Star Trek: Hero Worship

Episode: "Hero Worship"

Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Season 5, Episode 11

Original Air Date: January 6, 1992

via Memory Alpha

The Enterprise has lost contact with the research vessel Vico.  When they find it, all aboard are dead apart from a boy named Timothy (Joshua Harris).  As the lad processes the trauma, he takes to Data, his savior, and even decides he is an android himself.  While our heroes try to help their new friend, they also must work to avoid Vico's fate themselves.

As Trek stories involving children go, this one isn't terrible - not exactly a high bar to clear.  Harris does well as Data's mimic.  A few moments are unnecessarily saccharine: Data carrying Timothy to bed, for instance.  On the other hand, it's a decent Data story.  In light of Timothy's interest in him, Data must confront what he values in himself as an android vs. what he envies in humans.

Acting Notes

via Memory Alpha

Harris was born November 27, 1978.  He was a busy child actor from 1984 to 1992, his most prominent role that of Christopher Ewing on Dallas.  He also guest starred on Falcon Crest, Twin Peaks and The Commish.  TV movies included A Death in California, Go Toward the Light and Locked Up: A Mother's Rage.  

Harris was a reasonably successful baseball player, manning second base at the University of San Diego and professionally, briefly, for the Lansing Lugnuts, a Chicago Cubs affiliate.  In 2006, he started his own production company, 4th Wall Entertainment.