The Lesley Crusher idea

I think they made the switch because Roddenberry sort of seen himself in the Wesley character or maybe his idolized self because I have my doubts he was ever that naive as a teenager. I think she would maybe look more like Tracey Gold from that era.

Jason

 

I think if it were Lesley they could have made adjustments to the way the Traveler was presented to make him not seem predatory. Like established him as an aesexual race or say he took a vow of celibacy or something.

As for Riker, he wouldn't have gone after Lesley, if anything he would have bullied off crew members interested in her.

 

My guess is that Lesley Crusher would have been sent packing with mom at the end of season 1. There was some struggle with the writing for the female characters for nearly the entire series, but those season 1/2 writers were the worst on this count. They simply would not have seen the story possibilities with a girl like they did with a boy.

I'm going with equally. The Traveler -- I thought he was cool when I was a kid! (So, good thing he wasn't a real person I was meeting, I totally would have fallen for the creepy entreaties!)

 

Worf: "The GIRL?!"
(instead of "the BOY?!")

 

Well, I mean, Wesley Crusher was a Sue, so what's the difference?

 

Lesley J. McNair and Leslie Caron might disagree.

Kor

 

Depends. How many sexual undertones will the script writers shove in to sell those nudge nudge wink wink moments?

 

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

 

Ashley Judd as Lesley Crusher would have been awesome. But I'm not sure Wil Wheaton would have become the nerd icon we all love or love to hate without TNG, so I think I'm glad it went the way it did. OTOH, Marina Sirtis as a Tasha Yar who stayed on the series (and Denise Crosby as a Deanna Troi who left) would have been bad-ass enough to be worth it - especially if they still found a way to develop Worf. (And especially especially if that way involved him not having to be the over-security-conscious voice-of-WRONG at just about every command crew meeting he spoke up in. )

 

This has been on the forum before but I think this thread might need it too.

 

Wesley / Lesley
No difference
Tediously perfect and tediously boring character
The most intelligent manchild in the universe, apart from The Traveller and Q

 

If the character had been exactly the same except female - assuming such a translation is plausible - then the result would be slightly worse than with the male version.

The character would have been just as annoying, but the creators could have hidden behind "You nerds can't handle smart women!" to avoid responding to criticism.

 

"Shut up, Leslie!"

 

An AU of an AU - what if Samantha Reed Smith was cast as Lesley Crusher?

season 1 Lesley would have then looked close to this:

 

I think Leslie would have still been hated by a lot of fans but with an added dose of misogyny.

Part of the issue is the fans who hated Wesley were often going from the view that they wanted to see themselves in Riker and Picard not Wesley.

 

I mean Kitty Pryde, the precocious genius teenager with a dragon for a pet and who ended up saving the day multiple times, and who appeared in the X-Men comics just a few years prior to Wesley on TNG was universally adored by the readership. But that was also with writing that had a lot more quality and coherence than early TNG (say what you will about Claremont, and there's a lot to say, but he was good at creating well rounded, female characters)

So I agree; Leslie Crusher would have been subject to the same writers and show runners as Wesley was, so she'd be just as uneven and disliked a character as he was.

 

Weirdly, I have a mental image that fans might have actually liked Wesley if they'd given an explanation for his wunderkind status.

He would have benefited more from the Bashir Augment plot than Bashir.

Mind you, you'd have to have Beverly go to prison after its revealed.

 

Well, it would have at least given him some sort of pathos if he had learned that he had been subject to some illegal procedure as a child. And that could have been worked into all sorts of drama centred around his character.
I guess Dr.Crusher could have been saved if Jack Crusher had done it behind her back? And Welsey learning that it was his departed father who had done this to him would have been another source for drama.

 

And then we can bring her back after she performs an emergency medical procedure that saves the Klingon head of state or something.



Because Star Trek.

 

There was never any indication whatsoever that genetic engineering was illegal in the Federation until that idea was retconned by DS9 "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" In the world of TNG, a genetically enhanced Wesley could have come from some place like Darwin Station where genetic experimentation was par for the course.

Kor