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.

You don't have to love Barclay for this to be good. It's helpful if you've seen his TNG episodes, particularly his holodeck addiction.

This episode plays with that history and arguably depicts him relapsing into his addiction. That alone makes it compelling because it's a type of depth Trek or this era rarely reached into.

The climax is very good and I was extremely impressed with the remarkably restrained first contact. They could have very easily gone way over the top here and I bet they were heavily tempted to.

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.

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.

A TNG flashback with Reginald Barclay and Deanna Troi back in their doctor-patient roles while Reg tries to open communications with Voyager. It's a fun episode with Reg' neurosis battling the buttoned up culture of Starfleet.

The 'villain' in this episode is Reg' boss Commander Harkins, who for reasons unknown seems hell-bent on preventing Reg from attempting his plan to contact Voyager. There are no reasons given for his obstruction, and it's all too obvious that the only real reason is to provide plot drama.

So they set up the straw man villain and knock him down, but along the way there is a lot of fun with Troi's counseling sessions and Reg's re-creation of the Voyager crew in hologram form (and they all think Reg is a super swell guy of course), a chase scene through holo-Voyager, and ultimately a feel good ending that provides a big continuity point in this mostly episodic series.

This could have easily been a 9 or 10 rating from me, if only the writers had tried a bit harder to come up with some real reasons or, well, any reasons, for browbeating Reg into forgetting about Voyager.