I don’t hate Wesley, I just love to laugh at how bad Picard and Wesley’s relationship is in season one.
In early episodes of any show, there’s stuff that doesn’t turn out to work for the characters.
But Picard/Wesley is such a bold dynamic that doesn’t work for either character, never gets resolved, and goes nowhere.
Then later, it gets retroactivelymuch weirder, because the show “Picard” 100% confirms that Picard was sleeping with Wesley’s mother, at some point, and by implication, even during their uncomfortable season 1.
So Picard, already an absolute picture of calm reasoned negotiation - just sometimes randomly goes off on one young cadet whose mother he happens to be banging.
It’s weird. It doesn’t make any sense in the broader later canon, and it makes me laugh every time I think about it.
Considering Wesley was Gene Roddenberry’s self-insert character, I think the idea was to establish that as brilliant as Picard is, there’s still someone who can get his goat by virtue of just being that special.
Considering Wesley was Gene Roddenberry’s self-insert character, I think the idea was to establish that as brilliant as Picard is, there’s still someone who can get his goat by virtue of just being that special.
That makes sense. It could have been an interesting dynamic, if they had committed to it and followed through on growing their relationship from bad to good.
I suspect the “everything must reset in case these episodes air out of order” effect can’t have helped with making it work.
And then also, it’s just hilarious that Picard is that far into his career, and an enlightened 24th century man, and still occasionally just “punches down” at his girlfriend’s kid who isn’t even an ensign. Haha.
I don’t hate Wesley, I just love to laugh at how bad Picard and Wesley’s relationship is in season one.
In early episodes of any show, there’s stuff that doesn’t turn out to work for the characters.
But Picard/Wesley is such a bold dynamic that doesn’t work for either character, never gets resolved, and goes nowhere.
Then later, it gets retroactivelymuch weirder, because the show “Picard” 100% confirms that Picard was sleeping with Wesley’s mother, at some point, and by implication, even during their uncomfortable season 1.
So Picard, already an absolute picture of calm reasoned negotiation - just sometimes randomly goes off on one young cadet whose mother he happens to be banging.
It’s weird. It doesn’t make any sense in the broader later canon, and it makes me laugh every time I think about it.
Considering Wesley was Gene Roddenberry’s self-insert character, I think the idea was to establish that as brilliant as Picard is, there’s still someone who can get his goat by virtue of just being that special.
That makes sense. It could have been an interesting dynamic, if they had committed to it and followed through on growing their relationship from bad to good.
I suspect the “everything must reset in case these episodes air out of order” effect can’t have helped with making it work.
And then also, it’s just hilarious that Picard is that far into his career, and an enlightened 24th century man, and still occasionally just “punches down” at his girlfriend’s kid who isn’t even an ensign. Haha.