If you are reasonably well-read (viewed?) in Trekkian matters, you might have read last week’s MalonEmail with a bit of indignation. (Thanks for reading, as usual.) If it was, as I claimed, “the best and only Picard primer that exists,” where in the Q continuum was “The Measure of a Man”?
At least, this is what went through my head over the weekend, when I realized I’d forgotten to include what is unquestionably one of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation that ever aired—and perhaps the most relevant episode one could and should watch to complement your viewing of this new sequel series. In my defense, I’ll offer that the last time I watched this episode, I was barely sentient myself—in junior high, I think? Probably around this point:
That’s a face barely conscious of her own bangs, let alone the philosophical nuances of an episode of sci-fi television at least two decades ahead of its time. Perhaps I should have done a bit more research to refresh my expertise last week, but alas! Such is the nature of spiteful shit-posting.
Hold on, is Wil wearing a Vandals shirt? It’s taken me 18 years to notice this. Everyone in this photo was extremely cool in 2002!
In any case, I’d like to remedy this lapse here. The TNG episode “The Measure of a Man” (Season 2, Ep. 9) is massively germane to Picard, for three reasons:
It introduces us to Bruce Maddox.
Starfleet’s foremost AI expert is technically Dr. Agnes Jurati’s (Alison Pill) boss, but as she tells Picard when he visits her at the Daystrom Technological Institute, the guy disappeared shortly after the Federation banned the creation of synthetic life, and hasn’t been seen since. But back in the day—2365, to be exact; the events of Picard take place in 2399—Maddox was merely Daystrom’s Associate Chair of Robotics, as well as, as Data observes in more neutral terms, an over-confident, selfish prick. (To wit: libertarian biohacker Josiah Zayner came to mind as I rewatched.)
As software engineer Danilo Campos observed over the weekend in an excellent Twitter thread, Maddox also somewhat of a Silicon Valley bro: his raison d’être is to replicate the successes of Data’s (and Lore’s, and B-4’s) creator Dr. Noonian Soong. (In a fit of extreme pedantry, I just looked this up, and it would seem Soong would still be alive and pursuable for another two years, but I guess it’s easier to reverse-engineer your knock-off in private.) In this episode he shows up on the Enterprise with a permission slip from Starfleet to take Data away, crack him open, and study his insides without (a) sufficient knowledge to guarantee no adverse side-effects such as memory wipes, or (b) consideration for Data’s agency as a sentient being with bodily autonomy. The way he treats Data—as though he’s a “toaster” that can’t look him in the eye and calmly ask to be treated with dignity—makes me want to leap over furniture to claw his eyes out. For lack of a better word, he’s just racist.the constant misgendering of data by bruce maddox et al coupled with their unwillingness to look him in the eye and talk TO him is just fucking devastatingAt the outset of Picard, 34 years have passed since the events of “The Measure of a Man,” so when we catch up with Bruce Maddox again, he’ll either be a raving megalomaniac, hell-bent on revenge after the Synthetic Ban™ cratered his career, or a secret revolutionary who feels so deeply indebted to Data that he’s in hiding creating these new über-synthetics to actually overthrow any and all organic oppressors. Or, of course, both. Regardless, expect him to have an air of Eldon Tyrell about him.
It contextualizes Starfleet’s legal and cultural history with artificial life.
This comes back around to the “racism” bit. Many better minds have unpacked the benevolent colonialism inherent in the Federation and Starfleet, and anyway, that’s a conversation best saved for its own newsletter. But “The Measure of a Man” provides a stark example of the Federation’s enormous, critically undermining blind spots when it comes to the rights and dignity of “alien” species. It hinges on a hearing convened by judge advocate general Phillipa Luvois (AKA Picard’s ex and former prosecutor? Steamy!) to determine whether Data is person or property.
Today, this premise seems ludicrous. We have decades of evidence demonstrating Data’s humanity, which far exceeds that of many actual humans, not to mention decades more political thought about the actual (fake) biological distinction between “organic” and “artificial.” But I imagine that, when this episode aired, Data’s humanity was far less taken for granted. (Though if you ask me, this whole thing should’ve been invalidated by the fact that Data was permitted to join Starfleet and be promoted like any other officer, as opposed to simply being installed and upgraded.) The episode is nevertheless a fairly distressing watch, because every single character—with the unsurprising exceptions of Guinan and Data’s BFF, Lt. Geordi LaForge—behaves like a racist asshole, even when purporting to do so in Data’s defense. The Starfleet “regulations” that initially seem to define him as “property” are weak and convenient to the Federation’s imperialist goals. It’s important to understand going into Picard that, even after the exception is made for the shiny-special Data, this is how Starfleet has pursued AI for at least a half-century: as a means of production, complex tools to serve people, and not as people themselves.It explains why Picard loves and misses Data so much.
Before this episode, and even through most of its first act, Captain Picard was uncharacteristically on the fence vis-à-vis Data’s personhood. (This is due, in part, to the fact that early TNG was just weird in general, with numerous character traits, and actual characters, melting away as the series evolved.) Like any genteel white liberal, Picard has been free to not see circuitry and is perfectly happy to accept Data’s talents and labor as a member of his crew. But as soon as someone shows up citing Starfleet regulation, he puts up a very weak defense and all but taps out, allowing Data to be treated as disposable, because he’d never considered how Data’s personhood might be challenged by the institution he’s dedicated his life to.
It’s only after a conversation with the incomparable Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg)—seen in the clip above—about the ways in which society creates underclasses through expedient “logic” that Picard is finally radicalized enough to discredit Maddox, shame Starfleet for its oppressive policies concerning artificial life, and ultimately re-enfranchise his third-in-command. (Bonus: Commander Riker, who agrees to “prosecute” Data to give him a fair trial even as it kills him to do it, also learns a lesson about being a good ally, which…)as is data’s comment to riker at the end when he’s miserably excluding himself from the celebration that he “injured [himself] to save [him],” good L O R D my heartBasically, this is the moment Picard is compelled to articulate Data’s value as a person, which creates the basis for not only respect, but also, eventually, a deep friendship that profoundly changes Picard’s world(s)view for the better. (Also, it keeps Data around for us to fall in love with him. Protect Data at all costs!!) Without this episode, the best part of the Picard premiere, when Dahj insists she’s organic by recounting a childhood memory, would never have been possible:
Picard: That’s a beautiful memory, and it’s yours. No one can touch it or take it away. But you must look inside deeply and honestly. Have you ever considered the possibility—
Dahj: That I’m a soulless murder machine?
Picard: That you are something lovingly and deliberately created?
In a lot of ways, Data would remain a model minority to the very last. He does a lot of labor he shouldn’t have to do, such as the conversation with Riker, or in a later TNG episode called “Data’s Day” (Season 4, Ep. 11), which finds him recording a diary entry for the benefit of Maddox and his AI research. (Of course, it’s also because he’s got a vested interest in the development—by humans, for better or worse, even assholes like Maddox—of others like him.) But it would seem his sacrifices—in all their forms—will have paid off by 2399. Picard’s staunch affirmation of Dahj’s personhood, coupled with his conscientious departure from Starfleet and the show’s apparent intent to engage with the institution’s fundamental flaws, may ultimately redeem Picard as the worthy successor to “The Measure of a Man.”
Anyway, go watch the thing, already.
Additional Reading
Vanity Fair’s resident geek Joanna Robinson wrote an impassioned defense of the premiere that actually warmed me to it—almost, but not quite, enough to forgive its clunky dialogue, poor pacing, and spectacular compound-fridging.
Jessica Ritchey wrote this great unrelated (but, you know, always related) post about Voyager’s Captain Janeway, representation, and learning the limits of what pop culture can actually do. I really appreciated it, especially in light of last week’s Space Force clusterfuck.
Finally, that aforementioned Twitter thread from Danilo Campos about how “The Measure of a Man,” Bruce Maddox, and Picard all relate to contemporary issues surrounding AI, labor, and the gig economy. Start here:
P.S. (Pitiful Solicitation)
If you’re enjoying this thing……………eh? What d’you think? Tell some of your fellow weirdos about it, maybe? Love you.