Pathfinder

If you have kept with my reviews I tend to not tow the line with the rest. That is, episodes others say are the best, I cannot stand, and certain episodes people hate (The Thaw, for example) I love.

This one is the best I have ever seen, and I have seen them all up to now. This episode embodies everything that made me love Star Trek TNG, and Deep Space Nine. It uses an old character in a very appropriate way and even brings back his faults in a great way.

The resolution is excellent and I would watch this episode over and over again. If only the whole series had this kind of writing.

It's always great to see stuttering, socially awkward Reg Barclay in an episode.

Unfortunately, the forced character motivations hamstring the episode and keep it from becoming a really quality Voyager outing. Barclay has become obsessed with Voyager's plight (perhaps because they are stranded alone in the Delta quadrant, and he is stranded alone inside his hopelessly cringey social ineptness). He has developed a theoretical method of creating a singularity and using it to establish 2-way communications with Voyager. But his commanding officer, who otherwise seems patient and rational, refuses to allow Barclay to test this theory, or even to recommend it to higher-ups in Starfleet.

The burning question when watching this episode is then: WHY? Why wouldn't they let Barclay try? By all accounts throughout the story, there is absolutely no ramifications to trying... except to reach the stranded Voyager and finally establish full comms with them. One, of course, knows why this stubbornness exists.... to create drama as artificial as Barclay's wormhole! To make him struggle and finally prevail.... over nothing, really.

This really makes what is a watershed moment in the show a, well, a hollow pursuit.

What a superb character and I'm grateful to the writers and Schultz for displaying the complexities and stupidities of society through him.

The truth about Barclay is that none of his outbursts are more childish or out of line than any of Captain Picard's.

But society is not a place where ideas are equally weighed, reason takes a back seat to popularity --- who you are takes precedence over what you say or how you say it.

It's rather like what Ezri Dax says about Klingon honor --- we see soldiers kamikazeing themselves even though they know Gowron is dishonorable and essentially a child.

But Gowron is at the top, and we under the top must obey without reason.

And so this sickness infects society --- the pretense of reason, the pretense of honor --- and kills people.

Therefore the Barclays and Ezris of the world are needed to counterbalance society's own insanity, disobedience is critical to wellbeing.

Barclay is a true hero.

When this episode first aired, I imagine some viewers were checking their TV guides to check which Star Trek program they had tuned into, because you don't watch "Voyager" expecting to see Lt. Barclay open a door to greet Deanna Troi ... revisiting ST:TNG through two of that show's most annoying characters.

Surprisingly, Troi is not annoying at all ... which evidently inspired Dwight Shultz to double down on Barclay's irritating qualities. This makes for some tough going, because (like most Barclay episodes) the story focuses entirely on him and his neurotic self -- but even more so since he's telling it.

The good news is the often-overlooked Richard Herd as Admiral Paris, who yanks this episode up out of 'irritating' and thrusts it into 'genuinely moving'. We'll just have to accept his remarkable resemblance to Karl Malden -- nothing to be done about looks, and the talent is the man's own. Here's an actor who equals Patrick Stewart for serious scenes; they must have realized it on set as well, since they brought him back for a few more episodes after this.

The result is an OK first half (Barclay/Troi) and a genuinely strong second half (Paris), although I sorta feel for the regular cast -- "Voyager" is their show, but they're largely reduced to being background/support characters for Shultz. It must be said, though, that he's very good at playing the neurotic-but-brilliant Lt Barclay.

Ultimately, a definitely-recommended episode,but not where I'd start someone on watching "Voyager"

Lieutenant Barclay is back and makes his second appearance on Voyager. Although even the writers seem to have forgotten that Barclay was previously seen in the episode "Projections." At the end of this episode, the doctor answers the question of whether anyone knows Barclay only by saying that he has read his patient file. In the said episode, however, he encountered Barclay on the holodeck when he himself was trapped in it due to a malfunction. Barclay tried to convince him that he was the real Dr. Zimmerman and was actually stuck in a simulation on Jupiter Station due to an accident.

In any case, this episode is refreshingly different than previous Voyager episodes. At the center is Barclay, a Star Trek character who is not part of the lineup for this series. We also see Deanna Troi again. The type of narrative is also different. Troi visits Barclay, who is obsessed with Voyager (he even named his cat "Neelix") and the idea to establish contact but has been relieved of duty by his superior because he got too involved in this project and also spent too many hours on the holodeck in a simulation of Voyager. We now see, on the one hand, flashbacks of these events up to the present time and, on the other hand, the events in the now that follow afterwards. Barclay disobeys his superior's orders and attempts to prove his theory of a communication channel through an artificially created wormhole. And although Barclay isn't exactly the most socially competent officer, he is still an engineering genius that should not be underestimated. He manages to make brief contact with Voyager and thereby rehabilitates himself with his superiors.

I still think that Barclay would have fit well into this series after his stay on the Enterprise. His very introversive nature but also his ideas for solving technical problems could have been an interesting plot element. He could have made a very congenial duo in engineering with the cold and gruff Torres. He would also have been the perfect candidate for all the episodes in which crew members were possessed by aliens.

I also don't know why some Star Trek fans have an aversion to Barclay. Basically, he embodies the spirit of Star Trek like no other. Although he is not the type of officer who is always in the spotlight and is basically just a normal and simple person, he is still an expert in his field. He always tries to solve problems through technology, following the vision of Star Trek that the future can be made a better place through technology and knowledge.