3x16 The Offspring - Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode Guide

Star Trek: The Next Generation

- Episode 03x16

Episode: 03x16
Title: The Offspring
Type: Regular Episode
Production Code: 164
First Aired: Mar. 12, 1990

Summary: Stardate: 43657.0 Data constructs a daughter for himself, but Starfleet want to take her away for their own studies.

	Season 3 / Episode 16: - The Offspring Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Commander Data is completing his final neural transfers to the android he has named Lal, which, I have learned, in the language Hindi means 'beloved'.
	Season 3 / Episode 16: - The Offspring Counselor Deanna Troi: Congratulations, Data. It's a girl!

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"The Measure Of A Man" dealt with Data and his rights as an android. This script dealt with his rights as a parent toward what would constitute a living being. In both shows, Picard acts as Data's advocate. Picard reinforces this when, in argument with Admiral Haftel, he states that an android's rights and sentience are well-defined in Federation law, and that Picard himself helped define them.
Whoopi Goldberg successfully fought to change a line of her dialog in the scene when Guinan was teaching Lal the facts of life from "when a man loves a woman" to "when two people are in love", thereby further reinforcing the belief that in the 24th century, a person's sexual orientation is unimportant.
First Star Trek TV episode to be directed by an actor from the show (Jonathan Frakes/Commander Riker). While Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner have both directed for Star Trek, they directed movies not TV episodes.
The name "Lal" is explained by Picard in a supplemental log as coming from the Hindi for 'beloved'. While it is a term of endearment, it is more appropriately translated as 'dear' or 'darling', and used when addressing males.