Summary
- Patrick Stewart believes it is a major injustice that Brent Spiner, who played Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation, never won an Emmy.
- Stewart singles out Brent Spiner's performance in the episode "The Offspring" as particularly impressive, where Data creates an android daughter named Lal.
- Spiner's portrayal of Data, as well as other android characters, showcased his talent and the depth he brought to his character's desire to be human.
Patrick Stewart believes the fact that one particular member of the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast never won an Emmy is a "major injustice." Stewart's autobiography, "Making It So: A Memoir," delves into his many years playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the four TNG movies that followed, and reprising Jean-Luc as an Admiral in Star Trek: Picard. Stewart rewatched Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes and the films to prepare for writing his memoir, and he was struck by the performances of one of his cast mates.
In "Making It So," Patrick Stewart singles out Brent Spiner's work in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 3, episode 16, "The Offspring," when Lt. Commander Data built his own android daughter. Lal (Hallie Todd). Stewart is a huge fan of Spiner's acting, although Brent's versatile work was never recognized by the Television Academy for Emmy consideration. Read the excerpt from "Making It So" below:
In "The Offspring," the first episode that Jonathan Frakes ever directed, Data creates an android child whom he names Lal. She assumes the form of a teenage girl, movingly played by Hallie Todd, but she is literally not built to last, and Dta musters something close to genuine human emotion as he watches the life drain out of her. Brent Spiner's performance is staggeringly good – he found new depths to his character's Pinocchio-like predicament of being a human invention who wishes to become human. It's a major injustice to me that Brent has never won an Emmy for playing Data, not to mention the androids Lore and B-4 and the bizarre Soong family of mad scientists.
