Hollow Pursuits

Is Reg Barclay like one of those kids that are promoted so the teacher can be rid of them at the end of the year? He is a mess and yet he has great expertise or he would never have made it through the academy. What he is, is addicted to the Holodeck. He has incredibly complex programs where he lives his life of adventure, Walter Mitty style. Obviously, he is incredibly talented but with absolutely no self-esteem. He is also careless and undependable. The factor that makes what he does a bit disconcerting is that he uses the images of actual crew members a the models for his characters (this is not a violation, but it is frowned upon). He even has a passionate, submissive characterization of Troi. I've always wondered about the Holodeck. Apparently, anyone who wishes can walk in on another person, so I guess you'd better not do anything embarrassing. It is hilarious to watch Picard and Data as Musketeers, battling the master swordsman, Barclay. The true problem is something that has happened to the systems on the Enterprise and the entire ship must be analyzed and evaluated to find the bug which is very serious. For those of you who watch too much of this stuff, you know that this character is hardly finished as an important factor in the opus.

Humour, this is pure Gold.

Now we know from the A Team just how funny Dwight Schultz is, and boy he shows it here, no wonder he become a recurring character as he has the "likeability" factor and in life that is so very much important.

Being shy is not easy, but do people care, nope. Meeting the opposite sex not having the banter can be a nightmare I was Dwight, even at work if a stranger come in, was a nightmare. If i had a holodeck, I would never come out :-).

Schultz is a great actor in this episode. He's in a few other episodes as well as one of the movies.

I remember talking to someone when I was in college about this episode and they did a Mr. T. impression "I'm not getting into that transporter foo!" That would have been awesome to see..

But, as a 20 something when this came out, you know darn well that I and any guy watching the show would have thought about doing this very same thing. Enjoying fantasies, perhaps with people they know, maybe in a.... slightly non-g-rated fashion. There's a later episode where it implies Riker does this (the one with the metamorph).

So, I can't condemn his actions, just enjoy the episode.

I loved this episode and how it introduced Barclay, a character I can definitely relate too, as he battled holodeck addiction and find his way in the crew. Geordi eventually helped him find his place. It shows that we all need help finding our spot in the crew if we get the right assistance. I think Barclay was a great character and this was a great episode. The holodeck scenes were first rate.

*** out of ****

In this episode we meet recurring character Reg Barclay a character who is bullied for being slow by LaForge and the others in engineering