Fans Only Get A Beloved Star Trek Actor Back Because Of The Worst Character

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 12 seconds ago

Third term of Star Trek: The Next Generation was functionally a fresh start for the series: under the supervision of new showrunner Michael Piller, the series got snappy new costumes, better writing, and memorable new characters. However, the character fans were most worried about was the returning Beverly Crusher, the ship’s doctor who had previously been replaced by the less popular Katherine Pulaski. Crusher came back to support her son, universally hated character Wesley Crusher, and Piller later revealed that it was Wesley’s disturbing character arc in the season 3 premiere “Evolution” that led to her “re-entry into the series” by Dr Crusher.

this The Next Generation in the episode when the Enterprise was escorting an eccentric doctor to a cosmic phenomenon…a kind of interstellar Old Faithful that erupts every 196 years. Plans to study this historic event go sideways as more of the ship’s systems begin to act erratically, and it appears that Wesley Crusher has unleashed some nannies that replicated, evolved, and started residing in the Enterprise computing core. Tensions rise when the visiting scientist kills some of the little creatures, but after realizing that the nannies have become sentient beings, Captain Picard does what he does best: negotiate peace without further bloodshed.

Where does Beverly Crusher fit into the story of “Evolution?” She is happy to return to the Enterprise and even happier to see her son again (she had spent a year in Starfleet Medical care), but she is beginning to worry that Wesley Crusher is focusing too much on his studies and not enough on enjoying being. young. The two plots intersect when her nurturing of pet Wesley is what finally makes her come clean about accidentally letting a nanny loose on board the ship.

According to the author “Evolution” a TNG showrunner Michael Piller, Wesley Crusher’s arc in this episode demanded that Beverly Crusher return. Piller eventually comes to realize that the lonely and obsessive scientist in this episode “is Wesley in forty years, if he stays the course of being a smart kid who is dedicated to his work and appears that he doesn’t have much else going on in his work. life.” Piller famously mandated that episodes must help our favorite characters evolve in some way and he took his own advice in “Evolution,” realizing this was an opportunity to “help Wesley grow” and bring back Beverly Crusher .

Part of Piller’s genius was his innate understanding that TNG episodes had to have the same appeal to him sci-fi nerds and general audiences. So while sci-fi lovers looked over the A-plot involving nanites, he had a B-plot on a more “human” level about Beverly Crusher dealing with a very real parental fear: “My son is not having a normal childhood.” Piller said “we know a lot of kids like that,” and after seeing this very common condition play out in real life, he had “the sense it needed” for “Evolution.”

“Evolution” ended up being a great episode of The Next Generationbut it’s sickeningly funny to note that fan favorite character Beverly Crusher might not have come back to the show if it wasn’t for Wesley Crusher, possibly the most hated character. Ironically enough, actor Wesley Crusher Will Wheaton She left the show (except for some later cameos) after season 3, but actor Beverly Crusher Gates McFadden stayed on for the rest of TNG and later became a central character in Picard season 3.

He felt his return in the later show perfect because it is hard to imagine a The Next Generation story without her, but think: we would never have had more Beverly Crusher stories at all if Michael Piller hadn’t realized that Wesley Crusher needed to “grow up” and “move into a relationship with love.” Early on TNG episodes about Wesley inexplicably saving the day, but this time, he did more than that: He saved Gates McFadden’s career by being the weirdest and loneliest kid sidekick in science fiction history.