Characters / SF Debris - Star Trek: The Next Generation

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Captain Jean-Luc Picard

"Kill 'em all, Mister Worf! We have to protect the sanctity of the Prime Directive! (Heh heh heh! Eat lasers!)"

A long-winded, officious layabout and something of an anti-Kirk. Suffers from crippling pedophobia, for which he was sentenced to serving as emcee of the Federation's top-rated cruise ship/daycare center. He distrusts the children aboard his own ship more than any alien threat it comes across. Worships at the altar of Jim Kirk and the Prime Directive without having the faintest idea of what either represent. Consequently, he tends to fall back on Shatner-style bluster, but folds like a lawn chair when he's actually forced to fight.

• Abusive Parents: Believes Picard is such a Jerkass in early seasons because of how overtly callous and uncaring his brother and father (seen in "Family" and "Tapestry" respectively") were toward him.
  • Freudian Excuse: See above.
• Berserk Button: Offers a plausible theory for Picard's extreme reaction to being told to scuttle the Enterprise-E in First Contact. After getting court-martialled for the loss of the Stargazer and the Enterprise-D being destroyed when he wasn't even there; Picard is not prepared to lose another ship, especially to the Borg.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The reason for his Action Hero streak during the films is due to Janeway's tampering with his replicator, a side effect of which increases testosterone... hence the loss of the rest of his hair.
• Catchphrase: "AAH! Not the face, not the face!", whenever he is forced into combat.
• Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys:
  • Throughout the first season of TNG, Picard seems intent to follow the Starfleet example by seeking out new life... and then surrendering to it.
  • At exactly 18 minutes and 45 seconds into the pilot episode, the French Captain declares:
    Picard: Commander, signal the following in all languages and on all frequencies: "We surrender."
    Chuck: Make of that what you will.
  • In "The Last Outpost" (only the fourth episode in), Picard offers surrender to the Ferengi. At this, Chuck argues it's not a stereotype if he keeps doing it.
• Child Hater:
  • An ongoing running gag. A solid way to make Picard root for the Empire or support a course of action that is most likely to Kick the Dog, is for the opposing side to include children in any way. (As per Starfleet idiom, Picard is the Enterpise-D's designated babysitter despite Riker, Troi and even Worf being better-suited for such matters.)
  • Naturally, he wants Wesley dead. The only reason he hasn't sent the kid off to his certain demise is because he figures Beverly would probably blame him, and that'd scupper his chances of getting her in the sack. ("Where Silence Has Lease")
  • Upon learning that the Bynars lobotomise infants to install cybernetic replacements, making them essentially no different from the Borg:
    Picard: Damn, torn between my hatred for the Borg and my hatred of children.
  • In Generations, we see the families aboard the Enterprise-D are all packed like sardines in the stardrive. That way, if Picard ever initiates a saucer separation, he can fly the stardrive straight into a firefight with the children as ballast.
• Church Militant: When it comes to the Prime Directive.
  "Just as soon as Worf's done picking bits of alien out of my grill."
• Covert Pervert: "Cause and Effect" hints he spies on Beverly while she sleeps.
• Deal with the Devil: Despite his blatant lust for Beverly, he might well have already married her and wound up selling that marriage to the Devil for no readily apparent reason. ("Devil's Due")
• Dirty Old Man: When Troi finally admits she's just trying to scam him, Picard declines to punish her on account of her having cleavage. ("The Battle")
• Everyone Can See It: According to Riker, everyone on ship knows about Picard's desire for Doctor Crusher, except the doctor herself. ("Where Silence Has Lease")
• Everyone Has Standards: As grouchy and grumpy as Chuck's caricature of Picard is, and as much as he may hate and fear children, he points out that even he would be disgusted by the actual Picard's smug assurance that saving a child's life was not worth of Riker's temporary Q powers.
• Failure Hero: Picard's entire storyline in Generations is one long string of failure and loss, both personal and professional;
  Picard: What a day. I screw up everything I touch, get beaten up by Soran, accidentally kill Starfleet's greatest hero. I can't imagine how this day could get any wo— (notices the wreck of the Enterprise-D on the planet) The HELL?! What the goddamn hell happened with the... (various Angrish) SHIT!
  • The fact that this is Picard's backstory for his own damn spin-off results in Chuck's Picard fitting perfectly into the story with little to no change.
• Faux Horrific:
  • Picard's discomfort around children is actually pathological fear to the point that he considers them his greatest foe — even edging out the Borg.
  • His Picard orders Worf to torture a stuffed bear when the little girl who owns it won't confess to a crime she didn't commit.
• French Jerk: As much as Chuck may dislike national stereotypes, he certainly seems to follow these to a T.
• Hates Everyone Equally: In the first two seasons, Picard makes no effort to hide his contempt for...well, everything really.
• I Call It "Vera": His riding saddle, which in Starship Mine is his most effective weapon, is named 'Beverly'.
• In the Blood: "Family" from Star Trek: TNG has a Charles Dickens reference. "I think Robert [Captain Picard's brother] missed his true calling, running an orphanage in a Charles Dickens novel." He subscribes to a theory that Captain Picard is a child hater, so this children-hating thing must apparently run in the blood.
• Insane Troll Logic: Nanoprobes are small. Children are small. Ergo, children are working with the Borg!
• Internal Retcon: Picard edits the Enterprise's sensor logs in secret, so as not to let on that his speeches about the sanctity of the Prime Directive are bullshit. (Nemesis, "Who Watches the Watchers")
• Lame Comeback: If he can quote Shakespeare at someone, he'll annihilate them. If not, or if he's up against the unstoppable viciousness that is Janeway, he's screwed. His only retort to Janeway, rather than Clancy, giving him a Precision F-Strike is to tell her to "suck an ass-dick". Janeway's initially more baffled than anything else, trying to figure out how that would even work. ("Maps and Legends")
• Madden Into Misanthropy: Especially obvious during episodes when the crew decide to dick around with him personally, such as in "Captain's Holiday", where they conspire to get him laid or "Suddenly Human", where Troi forces him to look after a child he wants nothing to do with.
• Mean Boss: Believes the reason why the Enterprise-D has a new Chief Engineer every other week during first series is because Picard kept having to fire them after they screwed up, such as in "The Naked Now" when the Chief Engineer decided to leave Wesley in charge of engineering, instead of, you know, one of the several qualified engineers present in the room.
  • Picard's first act on being sent back into the past is to fire whoever was in charge of engineering, leaving no-one capable of doing the work but O'Brien and pre-characterisation Data, simply because he figured it'd save time. ("All Good Things")
  • In "Where Silence Has Lease", Picard admits the only reason he hadn't fired Geordi already is because he thought he was Geordi's brother.
  • For a non-chief engineer related example, when Counsellor Troi asks for time off to go to Jupiter Station, Picard responds with a rant about how she's so useless he could replace her with a stuffed toy and get the same results, capping it off by telling her "try not to crash the station". ("Life Line")
  • In fact, pretty much any time Troi speaks to him, Picard tends to respond by spewing venom at her.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Picard intentionally sent Jack Crusher to his death so he could get Beverly in the sack, but he's not Wesley's father... probably.
• Our Founder: In "Where No One Has Gone Before", it shows Picard's statue-him throwing two children over his shoulders while kicking a third. The statue's title: "Picard: Hero of the Stargazer."
• Properly Paranoid: Following his ill-fated stint as Mr. Mom, Chuck reckons that Picard is going to milk this "Get Out of Jail Free" card until his dying day. ("Suddenly Human")
  (begging off) "Sorry, I can't help. I just don't get along with children; they're undisciplined, immature... and, oh yes, they STAB ME IN THE FRICKIN' CHEST!"
• Surrounded by Idiots: Part of the reason for his excess bile and grouchiness to the crew in early seasons. In addition to the regular incompetence from his crew, before everyone's characterization marched on, he had to constantly deal with a bridge-crew consisting of Counselor Obvious, Tasha overreacting to things, wacky android antics, an angry Were-Worf, his first officer's smugness and Wesley.
• Strongly Worded Letter: Picard's message to the Ligonians after they have abducted Yar is not very impressive ("Code of Honor").
  "You've kidnapped a member of my crew, and I must say — in a somewhat emphatic tone — that this is not terribly nice and I ask that you return her at your earliest possible convenience! ...If that's okay."
• Talking the Monster to Death: If it comes down to a contest of wits over strength.... Picard still loses. However, Chuck acknowledges that, in a debate, his swelling rhetoric will utterly annihilate all comers. ("The Enemy", "The Defector")
  "Damn! He set the Picard Speech on "Kill, narrow beam."
• The Uriah Gambit: He's not above sending people to their deaths when he finds them mildly irritating:
  Riker: What exactly are you saying, sir?
  Picard: (groans) I'm saying you should go over and investigate that probably fatal ship. Take Lassie [Worf] with you and try to stop him from peeing on it.
  • Riker eventually catches on to this, in fact, and mistakes the plot of "A Matter of Honor" for yet another plausibly deniable attempt on his life.
  Riker: Son of a bitch! Get me a star chart, Imma help you find that hairless bastard.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Takes what was present in the series and turns it up to eleven, to explain much of Picard's mental distress in the series.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Picard's greatest fear is children, after all, so the Cardassians prove just how sadistic and canny they are when, after several hours of torture, the Gul's little girl comes to visit. Suddenly, the torture chamber turns into Picard's personal Room 101. ("Chain of Command")
• Wimp Fight: While Picard excels at diplomacy, history, archaeology and horse-riding, when it comes to actual physical combat, he is terrible. The most he can hope is that he has "Beverly" nearby to throw at them.
  "Ahhh! Not in the face!"
• You Are What You Hate: Picard adamantly refuses to rekindle the Mintakans' Bronze Age religion ("Superstition and ignorance and fear?! NO!"), not realizing that his own blind allegiance to the Prime Directive is, essentially, a religion.

Commander William Riker

"The only solution is to give in to despair and transform into witches."

• A-Team Firing: Remarked that if Riker ever tried to shoot Kennedy, he'd hit Lincoln. ("Code of Honor")
  The man's aim drifts in every dimension.
• Badass Decay: In several post-"Best of Both Worlds" episodes, Chuck mentions how Riker hardly seems like the same officer that beat the Borg, as he bungles his way through many conflicts.
• Big Man on Campus / The Neidermeyer: Riker is a jock who arbitrarily enforces rules on crew members he personally doesn't like.
  Ensign Ro Laren: I was just wondering if you took my earring and then put me next to [Troi] in a low-cut body-hugger as a sick joke, or if you're just that brazen in your favoritism... Oh, and nice bandoleer, there, Chewbacca [Worf]. I assume that's "standard issue" as well.
  • Jerk Jock: Similar to the above, Chuck feels Riker's open contempt of Barclay comes across less as a superior officer being annoyed by an unreliable person under his command, but more like the captain of the football team picking on the head of the chess club.
    • In "Hollow Pursuits", Chuck was perturbed by how happy he was to intrude in Barclay's holofantasy life, whereas Janeway actually apologized to the Doctor under similar circumstances in "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy".
• Brainless Beauty: "Where Silence Has Lease" has Picard admit he largely keeps Riker around only because of his ass. Riker, who's in a particularly ditzy mode that episode, doesn't get it when Picard outright tells him this.
• Butt-Monkey: He always seems to suffer in Brannon Braga stories like "Timescape" and "Genesis".
• Chick Magnet: Even the ridiculously misandrist leader of the planet Angel One wanted to see if he was really "Number One". In the review for "Sarek", specifically the scene where he stops a fight between Geordi and Wesley over who is a bigger loser when it comes to women, it is mentioned that he does so with the assurance of a man "who has had a woman in every single Jeffries Tube on the ship".
• Epic Fail: Every time Riker is sent to infiltrate something or somewhere, he usually fails and gets captured. Except in "Who Watches the Watchers", where he escapes, and Troi gets captured. That's half a win for Riker. ("Preemptive Strike")
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: From the "Up the Long Ladder" review.

  Brenna O'Dell: Do you not like girls?
  Riker: Uh... of course! Wh-w-what have you heard?!

• Jerkass: Chuck notes Season 1 Riker has a habit of ordering Data to do something, then getting annoyed at Data for doing it. He then goes on to swipe Data's conclusions and present them to the captain, mangling them into the process, before trying to persuade Picard into letting him get it on with Troi on the Captain's Chair. ("The Battle")
• Power Perversion Potential: No Riker, you can't use the Pegasus' cloak to hide in the women's shower room.
• Typhoid Mary: In "The Game", jokes about how everyone keeps referring to the titular game as being "something that Riker brought back from his latest trip to Risa", making it sound like he's responsible for most of the STD outbreaks that Crusher has to treat aboard the Enterprise.

Lt. Commander Data

• Dude, Where's My Respect?: As of "Thine Own Self," Data — the only super-intelligent android serving in Starfleet, the second officer and operations manager of the Federation flagship, who has had a direct role in saving the Federation and countless other worlds several times — has to call Troi "Sir."
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Of a kind. Despite being the pinnacle achievement of robotics, and the only crew member to save the Enterprise more than Wesley, Data thinks fish are amphibians. After suffering a malfunction in Thine Own Self, Data's able to give lectures on organic chemistry, but doesn't know that the primitive villagers who take him in shouldn't play with the contents of a container marked "radioactive."
• Spanner in the Works: Janeway's plan to send the Enterprise-E off to certain doom, cripple the Federation and the Romulan Empire, and allow her to take over the Alpha Quadrant, was pretty much foolproof. And she would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for Data. ("Star Trek Nemesis")

Counselor Deanna Troi

Another satisfied patient!

• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: In the alternate timeline of Yesterday's Enterprise, Grand Marshal Troi is apparently doing an exemplary job leading Starfleet in the Federation's war with the Klingon Empire.
  • Could count as Sarcasm Mode, since the Federation was losing that war. Alternately, could be sincere in that the Federation might be losing faster without her...
• Back-Alley Doctor: Laughably, disastrously incompetent in everything she attempts, especially her actual job as ship's psychologist. To the point that people come into her office feeling well and leave with homocidal tendencies ("Descent").
  • Out of all the male authority figures onboard, she passes over Riker (who's the First Officer and good with children) and Worf (already raised a son, and is an outsider himself), to foist Jono onto Picard, who can't stand being around children even at the best of times. It ends as well as you'd expect, with Jono stabbing the Captain almost to death. Granted, it could have been the fact that Picard made Jono hang out with Wesley, but still... ("Suddenly Human").
  • In "These Are the Voyages...", we see her prescribing holographic treatment for her patients, despite having never actually viewed the program in question.
  • Then in Realm of Fear we see Troi not only seem to totally forget previous sessions with a patient but also tell someone with a debilitating phobia that all their fears are totally justified and that he is right to live in fear so great it severely impacts both his personal and professional life without once suggesting any treatment for him at all.
• Brainless Beauty: By "Disaster", Troi is a Lieutenant Commander, but as O'Brien and Ensign Ro are explaining about how the warp core is going to go boom, all Troi can hear is: "Blah blah blah blah blah blah."
• Doom Magnet: Nine times out of ten, Troi's powers don't even work. The tenth time however, invariably gets the ship into trouble. ("Power Play")
• Dumbass Has a Point: In "Sub Rosa", Troi actually makes a reasonable suggestion to Doctor Crusher, but after seven years of ignoring everything she says, it goes unnoticed.
• Jerkass: She arbitrarily calls out Worf's emotional state while they're waiting for a diplomat to come aboard, despite having no reason to believe that it's in any way compromising his job. ("Loud as a Whisper")
• The Klutz: The scariest moment in Insurrection was her shaving Riker's beard with a straight razor. "That's like letting Laurel and Hardy give you a bikini wax!"
• Not Listening to Me, Are You?: The one time on the show that Worf could actually use a counseling session in "Ethics", Troi is taking a powder. "How's your mood doing? Don't bother answering, I'll just turn to my "BEST COUNSELOR EVER" mug for the answer!"
• Phony Psychic: Even her psychic abilities are suspect, since in addition to stating the blindingly obvious, she routinely informs Picard that she feels "something" before shrugging her shoulders when asked for more information ("Night Terrors"). In "Preemptive Strike", Picard is able to pick up through body language that Ro is uncomfortable when Deanna can't do the same from two feet away while talking to her. In "The Battle", she admits that she is in fact completely fraudulent, and is just trying to scam Picard.
• Someday This Will Come in Handy: Despite clearing the Bridge Officer's exam and being promoted over Geordi and Data, Troi possesses no advanced combat skills; no basic combat skills; in fact, no tactical skills whatsoever. But she can, unfailingly, crash whatever she is driving into something even bigger! Picard files this away as a possible Plan "Z"... which was finally put to use in Nemesis.
• Women Drivers: Depressingly, Troi's piloting skills are on par with her medical expertise. (And it's a rare case of this being a Justified Trope instead of an offensive one; she really is that bad).
  (Enterprise-D faceplants into Veridian III)
  "And THAT, folks, is how you make First Contact! Roswell style!"
  • As noted above, the only reason Picard keeps her around after that mishap is because he figures that someday, her ability to crash something into something else might actually be useful ("Nemesis").
  • She is somehow responsible for crashing vehicles in series completely unrelated to Star Trek, including The Dark Knight and Gargoyles.
  • The reason why Troi is dead in the future? Worf never should have lent her his car keys. ("All Good Things...")

Doctor Beverley Crusher

• Back-Alley Doctor: Much like Troi, Crusher's expertise is highly suspect. She lacks even a basic knowledge of things like headaches ("The Battle"), and her attempt to heal Picard's injuries from being shot with an arrow manages to replace his arm with a flipper. ("Who Watches The Watchers?")
• Captain Oblivious: Beverly doesn't seem to notice Picard's ludicrously unsubtle desire for her, even when everybody else has.
• Determinator: Where Riker is terrified by his REM-sleep deprived hallucinations, Beverly manages to get rid of hers by sheer force of will. ("Night Terrors")
• Too Dumb to Live: "Genesis" displays the intelligence that got Beverly demoted from Starfleet Medical down to fixing cat scratches. When Worf starts growing what appear to be venom sacks on his cheeks, Crusher asks him to open his mouth... and gets a faceful of acid for her trouble.
• Worst Aid: While treating a room full of wounded evacuees from a damaged Romulan Warbird, she inexplicably takes time to give one a vasectomy. ("Timescape")

The Gorgon, A.k.a. Doctor Katherine Pulaski

• Battleaxe Nurse: Chuck often jokingly compares Doctor Pulaski to various monsters of Greek Mythology, especially a Gorgon, due to her extremely curly hair and tendency to petrify most of the audience.
• Berserk Button: There are few TNG characters Chuck despises more than Pulaski. She has the honor of being named Most Annoying Character in an episode set several seasons after she left the show, simply because it was a follow-up to an episode she was featured in and thus Chuck had to watch it for context.
• Fantastic Racism: Chuck points out that her interaction with Data is essentially bullying someone who's mentally disabled.

Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge

• Bad Boss: He's perfectly willing to send Chief O'Brien down to a hostile alien planet where he's almost certain to die horribly, even when the man's got a wife and a baby. ("Power Play")
  Geordi: No, Chief, I should do it. You have a wife and kid, and if this goes wrong, you'd die a horrible, excruciating death, I-... Yeah, good idea, Chief. You go.
  O'Brien: Y'know, uh, we could beam down the pattern enhancers. That just occurred to me, they [meaning Riker, Data and Troi]'d know how to set them up.
  Geordi: No, no, no, no, you've talked me into it, Chief. Get on the pad.
  O'Brien: Well, I-
  Geordi: Get on the pad, Chief.
• Cargo Ship: In "Booby Trap", he spends most of the episode flirting with the Leah Brahms hologram. Since she's nothing more than an interactive avatar of the ship, Geordi is essentially putting the moves on the Enterprise herself.
• Falling into the Cockpit: Speculates that Picard made him Chief Engineer in the second season because he was one of the few people in engineering he hadn't fired for gross incompetence, plus he actually knew his name.
  • Of course, there are also some hints that Picard isn't entirely certain who Geordi is beyond being "That red-shirted black fellow," thinking that his new chief engineer is Geordi's "brother, or something."
• Take That, Scrappy!: Geordi is one of the friendliest and most easy going people in the whole Federation, but even he hates Wesley and just wants him to stay out of engineering! ("Sarek", "Remember Me")
• Ur-Example: Geordi's utter lack of success with woman set the benchmark for Trek, years before Harry Kim was created.

Lieutenant Worf

"It doesn't take much to see the problems of a strapping Klingon and a Human/Betazoid mongrel don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy galaxy."

Worf is the perhaps the only officer in Starfleet actually assigned to a suitable job. Unfortunately for him, he's assigned to two jobs simultaneously (Tactical and Security), and thus doesn't perform either of them very well. He's also something of a black ops man, carrying out discreet 'accidents' so Picard can adhere to the Prime Directive — on paper, at least.

• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Worf's solution to every problem, especially in early TNG:
  Chuck: Worf offers up his assessment of the Borg problem: phasers and photon torpedoes. Which is also his answer to Romulan problems, Cardassian problems and erectile dysfunction.
  • "Conundrum" shows Worf's attempt at hailing: Hail the other ship, and then instantly claim they're not responding, claim they're hostile and demand he be allowed to shoot them.
• Brass "Honor": When Worf casually, and without any indication that he's in any particular hurry, disarms a phaser that's about to overload^note in other words, a live hand grenade, Chuck speculates that the reason Worf speaks so slowly and deep is because his balls are massive enough to distort space-time.
• Children Are a Waste: The reason Alexander would disappear from TNG for long stretches at a time, is because Worf kept hocking his son as collateral during Poker night, then had to spend the next dozen episodes attempting to win him back.
• Gunboat Diplomat: His preferred method of dealing with foreign nationals who visit Enterprise. (Darmok)
  Picard: I appreciate your prudence, Mr. Worf, but let's avoid any more of your 'diplomatic security maneuvers.'
  Worf: Not even number 38?
  Picard: ESPECIALLY number 38...we never did find the ambassador's glass eye.
  Worf: At least number seven—
  Picard: Number seven was specifically mentioned in the last interspecies treaty; and covers ducks, mice, and plumbs to thoroughly cover the matter!
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The barely functional "Were-Worf" from early seasons of TNG, before Character Development set in.
• Honour and Courage is an Awesome Power: Suggests building a gun powered by "Honour and Courage" to fight the Borg, believing their lack of both to be their greatest weakness. Picard doesn't dignify this with a response ("The Best of Both Worlds").
  • And apparently it wasn't finished in time for it to be used anyway.
• I Call Him "Mister Happy": Worf even named his balls "Honor." He's that into it.
  • "He also named his dick "Courage," but most Klingons do that." Followed by a montage of Klingons speaking about honor and courage, which becomes gut-bustingly hilarious with that interpretation.
• Informed Wrongness: The Worf Effect is the result of the Enterprise command staff not allowing him to take action until the alien of the week is strong enough to hand him an effortless beat down. Related, they constantly seem shocked at his offering violent solutions in meetings even though it's his part of his official role as tactical officer.
  Chuck: (as Worf) Oh, oh, NOW you want my opinion? That's always the way, isn't it? You smugly go about your ways, smirking at each other about the paranoid Klingon until things go wrong, which they ALWAYS do, you drop your tofu in horror and turn to me, right at the time when it's become so powerful that all it does is kick my ass. So yes, Commander Jellyfish, I will sort this shit out for you, like I always do, and you can go back to sorting your tampons by their shade of pink.
• Ignored Expert: Chuck often brings up in the first two seasons of TNG, Worf, unlike the rest of the crew, actually displays the ability to do his job, but they never actually let him take action or listen to him.
• It Runs in the Family: Kirk's defense attorney is highly suspect, especially considering his grandson's propensity for getting his ass kicked. Colonel Worf's batting average must be worse than Glass Joe's. (Star Trek VI)
• Lost Him in a Card Game: Often bets his son during poker.
• Number Two for Brains: Worf performs most of the wet work Picard calls for, but is all thumbs when it comes to other duties. ("Remember Me")
  Crusher: Dr. Quaice is very old and rather frail; if he fell somewhere, if his communicator were damaged...
  Worf: Oh! I'm beginning to understand, yes. I'll arrange an accident for him.
  Crusher: What?! NO!
  Worf: (beat) ..well, now I am confused. You're sure you're not asking for a Number Seven?
• Only Sane Man: In many of the early episodes he seem to be the only one the Enterprise that displays any common sense in the face of danger. His suggestions to shoot enemies are also frequently ignored or treated with derision by his (suicidally pacifistic) fellow bridge officers, despite offering these kind of suggestions being part of his job.
• "Well Done, Dad!" Guy: If "Barge of the Dead" is to be believed, Worf's frequent irritation with Alexander makes a lot more sense, if dead Klingons can suffer an eternity in the fiery pits of Gre'thor (Klingon Hell) for their children's dishonour.

Wesley Crusher

Oh, God, why?

• But Liquor Is Quicker: Like everything else on the ship, Wesley's given entirely too much access to off-button hyposprays, leading to:
  • Incest Subtext: His...odd relationship with Beverly.
• Butt-Monkey: Even Geordi, the closest thing Wesley has to a friend, looks down on and mocks Wesley for being a loser. And when Beverly tells Troi about how she lost her temper and slapped him, Troi's concerned. After all, this is the tenth such incident in two days. Even Wesley doesn't get beaten up that much. ("Sarek")
• Free-Range Children: Wesley is allowed to mess around with anti-matter ("Peak Performance") and nanites ("Evolution") for his science projects, with absolutely zero oversight from anyone despite the dangerous nature of both materials. The sheer insanity of this is only compounded since the latter experiment leads him to accidentally create synthetic life.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Picard casually mentioning he wants Wesley dead gets a "we're all with you on that" from Riker. ("Where Silence Has Lease")
• Hands-Off Parenting: In "I Borg", suggests that Beverly's passive-aggressiveness and horrified reaction towards the mere suggestion of using discipline on Hugh, is a major hint as to why Wesley is so insufferable.
  Beverly: Give Wesley a time out for bad behaviour? Why don't I just whip him, you barbarian?!
  • When Data needs some parenting advice for Lal, he goes right to Beverly, since she's obviously an expert in bringing up "a know-it-all that no-one wants to be around". ("The Offspring")
• My Beloved Smother: Jokes that it's a credit to Beverly's parenting style that has turned Wesley into the insufferable, friendless, Wunderkind he is today. She also forces him to take regular haircuts, believing that anything longer than a short, back and sides risks turning him into a hippie ("The Offspring").
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: This little nugget from Star Trek: Nemesis:
  Data: Ladies and gentlemen, and invited transgendered species...
  Chuck: And Wesley, wherever you are.
  • Picard, ducking his parental duties to Jono, desperately pairs him off with a nearby boy of similar age. That night, he attempts to knife Picard to death, something the grievously wounded Captain admits he had coming for making Jono spend a day with Wesley. ("Suddenly Human")
• This Loser Is You: In "Evolution", applaudes Michael Piller for lampshading how pathologically unhealthy Wesley's behaviour in early TNG came across as to everyone (except Gene), creating the character of Stubbs to reflect Wesley in forty years if he remained on this path, ending up as a lonely intellectual who'd let his work consume his entire life.
• Urine Trouble: This exchange from "Booby Trap".
  Riker: Define "weird."
  Wesley: Weird is when you tell a girl you like to listen to the sound of her pee, and she starts to cry. Y'know.

Ensign Sonya Gomez

• The Load: While not particularly offensive, Gomez is pretty much useless. The highlight of her career was spilling a hot beverage on Captain Picard.
• Nuclear Mutant: Gomez was Put on a Bus after a mishap with the warp core caused her to grow an extra breast. ("Phantasms")^note It is speculated that Lycia Naff, who played Sonya, was let go after taking a bit role as a three-breasted hooker in Total Recall (1990)

Q

• Audience Surrogate: Much like the audience, Q forms an intense dislike of Neelix within seconds of meeting him, refers to him as "Bar Rodent" and assumes that he has be blackmailing Janeway to remain aboard Voyager, because who would put up with someone so utterly irritating otherwise? ("The Q and the Grey").
• Stalker with a Crush: Points out that this is often how Q's motivations come across, especially when he visited Deep Space Nine — only interested in following the lover who spurned him. His relationships with Janeway, and even Picard have a distinct flavor of this, as well.
  • Compensating for Something: Leads to one of the few canon Star Trek dick jokes.
    Q: I was wondering, Kathy, what could anyone possibly see in this big oaf [Chakotay], anyway? Is it the tattoo? Because MINE'S BIGGER!

The Traveler

• Less Disturbing in Context: Averted. He substitutes a scene with Wesley and the Traveler with just the voiceover and a picture of a "windowless shuttlepod" and notes that the whole thing sounds just as creepy as it does in context.
• Memetic Molester: Like most of Trek fandom, Chuck believes that the Traveler clearly is lusting after Wesley and frequently makes dark jokes about just how creepy that is.
  • For netting the Annoying Character award in "Remember Me", he receives the caption, "I Travel... to Stay One Step Ahead of the Law."
    "There's your 'warp bubble' Wesley."

Captain Okona

• Informed Attribute: The show treats him like he's a charming and witty Han Solo expy, but he's far more akin to being a lamer version of Philip J. Fry.
• Kavorka Man: Much to Chuck's chagrin.
  Okona: Now that's sex appeal!
  Chuck: I hope you're referring to her, Okona. Because if you're describing yourself, I'm gonna have to invent three new forms of hate to express how I feel about you.
• Small Name, Big Ego: After all the build up about Okona being a rogue who lived his life as he wished, it turns out he's nothing more than an over glorified pizza guy in an ugly, puffy vest.

Shinzon

• Death Seeker/Inferiority Superiority Complex: Chuck theorizes that Shinzon's Clone Angst-induced inferiority complex towards Picard leads him to subconsciously sabotage his own plan in Star Trek: Nemesis. He sees it as a better explanation for Shinzon's obvious mistakes rather than him being just that stupid.
• Humans Are Special: He points out that if this were the case, and Shinzon's human nature is causing him to sabotage himself (though it was almost certainly not the filmmakers' intention), this would actually fit Gene Roddenberry's vision for Star Trek quite nicely.
• Spanner in the Works: Janeway's plan to take over the galaxy counted on Shinzon. Unfortunately for her, he was the the dumbest villain the Enterprise ever faced.
• Unwitting Pawn: Shinzon got the technology to build the Scimitar from Janeway in order to strike at the heart of the Federation before the ship was itself destroyed, leaving Janeway to lead the remnants of Federation in a quick and just war against the Romulans so that she could take over the galaxy.

Lieutenant Nobody

• The Ghost: The Enterprise-E's presumed tactical officer before Worf came aboard and stole his post. Chuck invented him to mock the fact that this means that the Enterprise went into battle with the Borg, with the Tactical post completely empty.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: Over the course of the review he invents an anti-Borg cannon, but is utterly ignored by Picard and the others.

Roga from "The Hunted"

• Foil: Chuck refers to him as the Anti-Okona in that his abilities are actually shown and not an Informed Attribute, while wearing grey, drab and bland clothing (even by Trek standards) compared to Okona's over the top wardrobe stolen from Han Solo.
• Informed Flaw: The audience is repeatedly told that his Super-Soldier conditioning makes him Axe-Crazy in normal society and he even admits this, yet we never see any evidence of the brutality he committed during the war, his behaviour in the brig and his actions whilst escaping is barely any different and he never kills or even fires any of the half-dozen phasers he acquires.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Roga can redirect transporters through the power of dance, is somehow able to acquire phasers through sheer force of will and able to pull of ridiculously complicated escape plans made up on the fly.

B- 4 from Star Trek Nemesis

• Not as You Know Them: Rather than a Flawed Prototype that was the predecessor of Lore and Data, B-4 is really just Lore, who Janeway dragged out of storage and reprogrammed, after dialing down his intelligence so he wouldn't betray her.

Sela

• Evil Counterpart: To Spock. They are both Half Human Hybrids who have had issues with their same-sex parent and have embraced their non-human half.
• Too Dumb to Live: Chuck shares the common fandom opinion that Sela locking Picard, Spock, and Data in her office unattended was colossally stupid of her. Even discounting the fact she didn't knew that they had secret access to the computer system, the trio was still left with plenty of means and opportunities to do some serious damage regardless.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: She only joined the Romulan army because her father insisted.

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