Reginald Barclay
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Reginald Barclay | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Species: | Human |
| Gender: | Male |
| Home planet: | Earth |
| Affiliation: | Starfleet |
| Posting: | USS Enterprise-D diagnostic technician, systems engineer USS Enterprise-E engineer Pathfinder Project |
| Rank: | Lieutenant junior grade Lieutenant |
| Portrayed by: | Dwight Schultz |
Lieutenant Reginald Endicott "Broccoli" Barclay III is a recurring character in the Star Trek fictional universe, created by Sally Caves and played by Dwight Schultz.
He first appeared in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation during the third season episode "Hollow Pursuits" as a "diagnostic technician". During the sixth season episode "Realm of Fear" he is mentioned as being a "systems engineer", in which capacity he also appeared on the USS Enterprise-E in the movie Star Trek: First Contact. He also had a recurring role in the later seasons of Star Trek: Voyager where he plays a vital role in reestablishing regular contact with the lost ship.
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[edit] Overview
Star Trek writer Brannon Braga stated in several interviews that the original idea for Barclay's character was "a Star Trek fan". Barclay's character therefore partakes of many geek, nerd and fanboy stereotypes. He possesses great technical skill and sincere enthusiasm, but is handicapped by social awkwardness and an obsessive interest in fictional universes.
Perhaps the most human character known aboard the Enterprise, Barclay had many flaws that he was forced to overcome. He was shy and insular with a tendency to stutter, was fearful of being transported, had a holoaddiction problem, and was a hypochondriac. These shortcomings prompted a youthful Wesley Crusher to begin referring to Barclay as "Lieutenant Broccoli" behind his back. It is widely believed by fans that Barclay suffers from Social Anxiety Disorder, as demonstrated by his inability to comfortably interact with other crew members.
His holoaddiction problem was first seen in the episode "Hollow Pursuits", in which he created simulacra of the ship's bridge officers who behaved very differently than their "real life" counterparts, thereby bolstering his self-esteem; for example, his version of Captain Jean-Luc Picard was a weakling who cowered before him, while Commander William Riker was much shorter than usual, Beverly Crusher was in love with Barclay (and constantly apologising for her son's rudeness), and Deanna Troi was the all-accepting "Goddess of Empathy". With encouragement from Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge, however, Barclay proves his worth in the real world by helping to uncover the cause of a critical multi-system failure on the Enterprise in time to avert the ship's destruction.
In the episode "The Nth Degree," Barclay's brain is taken over by an ancient race from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, the Cytherians. Under their control, Barclay seizes command of the Enterprise and brings the ship to a confrontation with the Cythians, who explain to Picard that they only desire an exchange of information with the Federation. After the exchange, the Cythians return the Enterprise to Federation space, leaving Barclay with the memory of his interaction and an enhanced ability in chess.
In the episode "Realm of Fear," Barclay dealt with transporter phobia when assigned to an away team. Though he was capable of allowing himself to be transported, he believed that he saw large worm-like creatures while in transit. When no evidence of a problem was found, Barclay believed himself to be going mad; however, he later discovered that these were human patterns in the device's pattern buffer, thought lost in transit. With Barclay's help, these people were materialized, alive and whole; and the bio-filter was capable of removing the alien microbes which had caused them to be stuck in transport.
In "Genesis," Barclay's T-cells had a bizarre reaction to a medicine, creating an airborne virus which caused Barclay to de-evolve into a spider and its other victims to revert to various earlier forms after multiple dormant genes in his body were activated by accident. Upon recovery, the disease was named after him as he was the first person to contract it, and was since known as 'Barclay's Protomorphosis Syndrome'.
Barclay remained under Picard's command after the destruction of the Enterprise-D for a few years on the Enterprise-E until being re-assigned to Starfleet Headquarters circa 2375. When the Enterprise E travelled back in time to 2063, Lt. Barclay accomplished one of his dreams by shaking hands with Zefram Cochrane. Working on the "Pathfinder" project, Barclay became obsessed with the crew of the lost USS Voyager, which had been stranded in the Delta Quadrant for about four years. He created simulacra of the Voyager crew on a holodeck based on the facts available to him. With the help of those holograms and Deanna Troi — with whom he developed a close friendship — he devised a clever way to use a tiny wormhole to establish two-way communication with Voyager. Barclay's work on the Pathfinder project earned him a promotion to full lieutenant (previously he had been a lieutenant junior grade). During this time, a hologram of him was sent to Voyager to help them find a way home, but the hologram was altered by Ferengi trying to acquire Seven of Nine's Borg implants. Fortunately, Barclay and Troi managed to work out what was happening, alerting Voyager to the deception before Barclay forced the Ferengi to flee by posing as the hologram and claiming that Voyager was more heavily armed than it was.
In an early episode of Voyager it was revealed that Barclay was involved in the creation of the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) program. Ironically, Barclay helped develop the EMH's interpersonal skills.
An alternate future in the Voyager series finale "Endgame" showed Barclay teaching at Starfleet Academy, with the rank of Commander. By that point, Barclay had long since conquered his habit of stuttering and was much more confident and assertive.
[edit] Non-canon appearances
Barclay appears in the First Person Shooter video game Star Trek: Elite Force II, where he fills in as Chief Engineer for Geordi La Forge because La Forge and several others have gone on to other assignments. Barclay seems much more competent and confident in the game, and even helps the player fight off a terrorist attack on the ship's engine room.
In the novel version of the Mirror Universe created by Diane Duane, Barclay, a fairly sure-minded, skilled person, is Captain Picard's personal guard until Counselor Troi kills him when he stops her from entering a cargo hold where Picard is engaged in a confrontation with the Captain Picard of the Federation universe. The Federation Picard, in his short stay on the ISS Enterprise pretending to be the Empire Picard, seems to have grown to value Barclay as a person with potential, and is so furious about Barclay's death that his reaction completely fools Troi about Picard's real identity.
[edit] Middle name
Barclay is named after Clayton Endicott III, a character in the TV series Benson portrayed by Rene Auberjonois, who would go on to play Col. West in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Constable Odo in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.[citation needed]
[edit] External links
- Reginald Barclay article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.
| Regular characters on Star Trek | |||
| The Original Series | Kirk | Spock | McCoy | Scott | Uhura | Sulu | Chekov | Chapel | Rand | ||
| Animated Series | Arex | M'Ress | ||
| The Next Generation | Picard | Riker | Data | La Forge | Worf | B. Crusher | Troi | W. Crusher | Yar | O'Brien | Guinan | Pulaski | ||
| Deep Space Nine | B. Sisko | Kira | J. Dax | Odo | Bashir | O'Brien | Worf | J. Sisko | Quark | Rom | Nog | E. Dax | Garak | Martok | Damar | Dukat | Weyoun | Winn | ||
| Voyager | Janeway | Chakotay | Tuvok | Paris | Torres | Kim | Doctor | Neelix | Seven | Kes | ||
| Enterprise | Archer | T'Pol | Tucker | Reed | Phlox | Sato | Mayweather | ||
