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| Barclay (Dwight Schultz) attempts to get a message to Voyager. |
Original Air Date: Dec. 1, 1999. Teleplay by: David Zabel, Kenneth Biller. Story by: David Zabel. Directed by: Mike Vejar.
THE PLOT:
Lt. Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz) has reached out to Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) for help. He's been working on Pathfinder, a Starfleet project focused on finding a way to communicate with Voyager.
The team is attempting to use the MIDAS Array to send a one-way communication, so that the lost ship will know that Starfleet is still working on establishing contact. Barclay has a better idea, believing that he can use the array to do some Technobabble that will allow two-way communication. But an earlier plan of Barclay's already cost the team six months on what proved to be a dead end, and his superior, Pete Harkins (Richard McGonagle), isn't inclined to listen to him this time. When Barclay refuses to accept this, Harkins suspends him from the team.
Barclay asks Deanna to intervene on his behalf, to vouch for him so that he can get back to work. She refuses, citing concern for his mental state. So he decides to take matters into his own hands, embarking on a course that will either result in direct contact with Voyager - or spell the end of Barclay's Starfleet career!
CHARACTERS:
Capt. Janeway: Janeway, like the rest of the Voyager crew, is mostly only seen as a hologram in Barclay's program, where - like the rest of the crew - she shows him respect bordering on deference. The real Janeway is glimpsed at the end, where she draws on her science background to tell Harry the correct Technobabble to clear up Barclay's message.
Barclay: Since leaving the Enterprise, he has felt isolated and alone, and he has superimposed his own loneliness onto the Voyager crew. A scene that particularly impressed me was the one in which Barclay first attempts to describe his plan to Admiral Paris (Richard Herd). Under scrutiny, he all but falls apart, stammering and unable to remember basic words. It's extremely relatable to anyone with any degree of social anxiety, and Dwight Schultz plays it just right, showing Barclay's nervousness and internal frustration as he fails to coherently describe the concrete idea inside his mind. Notably, when Voyager actually responds to the message, Barclay jumps in to clean it up and make it comprehensible, all of his anxiety dropping away once he has a problem to work. The anxiety is a social barrier, not something that stops him from being competent within his field.
Troi: The story is framed with scenes of Troi visiting Barclay, with him relating events to her. This serves an important narrative purpose: Much of Barclay's struggle is internal, and him describing not only what happened but how he reacted to it helps viewers to connect and relate. For the most part, Troi's role is to receive that exposition while providing emotional support to Barclay. However, she shows both firmness and professional integrity when she refuses to simply sign off on his mental state when she can see that he's emotionally struggling. She'll support him, but she won't enable him. When he insists that Voyager's crew is more important than his stability, she denies that claim. "Voyager is important, but so are you!"
Admiral Paris: We've heard much about Tom's father, the strict and respected Starfleet Admiral, but this is the first time we actually see him. Television stalwart Richard Herd brings the man fully to life. In his interactions with Barclay, we see the stern discipline that Tom described, but we also can sense the worried father. He believes in chain of command, and he refuses to override Barclay's superior simply to benefit himself. However, he also agrees to review Barclay's proposal to see if it has merit.
Pete: Barclay's immediate superior serves as the antagonist, but he isn't a villain. When he rejects Barclay's proposal, it is made clear that Barclay already used up his capital on an idea that came to nothing and that Admiral Paris's upcoming visit leaves no time for extra work. Pete genuinely wants to be supportive. He even invites Barclay to his home to meet his sister-in-law, an invitation that Barclay refuses in order to spend time in his holodeck recreation of Voyager. This episode carries several echoes of Barclay's first TNG appearance in Hollow Pursuits; and as was true of Riker in that episode, every action Pete takes is reasonable when considered from his viewpoint.
THOUGHTS:
When TNG introduced Reginald Barclay, he was a breath of fresh air. In a franchise filled to overflowing with confident, articulate extroverts, Barclay is the opposite: introverted, socially awkward and anxious, fearful, and anything but confident. He stammers and freezes when put on the spot, he feels the judgment of his peers, and he takes refuge in fantasy via the holodeck. He's a flawed character, but those flaws are believable and ones that I think most people feel in themselves to greater or lesser degrees, and that makes him extremely relatable.
Barclay survives the jump to Voyager with all of these traits fully intact. Pathfinder is a very good Star Trek episode. One reason is that it never forgets that Barclay may be both sympathetic and capable within his field, but he also contributes to his own problems. Both Pete and Admiral Paris are reasonable men, but Barclay can't make himself see them that way. Instead of finding an opportunity to discuss his rejected proposal with Pete one-on-one (say, at the dinner Pete invited him to), Barclay instead tries to bypass him by going directly to the admiral. When Admiral Paris agrees to review his findings, Barclay insists on believing that the admiral just said that to get rid of him - even though, if Paris really wanted that, all he had to do was call security.
Dwight Schultz is excellent in the role, playing enough to Barclay's neuroses that we can sense his emotional turmoil without overplaying it. The script crafts two dilemmas for Barclay, one internal and one external. The internal conflict is the more interesting. He confesses to Troi that he has felt lost since leaving the Enterprise. Though it's never directly stated, it's clear enough that he has dealt with that by over-identifying with Voyager's crew. The external conflict allows him to address that problem in an active way, by getting a message to the ship, even if he has to break every rule in order to do so.
I like the way the final Act plays out. Barclay uses the holo-Voyager cleverly, drawing on his familiarity with the ship to buy time to systematically send and re-send his message to different points within the Delta Quadrant. Pete, who tries to thwart him, is also shown to be capable, which ramps up tension even though there's no real doubt as to how this will end.
OVERALL:
I find the tag to be a little too pat, with Barclay seeming to be "cured" of issues that are unlikely to ever go away... not to mention suffering no consequences for his multiple protocol breaches. This, and a vague sense that the early holodeck scenes are a little too reminiscent of Hollow Pursuits, keep me from ranking this among Voyager's best.
But it's still a good episode, smartly scripted overall and well performed by its cast. After a couple of installments that didn't fully connect with me, Pathfinder sees the series back on track.
Overall Rating: 7/10.
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