I know I often claim to have encyclopedic knowledge of all things trek, but I don’t know that much. I’m just going based off what’s in this video. I started counting based off examples after S01, of which there were 5 that didn’t include ones from Future Imperfect, in which I knew Data got called out for using contractions.
Perhaps there are a few others, but, still, I doubt that it’s more than a few more, which makes for a pretty good track record considering how many episodes of that show there are and how many lines Data got.
I’m guessing what is more likely is that they spent a long time going through season 1 looking for them and then either skipped around or found posts somewhere online where people had noticed others.
I just think that the “no contractions” rule wasn’t set until S02 to help both define Data’s character and differentiate him from
Lore, which is why they suddenly became a super-rare mistake rather than being a commonplace occurrence, but whatever. I’m too tired and stoned now to look it up.
Ok, so that’s 42 episodes where Spiner slips up post S01. That’s a 72.3% success rate at getting through episodes without a contraction mistake. Still not bad. Not great, though.
But it still supports my theory that, after S01, ot was a rule that they really tried not to break, but did accidentally anyway. Or, maybe, writing around it would have been way too clunky.
I know I often claim to have encyclopedic knowledge of all things trek, but I don’t know that much. I’m just going based off what’s in this video. I started counting based off examples after S01, of which there were 5 that didn’t include ones from Future Imperfect, in which I knew Data got called out for using contractions.
Perhaps there are a few others, but, still, I doubt that it’s more than a few more, which makes for a pretty good track record considering how many episodes of that show there are and how many lines Data got.
I’m guessing what is more likely is that they spent a long time going through season 1 looking for them and then either skipped around or found posts somewhere online where people had noticed others.
I just think that the “no contractions” rule wasn’t set until S02 to help both define Data’s character and differentiate him from Lore, which is why they suddenly became a super-rare mistake rather than being a commonplace occurrence, but whatever. I’m too tired and stoned now to look it up.
I’m guessing even this isn’t a full list-
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/complete-guide-to-datas-contractions.191920/
Ok, so that’s 42 episodes where Spiner slips up post S01. That’s a 72.3% success rate at getting through episodes without a contraction mistake. Still not bad. Not great, though.
But it still supports my theory that, after S01, ot was a rule that they really tried not to break, but did accidentally anyway. Or, maybe, writing around it would have been way too clunky.