While Star Trek: The Next Generation became the most successful syndicated show for the franchise and introduced it to a whole new generation, some episodes did not quite work well. While the final seventh season had many great moments, one episode seemed to have given the cast a tough time.
Brent Spiner, who played Data in the show, mentioned that his performance in the season 7 episode Masks was ridiculous and drove the whole crew into hysterical laughter. The actor also mentioned that he and Patrick Stewart could not get through the final scene of the episode, angering many crew members.
Brent Spiner Called His Acting Preposterous In One Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode
Brent Spiner not even being nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of Data and a host of other characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation is a travesty. Not only did the actor play one of the most beloved characters in the crew, but he also portrayed Data’s evil twin Lore, his creator Dr. Noonien Soong, and the entire Soong family.
However, one episode proves his mettle as a character actor but has a bad rap for being a badly written one. In the final season episode Masks, the Enterprise crew encounters a comet that houses an alien library and Data ends up channeling multiple mythological creatures into himself.
Brent Spiner mentioned that he did some of the most ridiculous acting in the episode, which left the cast and crew in splits. He said on the Inside of You podcast,
The episode we did where I play the 5 characters is an episode called ‘Masks’… I do some of the most preposterous acting you’ve ever seen in your life in it. I mean, the other actors were laughing in my face at some of the characters I was doing.
While fans on Reddit seem to have found some guilty pleasure in the cheesy episode, it is often among the worst-rated ones of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Patrick Stewart And Brent Spiner Could Not Keep It Together While Filming Masks
The season 7 episode Masks is regarded as one of the more goofier episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. From Brent Spiner’s complete dedication to being campy personalities of various aliens to Patrick Stewart’s portrayal of the moon god Korgano, the episode is a guilty pleasure at best.
The filming process for the episode was also reportedly tough to get through as the actors could barely keep it together while shooting. Patrick Stewart, who was usually regarded for his strict discipline, too could not stop laughing at the climactic sequence where Korgano meets Masaka. Spiner said,
There was a point, when we finally got to the end of [the episode], Patrick and I were in masks and facing one another at 2 o’clock on Saturday morning. He was playing the god of the sun and I was the goddess of the moon. We couldn’t get through the scene. We were laughing at each other so much that the crew hated us because they wanted to go home! But we couldn’t control it.
The episode was rated the worst The Next Generation episode by Ars Technica and received a 5.8/10 rating on IMDb.
Star Trek: The Next Generation is available to stream on Paramount+.
