TNG Flashback: The Schizoid Man

One of the more successful first season episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation had Brent Spiner take on the dual roles of Data and his evil brother, Lore. Perhaps the knowledge of that was in the back of the writers' minds when they crafted "The Schizoid Man," another episode that would allow Spiner to embody a different character.

The Enteprise responds to a distress call from a remote world where Ira Graves, a brilliant (and arrogant) cyberneticist, is dying of a terminal disease. Having developed a way to transfer his consciousness into a computer before the moment of death, he seizes the coincidence of Data's presence and transfers his mind into the android instead. As the crew tries to make sense of "Data's" odd behavior, Graves aims to use his new immortal body to makes amorous advances on his young lab assistant. But when he starts to imagine Picard as a romantic rival, will his jealousy and newfound physical strength form a lethal combination?

This episode is a decidedly mixed effort, and I think it started out that way even on paper. I've read that this script resulted when two other similar ideas were combined. The first was the story of a scientist who tried downloading his consciousness into Data -- with the full knowledge and cooperation of the android and the entire crew. The second picked up on a loose thread of back story mentioned in "Datalore," the fact that Data's mind was preloaded with the memories of the hundreds of colonists from the planet where he was found. A woman from that colony was to have come aboard the Enterprise, the romantic object of two rival men stored in Data's memory. Those two personalities were then to have begun asserting themselves, Jekyll and Hyde style, to continue their pursuit of the woman.

If you ask me, that second story would have made for a far more compelling episode than the ultimate result. Jekyll and Hyde, the tale of the enemy within, is a much deeper and affecting story than that of an invader without. Indeed, I think the writers ultimately thought they were still telling Jekyll and Hyde in the finished product. Troi runs a personality test on "Data" at one point in the episode (side note: that's two episodes running where she gets to actually be a counselor!), and reports finding two disparate personalities within him: the Graves personality, and the suppressed Data personality. The problem with that is, we never once see Data pop up after Graves takes him over. There's no apparent struggle for control over the android's body, just the complete dominance of the invading scientist. An actual, crazy Data would have been a far more interesting thing to see.

Another element that drags the episode down is the character of Graves himself, specifically what an unbelievable ass he is. Most of the time, The Next Generation is showing us (or preaching at us through hackneyed monologues) how evolved humans of the 24th century have become. Graves, by contrast, is horrible. He's sexist, clearly treating both Troi and Dr. Selar as objects more than people. He's also racist, making derogatory comments about Klingons and Romulans even though he knows it will anger Worf. Now granted, Graves is of an older generation, and not in Starfleet either, which would explain to some extent why he might not be as much a paragon of virtue as our main characters. Still, he seems a couple hundred years -- not a couple generations -- behind in social evolution.

And how is it that a frail old man, dying of a terminal disease, actually manages to get the drop on Data anyway? I mean, not that Data would beat up a dying old man or anything, but there's definitely a reason we don't see the moment where Graves somehow overpowers Data and downloads his consciousness... because I can't imagine any way that would have made sense.

Science fiction fans can geek out over the casting of the old Ira Graves. He's played by W. Morgan Sheppard, who besides appearing in Star Trek VI and an episode of Voyager, also showed up on Babylon 5 and Quantum Leap. What's more, his son, Mark Sheppard, has made even more memorable appearances on Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, and Supernatural. Sheppard sets up Graves with eccentricities that Brent Spiner then adopts in his own performance when Data becomes "possessed." Particularly effective is a scene where Graves, in Data's body, eulogizes himself at his own funeral; Spiner gives an appropriately ridiculous and entertaining performance.

Oddly enough, another thing that stands out about the episode is the lighting design. There are some subtly different techniques at play in this installment. Particularly effective are two scenes near the end. When Graves (as Data) reveals himself to his assistant in Ten Forward, a sickly green pallor is being cast upon him from below, highlighting the sinister undertones. And in the final confrontation between Graves and Picard (which for reasons I couldn't really tell you, takes place in Engineering), there are very dramatic shadows being cast from the warp core. Even though another confrontation took place here in the episode "Heart of Glory," the lighting there was not as appropriately sinister.

Other observations:

• The opening log entry of this episode is delivered not by Picard, but by Dr. Pulaski. It seems truly random, particularly as she isn't really a significant character in the episode.

• There's a neat little trick achieved with a green screen at the start of the episode, which shows in a single take Pulaski getting into a turbolift on a lower deck and exiting on the bridge.

• In the teaser, Data explores changing his appearance, trying out a full beard. (It's somewhat in the style of Riker's beard; were they having fun with Jonathan Frakes here?) The two people whose opinion Data seeks are his best friend Geordi (which makes sense) and Counselor Troi (who I'm not quite sure why Data would ask).

• This episode guest stars Suzie Plakson, who would show up later as Worf's love interest, K'Ehkeyr. Here, she's a Vulcan doctor named Selar, and she gives a fine performance in the role. It's a shame we never saw Selar on screen again (though I believe she's mentioned several times again throughout the series).

• There's this minor dramatic moment made of executing a "near-warp transport" in the first act of the episode, but I'm not sure what the point of it was. The moment doesn't really go anywhere, either in this or any subsequent episodes.

• I find it interesting that Data, not Riker, leads the Away Team in this episode. Did the writers somehow think that Riker's presence might have been a story problem somehow?

• Troi states that she can sense Graves' emotions emanating from Data. So there's some minor social commentary on the nature of what emotions are, and also on how Troi's empathic sense functions. Apparently, computer mechanisms don't stand in the way of creating or perceiving feelings.

• In an episode of lackluster music, composer Dennis McCarthy delivers one uncharacteristic, 10-second burst of awesome during the scene where Data/Graves takes Troi's psychological test. It's a truly wild and interesting couple measures of music, though it sticks out badly from everything else in the episode.

• It's rather unbelievable that Graves isn't motivated to give up Data's body after he accidentally injures his own lab assistant, but does decide to do so after injuring Picard, his perceived romantic rival.

• Data is apparently a very advanced computer indeed. Though Graves retains his full self inside Data's mind, when he transfers himself into the Enterprise computer at the end of the episode, we're told his knowledge now exists without consciousness.

• The man who ran the writing staff at this time, Maurice Hurley, hates on this episode big time. Granted, it truly isn't very good, but Hurley referred to it in a later interview as "science fiction bullshit," and claimed it did irreparable harm to the character of Data... as though somehow Data were responsible for anything he did while Graves controlled him? If you ask me, Hurley doesn't seem to be displaying much understanding or respect for the "science fiction bullshit" he's supposed to be in charge of creating. I think it was best for everyone that he left the show after this season. (And I think it's no coincidence the show got much more consistently better as soon as he did.)

Overall, "The Schizoid Man" is a predictable episode that feels drawn out as we wait for the characters to catch up with what the audience already knows. Its resolution is overly convenient, not respecting the (obnoxious) character of Ira Graves as he's been depicted in the previous 40 minutes. Still, there are some moments of interest injected by Brent Spiner, who manages to find another gear of "evil(ish)" that isn't the same as his earlier performance as Lore. All told, I give the episode a C+.