Reginald Barclay

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Lieutenant Reginald Endicott "Broccoli" Barclay III, played by Dwight Schultz, is a recurring character in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. He later had a recurring role in the last few seasons of Star Trek: Voyager where he plays a vital role in re-establishing regular contact with the stranded ship.

Overview

Barclay has characteristics associated with many negative nerd and geek stereotypes. He possesses great technical skill and sincere enthusiasm, but is often held back by his own social awkwardness, and has an obsessive interest in fiction and fantasy. He was terribly shy and insecure, had a tendency to stutter, was fearful of being transported, had a holo-addiction problem, and was a hypochondriac. These shortcomings prompted a youthful Wesley Crusher to begin referring to Barclay as "Lieutenant Broccoli" behind his back.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

His holo-addiction is first seen in the episode "Hollow Pursuits", in which he creates simulacra of the ship's bridge officers, who are now completely responsive to Barclay's every whim. Being totally unlike their "real life" counterparts serves purely to bolster his self-esteem - for example, his version of Captain Jean-Luc Picard is a weakling who cowers before him, while Commander William Riker is much shorter than usual, Beverly Crusher is in love with Barclay (and constantly apologizing for her son's rudeness), and Deanna Troi is 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-D 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, radically increasing his intellect. Under their influence, Barclay seizes command of the Enterprise-D and brings the ship to a confrontation with the Cytherians, who explain to Picard that they only desire an exchange of information with the Federation. After the exchange, the Cytherians return the Enterprise-D to Federation space, leaving Barclay with the memory of his interaction and an enhanced ability in chess. In the episode "Realm of Fear," Barclay deals with transporter phobia when assigned to an away team. Though he is capable of allowing himself to be transported, he believes that he sees large worm-like creatures while in transit. When no evidence of a problem is found, Barclay believes himself to be going mad. However, he later discovers that these are actually human patterns trapped within the transporter's pattern buffer, thought lost in transit. With Barclay's help, these people are materialized alive and whole, and the bio-filter is adjusted to remove the alien microbes which had caused them to be stuck in transport. In "Genesis," Barclay's T-cells have a bizarre reaction to a medicine, creating an airborne virus which causes Barclay to de-evolve into a spider-like ancestral form, and its other victims to also revert to various earlier evolutionary forms, after multiple dormant introns in his body are activated by accident. Upon recovery, the disease is named after him as he was the first person to contract it, and was since known as 'Barclay's Protomorphosis Syndrome'.

Star Trek: First Contact

Barclay remains 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 travels back in time to 2063, Lt. Barclay accomplishes one of his lifelong dreams, by simply shaking hands and speaking with Zefram Cochrane.

Star Trek: Voyager

Working on Starfleet's "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 once again creates simulacra on a holodeck, this time of the Voyager crew, but based on facts available to him about their true personalities. For example because he named his cat Neelix, he makes the holodeck Neelix, purr. With the help of these 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 nanoprobes. Fortunately, Barclay and Troi managed to work out what was happening. Barclay was then able to dupe the Ferengi into abandoning their plan by posing as the hologram and claiming that Voyager was more heavily armed than they were. An alternate future in the Voyager series finale "Endgame" shows an older Barclay teaching at Starfleet Academy, with the rank of Commander. By that point, Barclay has long since conquered his habit of stuttering and is much more confident and assertive. He's also there when a transwarp appeature opens correctly identifying it and he witnesses the battle that follows with the Borg Sphere and Voyager's dramatic return to the Alpha Quadrant.

Trivia

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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, when La Forge is away on another assignment. Barclay seems actually competent and confident in the game, and even helps the player fight off an attack on the ship's engine room. In the novel version of the Mirror Universe created by Diane Duane, Barclay 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 furious about Barclay's death.

External links

• Reginald Barclay article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki