Every weeknight for the past few years, one of the local television channels has been showing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. My roommate and I have a tradition of watching them, geeking out over dilithium crystals or Picard's melodious voice (his words just sound so PRETTY!) and occasionally laughing at the sheer 80s-ness of it all. (For both personal and aesthetic reasons, I prefer the look of Voyager and DS9, but that is a story for another day.)
All of which to say that I have been wanting to rant about Wesley Crusher for the past several months now.
The most annoying part of the characterization of Wesley is that there was potential for a well-written character. The Crusher family backstory - Wesley's father's death, his mother's medical career in Starfleet, and their stay on the Enterprise - could have been an interesting and nuanced contrast to the lives of the bridge officers who, for the most part, do not have immediate family members aboard the ship. And although there are other families with children on the Enterprise due to one or both parents' careers, they aren't prominently featured like the main officers are. With Wesley, the writers had the opportunity to explore the concept of what it must be like for a child to grow up on a starship and how that would affect everything from that child's perception of "home" to the family dynamic and interpersonal relations.
Unfortunately, what actually happened was the creation of Wesley Crusher, the one-note character we all love to hate. Wesley is perfect. He's not just smart, but (at age 15) he knows more than career officers and diplomats. His science projects create new life forms. And, as anyone who has ever watched the first season of TNG knows, "Wesley saves the ship" is a common theme throughout many episodes.
There are many, many problems with the way Wesley's character is presented, the first of which is the complete and utter disregard for any semblance of reality or even consist ant world building. It's believable, and I would argue that it is almost predictable, that Wesley would be very intelligent. Having two parents in Starfleet would obviously give him a lot of firsthand knowledge about many different facets of science, engineering, history, various planets and their cultures, and it's clear that his family values knowledge and educational achievement.
In early 21st century Earth, Wesley would probably be considered very highly intelligent, especially for his age. However, this is the Trekverse, the fictional 24th centurey where humans have perfected themselves, eliminated poverty and war on Earth, and who now explore the universe. I believe that in this utopian environment, there would be any number of highly intelligent young people with a thirst for knowledge and a curiosity about the universe in all discovered and undiscovered dimensions.
It's never explained why or how Wesley is better than everyone else, but the writers (or maybe just Roddenberry) spend lots of time making sure that we don't forget that fact. Whenever he is featured prominently in an episode, everyone goes out of their way to tell us how special Wesley is and any character who disagrees with him is proven to be wrong. In case the message of Wesley Is Better Than You weren't clear enough, the events of Where No One Has Gone Before happen.
Early on (still only 6 episodes in), Wesley saves the ship and then the entity known as "the Traveler" appears for two reasons: to see if humanity is ready to experience the universe where thought/time/space are one reality and where thought becomes reality, and also to tell Picard that Wesley is special, "like Mozart."
(Really? Mozart is the best you can do? Felix Mendelssohn's music is SO much better, both in quality and innovation, not to mention the Bach revival with St. Matthew's Passion, the epic violin concerto, the sheer beauty of his melodies, and Mendelssohn was not simply a one-dimensional musician, but he was an artist, studied languages and philosophy, AND could name-drop any one of the 19th century's intellectual elite.)
Parenthetical Mendelssohn fangirlishness aside, the point here is that this Traveler (who reminds me a bit of the Q Continuum) specifically mentions Wesley as this paragon of human potential. WHY? I'm convinced that it's for no other reason than WESLEY IS SUPER SPECIAL without any reasons why that is. Having written a "perfect" character, Roddenberry et al. boxed themselves into a corner by not allowing said character to develop and grow and change and learn and all of those other things that make us human. Not only that, but WESLEY IS SUPER SPECIAL also means that Wesley never has to put any real effort into anything. He's innately smarter than the entire Enterprise crew and the rest of humanity and it's implied that his innate abilities give him the ability to pretty much do anything the plot requires. (Implied may be the wrong word here. Guaranteed is probably a better choice.)
Also, at the end of that episode, Wesley is made an acting ensign by Picard, despite the fact that no children are allowed on the bridge. So, for much of the series, seasoned officers who have no doubt waited years to be assigned to the Enterprise, as well as Captain Picard, are sharing the bridge (and navigational duties!) with a know-it-all teenager. Because every Starfleet parent would want their child front and center for every delicate diplomatic talk with a Klingon captain, every Romulan confrontation in/near/about the Neutral Zone, and I don't care how super special Wesley is, but he does NOT have the ability to make split-second decisions involving moral or diplomatic concerns or whether to invoke the Prime Directive in a specific situation.
Basically, being really smart does not equal moral clarity, having years of experience as a Starfleet officer, knowing how to resolve disputes diplomatically, or how to handle the pressure of being on the bridge. It's also notable that Wesley never seems to have any self-doubt about his intelligence or abilities and he lacks the self-awareness to realize how much he doesn't know. While he is surrounded by other characters who have lived, experienced failure and disappointment, learned from their mistakes, and whose years of exploring have formed their characters, Wesley is comfortable in his role as the special one, who never has to change or grow.
There were a few moments, such as in The First Duty, where the audience catches a glimpse of the three-dimensional character that could have been, in which Wesley makes a huge mistake, owns up to it, and becomes a likable and sympathetic character because of his moral actions. I actually liked Wesley in that episode. I wish three-dimensional Wesley had stayed for the rest of the series, but alas, it was not to be because the grand finale of his character arc ends with Journey's End.
There is so much wrong with Journey's End that I will probably write about at some point, but right now I am going to hit some of the finer points. A brief synopsis: Nechayez tells Picard that he must remove Federation settlers, specifically Native American (although there is no tribal affiliation mentioned for anyone) from a planet that is being ceded to the Cardassians. Wesley is just home from the Academy and acts like a jerk to everyone, including his mother. He's also rude to Geordi, which earns him my eternal ire. In the middle of this plot, Wesley goes on a vision quest, sees his dead father, realizes that he needs a different path in life than simply following his father's footsteps, meets the Traveler again, and then goes off with the Traveler to ascend to a higher plane of existence.
Yes, really. I'm not even kidding.
Let's have a moment of reflection in memory of the character that never was, who was sacrificed so that one-note Wesley could technobabble his way into every plot point and save the ship.
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