Wesley Crusher: Starfleet's Biggest Coward

[Data Soong]

Hey I'm in charge of the bridge look at me, I'm a responsible Acting Ensign.



"Ship's gonna 'splode, everyone off."



and this jerks beaming off with the women and children

 

[BillJ]

He is a child. Doesn't matter whether he has more responsibility than other children, Data would've been remiss in his duties to not send Crusher off.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I side with BillJ on this one. Wesley might be an acting ensign, but he's still a kid and not a full officer.

 

[HIjol]

Genius or not, he was an adolescent, and the "Smart Synapses" might have been overdeveloped, but the "Reason/Rational" dendrites still needed to close some distance and time to develop.

 

[Timo]

I don't get the OP's point. Everybody is supposed to beam out, and Wesley Crusher beams out. What's "cowardly" about that?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

I found the little twerp annoying, but wow. He isn't even the most cowardly on the damn ship, when Barclay can't even USE a transporter

And agreed. Just a child. May have advanced skills & intellect, but clearly emotionally & socially a child

 

[at Quark's]

He isn't even the most cowardly on the damn ship, when Barclay can't even USE a transporter

Slightly off-topic perhaps, but I don't consider Barclay a coward. He's someone battling with irrational fears and phobias. And at the end, he faces and overcomes part of them (at least in that specific ep). That, to me, would rather be an example of the opposite of cowardliness.

 

[Amaraen]

I don't think you can even use that picture to describe Wesley as "most cowardly" when there is an adult male officer behind him.

 

[Timo]

The word for one who evacuates when told is not "coward". The word for one who doesn't might be.

What's interesting about that picture is that only five pads out of six are being used, in this supposedly hurried evacuation. Isn't that like launching lifeboats only partially filled, only worse, because with lifeboat launch one may at least consider the value of getting the boat itself out of danger and to further rescue use?

Then again, there never was an explicit connection between the number of circles on the floor (or ceiling) and the number of people the machine can transport at a time. Perhaps sending quintets is quicker than sending sextets, and sixty-one quintets beats fifty sextets?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Terok Nor]

Poor Wesley always got a raw deal from the Star Trek fandom. I wasn't impressed with the amount of episodes where he saved the ship and made everyone look stupid but in general I liked the character.

 

[Amaraen]

I feel the same way about Wesley. I think that many people were simply envious of him: they wish they could have had the opportunities and abilities that he had (plus he is rather cute).

 

[Paradise City]

Data is the court martial character for this particular week. Floating from "Don't disturb the Captain" to.."Ah, I'm sure he's alright" when the ship he captains is about to explode. I wouldn't be surprised if Data had taken out a life assurance policy on his beloved leader and mentor.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

He is a child. Doesn't matter whether he has more responsibility than other children, Data would've been remiss in his duties to not send Crusher off.

I side with BillJ on this one. Wesley might be an acting ensign, but he's still a kid and not a full officer.

This. And since he's seen beaming off with other children I got the vibe he was assigned to make sure other children evacuated with him, likely the unattended children of officers on duty.

 

[Mudd]

What The Fuck is this?

Welcome to 1988, or something.

 

[Squiggy]

He is a child. Doesn't matter whether he has more responsibility than other children, Data would've been remiss in his duties to not send Crusher off.

The fault should like with Picard and his senior staff (lol) for putting a tween in charge of a starship.

 

[stardream]

I thought making fun of Wesley was passé.

 

[Mudd]

Now, now...Wesley Crusher was Gene Roddenberry's quite conscious and wistful evocation of the kind of young person he imagined that he might have been, had he not been entirely obsessed with sex.

 

[xvicente]

I like to hate Wesley. For example my absolute favorite episode is "Justice" because the 80s hotties wanted to kill him.

slightly nsfw]

 

[Paradise City]

The Enterprise is tucked away safely within the comforting embrace of Starbase. If you're going to give Wesley a crack at being in charge of the bridge in anticipation of his dazzling Starfleet career, here's where you do it. I mean what could go wrong?

Wesley is the mandatory 'Coming-of-Age' cardboard character and a clumsy attempt to reign in the kids to the show. I can barely watch a scene with him in it without wincing.

I prefer the above persona though than the ungrateful Wesley that we saw stomping around in the episode with the Indians mind you. The writers just decided to make Wesley uppity and then promptly ran out of creative energy to make something meaningful from this change of character.

It would've been good to see him emerge as a man and get him to join the Maquis. Presumably of course if Wheaton had the stuffing as an actor to be persuasive in that role.

 

[Terok Nor]

I was a kid when TNG was on and I liked Wesley. I never hated him. Maybe it's an age thing. He probably would have pissed me off if I'd seen TNG for the first time as an adult but I still don't think he's that bad. The most annoying thing about him is the fact he's so smart he makes everyone else look stupid but I still prefer him to many of the main characters from TNG and Voyager.