The Measure of a Man

And they would, you know, say like, well, that's kind of the Kirk speech.

But there's something about the Picard ones, and I go back to Measure of a Man, which would have been one of the episodes I would have seen earlier on, because I mostly was watching syndicated episodes of TNG at that age, and it was going to be earlier season stuff that was going to be what I was exposed to, largely.

It took a long time for me to be able to see Best of Both Worlds in the sequence.

But, you know, you look at the scenes, like the passion of his defense of Data is...

Him going back and forth with Q throughout him trying to make sense as an old man about what's going on in the Devorian system.

you know, like that's me is I, I don't think you're ever going to get like Picard better than that.

I mean, you can have like Patrick Stewart performances like we see in a chain of command part two, we could get like fun adventures, like in captain's holiday, we can get, you know, a lot of the, uh, um, engaging and rapturous speeches that he'd give like in a, you know, measure of a man.

But I think Picard, when he all put it together, I just don't think he's ever better than in all good things.

like Fun fact, Marty, you know, Gene Roddenberry, who created Star Trek and was a major influence on Star Trek The Next Generation's early seasons.

Do you know that he tried to veto this episode? He tried to veto the measure of a man from existing because when the episode was pitched to him, I want you to take a guess.

What was Gene Roddenberry's objection to a writer goes in and he says, OK, so the issue is that, you know, this scientist wants to vivisect data and construct a race of clones around him.

And data doesn't want to do that.

And if

you've ever wanted to dip a toe in Trek, which is a daunting task, an incredibly daunting task, and the fandom is terrible, as most are, so don't feel pressure.

But the ones that we recommended to Marty were Measure of a Man, Who Watches the Watchers.

Marty, I would love for you still to watch Darmok.

Watch any Star Trek Next Generation, honestly.

Watch The Measure of a Man.

Yeah.

Watch him playing Gurney in like... david lynch is doing

probably as a franchise

Yeah, and there isn't Measure of a Man in the first season, so there are...

It's

second season.

Second season, sorry.

So there are episodes in those first and second seasons that are maybe glimpses of what the show can be, right? And I think Measure of a Man is just a great episode to go back and revisit.

Maybe not the greatest in terms of the writing and all of that, but I think it is a great episode because it kind of shows you the potential of the show.

and what it can be if they get all the parts right.

don't come at me with those, you know, but the first two seasons, there's still some great stuff in those first two seasons.

Go watch The Measure of a Man and tell me those first two seasons.

So, as I mentioned earlier, yeah, there's some rough episodes, but regardless, we're not here to debate that.

And I've always maintained, I mean, anybody who knows me will know how much I love The Next Generation.

I mean, generally.

And Picard, like, one of my favorite Picard scenes is in Measure of a Man.

Like, everyone thinks that's a Data episode, but I'm like, that's nothing without Picard as his advocate.

Yeah.

And, and that's why we have this rule and this, and that's why it is important.

And I understood and appreciated the metaphor for the, people of different orientation and everything.

But I'm like, yeah, but I do think there's a legitimate argument and it lacked the debatable discussion that Measure of a Man had, for example.

Measure of a Man, yeah, that was phenomenal.