The Offspring

This Story: Season 3 Episode 16 (production code 164)
TNG Overall: Episode 64
Trek Overall: Story 164, Episode 166
Airdate: 12 Mar 1990
Written by René Echevarria
Directed by Jonathan Frakes

Notes

• The first episode the series directed by a cast member – Jonathan Frakes.  He has gone on to direct episodes in nearly every Trek incarnation since this (plus a couple movies).  The only two series he hasn’t directed for were Star Trek: Enterprise as well as Star Trek: Lower Decks.  But he has appeared in both of them as William Riker (albeit in animated form in LD, obviously). He is also scheduled to direct in the not yet released “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” TV series.
• In order to help Jonathan Frakes focus on this episode, Riker is said at the start to be “away on personal leave”, extricating him from the bulk of this episode.
• This follows briefly on the “right to exist as an individual” that Data went through in “The Measure of a Man“, but expands on it to include his rights to be a parent.
• There is also a brief reference back to Troi being a parent in the Season 2 episode “The Child“.
• The painting in Data’s quarters is seen in three other episodes from the fifth season.

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