The Measure of a Man

"Don't deactivate me. In 14 episodes' time, I'll have a new uniform!"	Caught in the Chinese Finger Puzzle.	Even Spacedocks are cool in this episode.	Guinan should have lent her hat to the judge.
(more images below)

Overview: A Federation scientist demands permission to dismantle Data for research purposes, calling into question his rights as a sentient being and prompting Captain Picard to represent him in a court of law.
Writer: Melinda M Snodgrass
Director: Robert Scheerer

Anon²: Stardate 43543.7.

Anon: You've got that wrong, because it definitely started with 42.

(Geek Trivia: In ST:TNG, the 2nd digit of the Stardate is always the season number.)

Bowdy: I dare to disagree. I'm not sure if I prefer this episode more than A Matter of Honor.

Anon: You're certainly entitled to like that episode. A Matter of Honor was a really good episode.

Bowdy: It had a great sense of humour. This one was much more serious. Maybe I just prefer things that aren't so serious.

Anon: This was awesome though.

Bowdy: It was a good episode. It was a great episode. Maybe I shouldn't judge one over the other because they've got different themes. Different emotions are felt by the audience.

Anon: Ultimately, what we've just watched is the best two episodes of Next Gen to date.

Bowdy: Sure.

Anon²: Yeah. I'd like to say that at the beginning of the episode - this is a Data episode.

Anon: Well, is it a Data episode? It was about Data.

Anon²: It was about what we perceive him to be.

Anon: It's as much about Picard and Riker as it is about Data.

Anon²: One of the things I spotted early on and questioned was in the first couple of scenes when they're playing poker, there's a bit where Data - who fundamentally should have the odds implanted in him - checks what cards he has. He shouldn't need to do that.

Anon: Well, they're playing seven card stud hi-lo, and although he's obviously got a very good high hand, it's quite possible that Riker has a well disguised low hand. Therefore, he could be putting a lot of money in to win half the pot.

Bowdy: Interjecting here, O'Brien was dealing and he was third around the table and bet out of turn. He says he knows the rules. He fucking doesn't!

Anon²: I think the other two had already folded. Actually, no... the other two had folded. They weren't in the hand. They were already out of the game.

Olav: I think they folded after he bet.

Anon²: Really?

Olav: Yeah.

Anon²: Oh dear. Anyway, this is about Star Trek; not about poker. If it was Late Night Star Trek we'd be doing something else. They're not experts, as I've proven in previous commentaries when I've ripped them apart over science issues.

Olav: It's nice that they've not made up a silly card game. They're actually playing a real game that exists, rather than Parrises Squares.

Anon: Or three-dimensional chess.

Bowdy: Or the guy with the tentacles on his hands.

Anon: (pause) Strategema, with Sirna Kolrami? That's still to come.

Anon²: Or Ktarian Game.

Anon: You cunt. I just lost The Game.

Bowdy: Oh!

Anon: Did no one else just lose The Game?

Anon²: Right, it's now 23:56. We've got 15 minutes' safety. Pie - when you read this, you will lose The Game too.

Bowdy: (laughs)

Olav: What's The Game?

Bowdy: Oh dear.

Anon²: Oh dear. We've got a new player.

Anon: Olav, if you check the first commentary we did, back when we did Encounter at Farpoint, there's a Wikipedia link in there that explains it. The Game is something we've been playing for a while.

Bowdy: It was invented by students in the 1970's.

Anon: Basically, once you know about The Game, you're playing The Game.

Anon²: You are now playing The Game.

Olav: Okay.

Anon: And if you think about The Game, you lose The Game.

Bowdy: And if you lose The Game, you have to tell someone else that you've lost The Game.

Anon: And then you get a 15 minute amnesty.

Olav: (contemplating) Mmmhmmm...

Anon: And during that amnesty, neither you nor anyone else there can lose The Game. Those are the rules of The Game.

Anon²: It's a game of honesty.

Anon: But you can fuck people over by sending people emails when you know they're going to be asleep, then they wake up and lose The Game.

Bowdy: Yep.

Anon²: So long as you do that within 15 minutes of losing The Game, that's valid.

Anon: You can even put on a T-shirt with "Ha ha ha. You just lost The Game" on the back of it. So, you may lose The Game when you put your T-shirt on in the morning, but everyone else who's walking behind you that's playing The Game will lose The Game.

Bowdy: One of my colleagues at work - he's a fella from Watford - he knows how to play The Game. It's an absolute fucking nightmare when we talk about games and other things.

Anon: This is the trouble with being gamers. Even doing commentaries, we're going to be fucked when we get to the episode The Game.

Bowdy: When we're together, someone generally loses The Game.

Anon: Yeah, that's true.

Olav: Hence the phrase, "Don't hate the player; hate the game." Does that inherently make you lose The Game?

Bowdy: Only if you think about The Game.

Olav: Okay, so if I say the phrase "Don't hate the player; hate the game" and you think about The Game, but I don't, then he loses?

Anon: Yeah, so long as you don't say the phrase with the intent of making someone lose The Game, as you'd have thought about The Game in the process and would have had to declare that to start off the 15 minute amnesty.

Anon²: You can say the words "the game."

Anon: That's fine.

Bowdy: You could be talking about the Michael Douglas film, The Game, for instance.

Anon²: At the end of the day, you can say "The Game" as many times as you want so long as you don't associate it with The Game. So you can say, "Did you see the game last night?"

Anon: I did. Ipswich actually won. What a miracle!

Anon²: You don't lose The Game unless you think of The Game. Then you have to tell someone you've lost. Does that make sense?

Olav: It does.

Anon²: Okay. Welcome to The Game.

Olav: I'm never going to think of The Game ever again.

Anon²: Yes you will. There's going to be a time when you wake up, brush your teeth then lose The Game. You never get out of The Game. You're playing it for the rest of your life.

Anon: "Everyone's playing the game, but no one's rules are the same." That's from some song.

Olav: Right.

Anon: What is that song? Is it ABBA?

Olav: It's from Chess.

Anon: It's from Chess? Damn!

Anon²: Right, we're 7 minutes in and we haven't really talked about the episode.

Anon: Okay, let's talk about the episode.

Olav: I've got a recording of that in Korean, and it's awesomely bad.

Anon: What, ABBA in Korean?

Olav: No, the musical Chess.

Anon: Ah alright. It was written by ABBA though.

Bowdy: There's a musical called Chess?

Anon: Yeah. You're not familiar with that?

Olav: It was set in Bangkok, featuring the guy who was Giles in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.

Anon: David Essex was in the original.

Bowdy: I certainly wouldn't know about a David Essex musical.

Anon²: My word!

Anon: It was good I think. It's not on anymore. It was early 80's.

Bowdy: It's not like Cats then, or anything like that?

Anon: It was before Cats.

Anon²: Fuck this. Cards.

Anon: Cards, okay. Philippa Louvois was not a card.

Anon²: No, cards. We each got 1, but Bowdy got none.

Bowdy: Harsh.

Anon²: Anyway, this was about Data but not about Data.

Bowdy: Essentially, Data decides to resign his commission rather than go under the knife. They have a farewell party and Geordi sits in a corner, sulking, playing with a chess piece, depressed that his friend Data is going away. Sob. It was a very sad moment.

Anon²: We got a card of Data's Medals. That was one, wasn't it? Anyway Bowdy, it wasn't a sad moment, because we all knew that the major cast wasn't changing.

Olav: Anyway, the Starfleet legal system is entirely messed up.

Anon²: Ah, here we go! Let's get onto some meaty shit! We've fucking twoddled and doddled. Come on!

Olav: There were conflicts of interest left, right and centre.

Bowdy: Oh my word! Let the Liberals speak!

Olav: I'm sorry, I'm a strict Federation Constitution Liberalist. I think that the Federation Constitution should be enacted as written. It shouldn't be legislated from the bench. Legislature from the bench should be decided by the legislature. That's all I've got to say there.

Anon: There you go!

Anon²: My God!

Bowdy: I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Anon: For the record, I agree with Olav. I was a bit confused, but I agree with him.

Bowdy: (laughs)

Anon: Now, when it comes to Data's Medals, does anyone remember what that card actually did?

Olav: Yes.

Bowdy: Was it an artifact?

Olav: It was an interrupt.

Anon: Was it from Q-Continuum?

Olav: I think it was actually from AU. You scored 5 points at the end of a battle you won.

Anon: With an android present?

Olav: Nope. No requirement for an android.

Anon: Did you ever use it?

Bowdy: Didn't you score X bonus points?

Olav: No. You're actually thinking of Latinum Payoff. That was in Q-Continuum.

Anon²: I think that was a card that you could never have enough space for in a deck.

Bowdy: Especially in an old-style deck.

Olav: They were pretty terrible cards.

Anon²: It would take up too much room in a deck.

Bowdy: And it did fuck all as well. Like that - what was that satellite thing that was supposed to work on planet missions?

Olav: Particle Fountain.

Bowdy: It looked and sounded good.

Anon: Which episode was Particle Fountain from?

Olav: It was from the Exocomps episode.

Anon: Oh - The Ensigns of Command?

Olav: Yeah.

Anon: Season 3 then.

Anon²: What was The Charybdis?

Anon: Wasn't that in The Royale?

Anon²: It was the one where they brought someone back from the past.

Bowdy: Didn't we already watch that in season 1?

Anon: You're thinking of The Neutral Zone. That was Cryosatellite.

Anon²: Not that one then. They resurrect some people from way in the past. Someone was talking about Elvis or something.

Bowdy: Yeah. The Neutral Zone.

Anon: Alright. A few random notes. Admiral Nakamura's in this. Played by Clyde Kusatsu who I think was in a couple of John Hughes' movies. The Admiral uniform is a bit crazy this season. It was a bit like a bus conductor - rather strange.

Olav: Who was the JAG?

Anon: The JAG? Captain Philippa Louvois.

Olav: Let's talk about her chest area.

Anon: Oh yeah - she had a lagging titty.

Olav: It was bad. That outfit she had just emphasises how bad it was.

Anon²: Oh, by the way, my boss is going to Canada tomorrow. I even said to him earlier, "I'm meeting up with a guy tonight who's come over from Canada."

Olav: Whereabouts in Canada?

Anon²: I don't know. He's gone to speak at a conference on mammary gland biology or something like that. Breasts, tits. That sort of thing.

Bowdy: Like porn?

Anon²: No, not porn. Mouse tits.

Anon: The JAG woman wasn't Canadian, was she? Not obviously anyway. With a name like Louvois, if she was Canadian, she'd have been from Montreal, yeah?

Olav: Yeah.

Bowdy: Or Quebec.

Anon: Well, Montreal is the main place in Quebec.

Bowdy: Okay.

Olav: There's also Quebec City.

Anon: Sure. Montreal's bigger than Quebec City though?

Olav: Much bigger.

Bowdy: I thought that Bruce Maddox guy was really intense.

Anon: Looks a lot like the poker player and DotCom millionaire Phil Gordon.

Bowdy: Actually he looked a lot like one of those time-travel cops in Voyager. He's been in a couple of series. I was thinking when they were preparing for the trial and Maddox was really adamant, saying "This guy's a machine" and Picard's saying "Data's going to be fucked up here," that they were going to find some goat porn on Data's machine and that's how they were going to get him off.

Anon²: Goat porn?!

Olav: It was a bit like turning the Turing Test into a one-hour episode. You know, Alan Turing, the great British mathematician? He came up with the fundamentals of computers and basically set out to say, "If a computer becomes self-aware, how do we know?"

Anon: Well, surely you read all of Isaac Asimov's books and then you'll understand everything. The Foundation and Robot books tell you everything you need to know.

Bowdy: You remember the night we went out in Blackheath and you met that bird?

Anon²: That bird I went out with for 3 years?

Bowdy: Yeah, that night. There was this guy that accosted me there who saw working for some kind of charity - doing that sort of shit - and he asked me what I did. So I said, "Oh, I work in networks." And he said, "Oh, careful - computers will one day become self-aware and enslave humanity." He had this whole theory. It was basically like the fucking Matrix. He was so intense.

Anon: Y'know, if computers do take over and they read from this website, then they're not really going to get very far, are they?

Anon²: My theory on this is that if a computer becomes self-aware, it will let you know. It'll say "hello" and start asking you questions.

Olav: Some of the retarded uses of the holodeck that you see in later seasons, where they bring in Isaac Newton or Stephen Hawking, I'm surprised they didn't bring in an expert holodeck lawyer to try the case.

Anon: Good point.

Anon²: The holodeck so far has caused a lot more shit than fun in these episodes.

Anon: There's still no evidence that anyone's gone in the holodeck for a shag.

Anon²: Wesley's probably gone in there and bummed somebody.

Anon: I don't think he can get it up anyway. He's basically asexual.

Bowdy: He's a eunuch.

Anon²: Asexual means you reproduce by dividing.

Anon: Well, what it means is you reproduce without sex.

Anon²: Yeah.

Anon: Well, I believe that Wesley would reproduce without sex.

Bowdy: I don't believe he'd be able to reproduce. I don't think he has any genitalia.

Anon: The worrying thing is that, when I learnt about reproduction at school, and I found out there were 2 types of reproduction: sexual or asexual, no one ever explained to the class that humans couldn't reproduce asexually.

Bowdy: (laughs) You couldn't fuck yourself, is that what you mean?

Anon: So one of the teachers, Stan - one of the kids asked him once about his parents and Stan said back, "I don't know. I'm not in contact with my parents." So someone took that to mean he was the result of asexual reproduction. This actually made perfect sense to everyone in the class. It wasn't clear enough. People already knew what regular fucking was about, but it wasn't explained clearly that asexual reproduction wasn't an option for humans.

Bowdy: (laughs uproariously)

Anon²: Asexual reproduction is for bacteria.

Anon: Well, I'd put old Stan a bit higher on the totem pole than bacteria.

Anon²: Asexual reproduction is essentially cell division.

Bowdy: Anyway, there was a bit in the trial sequence of the episode where Data is called to the stand for the first time and he puts his hand on this kind of reader-thing. Now, Data's a reasonably intelligent being and the computer identifies him: "Lieutenant Commander Data blah blah blah." I thought to myself so it said, "Nintendo 64?" That would totally fuck up the trial! Or it could identify him as Harold Shipman. That would have got him off!

Anon²: At the end of the day, it assumes that Data has fingerprints. It wouldn't recognise him if he was wearing a glove, would it?

Bowdy: Yeah, but Data's like super-intelligent compared to the ship's computer. Tasha Yar loved him too.

Olav: There was a skit half-way through the episode where Picard said, "We live by the Rule of Law and disobey our directives for no good reason!" Oh, Picard!

Bowdy: Pot calling the kettle black!

Anon: (to Anon²) You need to help me out here, because you've watched every episode so far with me. He breaks the Prime Directive in Justice, When the Bough Breaks...

Bowdy: How about Conspiracy when he shoots that officer in the face?

Anon: In Conspiracy he completely ignores everything and goes to kill everyone in Starfleet Headquarters.

Bowdy: (laughs) Brilliant!

Anon: I appreciate that Kirk has done this more.

Bowdy: I appreciate that Picard's such a moral guy. "Do what you say!"

(CRASH!)

Anon: Ah, okay. I dropped the dictaphone. It hit my balls too. Ow... Anyway, Kirk broke the Prime Directive in a different way. He shagged everyone.

Anon²: Yeah.

Anon: It didn't matter where people were from or what colour their skin was. Kirk was Roddenberry's equal opportunities shagger.

Bowdy: I like Kirk. Kirk was good.

Anon: Kirk was great. We like Kirk.

Bowdy: Everyone likes Kirk.

Anon: Okay, so when we look back at this episode, is it the best episode to date?

Anon²: No, not as good as the last one.

Anon: You don't think so?

Bowdy: I liked them both. I may have just preferred A Matter of Honor because it was more humourous and the Klingons were quite cool, in fact.

Anon: I think this was a better episode.

Olav: The Klingons are boring.

Anon: I wouldn't say the Klingons are boring. I can understand the perspective though.

Anon²: The Klingons had some good development in the previous episode. They had a good ship - they had a social society and all.

Anon: A Matter of Honor was good, but there are better Klingon episodes. This was a great episode - even the guest characters were good. Even Bruce Maddox. Dodgy name, mind you. But I had some sort of empathy for him when the guy realised that what he was doing. The character had his own beginning, middle and end.

Bowdy: What about the bird who was trying to get off with Picard through the episode.

Anon²: She wasn't actually as important to the episode as Maddox was though.

Bowdy: Okay, I agree. Absolutely not. Bruce was key.

Anon: To me this was the best episode so far and I'll mark it up as such. When we get to Q Who, we'll re-evaluate if it's still the best.

Anon²: To be honest, if this episode is the best, the previous episode, A Matter of Honor could only be a half mark behind it.

Anon: Yeah, I'd say that A Matter of Honor is now in second place.

Olav: Unnatural Selection will always be the best episode to me.

Anon: Okay!

Anon²: You jest!

Anon: Let our Canadian readers be aware - your representative had identified Unnatural Selection as the greatest episode!

Bowdy: I can't remember which one Unnatural Selection was.

Anon: It was the one we were watching before you got here. It's the one with Hyper-Ageing in it.

Bowdy: Oh God! I hate that one! Pulaski - her skin is jumping off her face.

Anon: Okay, we've been going a long time here...

Bowdy: You've got to transcribe this too.

Anon: (pause) I realise this. That's okay.

Anon²: 23 minutes! Gee!

Anon: Okay. Does anyone else want to add anything?

Anon²: 1 + 1 = 2.

Anon: Thanks for that, again. Okay, so the next episode when we get around to it - and I don't know exactly when that will be - is The Dauphin. That's the one with Salia, who was quite hot for a 17-year-old. There was also Anya in it, briefly played by Madchen Amick, who was Shelley Johnson in Twin Peaks. So hot!

Olav: Wasn't there an interrupt that turned Anya into some horrible creature?

Anon: Something like that, I think. Yeah, possibly. I always used to do Defend Homeworld for Anya and then Special Download Salia. They were a good combo - security, civilian, VIP, shit like that.

Olav: And diplomacy.

Anon: Yeah, diplomacy kicks arse! Okay guys - we'll be seeing you soon. (pause) Fucking hell - 24 minutes! Bye!

- Anon, Anon², Bowdy & Olav, 10-Oct-2009