McCoy would have just nuked those assholes, which wouldn’t be an issue because I guarantee he would have pushed Wesley to suicide by then.
“However, we might make an exception since he was unaware of…”
“No, no, rules are rules!”
“honestly Captain it was obviously just a misunderstanding Wesley is free to-”
Ppssffshhhzap
“Rules sir, are rules”
I really liked this episode.
It is a great philosophical thought experiment: What if a perfect paradise existed, where everyone and everything is perfect. But only one type of punishment: the death penalty.
Would you want to live there?
No, because any place like that cannot be a perfect paradise.
If I were in the ST universe, my life would probably just be about getting energy that I would use to power my holodeck and maybe one of those external ones, too, to hide my presence on some planet whose geothermal energy I’ve tapped or whatever. Just make my own paradise until I get bored of it.
Fuck no! Walking on eggshells as it is, the only perfect paradise, is wherever I cannot interact with anyone. No one to interact with: no one to offend, or wrong.
I’d listen to just AI.
Prime directive yada yada yada bye Wesley
I was pretty sick the first time I saw this episode as a teen - all I really remember is they stepped onscreen in those outfits and I spent the next five minutes laughing so hard I started coughing up blood then passed out. My god, the costume design on this one still brings a tear to my eye, what were they thinking.
It’s a very Roddenberry design.
*ummthatguy is not liable for any injury or death related to the posting of this image
Are they tucked??
I don’t know, it’s gonna be pretty hard to milk a rock, no matter how many nipples you got.
So… I’m supposed to stone the chests of pregnant people?
“Gene Roddenberry was a sex pest for making women wear miniskirts.”
meanwhile ^ ^ ^ ^
And v v v v
I fucking want that uniform
The only thing stopping you is money
I bet a good dry cleaner could do it for 200.
Okay let’s be real we’re all getting the velour upgrade. It’s real velour, kif!
Planet moose knuckle
I read Wonderwall and assumed they were dropping some Oasis.
And after allllllllll here’s my wonderballllllll
Somethings certainly dropped. It’s only by the grace of television censors and a thin veneer of fabric we don’t see for certain what.
I am wheezing, thank you for this.
I grew up watching TNG with my dad. He had the same reaction. Well, minus the blood.
I had the exact same reaction except none of the laughing and all the blood.
What’s with the hate Wesley gets? I didn’t find his character to be detestable. At least not as much as the ferengi ds9 kid.
The internet hating on Wil Wheaton / Wesley Crusher is such an old bit that it has its own momentum and is no longer rooted in anything. Picard yelling “shut up Wesley” is such a meme that people shout this at Mr. Wheaton in public. He’s written about it a lot.
But it is also true that his character was an odd fit: very on-again / off-again as a member of the cast, poorly costumed, and deliberately written as a kind of whiny genius-boy who gets in trouble but always saves the day. Some people found this one of the less enjoyable parts of the show.
…i liked wesley but alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die was still funny…
What’s with the hate Wesley gets?
I don’t hate Wesley, I just love to laugh at how bad Picard and Wesley’s relationship is in season one.
In early episodes of any show, there’s stuff that doesn’t turn out to work for the characters.
But Picard/Wesley is such a bold dynamic that doesn’t work for either character, never gets resolved, and goes nowhere.
Then later, it gets retroactivelymuch weirder, because the show “Picard” 100% confirms that Picard was sleeping with Wesley’s mother, at some point, and by implication, even during their uncomfortable season 1.
So Picard, already an absolute picture of calm reasoned negotiation - just sometimes randomly goes off on one young cadet whose mother he happens to be banging.
It’s weird. It doesn’t make any sense in the broader later canon, and it makes me laugh every time I think about it.
Considering Wesley was Gene Roddenberry’s self-insert character, I think the idea was to establish that as brilliant as Picard is, there’s still someone who can get his goat by virtue of just being that special.
Considering Wesley was Gene Roddenberry’s self-insert character, I think the idea was to establish that as brilliant as Picard is, there’s still someone who can get his goat by virtue of just being that special.
That makes sense. It could have been an interesting dynamic, if they had committed to it and followed through on growing their relationship from bad to good.
I suspect the “everything must reset in case these episodes air out of order” effect can’t have helped with making it work.
And then also, it’s just hilarious that Picard is that far into his career, and an enlightened 24th century man, and still occasionally just “punches down” at his girlfriend’s kid who isn’t even an ensign. Haha.
They wrote him to be cheap drama to give Stewart something to work with instead of just being a toned down, professional Shatner. We were all going to take the Captains side, seeing him as annoying as the Captain did. From the sounds of Wheaton’s book, he really wasn’t treated all that well by the show runners for being as young as he was. It’s kind of shitty to write a young kid in to be the conflict in a well respected characters arc.
Both Wesley and Nog(?) were written as a ‘look kids, a cool kid to relate to’ character. Which was very forced and off putting.
And many young people watching the show resented those characters for being the kid who got to live Star Trek, which was of course their own fantasy.
I honestly wouldn’t have watched Star Trek TNG if I hadn’t randomly scrolled through the channels and seen a boy my age on a spaceship.
So regardless of how well written or acted the character is, I’m always really grateful! (But I recognize that’s probably a pretty niche situation compared to what other Trekkies feel)
Both Wesley and Nog started out with rough writing. Once their characters build out, they improve. Nog moreso, being part of a serialized show.
Having watched TNG without being influenced by the community. I agree that his character starts pretty obnoxious, but I always got the sense that the point of his character was that his inclusion on the ship as a kid raised by this future world was just as “alien” as Data or Worf. Then again, it was also obvious that he occasionally got completely brain bonked for some episodes in order to make him the naive child of the group.
In early development, Dr Crusher originally had a daughter named Leslie Crusher. The point of that character wasn’t very well-defined before she was turned into a brilliant male wunderkind named Wesley by a man whose full name was Eugene Wesley Roddenberry. In other words, the point of the character was that an aging egomaniac wanted a self-insert character whose traits are that he’s special, he’s a genius, and that he’s frequently misunderstood and let down by all the dolts who surround him.
I see it this way too now. “What does this culture do with this situation?” - and all jokes aside, pretty good chance some of the answers to that snuck in subliminally, that influences how I parent. Haven’t watched too much in 20+ years, but it’s there.
But yeah nonetheless, I do understand the annoyance folks have with the lad.
Nog makes Wesley look like fucking’… Shaft!
That’s an excellent question. I wonder if it has something to do with your age when you first saw the series, or maybe the problem that adult writers tend to not write kids very well. I bet at least part of it is that Picard himself treats Wesley pretty poorly in several episodes. Oh, and the fact that he solves the problem of the week ludicrously easily a couple of times, in a Gary Stu sort of way.
Wesley was a Mary Sue. The writers of Star Trek should’ve been able to avoid that trope given the original Mary Sue was a character in a Star Trek fanfic.
Why the hell is a kid at the helm Starship? Apparently because “he’s a genius”. Someone piloting an airliner has to have many many hours of experiencing before they’re allowed to do that, but apparently in the future you just have to be a smart kid, experience doesn’t matter?
And yeah he solves the problems adults can’t figure out. It’s this weird thing where writers think they need a kid in something so kids will like it. And even better yet, a kid that’s smarter than the adults! It winds up just annoying everyone.
Why the hell is a kid at the helm Starship? Apparently because “he’s a genius”
It is so dumb.
But later I forgave it completely when Galaxy Quest lampooned it so thoroughly, with another kid at the helm, who is allowed to just shout about how stupid it is. :)
Generally agree with you but piloting a ST starship is different from piloting an airliner, main thing being that the starship is stable in space. Like you can cut all power to engines completely and it isn’t going to fall into a planet or star, other than during specfic maneuvers. There’s also the rest of the bridge crew present to take over if something comes up that he couldn’t handle. I see it as more equivalent to letting a kid take the helm on an ocean ship. Still some potential for it to go wrong, but if the kid isn’t a little shit wanting to see what happens if he yanks the wheel, it’ll probably be fine.
Between the shields and deflector array, anything that could pose a threat would likely be picked up by the sensors long before it was close. Other than a cloaked ship ambushing them, but even then I bet Riker could just bark out “computer execute evasive maneuver alpha and beam Wesley to sick bay. Data, take the helm. Red alert!”
That fanfic was a TNG fanfic based off of a character from one of the episodes. Wesley predates her by a few seasons. In fact, he may have been a partial inspiration for the fanfic version of the character.
Well the person that created Mary Sue probably shouldn’t get so much flak if they were making TNG fanfic in 1973.
I have a feeling we don’t have the same origin story for that character.
Huh, TIL. I honestly had somehow connected Mary Sue with the Mary Tyler Moore Show. TBF, I don’t think I have ever seen a single episode of that show.
Tbf, there are is lot’s of space in space to practice driving gnihihi. I’ll show myself out
My headcanon.
Dark Matter is how you get evil Wesley.
(Wil Wheaton played an evil space tech bro.)
dint he became like “Ascended being in tng” whatever happen to that? Picard dint do him justice.
Agreed.
I liked that he got a brief cameo. And I do understand why - ascendant beings are a pain to write interesting stories about.
But it would be great to get a modern Trek episode with an ascendant Wesley in the mix in a way that really impacts the plot and exlores his character.
trek did it ok with PAH WRAITHS AND prophets, they dint go all in with the entities.
What is this image from?
It’s straight bonkers where they take this plot…
spoiler
In the Mirror Universe, the Terran Empire has regained it’s footing and a galactic power again, led by Admiral Leeta (which I’m still wrapping my head around since the Terran Empire was shown to be very xenophobic). A Terran strike force lead by by Marshall Janeway and a time displace Captain Tilly “Killy” launch a surprise attack on Jupiter Station in search of The Emperor’s Prize, which turns out to be Ilia. The Emperor is none other than Wesley who has used his immense intellect to ascend to the throne. He wanted Ilia to track down the mirror version of V’Ger; C’qer (pronounced Seeker, the ConQuERor VI probe. also referred to as The Other). Emperor Wesley plans to merge with The Other to ascend to godhood, and conquer the Prime universe. He starts by “digitizing” most of our solar system in the prime universe against a combined alliance of Starfleet, Klingons, the Romulan Republic, the Dominion, Cardassian Union, and some specific STO factions. Thanks to Ilia, V’Ger returns to the Sol System to aid, and you battle powered Wesley at the core until Bev gets in his head and talks him down. Then V’Ger & C’Qer, along with Ilia and Wesley go exploring and return all digitized planets and ships to normal space.
Star Trek Online
Oh, okay thanks!
Np.
I mean, it’s possible they also made a live action movie out of the same plot, but I’m not sure. Haven’t come across it so far, though Axanar and Renegades show up from time to time.
Wait, I recognize Milly Vanilly, but who’s the other girl smirking? I don’t remember her.
Mirror Leeta
Ahhhhh. I didn’t connect the dots. Thank you
Mirror Leeta is a high ranking Admiral in the Terran Fleet. The primary antagonist anytime you interact with the Terran Empire
Im on Season 6 of my once a decade rewatch. They’ve still not hooked up. Jean Luc is running around with Vash. Bev had her ambassador until the trill half died. Meanwhile, these guys have breakfast together, dance around the possibility of a together, and that is all.
Jean-Luc is probably not transparent enough for Beverly.
Where’s the episode where they’re linked to each other?
They definitely hook up somewhere around the time this occurs:
Jack Crusher being the result. No explanation as to why a kid in his early 20’s looks like he’s pushing 35 by Picard season 3.
I haven’t watched Picard season 3 yet. Just past the shutdown of the original Ten Forward.
Jack? And yet Picard is haunting that vineyard, no Beverly, with the Romulan housekeeper crushing on him?
Don’t worry, each season of Picard is disjointed and confusing. 3 is best, if entirely fan servicey.
It doesn’t matter. It’s Star Trek. I’ll have to watch it eventually. Though it makes me sad to see Stewart looking so frail.
When they kill him, will they use the Wesley Crusher?
Would that be kinslaying?
That’s the same episode Wesley was encouraged to go run off and play with the other “children” with hair on their chests.
and he accidentally fell on some ornamental plants, the locals wanted him executed.
it’s going to be very hard to romance Beverly while she’s grieving
No, this cannot stand!
I just realized that this episode is basically the more dramatic (and more horny) version of that Parks & Rec episode with Fred Armisen.
Straight to lethal injection. No trial, no nothing. We have the best flower beds. Because of lethal injection.
Is it the color-grading, or is that man VERY sunburned?
Just saw it now for the first time. I think he was sunburned.
