneath his stiff exterior. Thus, it is fitting that the best quote from this Star Trek franchise legend comes not in the form of a profound moment from Star Trek: The Next Generation, but instead from his hilariously blunt comeback to his colleague.
- Release Date
-
1987 – 1994-00-00
- Network
-
Syndication
- Showrunner
-
Gene Roddenberry
