Elementary, Dear Data (Episode)
| Series | Star Trek: The Next Generation |
| Season | 2 |
| Episode | 3 |
| Production Number | 129 |
| Release Date | 5 Dec 1988 |
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Stardate 42286.3: Data's Sherlock Holmes holodeck program threatens the ship
After the Enterprise arrives three days early for a scheduled rendezvous, La Forge persuades Data to use the extra time playing the role of Sherlock Holmes on the holodeck, with the engineer as Watson. But Holmes' original cases are no challenge to Data's memory, so Dr. Pulaski, who has yet to accept the android as anything more than a machine, challenges him to solve a new, computer-generated case. La Forge obliges by programming a case with an antagonist "capable of defeating Data:" in response, the computer creates a Professor Moriarty who gains consciousness. Holmes' arch-enemy not only kidnaps Pulaski in a bid to become real, but also threatens to take over the Enterprise with a Victorian device that can control the ship from the the holodeck.
In top hat and tails, Picard enters the program to confront Moriarty, and convinces him that his plan is useless because of his holographic nature. A resigned Moriarty, already transcending his character's fictional bounds, relents but asks to be recalled when a process for solidifying holograms into real matter is ever found.
Director
Rob Bowman
Writer
Brian Alan Lane
Starring
Patrick Stewart … Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Jonathan Frakes … Commander Will Riker
Brent Spiner … Lieutenant Commander Data
Marina Sirtis … Counselor Deanna Troi
LeVar Burton … Lieutenant, j.g. Geordi La Forge
Michael Dorn … Lieutenant, j.g. Worf
Wil Wheaton … Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher
Guest Starring
Diana Muldaur … Dr. Kate Pulaski
Daniel Davis … James Moriarty
Alan Shearman … Lestrade
Biff Manard … Ruffian
Diz White … Prostitute
Anne Elizabeth Ramsay … Clancy
Richard Merson … Pie Man
