You would think that Data was The Next Generation's Mr Spock but arguably he's more like Frasier's Niles Crane. He's brilliant in so many ways and yet as vulnerable as a child in others. It's a combination that makes him excellent for explaining plot points and also innocent enough to need explanation himself. And it's a combination that sends surprising numbers of women swooning.

Starfleet's been a bit lacking in swooning in the lower ranks so Data has been subjected to great study. The hope was to duplicate Dr Noonien Soon's seemingly one-off android creation and make him standard issue on all new ships.

But Captain Picard's always seen him as a friend and member of the crew rather than a portable computer and he's defended Data's rights in court. When Starfleet wanted to remove Data for study, Picard argued that Data has the right to choose whether he goes. Aside from how all officers can be reassigned regardless of whether they're flesh or plastic, that was true and Starfleet let Data stay.

Suspiciously, though, all this happened after Data created Moriarty. Here's a figure the intellectual equal of Data, created without further investment in plastic or positronic brains and instead just formed on the holodeck. Starfleet lost interest in Data after this and not long afterwards introduced the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH). Data should have filed a patent.

So should Dr Soong. Data was his fifth android, much more developed than even the fourth, Lore, and if Soong's colony hadn't been destroyed, Data might have been finished. As it was, he was left for Starfleet to discover and has spent many years trying to complete his own development.

The most dramatic parts of which came when Data suddenly began dreaming and then, with the unwitting and unwilling help of Lore, got an emotion chip. The rush of emotions and Data's inability to cope with them was like giving sight to blind people solely so that they can see Beverly Hills 90210.

It's a barrage of incomprehensible information and Data is learning to cope both with his feelings and suddenly the whole issue of conscience.

Data has finally become human, or at least as near as he ever will. Odd how Noonien Soong could create such a complex creature and fail to give him realistic skin tones, mind.

Key Data episodes: Datalore; The Measure of a Man; Data's Day; A Fistful of Datas; Descent; Inheritance; Star Trek: Insurrection