Hard to say. I’m super biased toward dark matter. She was amazing the whole time.
this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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I don't know if either necessarily did it "better", but the purposes of the chips were definitely different. We eventually learn that Android had been secretly programmed with some emotions from the start, which explains behaviour like its jealousy towards the Australian pleasure bot. The chip that Android receives simply makes its mannerisms more human. On the other hand, before the emotion chip, Data already had much more of a personality and human mannerisms than Android did. Data could successfully mirror the expression of human emotions somewhat closely, but the chip allowed it to actually experience those emotions for the first time.
Oh, whoops. I added text to the TenForward crosspost but not this one. I kind-of said mostly that:
Hopefully my image selection doesn't show by bias. But seriously, I don't think either is "better" - they approached it two different ways.
Data got the emotion chip, but had to learn how to use them. We saw that all on-screen.
Android got the emotion chip upgrade (which also seemed to come with the requisite control software) and was able to hit the ground running.
Good point. That difference probably makes for a subjectively "better" (more entertaining) plot in which we get to watch Data adapt to the chip and learn from it. Android's chip is arguably a more realistic scenario, being that it is effectively a software upgrade that takes effect immediately. But that plot point in and of itself is less of a story to be told onscreen, and acts moreso as exposition toward the actual plot of exploring the benefits of those human mannerisms that had been immediately mastered.