• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

How did Reginald Barclay graduate from Starfleet Academy?

Yeah ... I'll never understand the Barclay love & support. I can't bring myself to be engaged in this debate, anymore.

... I give up.
 
I always assumed that Barclay got a little worse as he got older. His transporter phobia, for example, may have been a recent development (an escalation of a minor, nagging fear) in 2369. I find it hard to believe that it would've never come up before, as he undoubtedly transported to and from the ship on multiple occassions (admittedly, I don't recall him doing that in any of his previous appearances). It might be possible that some neuroses were even unlocked by the Cytherian Probe experience.

Assuming he's around Dwight Schultz's age, then he would've been at the Academy twenty-some years prior to his first appearance. Alot can change, and if he never sought counseling, suffered from minor ticks, and perhaps personal tragedies, then he could very well have been a much different Reginald Barclay in 2345 than in 2366.
 
Plenty of socially awkward people are successful. You just don't hear about it because they're too awkward to brag.
 
Yeah ... I'll never understand the Barclay love & support. I can't bring myself to be engaged in this debate, anymore.

... I give up.

We already loved him before TNG started.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
I figure that Barclay did okay at the Academy...but just okay. He did enough to graduate, and that was about it. The personal quirks and insecurities were always there, but it didn't interfere with his studies (for the most part, anyway).

What might actually have gotten Barclay really in trouble is that he had the potential to be a great engineer, and that kept pushing him onto the radars of various commanding officers who couldn't really cope with his personal issues until he came aboard the Enterprise.

I think Barclay shows that not everyone who joins Starfleet is going to be a leader. Some are going to be "that guy below decks" with the peculiar ways that comes through or steps up only when you need him the most.
 
as he undoubtedly transported to and from the ship on multiple occassions (admittedly, I don't recall him doing that in any of his previous appearances).
IIRC, the only time we see him leave the ship prior to Realm of Fear is The Nth Degree, and that's by shuttle. Realm of Fear is the first time we see him use the transporter on screen.

Granted, if Barclay really did have a twenty-plus year career in Starfleet it is kind of odd he managed to avoid the transporter all that time. At the very least, there must have been some point in his Academy training where he'd be required to use the transporter.
 
We already loved him before TNG started.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

I remember the commercials for Barclay's first episode treated Dwight Schultz as a casting coup, rightfully so. Along the same lines as when Trek got the likes of Paul Sorvino, Frank Langella, and pre-JJverse Peter Weller, and maybe just a shade under the Jason Alexander episode of Voyager.
 
I really like Barclay's growth over both series. I don't understand the comparison with Wesley - Barclay got on the captains radar through his achievements not because of his mom, no offence Wesley. The guy is smarter than Geordi even.
 
Cadets get a year of Field Experience, or at least Nog seemed to get about that, and of course, Spock may have been a cadet in The Cage.

Were there cadets on Enterprise in TNG or did Picard's distaste of children veto that?

Of course that might qualify as putting children on the front line, even though since the crew had their families with them, there literally were children on the front line.
 
Cadets get a year of Field Experience, or at least Nog seemed to get about that, and of course, Spock may have been a cadet in The Cage.

Were there cadets on Enterprise in TNG or did Picard's distaste of children veto that?

Of course that might qualify as putting children on the front line, even though since the crew had their families with them, there literally were children on the front line.

Yes, it would have been nice if they had said something about evacuating the civilians on board when they went against the borg cube.
 
Do they still even do that in the 24th century?

What I just described, no one does.

Well?

Same sex marriages, sure. Sometimes?

I'm sure I saw (on tv) a lesbian wedding where both brides were given away by their fathers, arriving simultaneously at the alter.

Regardless, in TNG we saw Data give Kieko away. :)
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top