zack handlen watched "datalore" for "the a.v. club" in april 2010. he noted that data's origins had significant plotholes, such as that the ship which found data didn't investigate the planet. he thought that lore was a well-conceived villain who works well with spiner's strengths as an actor, but that the story only scratched the surface of the character's potential. he considered the contraction issue a problem, as despite saying that data could not use them, he uses them throughout the episode, including immediately after lore was beamed off the ship, which "punishes you for paying attention, because now you'll be half-convinced that the wrong robot was beamed away, and that lore somehow won out in the end." he disliked the response of the crew to wesley and thought that he was being mistreated, and gave the episode an overall grade of b-.