Star Trek: Picard’s Brent Spiner wasn’t done with Data after all

Brent Spiner said he was done with Data, but that just wasn’t true.

Star Trek: Picard saw the return of Brent Spiner to Star Trek, with his return as Data in season one. Data had originally been killed off at the end of Star Trek: Nemesis, being replaced by his slower and mechanically damaged brother, B-4. That was supposed to be the end of Data, but then Picard happened.

Spiner returned as Data in some rather interesting ways but the character never “appeared” in a physical form. All of his scenes were more, for lack of a better phrase, “ghost-Data” scenes. Less a being and more of a lingering idea that Picard sometimes dreamt about.

It was supposed to be Spiner’s last turn as Data, and he even went so far as to say so in March of 2020, right before the pandemic. In an interview with TV Guide (via us), Spiner went on to say he was done with Data, but not Star Trek.

"I mean, there was just a finite amount of time that I can actually play Data, no matter what anyone says. So many people were like, ‘Oh, you can do it. You’re not too old,’ and then I do it and they go, ‘You’re too old. Why’d you do it?"

He went on to say he was excited to play more of Altan Inigo Soong, which clearly isn’t happening anymore. He also went on to say that he returned for Data in season one for one reason;

"It seemed right to me to give him this more gentle sendoff, and it seemed right to me in the context of the entire season of Picard and what Picard himself had been experiencing because of the loss of Data. I think it allows him to feel okay about it too"

That clearly didn’t last.

Brent Spiner is back as Data in Star Trek: Picard

Spiner is once again back as Data in Star Trek, albeit a different type of Data. This time his physical host also contains his brothers Lore,  and B-4, his daughter Lal, and maybe even more personalities.

Clearly, the big selling point is the lack of makeup Spiner had to do to get back into the role, but it just goes to show you that you can never truly believe anything someone says in an interview, as things change. Opinions change people change, and the reasons a person does something change.

Are you glad to see Spiner back as Data/Lore/B-4 etc?