Elementary, Dear Data

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"Elementary, Dear Data"

"Elementary, Dear Data" is the third episode of the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was first shown on December 5, 1988. It is episode #29, production #129, written by Brian Alan Lane and directed by Rob Bowman.

Geordi asks the holodeck to make a Sherlock Holmes villain that can defeat Data. The resulting story mixes characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Sherlock Holmes; due to differences in UK (in which a work enters the public domain 50 years after the author's death) and United States (75 years after publication for works before 1978) copyright law Lane and the producers of the episode erroneously believed all the Holmes characters to be in the public domain, when some were in fact still owned by the estate of their creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. Adding to the confusion the fact that the only stories to either reference or show Professor Moriarty, "The Adventure of the Final Problem" (1893) and "The Valley of Fear" (1915), were in the public domain in both the US and UK making the character of Moriarty himself public domain.

The episode highlights the nature of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and of consciousness itself.

Plot

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 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.

External links