The One Where Data Gets A Girlfriend Is A Star Trek Worth Revisiting
When TNG was in its soap opera phase, one episode delivered a bittersweet love story.
If Star Trek: The Next Generation had been made today, a time in which interpersonal relationships carry over into each subsequent episode, the android Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) might have had a human girlfriend for an entire season. In 1991, in the back end of The Next Generation’s excellent fourth season, during the week of June 3, the episode “In Theory” aired, which tackled the simple idea of: What if an AI decided to get itself a girlfriend?
To be clear, TNG was not ahead of the curve on the whole concept of an AI companion, nor was the movie Her biting on the style of Star Trek, because the crucial difference about “In Theory” was the point of view. When script editor Michael Piller took over running the show at TNG in Season 3, the notion that various episodes focused on specific characters became the most famous trait of the series. You had Worf episodes or Crusher episodes or, in this case, Data episodes. “In Theory” is a Data episode, not about a sentient AI being selected as a romantic partner, but instead, about an AI deciding for himself if a relationship is even possible.
Thirty-five years after its release, calling “In Theory” prescient or predictive would be incorrect. Instead, it's more accurate to say that the episode has aged slightly better than expected, because it’s refreshingly not on-the-nose about current AI trends, nor does it represent really anything other than the far-out thought experiment it presents. While folks love equating Mr. Data with the very real existence of chatbots and AI companions, Data isn’t remotely analogous to anything happening right now, because Data is — thankfully — unlike any current AI technology.
It’s the one where Data gets a girlfriend! Or does she get him?
Back in 2012, the co-writer of this episode, Ronald D. Moore, reflected that part of what inspired himself and Joe Menosky wasn’t anything to do with AI, but rather, a quirk of Star Trek fandom itself. “So much of Leonard Nimoy's fan mail was from women,” Moore explained. “Women who were falling in love with this remote, inaccessible character with the idea that ‘I could touch his heart — I could get to Spock like no one else.’ I was fascinated by that aspect of fandom.”
While Data is very much not Spock, he is, in a sense, at least in this episode, the Spock of The Next Generation. Regardless of anyone’s sexual orientation, it's actually fairly easy to understand why anyone would like Data in TNG; he’s well-meaning and somehow warm, and when he hurts your feelings, he obviously doesn’t mean to hurt your feelings. This becomes the central concept of “In Theory,” in which Lt. Jenna D'Sora (Michele Scarabelli) decides she wants to date Data, and Data, ever-game to try out human stuff, writes a new program for himself to see if having a girlfriend is even possible. (The analog nature of Data’s brand of AI should be noted here. Data isn’t part of the cloud; he still has to do research.)
What results is a sometimes funny, and often tragically bittersweet episode of television, which, in some ways, almost feels like an after-school special, in a good way. Scarabelli plays the lovelorn D'Sora with just a touch of desperation; she’s a serial monogamist who, in a different universe, would be “the Charlotte” of a friend group; someone who is trying a little too hard to get into a monogamous relationship, who, here, settles for a robot. But because Jenna D’Sora is a guest character, and not the point-of-view character, our sympathies for her are inverted from what might have been the case in any other narrative framework. Consciously or not, the audience considers Data to be the real person and Jenna to be the experiment — or Star Trek alien of the week — because we know, on some level, this character will never return. When Data hooked up with Tasha Yar in Season 1 of TNG in “The Naked Now,” Tasha basically made him promise to never talk about it ever again, which had a far bigger impact on his character overall than his relationship with D’Sora ever really did.
None of this means that this episode is doing anything wrong, by the way. This is actually what TNG did best, and sometimes not even on purpose: highlight something human nature through a quirky premise, and reveal an unexpected truth. Because, while Data goes through the motions of being a boyfriend to Jenna in this episode, the audience is aware that he is only imitating romance rather than experiencing it. But here’s the rub: by the end of the episode, we’re aware that the same is true of Jenna, too. She doesn’t really love Data; she just thinks she does, and, like him, she’s going through the motions.
Never forget, Patrick Stewart directed this episode and is responsible for getting this performance out of Brent Spiner.
A tech-obsessed cynic might say that here, Star Trek predicted that AI would simulate relationships for us, without any of the emotional investment or risk. But that’s not the message or point of this episode at all. If anything, Jenna is more guilty of inauthenticity than Data. She has projected her desires and notions of who Data is onto him, and, in an attempt to be a good sport, Data tries to change his own personality to make it work. This happens between human beings all the time; it just feels more tragic with Data because he’s autonomously making changes to his own behavior to try to please Jenna. At no point is this an episode about Jenna fiddling with Data’s programming to make him a better lover or more acute listener. Nobody is really using anyone or taking advantage of anyone, which, as sad love stories go, is something of a minor miracle.
“In Theory” was the first episode of TNG directed by series star Patrick Stewart, who followed in the footsteps of Jonathan Frakes. Stewart later revealed he was thrilled that his first experience as a director was “a simple little love story.” To this day, “In Theory” may not be one of the most soaring or profound episodes of Trek, but it does stand the test of time in that in presenting itself as as simple story, this episode has depth, reflection, and at its core, a bittersweet truth about human nature: Wanting what you can’t have is great, until you get it, and then, you don’t want it. As Spock said in “Amok Time,” this sort of thing “is not logical, but often true.”
