Of all the amazing characters to come from theStar Trekfranchise, there seems to be a running theme that the chief of medicine is always a standout. No matter what vessel is used as the backdrop to the series, the chief medical officer always a fantastically nuanced figure that wins over the hearts of many a fan.The Original Serieshad Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, a fantastically serious and often grumpy medical officer.Voyagerhad the famousEmergency Medical Hologram that spoke an uncomfortable truth about holographic sentience. However, none are so beloved as Dr. Beverly Crusher, a powerfully intelligent and beautiful character who truly earned her place among theStar Trekhalls of fame.
Crusher wasn’t always such a great character, though. Early in the series, the writers seemed desperate to undermine and downplay her role in the show. This might have had something to do with personal issues that actor Gates McFadden, who played Crusher, had with head writer Maurice Hurley. He would in factget her fired for the entire second season,until getting un-fired for season 3 onwards. With new writers though, she returned with a passion to ensure Beverly got fair treatment on the show. Up until this point, Dr. Crusher was always shown to be fairly meek in comparison to the other key players inThe Next Generation.However, this all changed in the season 4 episode “Remember Me.”
RELATED:Star Trek: The Last Minute Rewrite That Completely Changed The Series
This episode centered around the idea of Beverly getting trapped in a kind of time bubble created by thewarp drive. Everything around her is acting strange, but she seems to be the only person who is able to notice it. Throughout the episode, she is constantly gaslit, unintentionally it might seem. She starts to think that she is mentally unstable, and that she is either hallucinating these things or that her mind had finally snapped after the pressure ofraising a son aboard what is often a battleship. She seems to be the only one aboard who notices the surrounding inconsistencies. For example, she is the only medical officer aboard a massive ship likethe iconic Enterprise D, and nobody seems to have any memory of her beaming aboard a guest earlier the day.
What makes this episode so special, and so profound for the character development of Beverly, was that it seemed to be gearing up for a typical ‘swoop in a save the damsel in distress’ situation. She is trapped helpless in her descent into madness, and in such a situation, the ‘real’ heroes of the ship should come in and rescue her. What happens, however is that she refuses to believe that she is crazy. She battles away the gaslighting that would make her think that, instead sticking to her guns and fighting it with everything she has. It results in what might just be the best line in all ofThe Next Generation:
“If there’s nothing wrong with me, maybe there’s something wrong with the universe!”
It’s a line that to this day divides fans. Some believe it is a great example of how strong-willed and intelligent the character is, while others think that it made her sound incredibly arrogant and self-obsessed. While this might be the case for many, this is a very specific situation where she was 100% correct, and she was in fact the only stable thing. Her self-assurance and trust within herself is what eventually saves her, instead of just rolling over and accepting she is the problem. The Beverly of previous seasons might have done the latter, but she fights against it, looking for any possible explanation or escape. The episode continues and eventually the time warp bubble gets smaller and smaller. Finally, she works out a way to escape it, all with a little help fromher son Wesley.
The episode is not one the best to come fromThe Next Generation,but it was a necessary one to reboot Beverly to become the powerful character she was always meant to be. Some fans think it was somewhat forced. Instead of slowly making her more and more powerful, intelligent, and authoritative, they chose to do it all, relatively quickly, within a single episode. But either way, it was essential to steer her character away from the one that was shown in the first season. Early Dr. Crusher wasplagued with a plethora of issues, a fairly meek character that was seemingly put there alongside councilor Deanna Troi to serve as eye candy. This episode, though, made her a fully realized, three-dimensional character.
With Dr. Beverly Crusher so engraved in fans' hearts now, it’s no surprise then that with thenew trailer forPicardseason 3, there was a lot of excitement to seeing her in action. Fans are now eagerly awaiting its release next year, looking forward to see what role she’ll play.
MORE:Star Trek: How Kirk Used His Trauma & Pain To Become A Great Captain
