Star Trek: TNG

"Hollow Pursuits" Season 3, Episode 21
Reg Barclay is seen as a slacker, always late, never committing fully or giving his best. He takes the frustrations he feels about this out in scenarios on the Holodeck. There, he gets to be everything he wants to be; confident, attractive and self determined. The problem with this is that he is using images of crew members to enact these scenarios without their knowledge or consent. Now, I know that we all fantasize about our favorite movie stars which in essence is no different than what Barclay is doing on the Holodeck. But the fact that these are people he works with and sees on a daily basis changes the way we see things. Suddenly his fantasies become intrusive and make people uncomfortable. Why do you think this is?

 Moving on, I tend to identify with Barclay, particularly in regards to his social awkwardness and lack of communication skills. This makes him an easy target for ridicule, most notably from Wesley who gives him the nickname, Broccoli. While I can laugh at this sort of thing now I can still remember a time when it would not have been very funny at all.
In his Holodeck adventures, we see that Barclay is rather imaginative. He has a particular fondness for swashbuckling sword fights and dames in distress. (I just want to add a little aside here on how much I love the episodes where the characters are dressed as other people so we see the actors as characters within characters. It's quite brilliant.)

 Gordi ends up catching Reg on the Holodeck and confronts him about it. Gordi tells him he's "just shy" and Reg's response, which I think is so poignant, is, "Doesn't sound serious. You don't even know." Barclay completely nails how marginalized social awkward people are. Having constantly been called shy and quiet my whole life and made to feel shame for it, I understand what Barclay is going through. I have become much more socially confident I still have some crippling fears in certain situations.

I think the point of this episode is how we get to a point in our lives where we need to spend less time escaping into our fantasies and face our fears in the real world. When this happens is different for everybody and will ONLY occur when the individual is ready. This happens for Barclay when he decides to erase his Holodeck programs. This occurs after he has effectively saved the day by coming up with an unconventional solution to a difficult problem. For a few crucial seconds people actually listened to what he had to say and that gave him the confidence he needed to want to face his fears. Of course, he isn't going to change over night but he is on his way to making his fantasy a reality. What are your thoughts?
Thanks for hanging. Tune in next week for "Data's Day." Live long and prosper.