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Star Trek TNG S2 E9 The Measure of a Man (Patreon)

Published:
2025-07-15 13:05:01
Edited:
2025-07-16 05:54:24
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

No spoilers for my reaction. ENJOY

Ames

Files

ST:TNG S2E9

Comments

PIG

Love that there’s no spoiler to the reaction lol

Catchermag

I forwarded to the end before I watched it to see if you liked it. That’s who I am as a person, in general

Catchermag

Was that a flute at the beginning???

PIG

As for emo, this episode still tears me up even today. Melinda S. wrote it and you see more and more great writers come into the show. As for the debate, this was written in the late 80s and, like all great Trek, it applies to the future so well. As AI grows and becomes more complex, we HAVE to have these hard debates. What is consciousness? What is artificial? What is a “soul”? We need to prepare for the large shifts in society that’s around the corner as AI advances. Damn show is incredible. Loved your reaction!

Catchermag

Ames, some backstory on Phillipa. While they chat at the beginning he mentions her prosecuting him, and also mentions The Stargazer. The USS Stargazer is Picards first command prior to the Enterprise. There was an incident wherein he is forced to abandon the ship resulting in the loss of life and the ship. He was Court Martialed and she prosecuted him. He was cleared of the charges. Some of this is covered in Season 1, the episode The Battle. The Stargazer also plays a part in the series Star Trek: Picard.

pickupthepieces

This the first top tier TNG episode imo. And also top Star Trek. Looking at aspects of humanity from a perspective only possible in SciFi. Star Trek is a look into what many of us hope humanity is capable of. Aspiring to the good in us, as difficult as it may be. That's why ST feels like a safe space, a beacon of hope for us. That's important, because when we look at the news, we often see the lesser side of humanity. Regarding, the show, Picard often takes the lead in this endeavor, I would follow him anywhere. Like you said, Data has a childlike innocence and holds up a mirror to our behavior. That's why we feel protective of him and love to see him grow. Yes, you are getting more and more attached to the crew and will feel the ups and downs with them. Glad you got to see the important Tasha episodes in S1, cause it gave the events in this episode more meaning. Excellent writing, props to Melinda M. Snodgrass who wrote the script.

Bubba Fett

Data makes a great looking glass for us to reflect on ourselves. Why hes such an intriguing character, TNG did not waste him as a novelty character. Another great TNG episode that asks the big questions.

Ken Schneyer

Excellent reaction, Ames! "That action injured you and saved me; I will not forget it." is one of the great tear-jerker lines of this series. :) While this is a central, crucial episode of TNG, with terrific character work, stupendous acting, great dramatic progression, important philosophical speculation, no-kidding ethical critique, and will echo throughout the rest of this series and several others (and I appreciate all of that), I'm forced to say that, as legal procedure, it is hogwash. First of all, the challenge of a ruling concerning Data's status would come from Data himself, not from Picard. Picard has no standing. The only basis on which Picard could claim personal interest in this matter is as an owner, which would gut his entire argument. (Footnote: I can *imagine* a regulation under which a commander could challenge a transfer of one of his officers, but I cannot imagine a commander being able to challenge a ruling concerning the legal personhood of that officer.) Second, challenging an existing ruling is either a petition for relief or an appeal. There is no "prosecution". In such a context, Picard would be the party with the affirmative (either the petitioner or the appellant), and Riker would be responding or acting as appellee. Thus, Picard would speak first and have to prove his case or establish his appeal, and Riker would be attempting to disprove it. Third, conclusory arguments are made either *before* or *after* the evidence has been presented, not in the *middle* of presenting evidence. I could go on. Also, at this point, Roddenberry was still too attached to his successes in TOS. Aspects of this episode mirror the TOS episode "Court Martial" (especially the ex-girlfriend as a kind of adversarial or quasi-adversarial Legal Authority) for no good reason, except that Roddenberry liked it the first time. (I can't really blame this on Melinda Snodgrass, who is too smart to have done that on her own.)

JM63

Interesting and thought-provoking episode to revisit. Basically it boils down to "what is the basis of ethics" -- natural rights or utilitarianism? Utilitarianism prioritizes creating the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people, while a natural-rights approach says that sentient beings have fundamental rights that can't be taken away, no matter what the potential benefit to others might be. A more extreme version of the issue in the episode would be this -- imagine if torturing a person (against their will) for an hour would provide 10 years of pure happiness for everyone on Earth. Would this be acceptable? A natural rights argument would say "no," while a utilitarian might say the benefits to others outweigh the pain of the individual. Picard makes an interesting point that humans are also machines, but instead of metal and plastic, we're constructed of biological materials assembled according to our DNA. But I actually don't think Data's rights rest on whether he is a machine or not. Blade Runner [this isn't a spoiler, since it happens in the first few minutes] uses an empathy test to distinguish humans from replicants, suggesting that the capacity for empathizing with the suffering of others is what makes us human (and, presumably, grants us rights). I'd actually go beyond that and say that it's the capacity for feeling pain and suffering, not necessarily the capacity for empathy, that entitles a being to rights. So by this standard, Data (who fears the loss of the essence of his experiences) clearly has basic rights such as bodily autonomy and self-ownership (which includes the right to refuse the procedure and the right to resign from or remain in Starfleet). I'd also say that this entitles animals to ethical treatment, as well. It's not clear whether animals are capable of empathy (although anyone who's had a pet dog or cat would certainly say they are), but animals can certainly feel pain. So they shouldn't be subjected to mistreatment, suffering, or torture. Which suggests that factory farming of animals is immoral. I do still eat a bit of meat (I don't feel my best on a purely vegan diet), but is it truly ethical to do so (since it relies on animal suffering)? Probably not. It's a troubling thought, and I don't know what the right answer is. At any rate, the episode raises interesting issues. One of the best eps of the early seasons.

Maerandir Eldar

This is one of my all-time favorite episodes of TNG, and I always get really teary-eyed, but I can't help but smirk when he breaks down his performance specs. 800 quadrillion bits = 100 petabytes -- a common capacity for a small to medium datacenter these days which is still somewhat impressive, but his processing capacity of 60 trillion operations per second is... well, let's put it this way - an RTX 5090 graphics card has a raw theoretical processing speed of 104.8 trillion 32-bit floating point operations per second, so it sounds a bit less impressive these days, EXCEPT... ...to try and head off this sort of thing, and to retcon and explain how a lot of the technology works, around the 3rd or 4th season, Mike Okuda released the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (HIGHLY recommend you grab it!) and it kinda future-proofs those specs by introducing "kiloquads" as the standard measurement of memory/storage/processor bus width. Brilliantly, the book never explicitly tells you how many bits is in a kiloquad, or what a "quad" is. If Data's systems run on [multi]kiloquad operations, a la quantum computing, that 40 trillion number might be a bit more impressive. It doesn't fix that Data told us an exact bit count for storage, but I'm willing to let that one slide. =)

John Courtright

One of my favorite TNG episodes and a great reaction Ames!! ***** SPOILERS BELOW ***** The Measure of a Man raises the question of whether Data is property or something more. To me, the real question isn't whether Data is property, but whether he is a person. Picard focuses on the dangers of creating a race of disposable beings, and the judge wonders if Data has a soul. While these are thought-provoking musings, I think an even stronger argument can be made. To me, the real power of the episode lies in what Data himself actually demonstrates. I believe that Data shows he has, in some sense, exceeded his programming and grown beyond the limits of his initial design. There are several moments in the episode that point to this. At one point, he describes memory as having "an ineffable quality" that goes beyond the factual content of his memories. He forms attachments. He tells Geordi, "I will miss you." He chooses to pack certain belongings and not others, for reasons he cannot fully explain. He just wants them. That looks a lot like personhood to me. If Data is a person, I don’t think we need to wait for certainty before granting him rights. Ethically, Starfleet's only responsible course is to err on the side of respect and restraint. Data deserves the right to make his own choices.

AJ

I'm watching these for the first time. That was a cool episode. I wasn't expecting so many "internal" conflict episodes. Loving that the episodes go from cheeseball humorous to super deep and philosophical. Will we ever be able to tell if an android or AI is actually conscience/self-aware or just acting how something conscience and self-aware acts? Probably not. It's easy to give Data the benefit of the doubt because we have a history with him and his actions. Should that benefit of the doubt apply to all artificial life forms? Wouldn't that be extremely dangerous? Cool how they were asking these questions that are so relevant today in the 80s.

Jim

Great episode, great reaction. The TNG show is special. I wish more people would give it a chance.

Chris L

welcome to a sample of how great the show will become!

Clay F

My favorite episode of S2. Interesting concepts and great acting (as you noted). When I was a kid, Spock was my favorite character of the original series. I’ve grown to like the Kirk charisma/leadership but I think Spock remains my favorite original series character. As for TNG, Data is an awesome character. There is a certain innocence about Data – and a vulnerability of his social fit – maybe those are reasons you become emotional. While this is a Data centric episode, also a big episode for Picard. He definitely rose to the occasion and continues his path of being my favorite TNG character. Riker did what he had to do. The exchange between Data and Riker at the end of the episode is one of my favorite scenes. I always liked the Whoopi character. Her character adds flavor to the series. I liked your outro. I played the recorder as a kid.

Clay F

"Starfleet was founded to seek out new life: well, there it sits."

Anthony Hernandez

It is often that people like Data. I dressed up as him as a kid for Halloween. I think people relate to him because he’s an outsider trying to fit in, and so many people feel that way at times as they navigate their lives. Thanks for your emotions during this episode. It’s fun to see someone enjoying these episodes I grew up on so much all these years later!

Anthony Hernandez

Also, I am a music teacher, and would be happy send you sheet music for that intro. Do you read sheet music (notes and rests), or do you look at tablature (note names with recorder fingerings)? Is that soprano recorder (meaning if you cover the first hole only it plays a “B”)?

WastedPo

I think the reason why people tend to love androids/cyborgs in movies is that they often have an innocence about them, so they find the mundane things we take for granted surprising or delightful. And they're often on journeys of self-discovery or self-improvement - which makes you root for them.

Janeway knows

I don’t find Riker’s ‘argument’ at all convincing if only because Data wasn’t made for or by starfleet, and I could have argued based on necessuty which is how Maddox got the ruling in the first place. A great episode but I wouldn’t have liked his argument

Janeway knows

This is one of the first episodes I saw as a child it was powerful

Duff

I am so freaking hooked on this! Going to my favorite episode next ... Q Who ... I hope you become a Niner someday. I am sure you will love DS9.