TNG Flashback: Hollow Pursuits

In reviewing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I've often lamented that many episodes go bad when they center too much on the guest star and not enough on the main characters. But then there are some episodes that can only be told through a guest character. "Hollow Pursuits" is the perfect example of such a story.

Junior engineer Reginald Barclay just isn't fitting in aboard the Enterprise. He's socially awkward, painfully inarticulate, timid and shy, chronically late -- everything that isn't "Starfleet's finest." And after a particularly rough day (which is pretty much all of them), he retreats to the holodeck, where he has recreated all the senior staff members who've been getting him down, and gets the better of them in a variety of fantasies ranging from becoming the swaggering menace of the ship to an accomplished fencer of centuries past. Geordi learns of Barclay's holodeck addiction, and tries to help him through it even as the two must work together to solve a series of baffling and increasingly dangerous malfunctions aboard the ship.

Everyone plays out in their heads those fantasy moments where you wish you'd said something better or behaved differently. Everybody can identify with the person who drives you crazy, to whom you wish you could just say what you really think. It makes perfect sense that if you had access to a holodeck, the desire to live out those fantasies would be even more powerful that the desire to "take that dream vacation" or "live inside your favorite novel." It's an inevitable and natural story for Star Trek to tell.

That said, you couldn't tell it with one of the main characters. Not one of the Next Generation characters, anyway. They are too virtuous, too noble, too good, to succumb to an addiction -- even an addiction that doesn't (yet) exist in the real world. You have to saddle a new minor character with the problem, then try to fit in the main cast around it.

Enter Reginald Barclay, played by Dwight Schultz. The part was especially written with him in mind, which came about after he and Whoopi Goldberg worked on a movie together. He happened to discuss with her his love of Star Trek, and mentioned how much he loved seeing her on The Next Generation. Goldberg went back to the producers, praising Schultz's acting and recommending a part be written for him.

Schultz does a masterful job of playing a painfully shy, socially awkward misfit. This episode aired in 1990, right around the time the modern conception of Asperger syndrome was becoming a more common and recognized diagnosis, and probably a decade or more before the average layperson had heard of it. But in my (completely armchair) opinion, Barclay is perhaps one of the first television characters with Asperger's. He's capable of confidence, but needs the safety net of being able to shut off or reboot a conversation if it doesn't go the way he expects it.

Even though Barclay would go on to be a semi-recurring character, he's still not a "main." But this episode is as much a Geordi story as it is a Barclay story. As much as it's about Barclay's holo addiction, it's about Geordi's attempts to bring Barclay out of his shell. Geordi is the perfect character to discover Barclay's secret, for reasons mentioned specifically in the episode -- he too has had an unconventional experience on the holodeck, having also recreated a person who actually exists in the real world. He even fell in love with the creation. Geordi is also among the most human and understanding of the characters, a person who would try to help someone like Barclay; by contrast, Riker has fallen in holodeck love too, but he's predictably stern with Barclay in this episode.

Other characters get good moments in this episode too. Data's innocent observation that the "Broccoli" nickname doesn't seem to denote fondness exposes the bullying behavior of the other characters. Picard's horrified reaction to accidentally using the nickname himself is a delight (as is Data's attempt to make him feel better about the mistake). Troi's awkward counseling session with an increasingly nervous Barclay is one of the best comedic moments of the season.

But of course, the real fun comes in watching all the main actors play the holodeck versions of themselves -- and it's clear they all had as much fun doing it as we do watching it. There's Picard, Data, and Geordi as "musketeers," with a half-height Riker as their wannabe (and he's no D'Artagnan). Beverly lounges about in an almost laudanum-like haze, as her Blue Boy son Wesley stuffs his face with pie. And Marina Sirtis gets to play off herself as a horrified (and double-standard wielding) Troi encounters her own "Goddess of Empathy" incarnation. Even the less extreme holo-scenarios, which take place on the Enterprise, are a great deal of fun. The episode opens and closes with such scenes, in neither case revealing right away that what we're seeing isn't real, and both sequences are wonderfully effective.

Whoopi Goldberg is also great in the episode. (After getting her friend Dwight Schultz the part, it's only natural that she appear in the episode.) Guinan astutely notes the chicken-and-egg problem of trying to fit it with a tight-knit group, tells a tantalizing story about her family's background, and gets Geordi to appreciate the value of an active imagination.

Other observations:

• Some people apparently reacted negatively to this episode, perceiving it to be a veiled attack on obsessive fans of Star Trek. ("Look at the nerd who wants to live with the Star Trek characters!") Personally, I don't see this at all. The writers and producers have also emphatically denied any such intention.

• Though it's the Barclay story that's the main thread (and best part) of the episode, the 30-second "next time on Star Trek" teaser for the episode doesn't show it at all, instead focusing on the final act's manufactured jeopardy of out of control acceleration.

• The title of the episode is a pun, obviously, but it's also clever and insightful. A life lived on the holodeck is a "hollow" and empty one.

• I believe this is the first episode in which Starfleet characters who aren't part of the main cast wear the new collared uniforms created for the third season, rather than the leftover first- and second-season spandex.

• Just what is the protocol on privacy in the holodeck? Other episodes have made one ask the question, but this episode really takes it to another level as LaForge, Troi, and Riker all just barge in on Barclay's scenario. Are there no locks on the holodeck? Are there locks which they're able to bypass as senior officers?

• The stunt doubles used in the sword fighting sequences are painfully obvious. I suspect this is a case where the Blu-ray remaster actually hurts the intended result a bit; no one ever conceived that faces would look as sharp as this on a TV screen.

• We never see the actual Beverly Crusher in this episode, only holographic versions of her.

"Hollow Pursuits" is a real gem of season three. And since you rarely hear it mentioned as one of the season's best episodes, I guess that makes it an underappreciated gem. I give it an A-.