Trivia / Star Trek: Picard S3E08 "Surrender"

• Acting for Three: Brent Spiner again playing Data, Lore, and the post-Fusion Dance Data. This also marks his "final" performance as Data and Lore, or at least Data and Lore as we've known them since TNG.
• The Other Darrin: Downplayed, but Data's memory of Spot obviously is portrayed by a completely different animal.
• Reality Subtext:
  • Data and Geordi's emotional reaffirmation of their status as TNG's Heterosexual Life-Partners. Brent Spiner and Levar Burton became real-life best friends working together on TNG; Spiner was even the Best Man at Burton's wedding. So, it's not hard to see that real-life friendship spilling over into their performances and the emotions of the scene.
  • Worfs' glowing affection towards Troi heavily references the time they dated during TNG's seventh season. Michael Dorn has expressed how much he loved the pairing and was frustrated when Insurrection affirmed Riker and Troi getting back together, this was a way of reminding everyone that they were a couple once.
  • When Data reunites with all the Enterprise-D/E alums in the penultimate scene, Riker observes it's been a long time since they were all seated around a table like this (with Geordi agreeing it's been too long). It's just as much the characters talking as it is Jonathan Frakes and Levar Burton speaking for the TNG Cast as a whole and how it's been 20 years since they last all acted together on-screen during Nemesis.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Terry Matalas has stated this is why Deanna's only had cameos earlier in the season and why her role is primarily relegated to the closing three episodes of the series. Marina Sirtis had moved home to the United Kingdom in the spring of 2021 (and right before pre-production began on Season Three). Due to her relocation and availability (and accompanying COVID-19 complications), Matalas and company had to take that into account while developing the final season and Troi's role in the narrative.