Wesley walked so that Jake and Nog could run. Odo: *Odo scoff* Not on the promenade!

Okay, the murder and theft of Tom Paris' identity by Nick Locarno needs to be presented as a True Crime podcast.

The thing about Wesley I always related to is that he was always a person out of place. He didn't fit in with other kids or people is age, but he also didn't really fit in with the adults either. He was always just on the outside of the club, regardless of what he did or which group he was with. I related to that as a kid watching the show, and relate to it still as a grown adult. I often feel like Wesley. Accepted by those around him, but never really welcomed or a part of the group.

Picard: "No one on this ship holds a candle to me!" Ronin: "What's this about Beverly Crusher and candles?"

I never thought there was anything wrong with Wesley, but we were both teenagers when the show started. So maybe I just understood him.

"the first duty" is one of the most powerful episodes of startrek that i ever watched as a teenager. it has more than once influenced me to not go along with dumb ideas, and to own up to it when i fucked up. the first duty is to the truth, and i will never forget that.

Wil Wheaton is a fantastic human. Thank you for being in his corner and reminding others of that fact. Even if Wesley wasn't always well-written or his character well-handled, that's not Wil's fault. He's a very audible voice for those communities who aren't always heard, and yes, he's a damn good actor

I always liked Wesley, but then I was a preteen nerdy girl and he was a cute nerdy boy. My story standards were not high. Looking back I wish they had given him a different ending. The "gifted child" narrative was so pervasive at the time and for many of us it turned out rather toxic. I would love to see him turn up in Picard having gone through burnout and rebuilt, that would be a true 80s kid story. BTW young Steve is adorable.

One should always be suspicious of any "elite" grouping of students at starfleet academy. At least Wes didn't participate in an attempted coup to install a military junta to rule the federation.

The fact that Locarno couldn't be used in Voyager due to rights issues, or more specifically, Paramount being too cheap to pay the original writers always sucked.

I love your whole joke about Nick killing Tom Paris and stealing his identity, but I have alway thought that a simpler explanation was that Tom Paris didn’t want any special treatment because of who his father was, so he enlisted at Star Fleet Academy under a fake name. He wanted to graduate from the Academy by his own merits, not coast on the coattails of his father. This had the added bonus of not causing embarrassment for his father when he got expelled as no one knew he was the Admiral’s son.

I understood Wesley, as a kid who also wanted to hangout with the adults, without understanding how annoying that is to the adults. ❤️

I would argue that the "Shut up Wesley!" moment is the one piece of writing that sunk the character for most people. It wasn't that Wesley was wrong (he wasn't), it's just that they made him super annoying and whinny about being right. To make it worse, they also made the rest of the ship's crew act so moronically that nobody else could see what was going on. I remember watching it when it came out and t felt like they were forcing this narrative that Wesley was somehow smarter and better than the highly trained crew. I was in my early teens at the time, so I was the target audience that Wesley was aimed at, and a whiny episode like that did the exactly opposite of what was intended. Honestly, what teenagers like the nerdy, know-it-all character in a show? We like the good guys, but the ones that are a bit rebellious because we (as kids) always feel like parents are telling us what to do.

September 1987 I was 8 and that year I tested into the gifted program for 4th grade. I saw a lot of myself in Wesley. It wasn't until I got a little older that I started to realize the issues with Wesley. At the time it was great seeing a kid, not all that much older than I was (certainly closer than the next oldest crew member), get a chance to be a member of the crew.

I identified with Wesley. He's the quint essential nerd: hyper-intelligent on tech, utterly clueless on everything else.

I was always a fan of Wesley. I didn't really realize how much some people dislike the character until I went to my first couple of convention. One of the ladies who work for creation con is warming up the audience before the panel came out. And when a picture of Wesley Crusher came on screen some people started the boo. The lady said and I feel to her credit that wheel is an incredibly nice person and even if you don't like his character she finds it incredibly rude that some people would actually boo him when he came on stage. As Steve said that's when people take shit way too far. If you want more Wesley Crusher I would love for Wil Wheaton to revive that character on Star Trek Picard or even on Lower decks. I know among some people I might be in the minority but again I always liked the character Wesley yes some of his lines were shity and sometime he was a little kid that they didn't know what to do with. But none of that should following Wil Wheaton.

Oh man, that last part about how it's awful to harass actors just because their characters aren't written well/aren't liked reminds me of what happened to King Joffrey's actor Jack Gleeson, played the role so damn well that he was constantly barraged with hate from fans, just because he played an asshole character super well. Or what about the kid who played young Anakin in The Phantom Menace, poor guy had his whole life spiral because of a single meh movie.

Given that in Wesley's final episode, he goes against Picard on the 'lets forcefully relocate a group of people who have chosen to peacefully settle on a planet' situation, I wonder if it would have been more satisfying if the direction they had gone with was Wes joining the Maquis, or something similar if the Maquis hasn't really been formed yet.

I've always loved Wesley. We share the same first name, our last names are pretty similar, he was about the same age as me when the show premiered, he had my same rough appearance (tall, lanky, awkward kid who liked science stuff), he generally didn't get along well with other kids, and was usually more comfortable around adults. He was pretty much the perfect audience insert for me as a kid when the show aired.

I remember when they got rid of Wesley thinking "Aw man, I was just starting to like him." Ever since, I've been waiting for him to come back as some supremely powerful being and stop Q or dismantle a borg cube with his space magic brain. That'd be dope.

“I bet if I crapped my pants they wouldn’t want us any more.” Classic, Steve! 🤣😂🤣

You know what should have been a great episode for Wesley? "Pen Pals". You know, the one where Data, in a mind boggling lapse of judgement that he never would have made in a million years, breaks the prime directive and starts talking to that little girl on a doomed planet? That should have been a Wesley episode. Wesley was already engaged in the B plot, but think about it: It makes waaaay more sense for Wesley to be the one who had started talking with Sarjenka. It also works perfectly with his b plot in the episode, giving him a much greater motivation. "Pen Pals" offered an opportunity to grow Wesley's character in a significant and organic way. Instead, it became one of the metric ton of "Data explores his humanity" episodes. Don't get me wrong, I love those episodes, but I think "Pen Pals" was a real missed opportunity for Wesley's character.

I just realised how happy I am to realise the noble art of knitting has survived into the 24th century

The one question that comes to my mind upon reconsidering "The First Duty": what was the goal Locarno was aiming for? Even in the best-case scenario - they pull off the starburst, it looks awesome, yada yada yada - what did he and the others think was going to happen after they got back to Earth? "Yeah, congrats on that kind of awesome-looking stunt you pulled - shame it's been literally illegal for over a century, bye!" is about the kindest reaction they could have expected. Also, it's been kind of hilarious reading the Star Trek novels over the last few years how they attempted to reconcile that deleted scene from Nemesis with the ending of "Journey's End". It involved Wesley - now a Traveller in his own right - dropping in on his mother literally minutes before the wedding starts and both discovering that, well...apparently clothing is optional wherever it is Travellers hang out, so they have to put Wes in a random Starfleet gala uniform they happen to have lying around. It was *incredibly* contrived, even by the standards of canon welding many of these books have engaged in. There is also a short story in one of the TNG anthologies that shows an alternate reality where Wesley actually became the kind of random dropout that so many child prodigies turn into, and somehow ended up on Dorvan V during the events of "Journey's End" - except that this time, the Enterprise arriving is commanded by Captain Jellico, because without Wesley, Picard died during "Final Mission". That was a fun read, even if it was implied that this was the Traveller's doing all along, showing Wes what it could have been like if he was "just a normal kid/dude".

Wesley should have been given a buddy early on like Jake and Nog. Some of the best Wesley episodes he had peers to work with first duty and Robin Lefler.

Wesley Crusher spent years as a season one character until he was allowed to graduate to season two just in time for the end of the series.

The issue with Wesley was he was initially written by a boomers idea of a young person

I’ve said for years that Wesley needed to be written with less Wally Cleaver and more Eddie Haskell. Judging from Weaton’s other work, it could have worked.

I love that you worked 'no one holds a candle' into the bit about Dr. Crusher and her reactions to grief. That was inspired.

I was always SO disappointed that Wesley's tory never got a proper chance to wrap up. I was a kid when I was first watching TNG, so I don't think i had the capacity to find Wesley annoying, I wanted to BE him. The idea that he was some kinda latent time/space genius who just needed the right teacher I thought was rather poetic. The fact that he kept on being compared to his father and urged by everyone in his life to follow his path in Starfleet, a place where he felt stifled and unsatisfied was great character work. For my money, you know what would have been a great cap to Wesley's story? Star Trek Generations! Finding him in the Nexus! I know thematically, having Guinan there to guide Picard worked far better, but I believe there could have existed a rewrite where a reunion with Wesley, while floating around in a bizarre space/time anomaly could have been properly set up, and become a satisfying storyline.

I've been saying since about Mid-season Picard that it's time to bring Wesley back into the fold. The fandom has embraced Wheaton, the writing is *generally* smarter, and there's a lot that could be done between a middle aged Wesley and and Elderly Picard looking to connect to the closest person he ever had to a son (and you know... If Patrick decides to retire or such wouldn't it be convenient to continue the show with Wesley... Who we learn just so happens to be Picard's actual son.)

About a third of the way through, and I agree with pretty much everything except the part about his first time on the bridge. I can't imagine how anyone his age could react any differently, and that genuine enthusiasm is part of why I did tend give the character a bit of pass. I always smile at that scene, personally. It's what sci-fi is all about.

Wil Wheaton is an incredible voice actor and audio book narrator - He was able to make me enjoy the audiobook of ready player one so much that I thought it was both fantastically fun and genre-defining :) When I tried re-reading the book as a book (after being confused by how much criticism it was getting) I still thought that it was pretty ok mid-tier fun for the most part - but it was nowhere as close to being as wonderful as the audiobook experience was.

Wesley Crusher. The son Gene Roddenberry never had. (Sorry Eugene 😞) I do remember one of the best first season TNG episodes was a Wesley episode. That one where a bunch of kids get abducted by some planet who can't have kids anymore. EDIT When The Bough Breaks, as Steve says.

Thank you SO much for this video! I was always afraid to say I was a Wesley fan when TNG was still on. Especially when I saw "Wesley must die" buttons everywhere. I couldn't understand the hate. Since I was the same age as him, he was the perfect POV character for me. And then assholes had to fucking ruin it. Wesley is sweet, kind and curious. It's like they have something against non-assholes!

I feel like Lower Decks' mission statement is to ram as many references to TAS in there so you can't argue that it isn't canon any more. I definitely agree that Wesley got a bad rap both from fans and from the show's creators, the idea of having a young person on the ship isn't inherently bad, I was around the same age as Wesley when TNG was airing and it was kinda exciting to see someone who was like me on the ship. Now, I was like 12 or so when TNG started on TV in Ireland, so I wasn't as discerning towards the quality of the shows, I just liked it when he did stuff. But as I generally delve into TNG as an adult, there are a good few episodes Wes-centric episodes that are really good, even in series 2.

I swear the best part of trek actually is your recapping of scenes from shows and movies. It’s hilarious and accurate great job Steve!

Honestly, as I got older, the less I hated Wesley. Nowadays, I think the character is fine. He's not my favorite TNG by a long shot, but I think most of the blame for Wesley's bad reaction from the fandom is more related to how he was written into episodes. Sure he could be smart, but he didn't need to solve half the big problems on the ship. I think the writers would have been better off introducing him bit by bit would have been a better idea. He could have been an evolution to the bridge crew to slowly phase him in. Maybe give some of Wesley's time to build up Tasha so Denise Crosby wouldn't want to leave the show. So blame the Writers. And of course Gene was the one forcing the Writers to write the show this way, so let's blame Gene instead. Wesley was a good character who was implemented poorly into the show. And that's sad. But at least there were later season episodes where he was written well.

18:38 “holds a candle” - very clever; I like that one.

My son has started watching these, he is 18 and has finally started watching Star Trek. He told me this, but misquoted your name for Tasha, he said "Tesla Car." Which might be even funnier. As an aside he just finished DS9 and is now bummed it is over. He was trying to watch things in order, but dropped TNG in the 6th season to binge DS9.

“What’s that Beverly? You want Wesley to watch? Make it so!” Such an awesome parody with Patrick Stewart on Robot Chicken❕

I feel most of the hatred of Wesley gets somewhat justified in the eyes of many fans because Wil Wheaton dislikes Wesley as well. Of _course_ Wil Wheaton hates Wesley, people wrote letters to Paramount for years demanding his actual real life murder because of the existence of Wesley Crusher. The single biggest problem with Wesley Crusher is that there was a writer's strike in mid 1987, so 6 abortive pitches for a single 'Wesley saves the day' episode _all_ got made into actual episodes, which didn't have very good writing. Because there was a strike, you see.

Still one of the (few) highlights of Lower Decks. "I swear, he looks like Tom Paris." "Nah, don't see it."

The fan theory that Nick was Tom Paris holds up well.

I was not expecting the moment at 20:46 !!!! OMG, I was in tears. The expression on your face sold it! LOL!!! :D

Also: "No one holds a candle to me." Was that a nod to the Beverly boned by a candle-ghost-alien thing?

So strange to think Will Wheaton is older today than Patrick Stewart was when Season 1 of TNG filmed.

I never had an issue with Wesley's character, I thought he was a reasonably well-written character that was *very* poorly implemented. I liked him best when he was with Geordie and Data, I definitely felt like the character was an engineer but the writing was pushing him into command/grand destiny/etc.

I'm about the same age as Wil Wheaton, and indeed, back in 1987 I was the target audience for his character. The problem is that I kept watching the show as I grew older while poor Wesley stayed the same age. As I moved on to college (and beyond) and still watched the old episodes, seeing 15 year old Wesley is an unpleasant reminder of my younger self.

"Peak Performance" was my favorite episode with Wesley Crusher. I thought the idea of bringing the USS Hathaway back to fighting shape for wargames would have been a fun task and Wesley was central to it's preparation.

As I kid watching TNG I really liked Wesley. I saw a lot of myself in him. An awkward kid who was too smart for his own good around the adults, but perhaps didn’t entirely fit in with the kids either. It also made me think think that maybe I too could join Starfleet one day, he gave us hope man. Wesley is the personification of POTENTIAL, he could grow up to be anything. Children are like that. I don’t think he’s written badly at all.

I am a couple years younger than Will. I also loved the movie Stand By Me. So I never understood the Wesley hate. I identified with him. I have borderline personality disorder and am very awkward at times. His fumbling in social situations, or overtly childish reactions to events resonated with me. He was a child coming of age in a stressful environment around almost only adults, despite being on a ship with civilians and families. He was always, and not by his own choice it seemed, around the command structure of the ship. When he could have been hanging out on the civilian section of the ship and hanging out with teens and tweens his own age. Side note, can't wait for the Wayun episode. Am running back through DS9 interspersed with Enterprise and just watched the 1st appearance of his where he was killed by his own men

Wil Wheaton is a really nice guy. I met him a couple of years ago on a Star Trek cruise. He chatted with me and my wife for a while about board games. He's the only Star Trek actor that I know of that's actually a Star Trek fan and knows trivia stuff.

"No one on this ship holds a candle to me!" Good one Steve. 😂

I LOVE the slightly ad-libbed recounting of conversations 😂

Steve's voice-over for the Star Trek scenes is hilarious. The Nick Locarno head-canon is hilarious.

you make the best in depth star trek videos. Really amazing, relevant content. But the clips when you create the dialogue.... it killlllllllls me every time dude :D thank you so much

Holy crap do I love your summations of the episode dialog. That shit is funny as hell. Keep up the funny work.

"People always said... they look alike..." That is now the canon explanation of why Tom Paris and Nick Locarno were so similar.

The new Star Trek Picard series really missed a great opportunity by not having a grown-up Wesley Crusher as the antagonist...Think about it, what happens to soooo many gifted kids? Same that happens to child stars: They get overwhelmed by the pressure and the expectations put on them, they struggle with social connection with their peers, they burn out, they grow to resent their "specialness", they fall into depression, drugs, breakdowns, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! Picard had Wesley steer the effing Enterprise when the damned kid was *fifteen* f#*king years old! What if something had gotten really really wrong? What if he'd gotten people killed? What if Wesley Crusher had grown up to be an intergalactic Shia LaBeouf? There's infinite dramatic potential in that and they never tapped into it!

tysm - i've spent yrs thinking "damn, that to paris fella sure does look familiar !!" literally never placed it until this video - (i dont think ive gone back to tng yet since my first voyager watch-thru)

15:48 Wow, Columbo, Matlock, and Perry Mason all in one bit. Major kudos there. All that's missing is an Ironside or Rockford reference to round it out.

I love your Star Trek episodes. The comedic dialogue you wrote was hilarious

"Was O'Brien even transporter chief yet? Who gives a shit?" genuine LOL

Honestly not sure what the squad thought was going to happen even if they actually pulled this off. "Wow, what an amazing stunt! Never mind that it's banned, and incredibly dangerous, and by all rights, you should all be expelled! You did such an amazing job that we'll overlook that!"

Your videos are hilarious, comforting, and insightful. Thank you for them!

I've been re-watching TNG. My wife couldn't help but point out that "if they just listened to Westley they wouldn't have so many problems."

It’s too bad Wesley left the show when the character was getting good. But, maybe the one off appearances worked better for the character anyway.

"No one on this ship holds a candle to me." Nice.

I was waiting for the, "I've got this sweater you lent my son. Losing him is bad enough, hearing he was a coward was worse, but the worst thing is your fashion sense. I can't stand to remember him wearing this," comment from you, Steve.

Thank you for going there with Locarno! Best part of the episode.

Steve, I always love your scene paraphrase voice-over reenactments, but today they seemed even more hilarious than usual!

I never had problem with Wesley, I liked the character just fine. Many of the early episodes that focused on Wesley solving the problem of the week were frustrating though. Not because of Wesley himself, but the way the other characters acted towards him. He'd be like "Lore's a bad guy and is impersonating Data!" and the other characters would be like "SHUT UP WESLEY!". It's frustrating because as the audience we know Wesley is right and the other characters come off as stupid and arrogant when they dismiss him. This happens in several episodes. I've always wondered if some people directed that frustration towards Wesley's character, whereas I directed it towards the rest of the cast that he interacted with. Either way it's almost never a good thing for a writer to have the audience know more than the characters, and Wesley exacerbated that by being our proxy in several of those situations.

Prior to watching: Of all the contentious TNG characters I preferred Lwuxanna Troi over Wesley. We're still waiting for the Lwuxanna video. After watching: I still quite dislike Wesley but I do think it comes from a dislike of Wheaton as a child actor as well as the writing. It may have benefitted from a younger actor as nobody likes 15 year olds however it's difficult to say. I would have liked it if Wesley made more teenage mistakes and suffered more, that ego groomed throughout several seasons should have reared it's ugly head at some point. He's too polite and well mannered. Of all the science fiction Star Trek has given us that aspect is the most difficult to believe.

Anything thing that Wesley failed at so DS9 could do it well: the whole time-warping alien messiah thing! They never did figure out how to make that work for Wes, but they got it right for Ben Sisko.

I read that ep. 1 bridge scene completely differently… Picard made a point to express how uncomfortable he was around kids. Picard softening a bit shows that he has a heart. The way I saw it, the whole scene wasn’t really about Wesley, it was about Jean-Luc.

God damn it Steve! The entire bit about "Tje First Duty" i was waiting for you to do a Tom Paris joke and when the bit was almost over, i refused to believe you had actually passed up that opportunity. But oh my did you deliver! I thouroughly enjoy your humor. :D

Nice work not slipping in a joke where someone refers to Locarno as "Tom" or "Paris"...which of course I wrote before the part where you mentioned identity theft.

"No-one holds a candle." _snrk_

I never understood why they brought back Robert Duncan McNeill for Voyager, but changed his character to Tom Paris. Nick Locarno would have fit in that role perfectly.

I didn't mind the whole Wesley questioning if he Wanted to be in Starfleet or if he just felt like he had to join because of his father and all the effort others had put in his training to be a good story point.

Great video. I hope that Wesley Crusher will make an appearance on "Picard", even if for just one episode.

BRAVO, Steve!!!! I paused the vid around 14 minutes in to Thank You for the Joy!!! Just Great!!! Okay, back to the Wesley Chronicles 😊

Thank you. I never really understood the hate for Wesley. He was alright: smart, kind, and human enough to have a serious wobble during his academy days. Personally, I didn't like Tasha very much.

I seem to recall that Anna Gunn got a lot of crap for Skyler in Breaking Bad. Definitely glad to see you sticking up for Wil Wheaton.

That Nick/Tom identity switch joke, was pretty hilarious. LMAO

Haha, The Locarno-Paris thing always struck me as a case of a pseudonym for a student related to a famous person. His father being a high ranking Admiral, maybe he wanted to show his Dad that he could make it on his own merits, and instructors may not ever want to dock the grade of an Admiral's son. That was always my head-canon.

I think your summary of Wesley’s character is a good summary of what makes Star Trek work as a whole. It’s not at its best when the humans of the future are perfect, evolved beings; Star Trek is at its best when it shows humans *trying* to be their best, faltering badly along the way, but ultimately choosing the right path when it matters most. That’s aspirational television I can get behind.

One of the best lines in all of Trek remains "shut up, Wesley"

I liked the angle that yes, he was a boy genius and gifted, but he was also messing around with things that were incredibly dangerous and probably didn't get official authorization to do. I myself was considered a bright kid back then and definitely tried doing things that got me into trouble a few times, so I was able to relate on that level. Like Wesley, I also dropped out of college to go on a few mystical quests (mine involved mushrooms instead of middle aged men) and ended up going back to college after my angsty phase cooled down and I felt I had fully squandered much of the potential I failed to live up to. Wesley is the realest character to me, because he is me

I always liked the idea that Nick Locarno was actually Tom Paris, under a pseudonym in the academy in order to get out from under his dad's shadow

"No one on this ship holds a candle to me!" I get it!

I was waiting for the Tom Paris of it and IT WAS AWESOME!!! Good Job Steve!!!

I was in my middle school years when Wesley Crusher was on tv, that kid was me on TV. I seriously do not get why it's okay in fandom to just say "Wesly this, & that" I loved the character. To constantly pick on Wesley Crusher is just low hanging fruit when the science of the show is soooo damn good. My favorite Trek series are when they explore imo

"Magic molasses monster"---love it!

A broader fact about Wesley that is kind of getting lost here is that he represented a big change to the Star Trek status quo: the inclusion of children and families living on the starship. I guess they figured that kids watched Star Trek even when it was serious and/or made for adults and they wanted to give new potential fans a way in. Obviously, they didn’t know what they were doing right away, but I really like that they stuck to that creative choice. As mentioned, we later got Jake and Nog, better written young characters that I think it’s almost unfair to compare to Wesley. A more flattering comparison might be between Wesley and Harry Kim, the young, fresh from the academy ensign. Harry is definitely likeable enough, but a much less interesting character from the start, even for all Wesley’s early season antics.

Really great video, It's always good to see previous Star Trek assumptions being re-looked at, and always great to see people who had these "unpopular" opinions being able to speak their minds without being shamed anymore, and not just with Wesley but with any aspect of the franchise, after all, diversity in ideas and embracing new thought is a core part of Star Trek. That being said, while I do feel that their are people that have indeed calmed down, matured with age, and embraced new ideas and challenged old ones while respecting their fellow fans, with the current online climate of the fandom, I feel that people haven't learned to stop hating something and merely changed what they hate to the newest series or character, and that people who were once bullied and shamed into silence are finally allowed to speak up, or people that were browbeaten into joining in the hate were finally free to make their own opinion, or people who were told "this wasn't worth their time" and given a biased interpretation could actually see for themselves. I guarantee people, that in ten or more years time, and it's no longer popular or profitable to hate anything from Discovery or Picard and have moved onto the newest series to hate, their will be people like those that are fans of Voyager and Enterprise or a character like Wesley that will finally be able to say they're fans without being shamed, or people like me who were told to not watch shows like Deep Space Nine or The Original Series to finally give them a chance, all while being able to have civil and nuance discussions about what we like or dislike about them.

Thanks, Steve. Awesome analysis! And thanks Wil, too, for putting up with subpar writing. 🎉

Really looking forward to the Weyoun video, he's one of my favorites!

"He just need to listen to his conscience"....the little voice in his head named "Picard".