By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
When it comes to comparing Star Trek: The Next Generation to The Original Series, most fans view the android Data as a stand-in for Mr. Spock thanks to his lack of emotions and keen scientific interest. However, one of TNG’s most prominent writers didn’t want the android’s character to remain so staid and Vulcan-like. That writer was Melinda M. Snodgrass, who complained that her “Ensigns of Command” script was changed so much that Data didn’t become more like Kirk. As she put it, the android should “have to learn how to wave your d*ck and hope your d*ck is bigger than the other guy’s.”
Data Kirk
To understand this tale of a prominent TNG writer wanting Data to channel Captain Kirk, you may need a quick recap of “Ensigns of Command.” This is the episode where a creepy alien race is threatening to wipe out all of the humans that have settled on one of their planets, and Captain Picard busts out all of his inexplicable lawyer skills to negotiate for more time. Meanwhile, Data is charged with getting the colonists to move, but their stubbornness and his lack of emotional IQ threaten to end this mission in disaster.
You could generously say that the episode as aired still has Data channeling Captain Kirk. While he was mostly a childlike android sidekick in previous seasons, “Ensigns of Command” has Data taking charge of the situation and even using his phaser to engage in a bit of cowboy diplomacy. Mostly, though, the point of this episode was to give Data a bigger taste of what it meant to be human, and writer Melinda Snodgrass later said “I wanted to stress him and have him face a situation where logic isn’t enough, to show that in order to command you have to have charisma.”
This is what led to her rather shocking statement that the android would have to learn how to wave his metaphorical d*ck around. Why, then, didn’t we get to see Data learn to be a bit more like Kirk as Snodgrass intended? Simply put, the episode went through many rewrites thanks to the producers, which is most likely why Snodgrass, a well-known Trek writer by this point, used the pseudonym “H. B. Savage” for the episode’s credits.
Becoming Human
If you’re still a bit shocked at the notion that a Trek writer wanted to make the android Data more like the passionate Kirk (right down to the swinging, uh, phaser), you might think that Snodgrass doesn’t know what makes this character tick. However, it’s worth remembering that she wrote “The Measure of a Man,” largely considered the best Data episode and one of the best TNG eps ever written. She knew everyone’s favorite android quite well, but she often clashed with showrunner Michael Piller, which is why she ultimately left the show after Season 3.
It’s interesting to note that Data never really did become a Kirk-like figure even after getting his emotion chip…we’ve seen the android be everything from a quipping clown to a would-be revolutionary thanks to that chip, but he never became a charismatic commanding officer in the vein of William Shatner. That’s okay, though, as Data became a quirky character (the ultimate quirked-up white boy) in his own right who managed to captivate science fiction fans the world over. And the fact that he’s likelier to be a pedantic stick in the mud rather than a take-charge leader is ultimately just part of his positively positronic charm.
