By Chris Snellgrove | Published
Stranger Things ended its fifth and final season on a frustrating cliffhanger, leaving the audience to decide whether Eleven made a heroic sacrifice to save her friends or lived because her death was just a hoax. Some critics thought the writing was too modern, evocative of the “mystery box” of storytelling pioneered by JJ Abrams no. It is lost. However, this has been the basis of the genre for decades, as evidenced by the classic Star Trek: The Next Generation an episode that left it up to the audience to decide if their favorite hero was secretly trying to kill.
The episode in question is “Too Many Toys,” which begins with a provocative premise: a collector of rare objects in the galaxy fakes the death of data to make an android part of his collection. That collector, Kivas Fajo, is just plain cruel, and ends up brutally killing his assistant, Varria, for aiding Data’s escape attempt. Data then picks up a deadly weapon (a Varon-T bug) and points it at the killer, but Kivas Fajo taunts the android, saying that his low morals will prevent him from committing extrajudicial killings.
Never Bet Android When Life Is On The Line
Finally Fajo takes things too far by threatening Data, telling him that the woman’s death was at his hands and he will eventually kill the others if the android doesn’t comply. Data begins to realize that he can prevent his captor from killing anyone and pinpoint the bug in Fajo before the android lights up on the Enterprise. There, transporter Chief O’Brien discovers that a bug is being sent and disables it; when he and Riker question Data about it, the android pauses and suggests that the transporter should cause the weapon to go off.
like Stranger Things conclusion, this time is clearly designed to create debate and speculation among fans. In the world of 24th century technobabble, Data’s explanation is perfectly acceptable, and a transporter (which can scale people, send them to different dimensions, or just melt them instantly) is likely to cause a bug to burn. Of course, the most surprising possibility is that Data oversteps his moral code twice: first, trying to kill Fajo, second, lying to his commander.
Death Be Him
Interestingly, this ambiguity about the character’s actions was successfully enforced in Star Trek: The Next Generation Paramount’s creative team. According to “The Most Toys” writer Shari Goodhartz, he asked Data’s actor Brent Spiner “whether he thought Data pulled the gun on purpose or not, and he was adamant that Data had fired the weapon.” He clarified that this was his intention with this incident, “but the power that was sought has always been unclear, so it was.”
Looking back on this fan favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, Goodhartz said, “If I had the chance to finish it, with all the experience I have behind me, I would passionately argue that Data’s actions and their consequences are clearer, and hopefully more provocative.” Provocative is a good word for such a plot twist, as it would ensure that, given the right motivation, Data is perfectly capable of bloodless murder.
The Good, the Bad, and the Positronic
That may shock fans who love the character for his child-like nature. However, some fans may appreciate how this adds context to Data’s later betrayal of his teammates in Season 6 after hearing a few sweet words and getting a few negative vibes from his evil brother, Lore. That’s all it took for Data to get on board with lobotomizing his best friend!
Either way, Spiner and Goodhartz’s reaction to Paramount’s script change reveals something Netflix learned the hard way. Stranger Things: rather than making everyone happy, ambiguous endings annoy fans and creators alike. It’s much better to do something bold and dangerous with your character than to let the audience decide what really happened. Sadly, those executives never learned that storytelling is like being the captain of a star: as Kirk memorably put it, “Risk is part of the game if you want to stay in that chair.”
