Get your jeweler’s loupe on and clutch tight your ’62 Roger Maris card because we’re about to play with “The Most Toys”!
Writer and Forbes Magazine Associate Editor for Science and Games Alex Knapp joins the show this week for a look at an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that sees Data’s humanity put on trial once again, this time as much from within as without. Remorseless collector Kivas Fajo has kidnapped Data to be part of his menagerie of priceless artifacts, and Fajo is using his people as hostages to keep Data a prisoner. Can Geordi and the crew of the Enterprise rescue their lost android before Data decides that murder is preferable to enslavement?
Data comes face to face with the banality of evil in this solid episode, as our favorite android’s selflessness is pushed to the breaking point by a deadly selfishness. During our discussion, we talk about the one-two punch of Spiner and Rubinek, the qualities of a great Trek villain, Trek’s long pedigree of first-rate guest stars, how good villains are the answer to the question the hero asks, the reality of Data’s “emotions”, the crazy story of the original Kivas Fajo actor, and wanting a better end to Data’s story.
We also talk about corporate-sponsored space travel, catching up on Enterprise, the lack of data privacy in Starfleet, space nihilists, the Decipher Star Trek CCG, Data learning to bluff, the legality of kidnapping a robot, the burgeoning serial killer Fajo, sleeping in your uniform, the crutch of the emotion chip, Alex answers some of the pressing science and technology questions of the day and he makes Kal’s YEAR by introducing him to the concept of “Kirk drift”!
Lululululu!
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Listen to “Season 4, Episode 8 “The Most Toys” (TNG) with Alex Knapp” on Spreaker.