7x16 Thine Own Self

[7.5/10] Putting stock in episode titles is a dangerous game. Sometimes, they’re a major signifier of what the central theme or core idea of an episode is. But just as often, they’re simply a cool word or phrase that gets your attention. Both approaches are valid, but can easily leave you mixed up when you try to unlock a forty-four minute episode with a handful of words.

But I think it matters in “Thine Own Self”. The title is a reference to a famed line from Hamlet, spoken by a character, Polonius, known for his banal, but occasionally wise, aphorisms. He tells his son, “This above all: to thine own self be true[.]” It’s the second half of the maxim that’s important here. Even without his memory or knowledge of the extraordinary being he is, Data remains the android we know and love. And as Counselor Troi begins to stretch her wings and expand her potential, she finds the hardest part of being a commander comes with how it conflicts with the empathy she’s so known for.

It’s a good theme to unite the two plots of the episode. The first sees Data stranded on a European Renaissance planet. He’s lost his memory on a probe recovery mission, and stumbles into a town on the cusp of a scientific revolution, but still afraid of such an outsider. The second sees Troi inspired by a recent Starfleet class reunion to try to make a little more of herself. She decided to take the command exam in the hopes of ranking up. There’s not much in common between them, beyond their shared mission to vindicate who Data and Deanna are regardless of circumstance.

Data’s story takes the lion’s share of the runtime. It’s funny how amnesia stories are a giant soap opera cliche for human characters, but there’s something about it happening to an android which makes it superficially more plausible. I don’t know why a robot getting electrified and losing its memory seems less cheesy than a fellow human being getting bonked on the noggin, but Data’s memory loss passes the smell test much more easily.

Maybe it’s just what “Thine Own Self” does with the idea. Data’s lost memories leave him unaware that he’s an android, ignorant of the advanced technology he uses (and, frankly, is), and unable to solve his problems or call for help via the usual means. It puts the normally peerless officer at a disadvantage for once, and seeing him so vulnerable, having to effectively start from scratch, is a nice way to bring him down to Earth a little, so to speak.

Granted, the knock against this one is that it’s a patchwork quilt of prior Data stories. Him befriending a little girl is of a piece with his story in “Pen Pals”. His efforts to convince a group of mistrustful colonists of an impending danger, with the help of a sympathetic ally, only to take unilateral action after he’s attacked, shares parallels with “The Ensigns of Command.” Hell, even Data scraping together a bit of money and using it to create makeshift scientific equipment has that in common with the “Time’s Arrow” duology.

But maybe that’s a feature, not a bug. The thrust of the episode seems to be that even without his memories, Data is still Data. He’s still kind to the people who help him and, in turn, need help themselves. He’s still committed to the scientific method. He’s still rigorous in his approach and steadfast in his moral beliefs. Watching how Data is still Data, even with the other elements of his identity stripped away, makes the alignment with his past adventures true to who we know Data to be, rather than mere retreads. (Or at least uses the former as a good excuse for the latter.)

The Troi B-plot, on the other hand, is a little more unique. It’s nice to see Deanna strive for greater success and the chance to command, while still affirming the value of her counseling work. There’s something relatable and well-observed in the story, of Troi taking stock of where she is and deciding she wants to challenge herself to achieve more, even if it’s a little outside her usual wheelhouse.

The other side of the coin is that there’s a few problems here. For one, it’s pretty inappropriate to have a fellow senior officer you’ve worked with and befriended over six years administer the test, let alone one you once had a romantic relationship with. Conversely, Riker’s uncharacteristically jerky to Deanna about it. You can chalk it up to his devotion to duty, but he seems almost out of character in how harsh he is to her over the engineering portion of the test. Last but not least, this one could have used more time. The story’s only a few scenes long, and while it’s enough, there’s a lot more the episode could have dug into with this.

(As an aside, it’s a little surprising how many Starfleet tests involve tricking people or otherwise leaving them in the dark. There’s something to be said for putting people who will face unforeseen challenges through their faces, but it’s a little odd.)

Still, I like the solution to the puzzle. No matter how hard she tries, Deanna can’t succeed on the engineering test. I like the fact that the answer isn’t a better understanding of technical specs; it’s being willing to order a fellow crewman to die in order to save the ship and it’s crew. That sort of tough call in a crisis is one a commander might need to make when all other options have been exhausted, and Deanna, with all her empathy, would find it especially hard to do so. Being true to herself is what stymied her on the commander’s exam, and stretching beyond that is what allows her to grow.

(Spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery: It’s fascinating watching this episode while I’m halfway through Discovery’s fourth season, which seems to be thematically founded on whether the newly-promoted Captain Burnham is able to make this same sort of tough call or not.)

I don’t know if Data grows from his experience in almost-Renaissance land, given that he remembers none of it, but it’s neat to see him slowly regain himself after his initial memory loss. The way he applies the same sort of deductive reasoning in a very different environment, or shows loyalty to his new friends, or finds the most direct solution to a problem even in the absence of his usual tools is both fun and interesting.

It is also, like so many Star Trek episode, an interesting look at humanity and how we might respond to such an unusual outsider. There’s a good use of dramatic irony here, with the audience knowing the radioactive material Data unwittingly brought with him is the source of the town’s illnesses, but the characters don’t. The villagers’ willingness to blame the comparatively strange Data rather than seek out the real answer to their maladies speaks to a fear of the unknown and a longstanding desire to pin the blame on scapegoats than grapple with the problem.
Still, my favorite character in the episode is one of the more reasonable villagers: Talur, the town’s leading scientific mind. What makes her so fascinating is that she’s ready to pat herself, and her people, on the back for tossing away the superstitions of old, while little realizing that she’s and her community are, at best, in an intermediate stage of scientific enlightenment. The combination of hubris in declaring that there our four elements which comprise everything (Hello Empedocles fans!)

Her attitude is both humbling and encouraging. It’s easy to laugh at her haughty declaration that Data is clearly an “ice man” or scoff at how her cures relate to a “balancing of humors”-type diagnosis. And yet, we too have scientific beliefs that will no doubt seem hopelessly naive to future generations socialized into more advanced ones. More to the point, she’s doing her best to apply rigor rather than superstition, even if she misses the mark. And while a Renaissance thinker would be right to question the presence of “invisible particles” as a trick offered by a charlatan, when presented with evidence, she seems accepting of Data’s methods and theories, helping him collect the radioactive material and store it in a safe container. Talur is ignorant, but not dumb, which is all we can hope for when out of our depth.

In the end, Data gives the people his cure for their radiation sickness at the (apparent) loss of his life. Troi finds the strength to make the hard call even when it’s characteristically painful for her to see another come to harm. These are moments of truth for the ship’s second officer and resident counselor, ones that reveal who they are deep down even when faced with unusual circumstances. It’s those scenarios that test us, measure us, and ultimately, reveal us.