What would it be like if Data from Star Trek had his own sitcom in the 90s? That is a very loaded question to be fair but a lot of people might actually want to answer it and see if they could come up with an imaginative way to describe it. According to this clip, it would appear that the show might actually get Data to show a lot more emotion than he used to, and in fact, the rest of the crew would show a lot more emotion, even Worf. Just imagine a Klingon and an android emoting their way through a half-hour show, wouldn’t that be a sight? It is a bit obvious that outtakes from the show were used for this very imaginative clip, but it worked just fine for what it was since trying to imagine what a Star Trek spin-off such as this would be like since given the fact that we didn’t get to see Data really use that much emotion until later on when the movies started to roll out. Once he did have access to an emotion chip it was kind of interesting to see how the character played through each emotion and experienced them for the first time. Brent Spiner did a pretty good job trying to show just how someone that had never felt certain sensations before would react to something new and stimulating.
One has to wonder if anyone would have flocked to this show if such a thing had ever happened, especially since some people might have felt that this was a complete mockery of one of their favorite shows. Trekkies might not want to admit it, and some probably could say this with a straight face, but it’s kind of true that some folks feel that it’s not allowed to alter Star Trek in any way that doesn’t fit with the overall idea of it. In other words, making Star Trek into a sitcom wouldn’t have been the best idea and it might very well have shocked a few viewers that were okay with moments of levity, but would have been appalled to see anyone acting ‘silly’ in a Star Trek show. Hardcore Trekkies might even stop watching, but there are plenty that would have at least given the show a shot just to see if it was worthy of their attention. Of course, I’m kidding in part since the whole idea of pop culture is that it can be fun, serious, horrific, or pretty much anything that can be thought up. Keeping storylines as they are and not going too far afield from the main point is preferable to many people to be certain, but there are moments in which people don’t mind having fun, even at the expense of one of their favorite programs, and this would have been something quite interesting to see no doubt.
But it definitely would have been short-lived since despite many Trekkies having a sense of humor it’s likely that they would have enjoyed the joke and then expected things to go back to normal. Sitcoms in the 90s were usually a mix of comedy and drama that people enjoyed since it was a good time to just sit down and watch what someone else’s take on a family unit was all about. Obviously, there were a few different families out there since some of them had one parent, others had two, some had a full house of kids and adults, and others were just different in a lot of different ways that people had to adjust to. Something about a sitcom set in space though does make it feel as though it would have been a little awkward, but doable with the right director and a good storyline. Apart from that this little spoof would have been a couple of decades too early since at this time something like this would be almost perfect given that people are used to the strange and unusual and aren’t fazed by it in the least. With the science-fiction comedies that have come out in recent years, it’s likely that people would have embraced an idea like this without too much goading.
It is kind of interesting to see this clip since everyone in it looks so young at that point, or at least younger since Star Trek in the 90s was changing in such a big way since there was a new crew and a new set of adventures with even better special effects and old themes that were being used in different ways. It feels accurate to say that Trekkies have adapted and evolved along with their favorite show in a very faithful manner, but still, had something like this come along sooner it does feel as though a lot of people wouldn’t have been laughing as hard.
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