In Theory

Deep and mysterious is the Mar Oscura nebula. Almost as deep as the human heart. And the robotic heart. This week, Data becomes the ultimate emotionally unavailable boyfriend for Lt. Jenna D’Sora. All will be explored (and some blown up) when we put In Theory in the Mission Log. Listening as I write. I really do appreciate Sir Patrick’s contribution to the cast’s development. His instincts, including in honing “funny” bits for this episode, really paid off for the series. I could be wrong. Everyone could have been taking a correspondence course on acting (pre-internet), but I credit Stewart. This was Stewart’s Pick as his Favorite episode because it was the 1st he directed. Oh! Oh, but wait! The music heard in the Buck Rogers episode “Space Rockers” was actually a disco single that charted . (The name of the record is “Odyssey” by Johnny Harris, who also happened to be scoring that week’s episode and numerous other Buck Rogers episodes; it also showed up all remastered on the Intrada box set of the first season soundtracks.) Sorry, uber-soundtrack-geek here, had to point that out. 😉 The absolute freedom of food from the replicator is a good point. I would totally be the first fat guy in a Starfleet uniform. “Computer, replicate something that looks and feels and tastes just like Cheetos, but make it completely nutritious and non-fattening. Three bags, please, I’m pulling an all-nighter.” All of that being said, I dearly love the last scene of this episode end. I’ve had dates end, relationships end, a marriage end, and yeah… you’re sitting in a dark room with your cat. Erase the subroutines and move on. It’s a strange choice for one of my all-time favorite singular shots in all of TNG, but there you go. Happy to help. Everyone’s playlist needs to be Twiki’ed slightly now and again. Your conversation about the food and infinite choices: The “Steam” effect as applied to food. For those (I’m including myself in this) that often buy PC games from Steam and related bundle sites (humblebundle.com, groupees.com, indiegala.com, bundlestars.com, and others). We’ve built up a massive amount of PC games that can be played (I have 1900 games owned in my Steam catalogue). Many of these games were purchased for literally pennies. Some are decent, some are crap, many remain unplayed. For a lot of people, they look at their lists of games, bored and wanting to play something…but can’t decide on what to play. Eventually, what gets chosen is often an old standby rather than something new. I imagine some people, on some nights, may indeed just decide to pick something they already know they like and is easy…like a baloney (or a burger) and a beer. Its a very human thing. This subject matter would have worked better if it was a regular cast member dating an android guest character. Especially since it would have given them Data as a compare and contrast, but it would mean the audience could relate better. Really, though, Data should have been the perfect rebound guy to help her get over Jeff, if she knew that’s what she was looking for. Dark Matter stuff in Star Trek is all nonsense and has nothing to do with real science in even the most basic levels. Nebula stuff is close to mostly nonsense… more so based on that Nebulas aren’t dense enough to be like they are in Star Trek, but it’s close enough I guess. —————————– The difference between Data and other people is that he has access to and is aware of all the processes that are going on in his head at any given time. Its not that other people aren’t thinking and doing all those other things. It’s that they just aren’t aware of it. Even expanding your awareness to those things you still have a limitation to how much you can be aware of about your body and thinking… Data just has easier access to them and more of them which might be why he thinks he doesn’t hve emotions. He can track the cause and effects of all the thoughts in his head so when he says “where is that coming from” he know