How Star Trek: Picard Connects Data's Death Back To Nemesis
Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard's season 1 finale.
One of the most pleasant surprises in Star Trek: Picard is how the death of Commander Data (Brent Spiner) connects back to Star Trek: Nemesis. Although he is merely a dream-like presence in the pilot and finale episodes of the Patrick Stewart-led CBS All-Access series, Data is a pivotal player in Jean-Luc Picard's story. The retired Starfleet Admiral copes with his lingering guilt over Data sacrificing his own life to save Picard's, which happened in Nemesis, 20 years before the events of Star Trek: Picard.
Data died at the conclusion of Star Trek: Nemesis when he sacrificed his life to save the U.S.S. Enterprise-E from the Romulan Praetor Shinzon's (Tom Hardy) doomsday weapon. But while Star Trek: Picard confirmed that the android's physical body was indeed destroyed, a part of Data lived on because he downloaded his memory engrams into his imperfect android copy, B-4. While B-4 failed to take on Data's complete personality and had to be dismantled after synthetic lifeforms were banned by the United Federation of Planets in 2385, Dr. Bruce Maddox (John Ales) stole one of Data's positronic neurons and escaped to the planet Coppelius. There, Maddox and Dr. Altan Soong, the son of Data's creator Dr. Noonien Soong, built a race of synthetics from Data's single neuron, culminating in the human-like twins Soji and Dahj (Isa Briones).
Click the button below to start this article in quick view. Start nowHowever, Star Trek: Picard's season 1 finale dropped a final twist to Data's strange (but very Star Trek) tale of survival: Jean-Luc Picard learned that Data was alive (in a sense) within a sophisticated quantum simulation that Soong built to house his memories. Data retained his intellect, personality, and learning capacity, but the android came to a final conclusion: He wanted to die because mortality would give his life meaning and complete his lifelong quest to experience life as a human. Picard granted his beloved friend's wish so that Data died once more and for good; with this act, Star Trek: Picard poetically closed the circle Star Trek: Nemesis began with Data's violent and abrupt self-sacrifice. And, just as vital, Picard's touching conversation with Data allowed the android's Captain (and Star Trek fans) to say our goodbyes to Data in a way Star Trek: Nemesis didn't allow. Star Trek: Picard's heartfelt farewell to Data gave everyone the denouement they've needed since 2002.
To affirm the emotions of Data's final bow, Star Trek: Picard also stirringly wove in the song "Blue Skies", which was also used in Star Trek: Nemesis. (The first scene of Star Trek: Picard's premiere episode set it all up by also using "Blue Skies".) At the beginning of Nemesis, Data himself performed Irvin Berlin classic at the wedding of Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis); then, to close out the film, B-4 hummed strains of "Blue Skies", hinting that Data could indeed be resurrected, which didn't happen since Star Trek: Nemesis' box office failure ended the Star Trek: The Next Generationmovies.
Ingeniously, Star Trek: Picard's ethereal rendition of "Blue Skies" was performed by Isa Briones, who plays Soji (and Dahj, Jana, and Sutra). Briones is a talented singer and musical theater performer who was the youngest castmember in Hamilton before she got cast in Star Trek: Picard. So, not only was it fitting that Data's daughter sang the dreamy song that sent Data off into the most final of frontiers, but Briones' resume also echoes how Brent Spiner himself is an accomplished song-and-dance man who released an album of Frank Sinatra pop standards in 1991 titled "Ol' Yellow Eyes is Back". Musical talent certainly runs in Data's android family, both in Star Trek and in real-life.
While Brent Spiner may never play Data again, the character got the best farewell since Spock (Leonard Nimoy) died in Star Trek: II: The Wrath of Khan (which Star Trek: Nemesis blatantly copied). Best of all, Star Trek: Picardfinally closed the book on Star Trek: Nemesis, freeing both Jean-Luc and Data from the dark cloud that has lingered over them so that they can look forward to blue skies from now on.
Star Trek: Picard is available on CBS All-Access and internationally on Amazon Prime Video.
Source: screenrant.com