136. Elementary, Dear DataFORMULA: The Big Goodbye + Lonely Among Us + Datalore
WHY WE LIKE IT: A very well done holodeck story that explores what it means to be alive.
WHY WE DON'T: Moriarty's origins strain credibility. Geordi's apparent cold.
REVIEW: Where I found Picard's interest in Dixon Hill to come out of nowhere, Data has been into Sherlock Holmes ever since Lonely Among Us. In both this and The Big Goodbye, the plot centers around holograms realizing they are on the Enterprise, but in this case, Moriarty exceeds his programming and genre conventions to become truly aware. And Daniel Davis makes that character quite noble and endearing to boot. We're sorry to see him go at the end.
Of course, there's the matter of accepting that the Enterprise computer is capable of creating a sentient hologram (without being sentient itself), but once you do (and later evidence will show that such programs can becomes "alive"), you get a well-designed, well-acted, well-plotted out story. In fact, there's no need for a B-plot here (unless you count Geordi's ho-hum model ship as a plot).
Data does a good turn as Sherlock Holmes, deducing things in an entertaining way once he's no longer solving established mysteries. I'm more of a Father Brown reader myself, but the tone of the Sherlock Holmes stories seem well presented and are fun to watch. Pulaski isn't as unpleasant as in the last episode here, even if she does challenge Data's sentience. LeVar Burton's cold is a little distracting to me, but he's having a lot of fun with the Watson character at times. And Picard is up to the challenge of meeting Moriarty, and makes a difficult decision. Good stuff!
LESSON: There is such a thing as too much versimilitude in video games.
REWATCHABILITY - High: If you buy the premise, you're in for possibly the best holodeck malfunction story ever made.
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