My State Upon Rewatching TNG’s “The Offspring”

Ever since the end of Picard, I’ve been rewatching The Next Generation. Like many, I’m filled with nostalgia at episodes that, when I first watched them as a kid, felt so fresh and new and exciting. In a way, I guess they still are. There are episodes I cringe at and pass over, but most I’m excited to revisit. And when I started “The Offspring,” it’s not like I didn’t know what happened. It’s not like I hadn’t seen it a few times already.

But something hit me differently this time, and there are several things I noticed.

Lal’s very existence from the start is one that must be fought for, first by Data, and then by Picard, Geordi, Deanna, and Wes. She is a miracle, and precious. The emphasis on the word “child” and “daughter” throughout the episode ties an inherent innocence to Lal (a name chosen by Data because it means “beloved” in Hindi). She is something—someone—to protect. Parents will stop at nothing to protect their children.

I was reminded of Beverly’s fury and desperation in the season 1 episode, “When the Bough Breaks,” where Wesley and other children from the Enterprise are kidnapped by a species unable to continue their race.

And then, there’s the far more recent Picard season 3 episode, “A Changeling of Command,” where both Beverly and Jean Luc decide it necessary to murder Vadic so they can save Jack. (I have my own thoughts on that.)

Essentially, though, the drive to protect Lal gave her even more value by default. Data would throw hands if anyone tried to take her. And you’d be without your hands in the end if you were the one threatening her.

P.S. I love that this is where that GIF originates:

Secondly, Lal’s mannerisms and development stuck out to me more this time than ever before. The way she observed social interaction and failed to copy it, and the way she began to experience emotion, was undeniably similar to my own.

Her unceasing list of questions reminded me of myself and the tangents I can get on. There’s always a “why.” It’s how I try to push my own Composition students to get at the “so what” question they need to answer in their essays. Why does this matter?

Why do I matter? What am I?

The mistakes she makes as she learns are humorous and marvelous. Of course an android who doesn’t need to eat wouldn’t understand that you swallow the drink after you sip it. It’s so…logical. What do we take for granted in our own education system? How do I stand in front of the class and expect them to know something I learned intuitively on my own over the years? Why is grammar?

Even her delayed reaction time in catching the ball is perfect. It bounces off her head. It’s like, same, girl. Same.

And Lal obviously has a stellar taste in men by choosing Riker to literally sweep off his feet and kiss. And then subject him to Data’s questioning: “Commander, what are your intentions toward my daughter?”

But that moment of observing the two people kissing in Ten Forward. First of all, I want a Guinan. Second of all, “He is biting that female!”—I want to see Lal protect someone from a creeper. But as she studies them, she stands as a literal outsider, watching in curiosity. Even while serving another couple at their table, she stays and watches.

When you watch two people in love while literally not understanding why it happens to them and not to you. What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I do that?

She is always Othered, even in the classroom, by children who are afraid of her. Her face is blank because she does not have the emotions to connect to such a hurtful interaction, yet it felt very familiar. When you keep an easy, even smiling, face as you stand against the wall and want to disappear and cry. When you’re around others but feel completely alone. Like you could slip out the door and no one would even notice. Or care.

Why am I not like everyone else?

Furthermore, that Data is unable to return her emotional affection is gut wrenching. It’s one thing for many people who have emotionally distant fathers. But emotionally absent? Emotionally incapable? And so this is why she says she will “feel it for both of us.”

And it’s that emotional part, particularly with fear, that had me in tears. She stumbles into Deanna’s quarters confused and overwhelmed. Light on her feet and stuttering—fear paralyzes you and unsteadies you at the same time. You’re trapped in a limbo. And yet it feels, feels, feels so much.

Lal kept her fingers straight and jammed at her diaphragm repeatedly, hard enough to bruise. It’s here. It’s right here. What is it. Why is it. And then she stumbles out, continuing to wander because where do you go, where even are you, what is happening?

Lal suffers a panic attack that, as an android, was displayed as accurately as a human’s. When you’re sitting in a counselor’s office rocking and stuttering and crying and jabbing at your chest. I feel it in here! How do I make it stop? You return to a place that’s supposed to feel safe.

By her “inability” to properly show what she was feeling, Lal became a substitute for the everyone watching who could relate and feel out that scene themselves.

There’s even the admiral’s determination to help Data save her, and his wrecked image at the end when he tells the others there’s nothing they could do. How he describes the way Data’s hands were moving so fast he couldn’t even see them. That’s how desperate he was.

Desperation is a very human emotion, as Jim would have told Spock.

And that desperation is what we all felt at the end of that episode. What can you do? For me, it’s a metaphor for how mental trauma and overload causes us to “shut down” afterward. There’s nothing, at least on the outside. We cease functioning.

And even though we “reboot” and “defrag our files” and start over, it’s just as hard each time. And so others may have their own pick for most traumatic TNG episode, but mine is “The Offspring.”

How about you? What’s one of the saddest Trek episodes in your rewatch binge history? Do you skip it, or do you subject yourself to those pesky human emotions?