In The episode “Star Trek: The Next Generation” “The Offspring” (March 12, 1990), The Android Data (Brent Spiner) decided that he would like to be a father. With his own Android body as a template, he builds an Android child in a poitronic laboratory and names the new being. First, LAL (Leonard Crofoot) is a somewhat informal being with sharp, metallic characteristics. Data believes that LAL should be able to choose your own gender and appearance. LAL decides to be a young woman (Hallie Todd). The majority of the episode contains data, whereby your own limited understanding of human interaction is and LAL teaches everything he knows. When captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) questions the ethics of an artificial way of life, such as data that another creates without permission, data is easily defended by data. Nobody else on the company needs permission to reproduce. So why should he?
“The Offspring” was the first episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, which was staged by Jonathan Frakes. Frakes played Commander Riker on “Nextgen”, and he endeavored to pass the acting, and the feeling that he would feel comfortable in the director’s chair. /Film has already spoken before He had to go through the process to maintain permission, and the extended “boot camp”, in which he had to participate, shaded other directors and really got to know the craft. Frakes has also joked that other “Star Trek” actors than he finally started to place similar requirements, and the executive producer of the show, Rick Berman, caused no small amount of headache.
Frakes also revealed that he liked to head a data -centered episode because he always believed that Spiner’s character provided the best stories of the show. Frakes also revealed in recent times In a 2022 interview with startrek.comThat “the descendants” was something special because it was written by the first Trek-actively René Echevarria, a writer who would become an important figure in the Trek family.
Jonathan Frakes was happy to get a script from René Echevarria
Echevarria would only start his career with “Star Trek” with “The Offspring”. He would continue to have credits in 79 additional consequences before becoming one of the central producers in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”. He also wrote 24 episodes of this series. After “Star Trek” Echevarria wrote episodes for “medium” and “Dark Angel” and creates the shows “The 4400” and “Carnival Row”. If you saw sci-fi TVs in the early 2000s, you have probably seen something with which he was involved.
Frakes knew that Echevarria celebrated someone, so he was lucky when it came to “the descendants”. He got a great data story, but also a great script. As he put it:
“In addition to a data episode, it was René Echevarria’s first episode. As you know, he became one of our Stalwarts and a producer”Deep Space Nine. ‘He was a member of this incredible writing employee, the Ronald D. Moore, Ira Steven Behr, (Naren) Shankar, Brannon Braga and this group gathered. As the story was told, it was (‘the descendants’) his Spec script, which he had submitted Michael Piller, who was generous enough to read unwanted scripts of young writers. Michael was fabulous and a wonderful piano player. ”
The names he listed were all producers or chief writer for “Nextgen”, and most of them are responsible for leading the entire franchise in a positive direction. Frakes praised Hallie Todd as Lal and was grateful that he had run through his director boat camp when the shooting team took him seriously. He also said that his co -fellow co -fellow coaches did so not Take him the least seriously … what he appreciated. It seems that frakes like a playful, loose atmosphere on the set.
After that, Frakes led 28 additional episodes From various “Star Trek” shows and two films. A good start to a good career.
