Was I One of the Only People Who Weren't Annoyed by Lt. Barclay?
- Thread starter VulcanMindBlown
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You've got to know how to kick ass, if you want to be a peacemaker, sir!
Barclay the character is one of the most important things Next Gen did. An awful lot of SF and Trek viewers found a home in Trek because of being in Barclay's situation. An SF show had to deal with this issue about fandom, eventually. They never had.
The message is perfect (expressed best by Guinan I think), though I'm not sure they succeeded in getting it across convincingly and clearly to the kind of intolerant people in real life whom it was being addressed to. I mean, having the crew be amongst the bad guys on this issue, at the start. If it were a film in the present day, a great way to show the evolution of their thinking, but by Trek's 24th century, that kind of ingrained jackassism ought to be gone.
There shouldn 't even BE problems like Barclay's. The environment he was raised in, a far more accepting one than now, wouldn't have pushed all the Barclays into isolation.
Another problem is that with him, they try to do two things: they cheerlead for Barclay, trying to get us to see his worth and strengths... while at the same time using him for cheap laughs at his expense, too. Because the audience had to have its mindset included, I guess, and for entertainment. But should they make Barclay a buffoon, then whip the viewer around 180 degrees and say, how dare you laugh? The point could have been made without that.
I am the Anti-2takesfrakes.
The message is perfect (expressed best by Guinan I think), though I'm not sure they succeeded in getting it across convincingly and clearly to the kind of intolerant people in real life whom it was being addressed to. I mean, having the crew be amongst the bad guys on this issue, at the start. If it were a film in the present day, a great way to show the evolution of their thinking, but by Trek's 24th century, that kind of ingrained jackassism ought to be gone.
There shouldn 't even BE problems like Barclay's. The environment he was raised in, a far more accepting one than now, wouldn't have pushed all the Barclays into isolation.
Another problem is that with him, they try to do two things: they cheerlead for Barclay, trying to get us to see his worth and strengths... while at the same time using him for cheap laughs at his expense, too. Because the audience had to have its mindset included, I guess, and for entertainment. But should they make Barclay a buffoon, then whip the viewer around 180 degrees and say, how dare you laugh? The point could have been made without that.
I am the Anti-2takesfrakes.
As a character, Barclay would've worked, had he been snagged from the 20th Century and deposited into the future, the way Dr. Gillian Taylor was in TVH. Also, "culture clash" would've accounted for the TNG crew's difficulty in knowing what to do with him and would've even given Barclay more depth. What trumped-up excuse got him there, who knows? Maybe he could've been another frozen body in "The Neutral Zone," or the only one, for that matter. How they got him there isn't what matters.
What matters is that changing his origins solves all of the problems of how he even came into existence in the 24th Century, to begin with. To say nothing of how he ended up in Starfleet. For certain, the humour surrounding his outcast situation would've been much more organic. His whole situation would've been far less forced and if he did have some banal "message" about and for the geeks of the world, it would've been much more palatable than what we got. In short, Barclay could've been a much better character all around, without changing his personality, hardly at all.
What matters is that changing his origins solves all of the problems of how he even came into existence in the 24th Century, to begin with. To say nothing of how he ended up in Starfleet. For certain, the humour surrounding his outcast situation would've been much more organic. His whole situation would've been far less forced and if he did have some banal "message" about and for the geeks of the world, it would've been much more palatable than what we got. In short, Barclay could've been a much better character all around, without changing his personality, hardly at all.
I like Barclay but my favourite episodes with him are where he's not the main focus, so much. I watched TNG out of order so I'd seen his Season 6 and 7 episodes before I'd seen his debut, which I don't hate but don't really like either. I particularly really like Ship in a Bottle and Projections and in the latter I really like how Dwight Schultz's performance subtly changes over the episode so that there's something really quite sinister in basically urging the Doctor to kill himself by the end. That's my read on it anyway. I'm glad the character exists.
Not a bad idea, 2tf.
I always liked the fact that the socially awkward Barclay was instrumental in re-establishing contact with Voyager.
I wouldn't say that it was entirely unbelievable, as it's not like he's in a position of Command like someone else pointed out, but it does make me wonder how he got through the Academy where I'd imagine there'd be at least some immature Cadets who'd try and take advantage of his ''weakness''.
I don't get this. What are we saying, that in the future everybody gets along with everybody and nobody ever has problems fitting in? Forget TOS; that doesn't even gibe with TNG.
Consider: pretty much everyone on TNG is estranged from or doesn't get along with their relatives. Picard is estranged from his brother, Riker is estranged from his father, Pulaski had been divorced three times, Worf's family problems would fill volumes, Data has an evil brother and all sorts of father issues, Deanna loves her mother, but Lwaxana still drives her nuts whenever she visits . . ..
If the "far more accepting" denizens of the future can't always get along with their own families, why is it so hard to accept that the Barclays of the universe might have trouble fitting in at work? (And god only knows how Barclay's family fucked him up as a kid.)
And, yes, the Finnegans at the Academy probably hazed him mercilessly.
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Did anyone else feel like Barclay did slightly better after he was under the guidance of Commander Harkins and Admiral Paris?
I'm going to say something. And I don't want to offend anyone because I'm not entirely sure how these things manifest themselves. Did anyone ever feel like maybe the way Barclay was portrayed might have been something like Asperger's syndrome?
Perhaps, certainly the "difficulties with social interaction and nonverbal communication" element is certainly present, his apparent focus on the 'soft' side of engineering/operations (his specific area was systems engineering - with focuses on non-primary systems like the transporters, computers, holodecks, possibly replicators and environmental systems?) may indicate that he has limited dexterity, compared to someone who works on the structural or propulsion teams?).
I never said any of that. Not getting along with people isn't the issue. You don't become that afraid of social interactions without some very bad ongoing experiences early on, harassment, bullying, mobbing, without support to get through all this, during the formative years.
All sorts of friction will still happen between people in Trek's 24th century. But if the 24th century still produces Barclays, something stinks, and that improvement of mankind they like to go on about is a fraud.
Well, going by TOS at least, bullying is still a thing. See the Vulcan kids who picked on Spock, and Finnegan picking on young Kirk at the Academy. Can't imagine that disappeared entirely in a mere eighty years or so.
And it's possible that Barclay came from a bad family situation as well, that left him socially challenged to some degree, since we know that broken marriages, sibling rivalries, and what-not are still alive and well in the 24th century.
Society may have improved. Doesn't mean that people don't have issues. And, judging from Barclay, folks can still fall through the cracks sometimes, which strikes me as perfectly plausible. No society or institution--not even Starfleet--works perfectly all the time, or for everyone.
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Well, nothing is absolute. We all grow up gradually, and this stuff will start up with kids, but by the 24th the system will have ways to fix them. If it's going to be as bad in school as it is now, then the 24th century will be producing just as many a-holes, Narcissists, and socially awkward adults as the 20th and 21st. Some evolution.
I also can't buy Vulcan kids bullying, though I'm sure they do it with a very detached-seeming, "logical" delivery...
I also can't buy Vulcan kids bullying, though I'm sure they do it with a very detached-seeming, "logical" delivery...
Vulcan kids bullying little Spock was established as far back as "Journey to Babel," and seen onscreen in "Yesteryear."
And if we can't trust D.C. Fontana on the subject, who can we trust?
I know. But "bullying" is a pretty emotional act.
Yeah, but the Vulcans are not nearly as unemotional as they like to think they are. Remember, deep down inside, they're even more emotional than humans, which is why they have to work so hard to keep their turbulent passions under control--with varying degrees of success. They're over-compensating, in a big way.
Only the advanced Kolinahr masters are truly without emotion, or so we're told. Vulcan school kids . . . forget about it.
And apparently Vulcan adults as well. Based on that Vulcan captain who was always berating humans in DS9's Take Me Out to the Holosuite.
And human kids still pick on kids that are different. As evidenced by what B'Elanna said about her childhood experiences and her flashback to the camp out with her father, uncle and cousins when she was young.
And human kids still pick on kids that are different. As evidenced by what B'Elanna said about her childhood experiences and her flashback to the camp out with her father, uncle and cousins when she was young.
