The Measure of a Man by: Melinda M. Snodgrass and directed by: Robert Scheerer

 

“The Measure of a Man” is written by: Melinda M. Snodgrass and is directed by: Robert Scheerer.  It was produced under production code 135, was the 9^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 35^th episode overall, and was broadcast on February 13, 1989.

 

Melinda M. Snodgrass was not a writer before soliciting the storyline for a Star Trek novel that was picked up and published in 1984 as The Tears of the Singers.  I have not read it, but it led to her working with George RR Martin before submitting a spec script in for “The Measure of a Man”, and because the 1988 Writer’s Guild of America strike meant the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation needed scripts it was accepted and put into production.  For Snodgrass, this also brought her onto the show as both a staff writer and story editor, eventually becoming the only story editor after four episodes on the job (the production offices of Star Trek: The Next Generation were a revolving door of staff, just watching the opening production credits vary wildly episode by episode).  This is also an episode that I went into knowing that it is highly regarded among both fans and non-fans alike, but I went in knowing very little about the actual plot.

 

As with any of these episodes, as I am watching them for the first time, I attempt to go in as blind as possible, so I didn’t even make the obvious connection between “The Measure of a Man” and the focus on Data as a character.  What I certainly wasn’t expecting was that “The Measure of a Man” is an episode that works because it is a courtroom drama.  Snodgrass before becoming a writer was a practicing attorney so placing the conflict both in a courtroom setting and as interpersonal drama.  Gene Roddenberry had the belief that interpersonal conflict would be gone by this point in the future, but that has a tendency to completely derail a lot of the stakes and tension in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Snodgrass avoids this by making much of the episode’s conflict internal: the system of Starfleet is used to resolve the conflict, even with the villain of the episode, Brian Brophy’s Commander Maddox, doing the inhuman and abiding by the eventual ruling.  This episode builds to the conclusion of Data being a sentient being and his own lifeform, an artificial lifeform, but a lifeform nevertheless with all the rights that entails.  He is not Starfleet property as the trial becomes litigation for.

 

Snodgrass’s script is absolutely brilliant at laying down the case for Data and building to the conclusion while also fully playing out the case of the prosecution.  The prosecution, due to the setting being a new starbase lacking the necessary staff, is represented by Riker.  Riker’s arc in the episode is having to prosecute his fellow officer and friend.  Presiding over the case is Captain Phillipa Louvois, played by Amanda McBroom, a woman insistent on Riker performing the prosecution to the best of his ability or else her first ruling, Data as toaster and therefore property, will stand.  When all is said and done, Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner get to have this particularly wonderful scene where both Riker and Data reflect on Riker’s actions: Riker is wracked with the guilt of prosecuting his friend while Data is actively grateful.  Data’s reasoning is that if Riker didn’t prosecute and the original ruling stood, he would very much have died, the episode also implying that the stakes for the greater universe being a slave race of androids being developed.  This idea of the slave race is given voice by Guinan, Whoopi Goldberg actually appearing in a good episode for once and an episode deserving of an actress of her caliber.  “The Measure of a Man” is very much concerned with establishing the difference in outset of a person as a person versus a person as a thing (or worse a piece of property).  It also actively reflects humanity’s use of slaves, especially the American slave trade and the structural and institutional racism in the United States of America, all without ever having to state it.  Guinan is the one who comes up with the argument Picard uses.  It is also telling that Riker’s arguments against Data are purely physical: they focus on the essential facts of his makeup, nothing about his mind, his experiences, or his relationships, effectively making the argument that in talks of personhood and the deserving of autonomy, biology doesn’t actually matter, it’s sentience.  Sentience is difficult to actually prove, though in defining it sets out three criteria: intelligence, self-awareness, and consciousness.  It’s the consciousness that is near impossible to actually measure in any meaningful way specifically in the case of Data, though philosophically you can argue he is conscious as he makes his own decisions outside of his basic programming, “The Measure of a Man” not ever bringing up the Turing test as a possibility.

 

On top of all of this, making “The Measure of a Man” such an engaging watch, Snodgrass’s script is full of these little moments and details.  The episode opens with a poker game between Data, Riker, Pulaski, and O’Brien (who is slowly becoming an actual character it seems).  This isn’t something that has any real bearing on the plot outside of Data not being able to bluff and losing a game, but it’s a moment like this that makes the characters feel like characters.  Likewise the scene establishing Picard and Louvois’ relationship and previous prosecution.  The script itself is also detail oriented: Maddox and Louvois both refer to Data as ‘it’.  ‘It’ here is being used as an impersonal pronoun, making the audience have this immediate dissonance, you know how the pair see Data and are disinclined to like them.  Snodgrass is also interested in exploring how the characters have changed since Season 1, the trail brings up events of “The Naked Now” and “Datalore” specifically to create a sense of continuity and growth for the characters.  Tasha Yar and her romantic experience with Data is explicitly referenced.  There’s this misunderstood notion that characters in a franchise like Star Trek don’t actually develop or have arcs because the episodes aren’t serialized, but this is just a fundamental misunderstanding of television as a process.  Even when not serialized a season of television is still a piece of long-form storytelling where characters can grow and change.  The only other nitpick is that Pulaski, who has been very much anti-Data as a person, only has brief appearances, though were she given more to do it might have derailed the episode on the whole.

 

Overall, “The Measure of a Man” is clearly a blueprint episode for Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Although the first script from a writer who only had experience in prose, it’s an episode that fundamentally understands how to write a piece of character drama while raising interesting political and societal questions.  Despite not conforming to a science fiction narrative, in favor of a legal drama, it is a perfect piece of science fiction.  10/10.