Longtime Trek fans like to say of Wesley Crusher that he was something of a male Mary Sue (AKA the Marty Stu), a kid set up as special and something of a know-it-all, and those character types tend to be unpopular with fans regardless of how well an actor portrays said character.
But then we get episodes like “Where No One Has Gone Before” to make it a lot more obvious. Jimmy and Tom talk about what people see when they get really far from home.
“Where No One Has Gone Before”
An experimental warp drive works too well, knocking the Enterprise into another galaxy!
jimmy: The crew should really start listening to Wesley…except for his choices in sweaters.
tomk: He’s special.
And his mother probably gets him those sweaters.
jimmy: I was waiting for Picard to tell Riker to get him a uniform.
tomk: I don’t see why not. That weasel guy whose name I forgot had one without a pin for some reason.
jimmy: Yeah…and he had a square on his collar instead of dots. Just, odd.
tomk: He was a weasel. A douche. A jackass. Riker felt it with the Force.
jimmy: He probably got an email from his beard in the future to warn him.
tomk: Or that bearded engineer suggested something.
jimmy: Maybe that was Riker’s beard in disguise?!?
tomk: Maybe. That engineer actually appears in multiple episodes. Maybe Riker got a hint.
jimmy: Perhaps.
On a completely different topic, was that little seat next to Troi always there?
tomk: Not that I can recall. Unless you mean Picard’s.
jimmy: Oh, you know what I meant.
tomk: I was checking. Worf’s pet pig thing was distracting.
jimmy: I was wondering if that was Dorn’s hand that reached out to pet it?
tomk: I was wondering about the time line. I thought Worf was raised by a Russian couple in Siberia.
jimmy: I completely forgot about that. Good point.
tomk: I think he was orphaned after an attack on a Klingon colony. He could have had the pig thing then.
jimmy: Possible.
And so Trek that the pet was just an Earth animal with prosthetics on.
tomk: And possibly some shag carpenting.
jimmy: No wonder Worf was all messed up.
tomk: I dunno. He seems pretty normal for a Klingon.
jimmy: Don’t tell the Klingons.
tomk: Why? They think we’re weird.
jimmy: Speaking of weird, does Picard have a deep rooted fear of getting sucked into space?
tomk: Or does he really miss his mama?
jimmy: Right. He did have a couple of illusions.
tomk: Most of those illusions seemed rather tame and harmless. There were no Watsons on the Enterprise.
You can conjure anything! So, now you’re a ballerina!
Which seems more like a childhood dream than anything else.
jimmy: Trying to remember them all now. Possible they could all be childhood related. Even the traumas.
tomk: Tasha saw her childhood home. She and Worf both saw pets.
There was the string quartet performance.
A fire.
And the Traveler reminded me of John Malkovich.
jimmy: Maybe Next Generation all takes place in Malkovich’s mind?
tomk: Or I’ve been watching Malkovich in The New Pope recently and it just seemed the two sounded similar.
jimmy: Definitely a similarity.
tomk: Malkovich does have more fingers.
jimmy: So do the touch screens adapt to the size of the users fingers? Is every button big enough to accommodate any finger size?
tomk: Um, yes?
jimmy: Well, it is the future.
tomk: Or the past. Since the Traveler only just got interested.
jimmy: Because of people like…Wesley.
tomk: He’s special.
jimmy: It was an interesting way to get Wesley more involved in the action without Picard and Riker yelling at him to keep quiet and/or get off the bridge.
tomk: Mostly Picard.
jimmy: Mostly. Though Riker shut him down pretty good in this one.
tomk: Everybody gets one.
jimmy: lol
tomk: Look, the key to this one is everyone thinking happy thoughts. Because the alternative would be bad.
jimmy: Haha, I never made that connection, but good call. That’s almost as scary as Worf’s carpet pig.
tomk: That was probably his other childhood pet.
jimmy: This one is scarier.
tomk: Well, true. Then again, maybe you’d feel better about the Mana Moose stuck in a Jefferies Tube.
jimmy: I keep telling him not to hide in there!
tomk: Or her.
jimmy: Her. Right…
tomk: Mama Moose is a he?
jimmy: Well, you said Mana Moose above. Completely different.
tomk: Oh. Yes.
Lousy typo…
jimmy: Anyway, the moose made out better than the poor Traveler. And that weasel guy, who is probably never mentioned again.
tomk: Why would they? He’s a weasel.
The Traveler is another story.
jimmy: Yes. I expect he’ll be keeping a close eye on his new protege.
tomk: Because he’s special.
jimmy: Indeed.
tomk: Well, anything else to add? Someone else’s horrifying pets? Another glimpse of Tasha’s home world?
jimmy: They sure were setting that up to be a thing.
tomk: That came to nothing. We may know more about Worf’s pig.
jimmy: The pig was probably treated better than Tasha.
tomk: I think that’s why Denise Crosby left the show.
Who wants second billing to a pig in a wig?
jimmy: Also why her and Kermie had so many blow ups.
tomk: Tasha has ambitions beyond a variety show with a bear and a dog. Plus, Statler and Wordorf came from her home planet just to yell abuse.
jimmy: Heh.
We can talk more about her departure when we get there. But when’s the last time you saw Denise Crosby in anything?
(Same can probably be said for most of the cast, but at least they made all the TNG/DS9 money.)
tomk: Besides a Family Guy voice cameo as herself?
jimmy: Exactly.
Or when she was excluded from the Zoom TNG reunion and commented about no one telling her.
tomk: We could say the same about any number of TV actors. But the point stands. And she wasn’t so bitter to refuse to ever come back.
I mean, Christopher “Ninth Doctor” Eccleston has yet to do an official Doctor Who reunion even for that franchise’s 50th anniversary.
jimmy: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
tomk: To be fair, I don’t think Eccleston is bitter either, but he’s only been vague about why he left in the first place. He was much more publicly unhappy about his role as Maekith in Thor: The Dark World.
jimmy: That’s a whole other conversation.
tomk: Right. For the Doctor Who rewatch we should never do.
jimmy: Done and done.
tomk: Anything else for this one, or did you want to wander over to another franchise? I hear The Twilight Zone holds up well.
jimmy: I never watched Twilight Zone much. But, no, we might have beaten this one to death.
tomk: How about one where we see blue lightning possess members of the crew?
jimmy: Blue lightning?!? I’ll believe that when I see it!
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