Lieutenant Reginald Barclay stands out among recurring Star Trek characters as someone who experiences a range of mental health issues. In this episode, we discuss those issues and how they’re received by his crewmates on TNG and Voyager.
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Hosts: Jarrah, Andi, Sue
Guest: Lucia Lorenzi – @empathywarrior
Editor: Andi
Transcription: Taylor Schmidt – @Taylor_Joy7
Download Transcript: PDF or Word
Notes and References:
- Joyrich, Lynne (Winter 1996). “Feminist Enterprise? “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and the Occupation of Femininity”. Cinema Journal.
- Memory Alpha on Barclay
- Reddit thread on Barclay and mental illness
- “Star Trek’s Poor Depiction of Mental Illness in a Hopeful Future” by John Duchak at TrekMovie.com
- Aspergers and Me blog on Barclay
- “Rethinking Reg Barclay” by Jordan Hoffman at StarTrek.com
Just discovered your podcast by googling something along these very lines, so I’ll check out some other episodes.
I’ll slip all I could say about Barclay and all his issues, to say that Troi has more than the Goddess of Empathy to be pissed about in this episode.
1. The meeting at the beginning, where Riker cites Reg’s psych profile. Wouldn’t this have been a good time to consult her, especially when Picard is suggesting they help Barclay to adjust?
2. Or what about when La Forge is so confounded about how to deal with Barclay? But,no, after following his intuition and doing everything to make Barclay feel more nervous and put-upon, he consults…Guinan.
3. Even when La Forge “suggests” Reg see Troi, it seems that La Forge never mentioned the situation to her, though she’s apparently allowed to remark on the “very strange visit” to him, on the bridge.
All that said, I do like how Troi tells Riker that it’s not as simple as erasing the programs, given the way La Forge’s attempts so draw him out worked.
Anyway, great job, I’m be cathching up with your other episodes
Great Show.. topic of mental illness is alway a tough thing to talk about.
as it goes for in the workplace. I don’t think it has to do anything about labour laws, but has more to do with how most managers aren’t trained or given the knowledge how to deal with someone that suffering from some kind of mental illness
that why the crew of Enterprise D handled things way they did. Deanna Troi is the only one that should have knowledge how to notice someone like him is suffering from something and how to help him with it. which can be slow. but later years he does show some improvement and crew members treat him better. If future TV shows going to use someone with mental illness i hope they can do more research on the topic and show the right way how to deal with someone with Mental illness
I like Lt. Barclay just fine, however, he’s not a woman.
If you click on “about” at the top of this webpage, you’ll notice their description is a “podcast where four women talk about Star Trek, its representations of women, contributions of women behind the scenes, and other fun Trek topics”. Mainly about women, but not only about them.