You: “Whatcha thinkin’ about?”

Me: “That episode of Star Trek where everyone suddenly devolves into an early ancestor species. Is it weirder that Barclay the human turned into a giant spider, or that Spot the domestic cat turned into an iguana while giving birth? And anyway, why wasn’t Spot spayed?”

I imagine Data didn’t bother fixing spot because as far as we could tell she was the only cat on the ship. Why bother spaying if there literally no male cats on board?

I just rewatched this episode the other day and there were apparently 12 male cats aboard the ship, which he knew about. Spot escaped his quarters several times.

Theory 1: Data didn’t do his research and failed to realize that cats are extremely good at getting pregnant. Unthinkable. He could have downloaded an entire library’s worth of books on cat care directly into his brain.

Theory 2: He knew that Spot was likely to get pregnant, but didn’t want to cause her pain with invasive surgery. Understandable, but I would think that futuristic space science spaying procedures would probably be painless, easy, and instant. I imagine he’d be able to do it himself.

Theory 3: He knew the chances of Spot getting pregnant were high and had access to easy spaying, but he just really wanted to witness the miracle of life and see kittens.

Theory 4: Data wanted Lots of Cats and grumpy dad Picard said no, so he thought he could acquire more cats through inaction without technically breaking any rules. “oh no dad these cats just happened I didn’t ask for them hmmmm guess I’m stuck with them now no oh nooo”

Theory 5: Spot is an alien cat and nobody thought she could hybridize with an Earth species in the first place. This is why she’s apparently descended from iguanas.

Theory 5.1: Spot is able to shapeshift, explaining why in previous episodes, she was referred to as a “he” and played by different actors.

Theory 6: There have been multiple Spots that have continuously died and Data (or a guilt-stricken Worf) sneakily replaced them with different cats over the course of the series, and previous cats had all been toms and Data didn’t… bother to check this one.