Now that there's a few months' distance and there's been some time to reflect....I think I still stand with my instinct at the time - the way they ended #StarTrekPicard S1, with Data's final death, was an enormous storytelling mistake.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing a story about Data's legacy, tying into Picard's life, etc. There's not even anything wrong with having Brent Spiner appear on the show.

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Where I take issue is, you decided that Data was still alive (after a fashion) after all this time...and then decided to kill him off five minutes after revealing that.

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Why? Why on Earth would you do that? The journey of Data's character was complete. We followed him thru #StarTrekTNG as he evolved from a talking computer, to friend, to family. He gained emotions, and CHOSE a moral life, not just one dictated by his programming.

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And regardless of whether you love or hate Nemesis, It was the period at the end of the sentence. Data made the ultimate human choice at the end of it all: he sacrificed his own life to save everybody else. His journey was complete.

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Enter PIC: a new state of affairs, in which now androids can have fully human bodies. Holy smokes, it's finally the ultimate fulfilment of Data's lifelong dream of becoming human! And Data himself is (somehow) still alive!

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The natural story progression here, the logical one, the emotionally fulfilling one...WOULD HAVE BEEN TO PUT DATA'S CONSCIOUSNESS INTO A HUMAN BODY. Pinnochio, made flesh, with a finite lifespan. The entire purpose of Data's journey, starting way back in 1987.

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But instead, they bring him back for a few minutes so that...they can kill him in a slightly different manner than had already happened? So that he could 'choose' to die....even though that already happened in Nemesis?

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The way they went about ending it baffles me. They failed to leave what was already done alone, and then with the new opportunity they created for themselves, failed to fulfill the promise of a story that had been being told for 33 years.

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Don't get me wrong--I enjoyed PIC. I enjoyed Patrick & Brent's reunion, enjoyed their performances in the scripts they were given. And I'm VERY much looking forward to S2.

I just cannot wrap my head around why *anybody* thought this approach was a good idea.

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