Spiner Defends Soong's Motives

See Also: 'The Augments' Episode Guide

Brent Spiner, who played Data for seven years on Star Trek: The Next Generation, admitted to a sense of deja vu while filming Star Trek: Enterprise and refused to label Arik Soong, his ruthless character on the latter show, a villain.

"I don't see Soong as being a bad guy," Spiner told Ian Spelling in a syndicated article at The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "He's got things he believes in, and he has followed through on his beliefs...he has broken the law, but he believes deeply that he is doing the right thing."

Spiner compared the character to Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who has helped terminally ill patients end their lives despite laws against assisted suicide, and said he didn't think his appearance during sweeps month was calculated purely as stunt casting to save the ratings. "I don't think it's unusual, historically, in 'Star Trek...we didn't need ratings on Next Generation, and we had Leonard Nimoy on the show. We had Jimmy Doohan and Mark Lenard, too."

Spiner's former castmate LeVar Burton (Geordi LaForge) directed the final installment of the trilogy of episodes in which Spiner appears. "It's the same and it's different for me," Spiner said. "It's a lot of years later, but many of the same people are still here. They were on Next Generation, and now they're on Enterprise." He mentioned director of photography Marvin Rush and makeup artist Mike Westmore as familiar faces.

Spiner, who admitted to some puzzlement about why Star Trek fans did not embrace Star Trek Nemesis - which he had a hand in writing - was comfortable filming in special effect smoke and brought his two year old son Jackson to the set and posed in Archer's chair with him.

The original article is here.

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