"Elementary, Dear Data" is the 29th episode of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The third episode of the second season.
[edit] Overview
Geordi asks the holodeck to make a Sherlock Holmes villain that can defeat Data, creating a foe more powerful than originally planned.
As the Enterprise waits to rendezvous with the USS Victory, Geordi La Forge and Data go to the Holodeck and recreate a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Data, who has read all of the Holmes mysteries, is able to solve the mystery within minutes. Geordi expresses his frustration in experiencing a Holmes mystery to which Data already knows the outcome, and explains the fun is in the mystery itself. Geordi instructs the computer to creates a new program with a unique mystery and an adversary that is capable of defeating Data. When they re-enter the program, they discover that Dr. Pulaski, who has joined them, has been kidnapped. Data proceeds to solve the mystery with deduction. They soon discover that Professor Moriarty is responsible, but are shocked when they learn that Moriarty is aware of the Holodeck being a simulation. Moriarty is able to access the Holodeck computer and draws a sketch of the Enterprise.
Data and Geordi leave the Holodeck to alert the Captain. Geordi realizes that when he asked the computer to create the program he had asked for an adversary that could defeat Data, not Sherlock Holmes. As a result, the computer gave the Holodeck character Professor Moriarty the knowledge and sentience needed to challenge Data. When Moriarty briefly gains access to the ship stabilizer control, Data and Geordi return to the holodeck with Captain Picard.
When Moriarty and Pulaski are found, Picard is able to negotiate the return of control of the ship's computer. Moriarty, who now knows about the existence outside the Holodeck, asks to continue to exist in the real world. Picard tells Moriarty that this would not be possible; instead, he saves the program and tells Moriarty that if they ever discover a way to convert Holodeck matter into a permanent form they would bring him back. Picard discontinues the program and the USS Victory arrives.
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